Psalm 72:8
when pouting leads to murder
They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high. (Psalm 72:8 DR)
As the Psalmist takes inventory of the acts of the wicked in their prosperity, one begins to see a progression of sin that overtakes them. It begins in a certain comfort afforded to them, that they do not seem to suffer. This seeming lack of punishment leads to a certain flippancy in respect to sin, in which they feel secure in acting on it. They even begin to feel entitled to it, which only deepens its hold on them in their pride.
In this verse we reach another step in which the inner wickedness which propels the deeds is now revealed. The Psalmist says they have spoken iniquity on high, which is to say that they do not even attempt to hide their depravity but flaunt it out in the open.
This is of course enabled by the very prosperity that began the descent into wickedness. Those without means may still harbor just as wicked thoughts, but fear of reprisal may set limits to how far they act on those. When one is secure in prosperity and wealth, there is often a certain shielding from recompense that others of lesser means may experience.
In the previous verse St. Bellarmine briefly recounted the story of King Achab (Ahab) who took the vineyard of Naboth who had an adjoining field. In the account the king wishes to purchase the field from Naboth, but Naboth refuses to sell his inheritance. This causes Achab to pout in front of his wife Jezebel, the subtext being that he wants her to remedy the situation, knowing what kid of woman she is. She rebukes him for being a coward, wondering why he as king is taking lip from a peasant. She then conspires to have Naboth killed, and while Achab doesn’t explicitly give approval, he knows very well what is going to happen:
And it came to pass when Jezabel heard that Naboth was stoned, and dead, that she said to Achab: Arise and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezrahelite, who would not agree with thee, and give it thee for money: for Naboth is not alive, but dead. And when Achab heard this, to wit, that Naboth was dead, he arose, and went down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezrahelite, to take possession of it. (1 Kings 21:15-16 DR)
He could have refused and rebuked Jezebel for her evil, but instead he chooses to benefit from Naboth’s death. It is because he is king and has power and wealth that he ends up taking possession of Naboth’s vineyard after the deed is done. He does not fear reprisal, and this allows him to be complicit in murder. What is fascinating is that he had to be reminded by Jezebel of this; before her intervention he didn’t have the courage to get what he wanted. But her reminder of his power and position hardened his heart and caused him to commit evil in the full light of day. His epitaph is given only a few verses later:
Now there was not such another as Achab, who was sold to do evil in the sight of the Lord: for his wife Jezabel set him on, And he became abominable, insomuch that he followed the idols which the Amorrhites had made, whom the Lord destroyed before the face of the children of Israel. (1 Kings 21:25-26 DR)
This follows the progression of temptation that St. James enumerates:
But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured. Then when concupiscence hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin. But sin, when it is completed, begetteth death. (James 1:14-15 DR)
As the Psalmist has reminded us in the past few verses, prosperity can be a great danger in that it can lull us into complacency in our battle against temptation and sin. We should not allow temporal blessings to dull our senses to the gravity of sin or the allures of temptation which can become easier to rationalize in the midst of material prosperity. This is why our Lord exhorts us to:
Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33 DR)
In this animation I decided to go pretty on the nose, and so I found an image of the wind-up chattering teeth and cut it out in Photoshop. I isolated the top from the bottom and used the Generative Fill to fill in some of the missing pixels in the inner part of the mouth.
In After Effects I precomped the layers and set the anchor point at the join for the top part of the mouth and animated it opening and closing. I then parented the top part to the bottom and and animated the position and rotation and offset them a bit to get it to feel like the motion of the mouth closing was the cause of the movement.
I finally duplicated that precomp and created a grid of mouths and applied Time Remap so I could offset them in time and chatter at different times, although it was kind of funny to originally see them all chatter in perfect sync.
Enjoy.
They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.
(Psalm 72:8 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: