Psalm 9:7
The swords of the enemy have failed unto the end: and their cities thou hast destroyed. Their memory hath perished with a noise. (Psalm 9:7 DR)
Throughout human history the sword has a been a symbol with tremendous significance. As a weapon of war it certainly speaks to power and conquest, and thus also denotes authority and rule. In Western history the sword has taken on an almost mythological character, finding prominence in Excalibur from the King Arthur legends to Andúril in Lord of the Rings. Every man worthy of the name has certainly had fantasies of being knighted by means of a sword and then carrying one on a righteous crusade.
In the Psalmist’s day the sword was certainly not the only weapon of war, but it was one of the more prominent. Prior to King David’s unification of the kingdom and the subjugation of the Philistines, a sword was hard to come by in Israel, and only King Saul and his son Jonathan possessed one as the Philistines curtailed its forging and use among the Israelites (cf. 1 Samuel 13:19-22). This naturally placed the armies of Israel at a severe disadvantage militarily as they would have been forced to go into battle with pitchforks, axes and other such agricultural implements.
And although King David was able to lift such a restriction after his ascent to his rulership, it is probable that this cultural memory was still embedded, as the people of the kingdom of Israel had within a generation gone from complete subjugation under the Philistines to a prosperous and militarily formidable nation under David and Solomon.
When the Psalmist speaks of the enemy’s swords failing and their cities being destroyed, there is certainly a literal meaning to this. One immediately is reminded of King David’s conquest of the city of Jerusalem (cf. 2 Samuel 5:6-8) in which a presumably impenetrable city is conquered and made his capital city. This also has a spiritual and moral component, for the seat of paganism that still remained in the land is overcome and made into the place in which temple is eventually built.
In this spiritual sense St. Augustine sees a connection between the swords of the enemy and the temptations and errors with which we are assaulted by the devil:
“The swords of the enemy have failed at the end” [Psalm 9:6]. Not enemies in the plural, but this enemy in the singular. Now what enemy's swords have failed but the devil's? Now these are understood to be various erroneous opinions, whereby as with swords he destroys souls. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 9, 8.)
Our lives are a constant warfare (cf. Job 7:1) and we are daily assailed by the swords of the enemy; that is, the devil, who tries to find those chinks in our armor into which the swords of error and temptation can be thrust. The swords of the Bronze and Iron age were not tempered but had the tendency to bend with use. As such, these types of swords were meant for thrusting rather than hacking. This metaphorically describes how temptation usually assaults us. There are certainly times when it seems to rain down upon us like a hacking sword, but more often it is more subtle and precise, like a sword finding the soft spot to pierce.
If we are captive to sin and temptation we become like the Israelites under the subjugation of the Philistines and unable to possess a means of defense. However, our Lord came to free us from our subjection to the devil (cf. 1 John 3:8) and arms us through the sacrament of Baptism with the sword of the Spirit (cf. Ephesians 6:17).
In St. Paul’s time the Roman gladius was the sword he would have had in mind, which was made of tempered steel and double-edged which made it useful for both thrusting and slashing. Its strength and durability made it ideal for piercing mail armor which made it deadly in close quarters combat. This type of sword was thus superior to the bronze and iron age swords the Psalmist speaks of, which is not simply a historical footnote but has a spiritual sense in that the sword of the Spirit—that is, the Word of God—is superior and more powerful than the swords of the devil; that is, his temptations and lies. St. Paul explicitly describes this:
For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12 DR)
The temptations into which we fall are appeals to our appetites and concupiscence (cf. James 1:13-15), but the devil has no power to determine or affect our will. Thus temptations are allurements to get us to assent with our will to indulge them. The Word of God, however, can strike deeper and transform our wills and renew our minds (cf. Romans 12:1-2) as we cooperate with His grace. This wound of His divine charity cleaves away sin and separates us from that which separates us from God—our self-will.
As we submit our wills to God and cooperate with his grace, those fortifications and cities which the devil has erected in our hearts are laid under siege and destroyed, as the Psalmist notes. This in the spiritual sense denotes the overthrow of all manner of vice:
Cities indeed wherein the devil rules, where crafty and deceitful counsels hold, as it were, the place of a court, on which supremacy attend as officers and ministers the services of all the members, the eyes for curiosity, the ears for lasciviousness, or for whatsoever else is gladly listened to that bears on evil, the hands for rapine or any other violence or pollution soever, and all the other members after this manner serving the tyrannical supremacy, that is, perverse counsels. Of this city the commonalty, as it were, are all soft affections and disturbing emotions of the mind, stirring up daily seditions in a man. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 9, 8.)
In our natural state without grace we are like a fortified city in which vices hold sway and direct the affairs of that city, as it were. We are thus naturally enemies of God in this state and we resist the good and the true and the beautiful. However, when the charity of God is poured into our hearts (cf. Romans 5:5) it is like unto that city being conquered and its former ruler (the devil) being overthrown:
These cities He destroys, when on the prince being shut out thence, of whom it was said, “The prince of this world has been cast out,” [John 12:31] these kingdoms are wasted by the word of truth, evil counsels are laid to sleep, vile affections tamed, the ministries of the members and senses taken captive, and transferred to the service of righteousness and good works: that as the Apostle says, “Sin should no more reign in our mortal body,” [Romans 6:12] and so forth. Then is the soul at peace, and the man is disposed to receive rest and blessedness. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 9, 8.)
The Psalmist concludes this brief catechesis on the war against sin by noting that “their memory has perished with a noise.” If we are taking the spiritual sense of the enemy being sin and the devil, then the tumult of this battle can be no less than our constant warring against temptation and sin. Virtue and vice as a habitus entail that the more we engage in and choose either, the more we are disposed to either. When overcoming a vice it is often necessary to pursue the opposing virtue, and by doing so one rejects the vice and choose the virtue. This act of the will assisted by grace the accompanying growth in sanctification slowly but surely disposes the will to choose virtue. It sometimes is imperceptible in the process, but if you’ve ever gone from one state to another in any area of life, it is usually in retrospect that you can see the transformation. It is usually accompanied in the process by pain and struggle and the noise of unpleasantness, but on the other side the former state appears as a faded memory, and it can be hard to imagine life in that former state.
Such is what the Psalmist describes here, which is nothing less than spiritual progress and growth in holiness. As we move from vice to virtue that allurements of those vices lose their hold as the will is turned towards virtue and becomes accustomed to and disposed towards it. The swords of the enemy will not perish without a fight, but it is often in their death throes that they cause the greatest tumult, for on the other side is peace:
“Their memorial has perished with uproar:” with the uproar, that is, of the ungodly. But it is said, “with uproar,” either because when ungodliness is overturned, there is uproar made: for none passes to the highest place, where there is the deepest silence, but he who with much uproar shall first have warred with his own vices: or “with uproar,” is said, that the memory of the ungodly should perish in the perishing even of the very uproar, in which ungodliness riots. (St. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, 9, 8.)
I went pretty literal with this animation, and drew all the various shapes of this sword in Illustrator. I used Overlord to bring all those shapes into After Effects and precomped each one. In those precomps I brought in various textures to create the look of the sword, a technique I am fond of using to create a an illustrated/photo hybrid.
I put all those precomps into one master precomp and then duplicated it and used masks to create the various pieces. I then animated them in a shattering motion and then the eventual fall so I could create the loop.
I finally added in some other textures and color correction to finish this off.
Enjoy.
The swords of the enemy have failed unto the end: and their cities thou hast destroyed. Their memory hath perished with a noise.
(Psalm 9:7 DR)
View a higher quality version of this gif here: