Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens!
Parallel Translations
-
Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens!
-
O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
-
(8-1) For the Leader; upon the Gittith. A Psalm of David. (8-2) O LORD, our Lord, how glorious is Thy name in all the earth! whose majesty is rehearsed above the heavens.
Cross-references (27)
Passages linked to Psalms 8:1 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 8:9 Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
- Psalms 113:2-4 Blessed be Yahweh’s name, from this time forward and forever more. From the rising of the sun to its going down, Yahweh’s name is to be praised. Yahweh is high above all nations, his glory above the heavens.
- Psalms 57:5 Be exalted, God, above the heavens! Let your glory be above all the earth!
- Psalms 148:13 let them praise Yahweh’s name, for his name alone is exalted. His glory is above the earth and the heavens.
- Exodus 15:11 Who is like you, Yahweh, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
- Psalms 57:10-11 For your great loving kindness reaches to the heavens, and your truth to the skies. Be exalted, God, above the heavens. Let your glory be over all the earth.
- Exodus 34:5-7 Yahweh descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed Yahweh’s name. Yahweh passed by before him, and proclaimed, “Yahweh! Yahweh, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth, keeping loving kindness for thousands, forgiving iniquity and disobedience and sin; and who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the children’s children, on the third and on the fourth generation.”
- Habakkuk 3:3 God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and his praise filled the earth.
- Psalms 145:1 I will exalt you, my God, the King. I will praise your name forever and ever.
- Hebrews 7:26 For such a high priest was fitting for us: holy, guiltless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;
- Psalms 72:17-19 His name endures forever. His name continues as long as the sun. Men shall be blessed by him. All nations will call him blessed. Praise be to Yahweh God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds. Blessed be his glorious name forever! Let the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and amen.
- Isaiah 26:13 Yahweh our God, other lords besides you have had dominion over us, but we will only acknowledge your name.
- Philippians 2:9-11 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
- Deuteronomy 28:58 If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH your God,
- Psalms 36:5 Your loving kindness, Yahweh, is in the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.
- Psalms 81:1 Sing aloud to God, our strength! Make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob!
- Revelation 19:6 I heard something like the voice of a great multitude, and like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of mighty thunders, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!
- 1 Kings 8:27 But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house that I have built!
- Psalms 63:1 God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.
- Psalms 68:4 Sing to God! Sing praises to his name! Extol him who rides on the clouds: to Yah, his name! Rejoice before him!
- Psalms 84:1 How lovely are your dwellings, Yahweh of Armies!
- Psalms 108:4-5 For your loving kindness is great above the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth.
- Philippians 3:8 Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ
- Song of Solomon 5:16 His mouth is sweetness; yes, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem.
- Ephesians 4:10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.
- Matthew 22:45 “If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”
- John 20:28 Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (27 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain Whether גתית, Gittith, signifies a musical instrument or some…
Whether גתית, Gittith, signifies a musical instrument or some particular tune, or the beginning of some famous and well-known song, I do not take upon me to determine. Those who think that the psalm is so called because it was composed in the city of Gath, give a strained and far-fetched explanation of the matter. Of the other three opinions, of which I have spoken, it is not of much importance which is adopted. The principal thing to be attended to is what the psalm itself contains, and what is the design of it. David, it is true, sets before his eyes the wonderful power and glory of God in the creation and government of the material universe; but he only slightly glances at this subject, as it were, in passing, and insists principally on the theme of God’s infinite goodness towards us. There is presented to us in the whole order of nature, the most abundant matter for showing forth the glory of God, but, as we are unquestionably more powerfully affected with what we ourselves experience, David here, with great propriety, expressly celebrates the special favor which God manifests towards mankind; for this, of all the subjects which come under our contemplation, is the brightest mirror in which we can behold his glory. It is, however, strange why he begins the psalm with an exclamation, when the usual way is first to give an account of a thing, and then to magnify its greatness and excellence. But if we remember what is said in other passages of Scripture, respecting the impossibility of expressing in words the works of God, we will not be surprised that David, by this exclamation, acknowledges himself unequal to the task of recounting them. David, therefore, when reflecting on the incomprehensible goodness which God has been graciously pleased to bestow on the human race, and feeling all his thoughts and senses swallowed up, and overwhelmed in the contemplation, exclaims that it is a subject worthy of admiration, because it cannot be set forth in words. “Puisque langue ne bouche ne la scauroit exprimer.” — Fr. “Because neither tongue nor mouth can express it.”
“A louer les graces de Dieu.” — Fr. “In praising the grace of God.”
Read full note →
The name of God, as I explain it, is here to be understood of the knowledge of the character and perfections of God, in so far as he makes himself known to us. I do not approve of the subtle speculations of those who think the name of God means nothing else but God himself. It ought rather to be referred to the works and properties by which he is known, than to his essence. David, therefore, says that the earth is full of the wonderful glory of God, so that the fame or renown thereof not only reaches to the heavens, but ascends far above them. The verb תנה, tenah, has been rendered by some in the preterite tense, hast set, but in my judgment, those give a more accurate translation who render it in the infinitive mood, to place or to set; because the second clause is just an amplification of the subject of the first; as if he had said, the earth is too small to contain the glory or the wonderful manifestations of the character and perfections of God. According to this view, אשר, asher, will not be a relative, but will have the meaning of the expletive or exegetic particle even, which we use to explain what has preceded. “Mais vaudra autant cornroe Que, dont on use pour declarer ce qui a preced.“ — Fr.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Or, kind of instrument, or tune.
Or, kind of instrument, or tune.
Or, noble, or marvelous.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 8:1 « To the chief Musician upon Gittith,…
Psa 8:1 « To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David. » O LORD our Lord, how excellent [is] thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
To the chief Musician upon Gittith] Upon the cittern, or gittern, brought from Gath, saith the Chaldee paraphrast; or, that was used by the sons of Obed Edom, the Gittite, 2Sa 6:10; or, that was sung at the wine presses, as the Greek hath it, for a thanksgiving in time of vintage: This last Aben Ezra disliketh, though I see no reason why he should, Vani heroines exponunt de torculari (Aben-Ezra).
Read full note →
Ver. 1. O Lord our Lord, &c.] The scope of this whole psalm is, to set us a wondering at and magnifying the majesty and magnificence of the Almighty; together with his inexpressible goodness to mankind; 1. In our creation in Adam. 2. In our restoration by Christ; which last is the true end of this psalm, as appeareth, Mat 21:15 1Co 15:27 Heb 2:8.
How excellent is thy name] This David speaketh as one swallowed up with admiration at that Nomen illud Magnificum et Maiestativum, that glory, honour, power, wisdom, goodness, &c., that being invested in God, and manifested in the creature (God’s handywork), should make us both wonder and inquire into God’s excellencies, according to that of Aristotle, to admire and learn at once is a pleasant thing; and sure that which is admirable stirreth up desire to see further into it, το θαυμαστον ετοθυμητον (Arist. Rhet. 1. i. c. 11). Admiratio peperit Philosophiam, saith another, Admiration brought forth philosophy: let it breed devotion in us, and a desire to praise God, who hath therefore displayed his excellencies in his works, that we might give him his due glory. The angels shouted at the creation, Job 38:4-6, and shall we be dull and dumb? God tells Job of his own great works (the elephant and whale especially), and thereby brings him to a right temper. The elephant is in Chaldee called pil, of a word that signifieth wonderful; because the wonders of God’s glory do so marvellously appear in him. See Job 40:15-16, &c., {See Trap on "Job 40:15"} {See Trap on "Job 40:16"} The philosophers make Iris, or the rainbow, the daughter of Thaumas, or admiration (Plato); but because that when they knew God, sc. per species Creaturarum, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations - therefore were they given up to a reprobate sense, Rom 1:21; Rom 1:28.
In all the earth!] Where a man cannot look beside a miracle, so full of God are all places.
Who hath set thy glory above the heavens] Nam in eis robur Dei maxime apparet; for in the heavens (how much more above them) doth the glory of God chiefly appear. The earth is a small point in comparison to the heavens, and is governed by them, as R. David here noteth.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Thy name, i.e. thy fame or glory, as it…
Thy name, i.e. thy fame or glory, as it is explained in the next clause, and as the name commonly signifies, as Gen 6:4; Ecc 7:1; Phi 2:9. And this glory of God is most eminent in the gospel and the work of redemption.
In all the earth; not only in Israel, to which the name and knowledge of God was confined, Psa 76:1 2; 147:19, but among all nations; which shows that this Psalm speaks of the Messias, and the times of the New Testament. See Isa 40:5; Mal 1:5, &c.
Read full note →
Who hast set thy glory above the heavens. What do I speak of the earth? thy glory or praise reacheth to the heavens, and indeed above all the visible heavens, even to the heaven of heavens; where thy throne of glory is established, where the blessed angels celebrate thy praises, where Christ sitteth at thy right hand in glorious majesty, from whence he poureth down excellent gifts upon babes, &c., as it followeth.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain The psalmist here sets himself to give to God…
The psalmist here sets himself to give to God the glory due to his name. Dr. Hammond grounds a conjecture upon the title of this psalm concerning the occasion of penning it. It is said to be upon Gittith, which is generally taken for the tune, or musical instrument, with which this psalm was to be sung; but he renders it upon the Gittite, that is, Goliath the Gittite, whom he vanquished and slew (1 Sa. 17); that enemy was stilled by him who was, in comparison, but a babe and a suckling. The conjecture would be probable enough but that we find two other psalms with the same title, Ps. 81 and Psa 84:1. Two things David here admires: -
I. How plainly God displays his glory himself, Psa 8:1. He addresses himself to God with all humility and reverence, as the Lord and his people's Lord: O Lord our Lord! If we believe that God is the Lord, we must avouch and acknowledge him to be ours. He is ours, for he made us, protects us, and takes special care of us. He must be ours, for we are bound to obey him and submit to him; we must own the relation, not only when we come to pray to God, as a plea with him to show us mercy, but when we come to praise him, as an argument with ourselves to give him glory: and we shall never think we can do that with affection enough if we consider, 1. How brightly God's glory shines even in this lower world: How excellent is his name in all the earth! The works of creation and Providence evince and proclaim to all the world that there is an infinite Being, the fountain of all being, power, and perfection, the sovereign ruler, powerful protector, and bountiful benefactor of all the creatures. How great, how illustrious, how magnificent, is his name in all the earth! The light of it shines in men's faces every where (Rom 1:20); if they shut their eyes against it, that is their fault. There is no speech or language but the voice of God's name either is heard in it or may be. But this looks further, to the gospel of Christ, by which the name of God, as it is notified by divine revelation, which before was great in Israel only, came to be so in all the earth, the utmost ends of which have thus been made to see God's great salvation, Mar 16:15, Mar 16:16. 2. How much more brightly it shines in the upper world: Thou hast set thy glory above the heavens. (1.) God is infinitely more glorious and excellent than the noblest of creatures and those that shine most brightly. (2.) Whereas we, on this earth, only hear God's excellent name, and praise that, the angels and blessed spirits above see his glory, and praise that, and yet he is exalted far above even their blessing and praise. (3.) In the exaltation of the Lord Jesus to the right hand of God, who is the brightness of his Father's glory and the express image of his person, God set his glory above the heavens, far above all principalities and powers.
Read full note →
II. How powerfully he proclaims it by the weakest of his creatures (Psa 8:2): Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, or perfected praise, the praise of thy strength, Mat 21:16. This intimates the glory of God, 1. In the kingdom of nature. The care God takes of little children (when they first come into the world the most helpless of all animals), the special protection they are under, and the provision nature has made for them, ought to be acknowledged by every one of us, to the glory of God, as a great instance of his power and goodness, and the more sensibly because we have all had the benefit of it, for to this we owe it that we died not from the womb, that the knees then prevented us, and the breasts, that we should suck. "This is such an instance of thy goodness, as may for ever put to silence the enemies of thy glory, who say, There is no God." 2. In the kingdom of Providence. In the government of this lower world he makes use of the children of men, some that know him and others that do not (Isa 45:4), and these such as have been babes and sucklings; nay, sometimes he is pleased to serve his own purposes by the ministry of such as are still, in wisdom and strength, little better than babes and sucklings. 3. In the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of the Messiah. It is here foretold that by the apostles, who were looked upon but as babes, unlearned and ignorant men (Act 4:13), mean and despicable, and by the foolishness of their preaching, the devil's kingdom should be thrown down as Jericho's walls were by the sound of rams' horns. The gospel is called the arm of the Lord and the rod of his strength; this was ordained to work wonders, not out of the mouth of philosophers or orators, politicians or statesmen, but of a company of poor fishermen, who lay under the greatest external disadvantages; yea, we hear children crying, Hosanna to the Son of David, when the chief priests and Pharisees owned him not, but despised and rejected him; to that therefore our Saviour applied this (Mat 21:16) and by it stilled the enemy. Sometimes the grace of God appears wonderfully in young children, and he teaches those knowledge, and makes those to understand doctrine, who are but newly weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts, Isa 28:9. Sometimes the power of God brings to pass great things in his church by very weak and unlikely instruments, and confounds the noble, wise, and mighty, by the base, and weak, and foolish things of the world, that no flesh may glory in his presence, but the excellency of the power may the more evidently appear to be of God, and not of man, Co1 1:27, Co1 1:28. This he does because of his enemies, because they are insolent and haughty, that he may still them, may put them to silence, and put them to shame, and so be justly avenged on the avengers; see Act 4:14; Act 6:10. The devil is the great enemy and avenger, and by the preaching of the gospel he was in a great measure stilled, his oracles were silenced, the advocates of his cause were confounded, and unclean spirits themselves were not suffered to speak.
In singing this let us give God the glory of his great name, and of the great things he has done by the power of his gospel, in the chariot of which the exalted Redeemer rides forth conquering and to conquer, and ought to be attended, not only with our praises, but with our best wishes. Praise is perfected (that is, God is in the highest degree glorified) when strength is ordained out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain O Lord our God,.... Jehovah, the one God, who…
O Lord our God,.... Jehovah, the one God, who is Lord of all angels and men, and in an especial manner Lord and King of saints;
how excellent is thy name in all the earth! by the "name" of God is not meant any particular name of his, by which he is called; but either himself, his nature and perfections; or rather that by which he is made known, and particularly his Gospel; see Joh 17:6; this is excellent in its nature, it being good news, and glad tidings of good things, which display the love, grace, mercy, and kindness of God to men, as well as his wisdom, power, truth, and faithfulness; and in the subject matter of it, Christ and his righteousness, and life and salvation by him, the spiritual blessings of grace it publishes, and the exceeding great and precious promises it contains; and in its usefulness for the enlightening, quickening, and converting sinners, and for the comforting and reviving of drooping saints. It is the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, and excels the law in glory. It cannot well be said how glorious it is; it is marvellously excellent; and that "in all the earth", being carried by the apostles, who were sent by Christ with it, into all the world; where it has shone out, and appeared gloriously to Gentiles as well as Jews. This clause shows that this is said by David prophetically of Gospel times; for not in his time, nor in any period under the Old Testament, was the name of the Lord glorious and excellent in all the earth. His name was great in Israel, but not in all the world. He showed his word, and gave his statutes and ordinances to Jacob; but as for the Gentiles, they were without them, and were strangers to the covenants of promise, Psa 76:1; but this was true of the first times of the Gospel; and will be still more fully accomplished when the prophecies in Mal 1:11; shall be fulfilled;
Read full note →
who hast set thy glory above the heavens: meaning his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the brightness of his glory; in whom is all the fulness of the Godhead, the glory of all the divine perfections; so called Psa 63:2; and the setting of him above the heavens designs the exaltation of him at the right hand of God; where angels, principalities, and powers, became subject to him, and he was made higher than the heavens, Heb 7:26. And it was in consequence, and by virtue of this, that the Gospel was spread throughout the earth; for upon Christ's exaltation the Spirit was poured down upon the apostles, and they were endowed with girls qualifying them to carry the Gospel into each of the parts of the world.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain David extols the majesty, power, and providence of God,…
David extols the majesty, power, and providence of God, ver. 1, 2. And his loving-kindness to mankind, ver. 3-5. In giving him dominion over this lower world, ver. 6-9. To the chief musician upon Gittith, A psalm of David. Title of the psalm. Gittith - This also is supposed to be the name of a tune, or instrument.
In - Not only in Israel, but among all nations. Which shews that this psalm speaks of the Messiah, and the times of the New Testament. Heavens - Where thy throne of glory is established, where the blessed angels celebrate thy praises, where Christ sitteth at thy right hand in glorious majesty, from whence he poureth down excellent gifts upon babes.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain The glory and excellence of God manifested by his…
PSALM VIII
The glory and excellence of God manifested by his works, 1, 2;
Read full note →
particularly in the starry heavens, 3;
in man, 4;
in his formation, 5;
and in the dominion which God has given him over the earth, the
air, the sea, and their inhabitants, 6-8:
in consequence of which God's name is celebrated over all the
earth, 9.
NOTES ON PSALM VIII
The inscription to this Psalm is the following: To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David. This has been metaphrased, "To the conqueror, concerning the wine-presses;" and has been supposed to be a Psalm intended for the time of vintage: and as that happened about the time of the year in which it is supposed the world was created, hence there is a general celebration of those works, and of the creation, and the high privileges of man. The Chaldee gives it a different turn: "A Psalm of David, to be sung upon the harp, which he brought out of Gath." That the Psalm has respect to our Lord and the time of the Gospel, is evident from the reference made to Ps 8:2, in Mt 11:25, the express quotation of it in Mt 21:16, and another reference to it in 1Co 1:27. The fourth and sixth verses are quoted Heb 2:6-9. See also 1Co 15:27, and Eph 1:22. The first and second ADAM are both referred to, and the first and second creation also; and the glory which God has received, and is to receive, through both. It relates simply to Christ and redemption.
Verse 1. O Lord our Lord] יהוה אדנינו Yehovah Adoneynu; O Jehovah our Prop, our Stay, or Support. אדני Adonai is frequently used: sometimes, indeed often, for the word יהוה Yehovah itself. The root דן dan signifies to direct, rule, judge, support. So Adonai is the Director, Ruler, Judge, Supporter of men. It is well joined with Jehovah; this showing what God is in himself; that, what God is to man; and may here very properly refer to our Lord Jesus.
How excellent is thy name in all the earth!] How illustrious is the name of Jesus throughout the world! His incarnation, birth, humble and obscure life, preaching, miracles, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, are celebrated through the whole world. His religion, the gifts and graces of his Spirit, his people-Christians-his Gospel and the preachers of it, are everywhere spoken of. No name is so universal, no power and influence so generally felt, as those of the Saviour of mankind. Amen.
Thy glory above the heavens.] The heavens are glorious, the most glorious of all the works of God which the eye of man can reach; but the glory of God is infinitely above even these. The words also seem to intimate that no power, earthly or diabolical, can lessen or injure that glory. The glory and honour which God has by the Gospel shall last through time, and through eternity; and of that glory none shall be able to rob him, to whom majesty and dominion are eternally due. This has been applied by some to the resurrection of our Lord. He rose from the dead, and ascended above all heavens; and by these his glory was sealed, his mission accomplished, and the last proof given to his preceding miracles.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Psa 8:1. How excellent is thy name — That…
Psa 8:1. How excellent is thy name — That is, thy glory, as it is explained in the next clause; in all the earth — The works of creation and providence evince and proclaim to all the world that there is an infinite Being, the fountain of all being, power, and perfection; the sovereign Ruler, powerful Protector, and bountiful Benefactor of all creatures. How great, how illustrious, how magnificent is the glory of this Being in all the earth! The light of it shines in men’s faces everywhere, Rom 1:20; if they shut their eyes against it, that is their fault. There is no speech nor language, but the voice of God’s glory is heard, or may be heard in it. The psalmist, however, seems to look forward to the times of the gospel, when the name of God, which was before great in Israel only, should be made known by divine revelation to all the earth, the very ends of which are to see his great salvation. Who hast set thy glory above the heavens — Why do I speak of the earth? Thy glory or praise reacheth to the heavens, and indeed above all the visible heavens, even to the heaven of heavens; where thy throne of glory is established, where the blessed angels celebrate thy praises, where Christ sitteth at thy right hand in glorious majesty, from whence he poureth down excellent gifts upon babes, as it follows.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain O Lord - Hebrew, יהוה Yahweh. It is an…
O Lord - Hebrew, יהוה Yahweh. It is an address to God by his chosen and special title, Exo 3:14. Compare the notes at Isa 1:2.
Our Lord - The word used here - אדני 'âdônay - means properly master, lord, ruler, owner, and is such a title as is given to an owner of land or of slaves, to kings, or to rulers, and is applied to God as being the ruler or governor of the universe. The meaning here is, that the psalmist acknowledged Yahweh to be the rightful ruler, king, or master of himself and of all others. He comes before him with the feeling that Yahweh is the universal ruler - the king and proprietor of all things.
Read full note →
How excellent is thy name - How excellent or exalted art thou - the name being often used to denote the person. The idea is,” How glorious art thou in thy manifested excellence or character.”
In all the earth - In all parts of the world. That is, the manifestation of his perfect character was not confined to any one country, but was seen in all lands, and among all people. In every place his true character was made known through His works; in every land there were evidences of his wisdom, his greatness, his goodness, his condescension.
Who hast set thy glory above the heavens - The word used here, and rendered “hast set,” is in the imperative mood - תנה tenâh - give; and it should probably have been so rendered here, “which thy glory give thou;” that is, “which glory of thine, or implied in thy name, give or place above the heavens.” In other words, let it he exalted in the highest degree, and to the highest place, even above the heavens on which he was gazing, and which were in themselves so grand, Psa 8:3. It expresses the wish or prayer of the writer that the name or praise of God, so manifest in the earth, might be exalted in the highest possible degree - be more elevated than the moon and the stars - exalted and adored in all worlds. In His name there was such intrinsic grandeur that he desired that it might be regarded as the highest object in the universe, and might blaze forth above all worlds. On the grammatical construction of this word - תנה tenâh - see an article by Prof. Stuart, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. ix. pp. 73-77. Prof. Stuart supposes that the word is not formed from נתן nâthan - to give, as is the common explanation, but from תנה tânâh - to give presents, to distribute gifts, Hos 8:9-10, and that it should be rendered, Thou who diffusest abroad thy glory over the heavens.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain Psalms 8
Psalms 8
To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David.
Read full note →
1 O Lord our Lord,
How excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength
Because of thine enemies,
That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,
And hast crowned him with glory and honour.
6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
Thou hast put all things under his feet:
7 All sheep and oxen,
Yea, and the beasts of the field;
8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea,
And whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Title and Character.—Even Olsh. finds no occasion to give up the Davidic authorship of this Psalm, which has since been maintained by Hitzig in a new way. This as well as all Psalms placed in relation to Gittith (vid. Introduction), resounds with the praise of Jehovah.
The use made of passages from this Psalm in Mat_21:16; 1Co_15:27; Heb_2:6 sq., with various references to Messianic circumstances is entirely different from the Messianic nature of the entire Psalm, which has been maintained by many interpreters of all periods. The author rather on a moonlight and starlight night (Psa_8:3), under the sense of the majesty of the Creator (Psa_8:1 c) beaming from the firmament, praises the goodness shown towards frail man by the God of the Covenant, Who is identical with the Creator. This goodness is partly shown in the sovereignty of man as the image of God over all creatures, and partly is declared in the revelation and grace of the true God given to the members of the people of the covenant. It is true that the latter reference is not developed here, but it is not only presupposed in the Psalmist’s position in life, but it governs his entire feelings and thoughts, so much so that the reflection called forth in him by looking upon the starry heavens begins and closes by mentioning it with praise. We have no sure support for a nearer indication of the time of composition. The reference to the youth of David as the shepherd boy (Nachtigal., Tholuck) is very unlikely, or indeed to the time immediately after his victory over Goliath (Sachs with reference to Psa_8:2). Hitzig supposes a reference to the time of the war against the Amalekites, with reference to 1Sa_30:1; 1Sa_30:24
Str. I. Psa_8:1. Our Lord.—The speaker is not the congregation (Delitzsch) which has only appropriated the Psalm, but a believer, who not only declares himself to be a member of the congregation whose Lord is Jehovah, but also acknowledges this Lord of the congregation personally, and as His servant and worshipper, now makes conspicuous with emphatic praise the glory of that name, which God has throughout the world among men as the Creator, over against that book of nature revealing the Divine majesty, shining down from heaven. That this is the fundamental idea and all-prevailing sentiment of the Psalm follows necessarily from the position of the relative clause after the principal clause, and from the introductory address to God.—Thou who hast put Thy majesty upon the heavens.—The language of the present text is very much disputed (vid. the thorough discussion of Hupfeld), because the form תְנָה occurs only as imperative, and as such cannot be connected with the relative (comp., however, Böttcher, Æhrenl. 42, Neue Æhrenl. II. 224); and the proposed explanations are so questionable that many interpreters propose other vowel points, as Paulus and Kurtz תֻנָּה=whose glory is praised, or Ewald תָּנָה= raises itself, Sept.ἐπῂρθη, or stretches itself out (Clauss, et al.), whilst Hitzig, in order to gain the last meaning, and to support it by a closer etymology by derivation from תנן removes theה as an article to the following noun, leaving תַּן. Hupfeld, however, with the ancient translations, would read נָתַתָּה, because the phrase נָתַן הוֹד עַל= to put authority upon, to invest with authority, is frequent, and a finite verb is indispensable. [But, as Riehm shows, this is a very violent correction, and then the application of this phrase to God in the usual sense of His investing the heavens with His Divine majesty has serious objections. It is better, with Riehm, to fall back upon the explanation of Ewald. “Thou whose glory raises itself above the heavens, or ‘rises above’ the heavens.”—C. A. B.] But whatever we may do with the language of the text, the position of the clause does not leave it doubtful, but that the emphasis of the sentence is upon these witnesses to the glory of God whose province is the entire earth, and which therefore are in relative contrast to the witnesses of the Divine glory, whose sphere is on the one side the people of God and on the other the heavens. Since now the account of the creation, Gen_1:1, resounds in the contents of the Psalm itself, and the reference is neither prophetical to the worship of the God and King of Israel among all nations, nor can this be historically the reference (even without regard to the re-echo of Psa_8:4, in Job_7:17); moreover, it is not allowable to refer the name of Jehovah here in the narrow sense to the name applied by the Israelites to the God of the Covenant and of Revelation, but we must think of the splendid and majestic name, with which men, throughout the world, even where the true nature of God is still unknown, ignorantly praise the true God as the God whose glory shines down upon them from the firmament; it is therefore easy to see why the explanations of some of the older interpreters, “whose glory above the heavens, etc., is praised by angels,” is untenable. Kurtz speaks besides even of “the song of all the spheres, of all the worlds of the heavens,” which is entirely contrary to Hebrew ideas.
Str. II. Psa_8:2. Out of the mouth.—This specification does not allow us to find merely an expression of the general thought that God accomplishes the greatest things on earth, and reveals His glory by means of the weakest instruments and the least means. The expression is not the periphrase of the subj.= “from the size of a boy,” but has a manifest reference back to the name, Psa_8:1 b. We might therefore think first of all of the religious expressions of children from the lisping of sucklings, and the stammering prayers of little children under the impression of the wondrous magnificence of the evening heavens, even to the confession of the true God in the mouth of the young, especially as sucklings three years old were common in Israel, and the parallel Hebrew word refers to still more matured boys, 1Sa_15:3; 1Sa_22:19, who ask bread, Lam_4:4, and play in the street, Jer_6:11; Jer_9:20. In this sense also Jesus makes use of this passage, Mat_21:16, and this use is still more appropriate if with the Sept. and many interpreters עֹז is regarded as praise. This meaning however is possible only in special connections. Originally and properly this word means, firmness, might, κράτος. Since now there is a reason for this given, it would be more in accordance with the text to think, not indeed of the living breath of the lately born, the first cry of the suckling (Umbr., et al.), or of the mouth as the organ of suckling (Kimchi) which would only refer to the wonder of the existence and support of the human race; but rather to find a reference to the wonder of the capacity of speech (Aben Ezra, Tholuck, et al.), to which Umbreit also is partially inclined when he finally mentions the movement of the mouth in order to form the sounding word. It is by speaking that man is specifically distinguished from the other inhabitants of earth, and which is very particularly calculated as a Divine force (Calv., et al.) to hush those who show themselves to be the adversaries of the honor of God; the enemies of the recognition of His glory on earth; the revengeful oppressors of the people of Jehovah. [Ewald: “What a contrast! There the wild, defiant enemies thirsting to destroy, here the weakest of creatures, and yet his joyful, lisping mouth is sufficient to defend the Creator against all the blasphemies of the enemy.” So likewise Hupfeld: “God has founded for Himself out of the mouth of sucklings and children a strong (invincible) stronghold against His enemies, that is: He has out of their mouths a mighty (incontrovertible) apology (of His goodness and greatness) which is sufficient to bring all His opponents to silence.” This is by far the best interpretation.—C. A. B.]
The Hebrew text does not allude to their destruction (many interpreters following the ancient translations). Hitzig is too narrow in his reference of the entire passage to the special fact that the Amalekites in the surprise of Ziklag did not avenge themselves on account of the massacre, 1Sa_27:8-9, but killed none, 1Sa_30:1 sq., which David now refers to the protection of Jehovah, who by the crying of the children excited in the souls of the national enemy a humane pity, which tamed his fury. With the Messianic interpretation, the passage is usually (Calov, Geier, Schmidt, J. H. Mich., Stier) referred to the founding of the Christian Church, and the praise of God in the gospel by νήπιοι, or people of a similar spirit to children.
Str. III. Psa_8:3. When I consider,etc.—כּי is here a particle of time, and not of cause (for) as Stier erroneously regards it. The concluding clause, Psa_8:4, is an exclamation of astonishment, yet of humility, prayer, and trust, in view of the loving and careful condescension of the Creator towards man, who is intentionally named enôsh, as the weak. The reference back to the creation begins with Psa_8:6. Here the expressions, (as well those which describe man, as those which describe the Divine care over him), refer too clearly to the present testimonies of the goodness of God towards man, born of mortals, that we should with Hupf. regard the imperf. here as preterite, and should think of the free and firm resolution of love, from which the creation, and especially the creation of man, originated.
Str. IV. Psa_8:5. And so thou lettest him lack a little of divinity.—[“For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.” A. V.]5 The following words show that the Psalmist has in view the sovereignty which has been given to man, created on earth, “in the image of God,” Gen_1:26. We are here therefore to think of the Divine image in man, which endows him with the royal prerogative over the creatures of the world. The connection of the causal piel of חסר with the object by מִן does not allow us to regard the Psalmist as saying, there was little lacking and man had been like God. He says: There was not much lacking but that man should have been placed in that class of beings which embraces God and the angels, that is to say the Elohim. Elohim may indeed, it is true, express merely the abstract divinity (Hengst., Hupf.) but with this limitation, including the angels (Hitzig) a very suitable sense would be given. Since now, Psa_82:1; Psa_82:6; Psa_97:7; Psa_97:9, afford a more comprehensive use of the word Elohim, and this with the article means at times only a supernatural creature, 1Sa_28:13; Zec_12:8, we have here sufficient reason for clearness of explanation even to suppose that it is a designation of a class. If now, God caused that man should lack a little of that which the Elohim possess as such, this can hardly be anything else than immateriality (Kimchi, Delitzsch). It is not allowable, however, with the ancient translations and the Rabbins to think merely of angels, [A. V.] or indeed according to the Sept. to regard the “little” as for a short time, whereby with the Messianic interpretation this passage refers to the state of humiliation as the following member of the verse to the exaltation of Jesus Christ, vid., Comm. on Heb_2:6 sq. The verbs are all imperfects, and refer to the fact that these peculiarities man has retained since the creation in spite of the fall, and indeed as the connection of Psa_8:5 with Psa_8:4 shows, in consequence of the provision of Divine love. The perfect is found only in the closing clause of Psa_8:6 b., which recapitulates and expresses the firm assurance and constant arrangement (Hupfeld). This suggests the application to the kingdom of Christ, 1Co_15:27. “Out of the very depths of this consciousness, how little man appears when contrasted with God, arises faith in the love of the heavenly Father who is not forgetful of the weak children of men, whom He has called into existence.” (Umbreit).
Str. V. Psa_8:7. Sheep.—In Hebrew the word is a poetical form of a word which means the small cattle of the herd, and especially the sheep and goats. The following expressions likewise appear in poetical forms which lead the eye in increasing breadth of vision over the entire realm of human sovereignty.6 Böttcher, on account of Psa_8:8 b, which is certainly very singular and striking, refers to the men who make their way through the agitated paths of the sea. So also previously Aben Ezra and Kimchi. [The proper reference is to the other inhabitants of the sea, from the leviathan down to the smallest creature which moves on the waters, vid.Psa_104:25-26.—C. A. B.]
[Str. VI. Psa_8:9. Delitzsch: “The Psalmist has now proved what he stated Psa_8:1, that the name of Jehovah, the glory of which radiates from the heavens, is also glorious on earth. Thus the thought with which he began the Psalm is repeated as a conclusion with fulness of meaning, and thus the Psalm is wound together as a wreath.”]7
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The congregation confesses that the revealed God is its sovereign, and hopes that the name in which God has manifested Himself according to His true nature, will be proclaimed some time, in all lands, and be praised as glorious in the entire earth. But it recognizes, also, that among all nations religious feelings are especially awakened by looking at the starry heavens, and that therefore the most glorious names are everywhere given to the Divine Being whose majesty shines down from the firmament.
2. Among created beings it is especially man, whom God has made use of upon earth as the instrument of His communications and organ of His revelations. He has given man the capacity of speech, and thereby, even in the mouths of the smallest children, He has prepared for Himself that power which is best adapted to refute the adversaries of the Church of God, and to spread abroad His true and holy name; the power of speech, especially of the word which comes from God and testifies of God. Thus on the one side man is distinguished from all other earthly creatures, and placed in a special relation to God; and on the other side it gives the most suitable means not only of religious communications in general, but of overcoming the deification of nature by faith in Divine revelation.
3. Man, when compared with the magnificent phenomena of the heavens, may appear very trifling and insignificant, but when considered as the object of Divine care his preëminence over all creatures becomes manifest, and he should be thankful in remembrance of this, and maintain true humility with all the greatness bestowed upon him, confessing his frailty and his descent from men of Adam’s race.
4. Man is born in the image of Adam, he was yet created as the image of God, and in consequence of this he has that within him, which gives reason to reckon him almost to the class of supernatural creatures. This is his rational and moral nature. By this he has a nature which makes him capable of attaining his destiny, of being as an image of the glory and majesty of God, sovereign over the world which surrounds him. For the true fulfilment of this destiny we are referred from the Old to the New Covenant.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
He who would rule properly must serve God properly.—The conflict between the Divine purpose and the present condition of man; whence it comes, and how it is to be obviated.—The glorification of the name of God in the congregation, and by the congregation over the entire earth.—Man is like the rest of the world, God’s workmanship, but he is designed to be ruler of the world, as the image of the Divine glory and majesty.—Man belongs to two worlds, the visible and the invisible; hence he has a great and difficult task; let us see what hinders and what promotes its fulfilment.—The high position and dignity which God has given man among the creatures, imposes upon him responsibilities which he can fulfil only as a member of the Church of God.—Man is prevented from fulfilling his destiny less by his natural frailty, than by his Adamic nature.—No man is too insignificant, weak, poor, or little for the service of God; God makes even of the smallest children arms of His grace and instruments of His power.—What God does even to sucklings reveals His glory more than the magnificence of the stars.—It is true we may know something of God and His glory from the works of creation, so that even the heathen praise God after their fashion; but only in the Church can we truly learn who God is, and what we have in Him, and how to serve Him aright.—We need not only the crown of eternal life, but we must also be mindful of the crown of thorns, and the crown of righteousness.
Starke: The beginning and end of this Psalm are in harmony; can it be impossible for God to make it thus with the beginning and end of the New Testament Church?—The more we recall to mind, with shame and humility, our own unworthiness, the greater and more glorious will be our portion of the gracious benefits of God, in Christ.—The sovereignty over all creatures, lost by Adam, Jesus has regained, and bestows it upon His people; hence they may use all creatures with a good conscience in the Divine order, 1Co_3:21 sq.; 1Ti_4:4.—The Gospel has glorified the name of the gracious God in all parts of the world—whilst under the law scarcely anything was known of this name even in the Holy Land.—Frisch: Despise not the smallest and weakest instrument; God is mighty in weakness.—Baumgarten: We can reverence nothing more than the name of God, that is, what He has revealed and made known of Himself and His perfections.—Herberger: Those are the best musicians who allow themselves to be used for the glory of God.—Taube: All knowledge and worship of God has its first and last roots in the name of God.—The Almighty uses weakness, in order that the power, and therefore the glory, may be of God, and not of man.—Umbreit: Humanity without religion is brutality.—Diedrich: It is the delight of the pious that God has made for Himself by His government a glorious name in all lands.—Nothing in nature should prevent us, if only we are in right relations with God.
[Spurgeon: We may style this Psalm the song of the Astronomer: let us go abroad, and sing it beneath the starry heavens at eventide, for it is very probable that in such a position it first occurred to the poet’s mind.—He who delights in the songs of angels is pleased to honor Himself in the eyes of His enemies by the praises of little children. What a contrast between the glory above the heavens and the mouth of babes and sucklings! yet by both the name of God is made excellent. Spurgeon’s Treasury of David:—Chalmers: There is much in the scenery of a nocturnal sky to lift the soul to pious contemplation. That moon and those stars, what are they? They are detached from the world, and they lift us above it. We feel withdrawn from the earth, and rise in lofty abstraction from this little theatre of human passions and human anxieties. The mind abandons itself to reverie, and is transferred in the ecstacy of its thought to distant and unexplored regions. It sees nature in the simplicity of her great elements, and sees the God of nature invested with the high attributes of wisdom and majesty.—Thomas Watson: Meditation fits for humiliation. When David had been contemplating the works of creation, their splendor, harmony, motion, influence, he lets the plumes of pride fall, and begins to have self-abasing thoughts.—C. A. B.]
[There is in Psa_8:5 a wonderful rebound of feeling; cast to the earth by his humiliating reflections upon the wonders of the heavens, and the insignificance of man, he rises, lifted up by the consciousness of the honor and dignity bestowed upon him by God in making him greater than all these wonders of nature.—C. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[4][Perowne: “We see him in his lonely watchings, now casting a vigilant glance around him lest any beast of prey threaten ‘those few sheep in the wilderness,’ and now lifting a loving and observant eye to heaven, and as the bright stars come out one after another in the Eastern sky, with a brilliancy and splendor almost unimaginable to us, his heart fills with the thought that it is Jehovah, the God of Israel, who has set His glory there, to be seen of all eyes, to be praised even by the tongues of children. But from heaven his thoughts turn again to earth, from the glory of God to man formed to acknowledge that glory. And his first thought is, as it must be in any case, an humbling one. What is man, man in his frailty, his littleness, his sin? What is man in His sight who made yon heavens, and planted in them those glittering orbs? And then comes the correcting thought, the thought of man’s greatness and dignity as made in the image of God, and appointed by Him to have dominion over all the creatures of the earth.” Delitzsch: “This Psalm is a lyrical echo of the Mosaic account of creation.” “As the gospels contain no words of Jesus before the time of His baptism, and the New Testament Canon has no writings of the Apostles before Pentecost, so the Old Testament has no Psalms of David before he was anointed. From the time when he was anointed by the God of Jacob, he is the sweet Psalmist of Israel, on whose tongue is the word of Jehovah, 2Sa_23:1 sq.” It is probable that this Psalm dates from the earlier part of David’s life, some time during his wanderings in the wilderness when pursued by Saul.—C. A. B.]
[5][Many commentators regard this and the following clauses as still dependent upon כּי, that (Ewald, Perowne, et al.), but it is better, with Hupfeld and Hitzig, to regard these clauses as independent, for otherwise the sentence would be too much involved for Hebrew poetry.—C. A. B.]
[6][The sovereignty of our first parents in Eden was complete, the sovereignty of man now is merely partial, but the second Adam regained that sovereignty in its fulness for Himself and His redeemed, and it is realized again according to prophecy in the Messianic kingdom, Isa_11:6-9.—C. A. B.]
[7][Wordsworth: “How fully was the language of the Psalm realized in that night when the stars were shining on those fields of Bethlehem where David had kept his father’s sheep; and the angels chanted in the ears of shepherds the gratulatory hymn, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men,’ for the descent of the Son of God to become Son of Man; and when the nature of man was exalted in Christ to a higher elevation than that of the angels themselves; and when the new star in the heaven shone to lead the Gentiles to His light, and kings to the brightness of His rising (Isa_60:3); and again, at that day when the ‘men of Galilee,’ who were despised as mere babes by the wise men of this world, stood on the Mount of Olives, and saw Him exalted in glory above the heavens.”—C. A. B.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 1. Our Lord—Equal to the New Testament “Our Father.”…
1. Our Lord—Equal to the New Testament “Our Father.” David speaks not as a private individual, but for the human race.
Thy name—The manifestations of Thyself, by which thou art known.
Read full note →
In all the earth— Whether men perceive and respond to it or not, thy name is excellent.
Set thy glory above… heavens— “Set” is here used in the royal sense, Thou hast enthroned thy majesty above the heavens. The doctrine is against polytheism, which makes the heavenly bodies the abodes of the gods; and the idea is, that the heavens are, to all the earth, the reflection of the divine glory, even though it awakens no echo in millions of hearts. See Psa_19:1-3; Rom_1:20
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 1. O Lord, our Lord] Jehovah, our Lord. Coverdale…
1. O Lord, our Lord] Jehovah, our Lord. Coverdale rightly felt the need of some audible distinction between Lord (= Jehovah) and Lord (= Adonai), when he rendered O Lorde oure Governoure. Cp. Jerome’s Domine dominator noster. How fitting is this acknowledgment of Jehovah’s sovereignty for the opening of a Psalm in which man’s delegated dominion over the world is brought into such prominence. Here, for the first time in the Psalter, the Psalmist associates others with himself in addressing Jehovah (“our Lord”). He speaks on behalf of the covenant people, hardly as yet (at any rate consciously) on behalf of all mankind. Cp. Neh_10:29; Neh_8:10; Psa_135:5; Psa_147:5; Isa_26:13.
how excellent] Or, majestic. The word is related to that rendered honour in Psa_8:5, and majesty in Psa_104:1. It suggests the ideas of amplitude, splendour, magnificence. Cp. Psa_76:4; Psa_93:4 (A.V. mighty).
Read full note →
thy name] That expression of Thyself in the works of Creation and Providence by which Thy character may be recognised. Cp. Psa_5:11.
Who hast set] “The Hebrew,” as the margin of the R.V. candidly notes, “is obscure.” The word, as vocalised in the Massoretic Text, is imperative, ‘set thou’: but the construction would be unparalleled, and a prayer for the manifestation of God’s glory in the heavens would be out of place, for it is already manifested there. No satisfactory explanation can be offered without some alteration of the text. Changing the vowels we may render, ‘Thou whose glory is spread over the heavens,’ (cp. Hab_3:3): or, ‘Thou whose glory is celebrated above the heavens.’ Cp. the LXX, ‘Thy magnificence is exalted above the heavens’ (ἐπήρθη ἡ μεγαλοπρεπία σου ὑπεράνω τῶν οὐρανῶν). But it seems best to make the slight change of consonants required for the rendering of the A.V., which gives an excellent sense, and is supported by the Targum, Syriac, Symmachus, and Jerome, among the ancient versions. Jehovah has set His glory upon the heavens (so R.V. rightly, though retaining above in the marg.), clothed them with a glory which is the reflection and manifestation of His own (Psa_104:1). Cp. the uses of the phrase in Num_27:20; 1Ch_29:25; Dan_11:21; and a similar phrase in Psa_21:5.
The connexion of the clause has still to be considered. It may be joined with the preceding invocation, and a full stop placed at the end of the verse as in A.V.: or it may be taken in close connexion with Psa_8:2 :
Thou who hast set thy glory upon the heavens,
Out of the mouth of children and sucklings hast thou founded strength.
This construction seems preferable; for it leaves the opening invocation to stand by itself as it does at the close of the Psalm (Psa_8:9): it emphasises the contrast between Jehovah’s revelation of Himself in the splendour of the heavens, and His revelation of Himself in the weakest specimens of humanity, which, paradox as it may seem, is not less but more significant and convincing; and thus it brings out the parallelism between the last clause of Psa_8:1 and Psa_8:3, and between Psa_8:2 and Psa_8:4 ff. But however we punctuate, Psa_8:2 must not be disconnected from Psa_8:1.
1, 2. The fundamental thought and motive of the Psalm:—the revelation of Jehovah’s majesty on earth.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (1) O Lord our Lord.—Jehovah our Lord. For the…
(1) O Lord our Lord.—Jehovah our Lord. For the first time in the Book of Psalms the personal feeling is consciously lost sight of in a larger, a national, or possibly human feeling. The poet recognises God’s relation to the whole of mankind as to the whole material creation. Thus the hymn appropriately lent itself to the use of the congregation in public worship, though it does not follow that this was the object of its composition.
Excellent.—The LXX. and Vulg., “wonderful.” Better, great or exalted.
Read full note →
Who hast set . . .—The. translation of this clause is uncertain. It must be determined by the parallelism, and by the fact that the poet, in Psa_8:4, merely expands the thought he had before expressed. There is plainly some error in the text since it is ungrammatical. The proposed emendations vary considerably. The ancient versions also disagree. The Authorised Version may be retained, since it meets all the requirements of the context, and is etymologically correct; though, grammatically, Ewald’s correction, which also agrees with the Vulg., is preferable, “Thou whose splendour is raised above the heavens.” The precise thought in the poet’s mind has also been the subject of contention. Some take the clause to refer to the praises raised in Jehovah’s honour higher than the heavens, a thought parallel to the preceding clause; others, to the visible glory spread over the sky. Others see an antithesis. God’s glory is displayed on earth in His name, His real glory is above the heavens. Probably only a general sense of the majesty of Him “that is higher than the highest” (Ecc_5:8), and “whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain” (1Ki_8:27), occupied the poet’s mind.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Psalm VIII is altogether a psalm of praise and…
Psalm VIII is altogether a psalm of praise and thanksgiving. Its primary idea is the condescending love and goodness of God towards man. That God, who had made the heavens, and sot his glory on them, should have a regard for man, and "visit him," and not only so, but give him so lofty a position, so exalted a destiny, is a thought that is well-nigh overwhelming. The psalmist, filled with the thought, can do no less than pour out his feelings of love and gratitude in song. The Davidical authorship is generally allowed. What "upon Gittith" means is very uncertain, but the most probable conjecture is that a melody, or musical style, which David had learnt at Gath, is intended.
O Lord our Lord. In the original, Jehovah Adoneynu; i.e. "Jehovah, who art our sovereign Lord and Master." As David is here the mouthpiece of humanity, praising God for mercies common to all men, he uses the plural pronoun instead of the singular one. How excellent is thy Name in all the earth! or, "How glorious is thy Name!" (Kay, Cheyne). Who hast set thy glory above the heavens. It is difficult to obtain this sense from the present Hebrew text; but some corruption of the text is suspected.
Read full note →
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE Vers. 1-9. "Lord what is man?
This is a song of praise equally adapted for men of every nation, country, colour, and clime. Its author was David, who, as a shepherd-boy, had cast an observant eye on the works of God, both in the heavens above and the earth beneath; and the habit of doing this reverently and devoutly grew with his growth; so that, though we are entirely ignorant as to what period of his life it was in which he penned this psalm, it is manifestly an echo of the thoughts which, in his early shepherd-days, had filled his mind and inspired him to song. At that period in the world"s history, only a Hebrew could have written such a psalm as this. Observant men in other nations might have written similar poetry, setting forth the glory of Nature"s works; only a Hebrew saint could have so gloried in the great Worker whose majesty was "above the heavens," and of whom he could speak as "our Lord." Note: It is only as we know the Divine Worker that we can duly appreciate and fully enjoy the work. And as Science is, in her onward march, ever revealing more of the work, we have so much the more need to pray that the disclosures perpetually being made of the marvels of nature may be to us a book to reveal, and not a veil to conceal, the living and the true God. In dealing with this psalm we propose to let our exposition turn upon the expression, "Lord, what is man?" Let us note
I THE. INSIGNIFICANCE OF MAN WHEN COMPARED WITH THE STUPENDOUS UNIVERSE. The heavens, the earth, the moon, the stars: how much mere do these terms convey to us than they did to the psalmist! His inspiration, it is probable, did not extend to the realm of physical science; and his views of the wonders of the earth and of the heavens would be limited by the knowledge of his day. But since the telescope has shown us that our world is but as an atom, and the microscope that in every atom there is a world; since millions on millions of stars have come into the astronomer"s field of vision; and, since the conceptions of the time during which the orbs have been revolving and the earth has been preparing for man"s use have so immeasurably grown, the larger the universe seems, the more does man dwindle to a speck. And when we look at the slender frame of man, his weakness, and the momentary duration of his life, compared with the vast masses, the ceaseless energy, the incalculable duration to which the universe bears witness, it is no wonder if at the greatness in which we are lost we stand appalled, and are ready to say, "In the midst of all this sublimity, what am I? A shred of entity, a phantom, a breath, a passing form on this earthly stage. Here is this great machine, with a mighty Unknown behind it, rolling and grinding, grinding and rolling, raising up one and setting down another. Ever and anon a wave of liquid fire will heave up mountains and overturn cities and hurl them into an abyss, and the cries of myriads will rend the air; and never will nature spare one relenting sigh or drop one sympathizing tear. All is fixed. Law is everywhere. What I am, or do, or say, or think, can matter nothing to the Great Unknown. Prayer is but empty breath. Amid the vastness I am lost, and can be of no more consequence than a mote in the sunbeam, and were I and all this generation to be swept away in the twinkling of an eye, we should no more be missed than a grain of dust when blown into the crater of a volcano! What is man?" So men argue. Even good men are overwhelmed with such thoughts, and say, "Our way is hid from the Lord, and our judgment is passed over from our God." While the unbeliever declares that a being so insignificant can never be the subject of Divine care, still less of Divine love; that man is no more to the Supreme than are the insects of a summer"s day. But this is only one side of a great question. Let us therefore note
II THE DIGNITY OF MAN AS DISCLOSED BY THE GRACIOUS VISITATION OF GOD.
1. His actual dignity.
(1) In the structure and capacity of his nature. Mass however great, force however persistent, can never equal in quality the power of thinking, loving, worshipping, suffering, sinning. One soul outweighs in value myriads of worlds. Our estimate of things must be qualitative as well as quantitative. And a being who can measure the distance of a star is infinitely greater than the star whose distance he measures. Man is made in the image of God
(a) mentally, he thinks as God thinks;
(b) morally;
(c) spiritually;
(d) regally, to have dominion.
Man is made to see God in all things. Babes and sucklings in this put to shame the rebellious atheist.
(2) God has revealed his "Name " to man; and this gracious visitation from the Father of our race has raised man in the scale of being.
(3) When renewed by the Holy Ghost, he is elevated still higher in the scale, for "after God he is created in righteousness and true holiness.
(4) When the Son of God became "the second Man, even the Lord from heaven," then, indeed, was our nature crowned with glory and honour." Nothing so exalted our race as the Son of God inserting himself into it by his incarnation, and so becoming the Son of man.
2. His prospective dignity. The psalm includes the vision of the seer as well as the song of the saint. Its repeated quotation (1Co_15:27 Heb_2:6-9) in the New Testament shows us that its words await a grander fulfilment than ever. The preacher may indefinitely expand and illustrate the following points:
(1) The dominion of man over nature is vastly greater even now than it was in David"s time, and is destined to be more complete than it even now is. David includes the sheep and oxen, beasts of the field, etc. Now fire, water, light, air, lightning, etc., are made to serve man.
(2) The renewing process is going forward in the Christianized part of man. The image of God in man is to be perfected.
(3) All things are now put under man"s feet, in being put under Christ"s feet as the Lord of all. But, as Bishop Perowne suggestively remarks, St. Paul"s all things" are immeasurably more than David"s all things." Just so. This is a beautiful illustration of the progress of revelation. The later the date, the brighter the light. And words caught from men who were in the ancient time borne along by the Holy Ghost, are shown to have a very much broader and deeper meaning than their human penmen could possibly have conceived. The New Testament is latent in the Old. The Old Testament is patent in the New" (Augustine).
Note:
1. The true greatness of man can only be manifested as he is renewed by the Spirit of God; and comes to grow up into him in all things who is the Head, even Christ.
2. How incomplete would the plan have been of permitting man to have dominion over nature, without the corresponding purpose of God"s love gaining dominion over man! Dominion is safe only where there is righteousness. C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH Vers. 1-9. God the glorious Creator.
It is midnight. The sky is bright with stars. As the psalmist muses, the fire burns, and he bursts into song. The psalm is not for Israel alone, but brings before the mind such a vision of the glory of God as the great Creator, as binds all people of every land and age in a brotherhood of worship.
I GOD"S GLORY REVEALED IN NATURE. The heavens have a purpose. The outward glory images the inward and spiritual glory. The stars are silent witnesses for God. Their size, their order, their steadfastness, their splendour, and their mystery, which grow and deepen as investigation is prosecuted and knowledge increases, all proclaim the greatness of God. And the more the glory of God strikes our eye, the humbler do we feel in his awful presence. "When I have gazed into these stars," said Carlyle, "have they not looked down upon me, as if with pity, from their serene spaces, like eyes glistening with heavenly tears over the little lot of man?" But while the glory of God in the heavens is fitted to humble us, it also awakens aspiration. It is the same God who rules above and below. If God so cares for stars, will he not much more care for souls? The argument of our Lord applies to the heavens as well as the earth to the creation above and beneath. "Are ye not much better than they?". (Mat_6:26)
II GOD"S GLORY MORE FULLY REVEALED IN MAN. It may be said that in man mundane creation first of all became intelligent, self-conscious, endowed with conscience and will, able so far to understand its Maker. Man is the last and fullest expression of God"s thought a being like himself, and that can hold communication with himself. It is only through man, made in God"s image, that God could rightly reveal himself. If the heavens stood alone, there would be silence. But when man was created, there was an eye made to see, and a heart to feel, and a voice to proclaim God"s praise.
1. The greatness of man"s being.
2. The dignity of his position. The last is first. Man is put at the head of creation. The past has evidence of his lordship, and more and more his sway increases. It is his, not only to replenish, but to subdue the earth.
3. The grandeur of his destiny. He has not only a great past, but a great future. God has not only given man his being, but provided also for his well-being. He has visited and redeemed his people. (Eph_1:3-10)
III GOD"S GLORY MOST PERFECTLY REVEALED IN CHRIST. What is dimly seen in creation and in man awakens the desire for more light and a fuller knowledge of God. This yearning is met and satisfied in Jesus Christ. He is perfect God and perfect Man. We might conceive of a man simply, so enlightened and swayed by God as that he should in all things be in harmony with God. In so far he might perfectly express God"s mind and will. But there is far more in Christ. He is perfect Man and perfect God. He is the true Immanuel God with us. (Joh_14:9, Joh_14:10) Open, ye heavens, and let us see the Lord as Isaiah did! (Isa_6:1-3) Purge our eyes O Spirit of love and holiness, and let us behold Christ Jesus as Stephen did! and then we shall cry, with wonder, love, and praise, "It is the same Lord, "my Lord and my God! Having such a faith, there is no bound to our hopes. What Christ did, he did for us; what Christ does, he does for us. We died with him and rose with him, and with him we shall be glorified. W.F. (Eph_1:17-23)
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT Vers. 1-9. God"s glory revealed.
"The great spiritual truth contained in the first passage of Scripture, that God made man in his own image, flashes forth in this psalm in true lyric grandeur, a ray of light across the dark mystery of creation" God is the most wonderful thought of the human mind, and this thought retains its hold upon us in spite of all atheistic influences. Here the thought is that God"s glory is celebrated
I BY CHILDHOOD. Putting to silence the clamour of the atheist. Christ uses the passage against the scribes and Pharisees, and in another place says that God reveals to babes what he hides from the wise and prudent. We must be converted to little children; "for of such is the kingdom of heaven." God reveals to babes unbounded trust, unbounded obedience to parents, the simple truthfulness, the guileless mind; and they proclaim all this aloud, and it tells of their Divine origin and inspiration, and they thus praise God, and ought to abash the irreligious. "Heaven lies about us and within us in our infancy.
II BY THE STARRY WORLDS. The things which tell us most of God are:
1. Night. The solemnity and impressiveness of the heavens are greater by night than by day.
2. Their constancy and order.
3. Their immensity. We cannot compute their number and distances by any effort of thought.
4. Their silence. God"s greatest works are all done in awful, impressive silence. Then we feel our physical insignificance.
III BY MAN"S SPIRITUAL GREATNESS. (Gen_1:26-28) Compared with the material heavens, he is but an atom; but God has "visited him," and made him great, by stamping him with his own image, and giving him the sovereignty of things. He is made a little lower than God, or little less than of Divine standing (Elohim). But he is to ascend up to sovereignty. In Heb_2:6-8 the words are applied to Christ in a much wider sense, and by St. Paul in 1Co 15, because he is more perfected in his highest power, and is to have all rule and all authority. We have only begum to exercise lordship over the animal, the material, and the moral worlds, and over ourselves. It is only as we rule ourselves that we learn the secret of rule over others. Obedience is the road to sovereignty. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain "To the Chief Musician upon Gittith, a Psalm of…
"To the Chief Musician upon Gittith, a Psalm of David." We are not clear upon the meaning of the word Gittith. Some think it refers to Gath, and may refer to a tune commonly sung there, or an instrument of music there invented, or a song of Obededom the Gittite, in whose house the ark rested, or, better still, a song sung over Goliath of Gath. Others, tracing the Hebrew to its root, conceive it to mean a song for the winepress, a joyful hymn for the treaders of grapes. The term Gittith is applied to two other Ps 81:1-16, 84:1-12) both of which, being of a joyous character, it may be concluded, that where we find that word in the title, we may look for a hymn of delight. We may style this Psalm the Song of the Astronomer: let us go abroad and sing it beneath the starry heavens at eventide, for it is very probable that in such a position, it first occurred to the poet's mind. Dr. Chalmers says, "There is much in the scenery of a nocturnal sky; to lift the soul to pious contemplation. That moon, and these stars, what are they? They are detached from the world, and they lift us above it. We feel withdrawn from the earth, and rise in lofty abstraction from this little theatre of human passions and human anxieties. The mind abandons itself to reverie, and is transferred in the ecstasy of its thought to distant and unexplored regions. It sees nature in the simplicity of her great elements, and it sees the God of nature invested with the high attributes of wisdom and majesty."
The first and last verses are a sweet song of admiration, in which the excellence of the name of God is extolled. The intermediate verses are made up of holy wonder at the Lord's greatness in creation, and at his condescension towards man. Poole, in his annotations, has well said, "It is a great question among interpreters, whether this Psalm speaks of man in general, and of the honour which God puts upon him in his creation; or only of the man Christ Jesus. Possibly both may be reconciled and put together, and the controversy if rightly stated, may be ended, for the scope and business of this Psalm seems plainly to be this: to display and celebrate the great love and kindness of God to mankind, not only in his creation, but especially in his redemption by Jesus Christ, whom, as he was man, he advanced to the honour and dominion here mentioned, that he might carry on his great and glorious work. So Christ is the principal subject of this Psalm, and it is interpreted of him, both by our Lord himself (Mt 21:16), and by his holy apostle (1Co 15:27; Heb 2:6-7).
Read full note →
Ver. 1. Unable to express the glory of God, the Psalmist utters a note of exclamation. O Jehovah our Lord! We need not wonder at this, for no heart can measure, no tongue can utter, the half of the greatness of Jehovah. The whole creation is full of his glory and radiant with the excellency of his power; his goodness and his wisdom are manifested on every hand. The countless myriads of terrestrial beings, from man the head, to the creeping worm at the foot, are all supported and nourished by the Divine bounty. The solid fabric of the universe leans upon his eternal arm. Universally is he present, and everywhere is his name excellent. God worketh ever and everywhere. There is no place where God is not. The miracles of his power await us on all sides. Traverse the silent valleys where the rocks enclose you on either side, rising like the battlements of heaven till you can see but a strip of the blue sky far overhead; you may be the only traveler who has passed through that glen; the bird may start up affrighted, and the moss may tremble beneath the first tread of human foot; but God is there in a thousand wonders, upholding yon rocky barriers, filling the flowercups with their perfume, and refreshing the lonely pines with the breath of his mouth. Descend, if you will, into the lowest depths of the ocean. where undisturbed the water sleeps, and the very sand is motionless in unbroken quiet, but the glory of the Lord is there, revealing its excellence in the silent palace of the sea. Borrow the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, but God is there. Mount to the highest heaven, or dive into the deepest hell, and God is in both hymned in everlasting song, or justified in terrible vengeance. Everywhere, and in every place, God dwells and is manifestly at work. Nor on earth alone is Jehovah extolled, for his brightness shines forth in the firmament above the earth. His glory exceeds the glory of the starry heavens; above the region of the stars he hath set fast his everlasting throne, and there he dwells in light ineffable. Let us adore him "who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea; who maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south." (Job 9:8-9.) We can scarcely find more fitting words than those of Nehemiah, "Thou, even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee." Returning to the text we are led to observe that this Psalm is addressed to God, because none but the Lord himself can fully know his own glory. The believing heart is ravished with what it sees, but God only knows the glory of God. What a sweetness lies in the little word our, how much is God's glory endeared to us when we consider our interest in him as our Lord.
How excellent is thy name! no words can express that excellency; and therefore it is left as a note of exclamation. The very name of Jehovah is excellent, what must his person be. Note the fact that even the heavens cannot contain his glory, it is set above the heavens, since it is and ever must be too great for the creature to express. When wandering among the Alps, we felt that the Lord was infinitely greater than all his grandest works, and under that feeling we roughly wrote these few lines:
Yet in all these how great soe'er they be, We see not Him. The glass is all too dense And dark, or else our earthborn eyes too dim.
Yon Alps, that lift their heads above the clouds And hold familiar converse with the stars, Are dust, at which the balance trembleth not, Compared with His divine immensity. The snow-crown'd summits fail to set Him forth, Who dwelleth in Eternity, and bears Alone, the name of High and Lofty One. Depths unfathomed are too shallow to express The wisdom and the knowledge of the Lord. The mirror of the creatures has no space To bear the image of the Infinite. 'Tis true the Lord hath fairly writ his name, And set his seal upon creation's brow. But as the skilful potter much excels The vessel which he fashions on the wheel, E'en so, but in proportion greater far, Jehovah's self transcends his noblest works. Earth's ponderous wheels would break, her axles snap, If freighted with the load of Deity. Space is too narrow for the Eternal's rest, And time too short a footstool for his throne. E'en avalanche and thunder lack a voice, To utter the full volume of his praise. How then can I declare him? Where are words With which my glowing tongue may speak his name? Silent I bow, and humbly I adore.
Gittith, was probably a musical instrument used at their rejoicings after the vintage. The vintage closed the civil year of the Jews, and this Psalm directs us to the latter-day glory, when the Lord shall be King over all the earth, having subdued all his enemies. It is very evident that the vintage was adopted as a figurative representation of the final destruction of all God's enemies. Is 63:1-6; Re 19:18-20. The ancient Jewish interpreters so understood this Psalm, and apply it to the mystic vintage. We may then consider this interesting composition as a prophetic anticipation of the kingdom of Christ, to be established in glory and honour in the "world to come," the habitable world. Heb 2:5. We see not yet all things put under his feet, but we are sure that the Word of God shall be fulfilled, and every enemy, Satan, death, and hell, shall be for ever subdued and destroyed, and creation itself delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Ro 8:17-23. In the use of this Psalm, then, we anticipate that victory, and in the praise we thus celebrate, we go on from strength to strength, till, with him who is our glorious Head, we appear in Zion before God. W. Wilson, D.D., in loc.
Whole Psalm. Now, consider but the scope of the Psalm, as the apostle quoteth it to prove the world to come. Heb 2:1-18. Any one that reads the Psalm would think that the psalmist doth but set forth old Adam in his kingdom, in his paradise, made a little lower than the angelsfor we have spirits wrapped up in flesh and blood, whereas they are spirits simplya degree lower, as if they were dukes, and we marquises; one would think, I say, that this were all his meaning, and that it is applied to Christ but by way of allusion. But the truth is, the apostle bringeth it in to prove and to convince these Hebrews, to whom he wrote, that that Psalm was meant of Christ, of that man whom they expected to be the Messiah, the Man Christ Jesus. And that he doth it, I prove by Ps 8:6it is the observation that Beza hath"One in a certain place," quoting David. diemarturato hath testified; so we may translate it, hath testified it, etiam atque etiam, testified most expressly; he bringeth an express proof for it that it was meant of the Man Christ Jesus; therefore it is not an allusion. And indeed it was Beza that did first begin that interpretation that I read of, and himself therefore doth excuse it and make an apology for it, that he diverteth out of the common road, though since many others have followed him. Now the scope of the Psalm is plainly this: in Ro 5:14, you read that Adam was a type of him that was to come. Now in Ps 8:1-9, you find there Adam's world, the type of a world to come; he was the first Adam, and had a world, so the second Adam hath a world also appointed for him; there is his oxen and his sheep, and the fowls of the air, whereby are meant other things, devils perhaps, and wicked men, the prince of the air; as by the heavens there; the angels, or the apostles, that were preachers of the gospel. To make this plain to you, that that Psalm where the phrase is used, "All things under his feet," and quoted by the apostle in Eph 1:22therefore it is properwas not meant of man in innocency, but of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore, answerably, that the world there is not this world, but a world on purpose made for this Messiah, as the other was for Adam. First, it was not meant of man in innocency properly and principally. Why? Because in the first verse he saith, "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength." There were no babes in the time of Adam's innocency, he fell before there were any. Secondly, he addeth, "That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger;" the devil that is, for he shewed himself the enemy there, to be a manslayer from the beginning. God would use man to still him; alas! he overcame Adam presently. It must be meant of another therefore, one that is able to still this enemy and avenger. Then he saith, "How excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens." Adam had but paradise, he never propagated God's name over all the earth; he did not continue so long before he fell as to beget sons; much less did he found it in the heavens. Again, Ps 8:4, "What is man, and the son of man?" Adam, though he was man, yet he was not the son of man; he is called indeed, "the son of God" (Lu 3:38), but he was not filius hominis. I remember Ribera urgeth that. But take an argument the apostle himself useth to prove it. This man, saith he, must have all subject to him; all but God, saith he; he must have the angels subject to him, for he hath put all principalities and powers under his feet, saith he. This could not be Adam, is could not be the man that had this world in a state of innocency; much less had Adam all under his feet. No, my brethren, it was too great a vassalage for Adam to have the creatures thus bow to him. But they are thus to Jesus Christ, angels and all; they are all under his feet, he is far above them.
Secondly, it is not meant of man fallen, that is as plain; the apostle himself saith so. "We see not," saith he, "all things subject unto him." Some think that it is meant as an objection that the apostle answereth; but it is indeed to prove that man fallen cannot be meant in Ps 8:1-9. Why? Because, saith he, we do not see anything, all things at least, subject unto him; you have not any one man, or the whole race of man, to whom all things have been subject; the creatures are sometimes injurious to him. We do not see him, saith he, that is, the nature of man in general considered. Take all the monarchs in the world, they never conquered the whole world; there was never any one man that was a sinner that had all subject to him. "But we see," saith hemark the opposition"but we see Jesus," that Man, "crowned with glory and honour;" therefore it is this Man, and no man else; the opposition implieth it." ... So now it remaineth, then, that it is only Christ, God-man, that is meant in Ps 8:1-9. And indeed, and in truth, Christ himself interpreteth the Psalm of himself; you have two witnesses to confirm it, Christ himself and the apostle. Mt 21:16. When they cried hosanna to Christ, or "save now," and made him Saviour of the world, the Pharisees were angry, our Saviour confuteth them by this very Psalm: "Have ye not read," saith he, "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" He quoteth this very Psalm which speaks of himself; and Paul, by his warrant, and perhaps from that hint, doth thus argue out of it, and convince the Jews by it. Thomas Goodwin.
Ver. 1. How excellent is thy name in all the earth! How illustrious is the name of Jesus throughout the world! His incarnation, birth, humble and obscure life, preaching, miracles, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, are celebrated through the whole world. His religion, the gifts and graces of his Spirit, his people Christians, his gospel, and the preachers of it, are everywhere spoken of. No name is so universal, no power and influence so generally felt, as those of the Saviour of mankind. Amen. Adam Clarke.
Ver. 1. Above the heavens; not in the heavens, but above the heavens; even greater, beyond, and higher than they; "angels, principalities, and powers, being made subject unto him." As Paul says, he hath "ascended up far above all heavens." And with this his glory above the heavens is connected, his sending forth his name upon earth through his Holy Spirit. As the apostle adds in this passage, "He hath ascended up far above all heavens; and he gave some apostles." And thus here: "Thy name excellent in all the world;" "Thy glory above the heavens." Isaac Williams.
Ver. 1.
O Lord, our Lord. Personal appropriation of the Lord as ours. The privilege of holding such a portion.
How excellent, etc. The excellence of the name and nature of God in all places, and under all circumstances. Sermon or lecture upon the glory of God in creation and providence.
In all the earth. The universal revelation of God in nature and its excellency.
Thy glory above the heavens. The incomprehensible and infinite glory of God.
Above the heavens. The glory of God outsoaring the intellect of angels, and the splendour of heaven.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain How excellent is Thy name in all the earth!
Psa_8:1-9
How excellent is Thy name in all the earth!
Read full note →
Davids poetical sensitiveness
In all probability this Psalm is the first, or at all events one of the very first, David ever wrote.
It breathes the spirit of those lonely nights which he must so often have passed keeping watch over his fathers sheep on the wild hills of Bethlehem. To a lad of his strong poetical temperament, the glory of the Syrian sunset, the gradual assembling of the stars, as of an innumerable flock in the silent pastures overhead; the moon, like a fair shepherdess, walking in her beauty; and, as night began to wane, the bright and morning star, flashing over the hills of Moab, must have spoken in a language which he was inspired to understand of the excellence of the great Creator of all--of the nothingness, yet at the same time the dignity, of man. In after life how often had he to tune his harp to notes of woe? but its first recorded strains are those of adoring praise. David appears to me to stand out eminently from other men, as hearing a voice in the phenomena of nature. I account him as the first of the prophets of nature, of whom, in some sense, Wordsworth was the last. The lessons once learned have become obvious; but to utter them for the first time required inspiration. (Henry Housman.)
The excellence of the Divine name and nature universal
Joshua Reynolds closing his lecture on art said, And now, gentlemen, there is but one name which I bring to your attention, it is the name of Michael Angelo. And so in all the spheres of art, science, and discovery, there are names which rise peerless above all others. But names which are known in one land are unknown in another, or their right to distinction is often disputed. You would not get universal unanimity about any one celebrity, however worthy. Only concerning Christ can it be said, How excellent is Thy name in all the earth.
The glory of God in His works
The glory of God in His creatures, rightly considered, should, for the excellency of the work, strike an astonishment into us on the one side, and enforce us on the other to be thankful unto Him, that maketh His power and providence appear so clearly in them, and that not only for His glory, but for our good. Gods power and providence seen in His creatures serveth for a double end--the comfort of His children, and the terror and confusion of the wicked. Verse 4 serveth to humble man, and to beat him down; for if he be compared with other creatures, there is no such excellency and durableness in him as in them; neither yet such as he himself imagineth to be in himself. Verses 5-8 set forth the graces and blessings that God hath bestowed upon man, not to the end that man thereby should wax proud, and swell above measure, but to enforce him--
1. To thankfulness to the giver;
2. To a right use of them in himself and for others;
3. The more and more to humble him.
Let man consider what excellency he hath lost through Adams fall, and bewail his misery; and let him, on the other side, well weigh the grace bestowed on him in Christ, and be joyful and thankful for mercy: knowing this, that if the creatures be not now subject to us, it is by reason of the body and relies of sin which yet remain in us; and that therefore, if we would have a conquest over the creatures, we must begin first to get a victory upon sin, or else we shall never profit or prevail that way. If any man will object and say that many creatures are subdued to many people that are without a God in the world, and which notwithstanding remain in their sin, I answer, that Gods dispensing in mercy with our iniquity, or other mens, is no impeachment of the truth of this doctrine; nay rather, it should the more further us, not only in thankfulness to Him for His goodness, but in valiancy and courage to combat against iniquity, and that unto blood, because we already have half a victory, and may be sure of all needful supply in order to complete the victory. (Thomas Wilcocks.)
The supremely excellent name
Was Gittith a tune or instrument brought from Gath? (1Sa_27:2) This exquisite ode, which can only reach its fulfilment in Christ (Heb_2:6-9), was evidently composed at night. It probably dates from the early shepherd days, when wild creatures crept around the fold, and night birds screamed, reminding the singer of the animal world, as constituting the human kingdom.
I. The inscription (Psa_8:1). Jehovah our Lord. Our Lord Jesus is here.
II. The ascription (Psa_8:1-2). His name excellent, and so mighty that His strength communicated to babes is mere than enough to vanquish and silence His foes (1Co_1:25; Mat_21:16).
III. The comparison (Psa_8:3-4). At first sight there is a great descent from the glory of the heavens to frail man. But we may not confound size and greatness. There are as many worlds of wonder too minute for our vision as there are which are too great for our understanding.
IV. The compensation (Psa_8:5-8). Man, though so seemingly insignificant, was only a little lower than the angels, and is invested with the vicegerency of the lower orders of creation (Gen_1:26). As yet the Psalm is fulfilled only in Jesus. But it shall be restored to man (Isa_11:6-9). (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
Good reasons for praising God
I. As filling the universe with his glory:--
1. His excellence fills the earth--in its natural constitution, in its human history, and in its redemptive economy.
2. His excellency is above the heavens. How high are the heavens!
II. As honouring the feeblest instrumentality. He does not depend, like human sovereigns, on the great and mighty. History abounds with examples of God accomplishing great ends by feeble means--such as, the exodus of the Jews by Moses, the redemption of the world by Christ, the propagation of the gospel by feeble men. This truth serves to cheek an unholy humility, and also an unholy pride.
III. As creating the wonders of the stellar heavens. Here is a figurative mode of representing the skill and delicacy of the work--the work of Thy fingers. How does the study of the heavens impress man with the glory of God!
IV. As regarding mankind with His special favour. The Psalmist seems to be impressed with Gods infinite goodness to man in three respects.
1. In the greatness of the attention He pays him.
2. In the greatness of the nature He has given him.
3. In the greatness of the authority He entrusts to him. This Psalm reminds us of our heavenly origin, wonderful natures, and sublime destinies. (Homilist.)
The excellency of the Divine name
How affecting to the mind is the traditional and immemorial suppression of the name Jehovah. Though false in principle and destitute of Scripture authority, it cannot be denied that this reticence has something almost sublime about it, and is far better than the frivolous levity with which Gods holy name is tossed from mouth to mouth, not only in profane discussion, but even in courts of justice, not to say in the pulpit and in ordinary religious speech. Religious awe was no doubt indicated by the suppression of this name, and could not have been associated with a more legitimate or worthy object than that pregnant tetragrammaton, in the four characters of which, as in a sacramental symbol, is wrapped up the germ, or rather the quintessence, of that wonderful preparatory system which excited and sustained the expectation of the Saviour until He came. We cannot tell all the reasons for the use of the two principal Divine names by the sacred writers in specific cases, but there can be little doubt that Jehovah is distinguished in the Hebrew Scriptures from all other names of the Godhead as the name of the God of Israel, His Church, His chosen people. Elohim was a generic name which was common to the true God with all others, but Jehovah was the name of God as in especial covenant with His people. It suggested no vague idea of divinity, but was a much warmer name, telling of God as making Himself known to and dwelling in the midst of them. But the name itself does not signify anything of this singular relation, it suggests nothing of a local or national kind, but only tells of God as the self-existent, independent, and eternal essence, I am what I am. This may have been in order to remind Israel that He was not a God distinct from the Creator of the universe, but the one sole self-existent one. And there was need for such precaution, for never was a people more prone to arrogate to themselves exclusive possession in God. They would not allow that He was the God of the Gentiles also, and from this the fatal step was almost unavoidable to the conclusion that their God was not the God of nature or the universe, but either the antagonistic principle in some monstrous scheme of dualism, or an inferior Deity restricted to the Holy Land. And so the Greeks and Romans learned to sneer at the provincial God of Palestine. The Scriptures contain the clearest exposition of the true sense of the name Jehovah, and declare His name glorious in all the earth. They describe the heavens as the work of His fingers. Hence, as men saw His glory they saw too their own littleness, and wondered that God should remember man. It is not, however, before their material works that man is called to bow, for matter is no more above mind on a largo scale than on a smaller one, no more in the earth than in a clod, in a sea than in a drop. Mind is ever superior to matter. Hence the Psalm boldly declares of man, Thou hast made him to lack little of divinity--for so the words affirm,--Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour. And yet more because of mans moral resemblance to God. But though unfallen man might have triumphed in this blessed likeness, how can we who have fallen away from it so terribly? How, then, could David so speak of man? He could not had he deemed that likeness irrevocably lost. He contemplates man as saved in Christ, not only reinstated, but exalted higher--The first man is of the earth earthy, the second man is the Lord from heaven. Contemplate, then, the glorious face of nature, and remember what man once was, what he is, and what he yet shall be. Then shall we, as Stephen, exclaim, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God. Read, then, the name of God our King and Saviour traced in letters of light upon the whole material universe. (J. Addison Alexander, D. D.)
Religious affections in their objective ground
Gracious affections spring from the beauty and excellence of Divine things. Christian love is the fountain of all gracious affections. The Divine excellency and glory of God and of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the works of God and the ways of God, are the primary reasons why a true saint loves these things; and not any supposed interest that he has in them, or any conceived benefit that he has received from them. Self-love cannot properly be said to be the first foundation of his love to these things.
I. The worlds people.
1. Self-love is a principle that is entirely natural, and hence cannot be the foundation of what is gracious or spiritual (Luk_6:32).
2. Self-love is also the foundation of gratitude in the worlds people.
3. Self-love may give rise to a sort of love to God. False education will make men grateful to a God of their own imagination. Insensibility to the heinousness of sin may move the natural affections toward a being they imagine to be like themselves.
II. The hypocrite. The genesis of their affections follows much the order of the worlds people.
1. They rejoice in themselves.
2. They secondarily rejoice in God because He is so good to them, and has made so much of them.
3. They rejoice in their own experiences.
4. Their affections are moved by impulses, pride, conceit, and selfish considerations.
5. They are great talkers about themselves. If we will believe them, they are no ordinary saints.
III. Gods people.
1. They contemplate and adore the matchless perfections of God, the beauty of Christ, the sweetness of grace, the wisdom of redemption, the completeness of Gods law, and the like. A natural affection does not have its chief roots in such a soil as this.
2. Secondarily, they rejoice that so glorious a Being is theirs.
3. Then they love God because of His marvellous kindness and unparalleled condescension (Psa_116:1).
4. In Gods goodness they see a mirror that reflects the beauty, the grace and the perfection of His being and attributes, and from hence are begotten a holy gratitude and a heavenly love.
5. The saints love to God is the fruit of Gods love to them, as it is the gift of that love.
6. As is the genesis of love, so is the genesis of spiritual joy, delight, and pleasure: All my springs are in Thee (Psa_87:7). (L. O. Thompson.)
The excellent Name
I. This psalm is--
1. A hymn of praise to the Creator, giving glory to Jehovah our Lord. By His Name we understand His revealed nature, as made manifest in His--
(1) works of creation (Psa_8:3; Psa_8:6-8);
(2) acts of salvation (Psa_8:4-5).
2. A Messianic hymn--
(1) referred by Christ to Himself (Mat_21:16);
(2) quoted of Him (Heb_2:6-9; 1Co_15:27).
3. A hymn of the Ascension. This seems the special thought (Heb_2:9, where verse 5 is alluded to, and Act_2:33).
II. The text in particular is expressive of the great doctrine of the ascension.
1. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord, i.e. Jehovah. His Name is indeed the Divine Name, for Jesus signifies Jehovah-Saviour (Heb_1:4;-see its lengthened form in Num_13:16).
2. The earth is the sphere in which the excellence of His Name is manifested.
(1) In the past, by the marvellous revelation of His sinless human life, by His mighty words and works, by His sacrifice for sin, and by His glorious resurrection and ascension.
(2) In the present, by the power of His gospel, subduing, as it is, all things under His feet.
3. All the earth shall one day be brought to own that His Name is excellent.
4. Yet His chiefest glory is now set above the heavens, to be revealed in its full excellence only when He shall come again to take to Him His power and reign.
III. The Name of Jesus should be proved excellent in our experience.
1. As a power to salvation (Act_4:12). He is ascended up on high to perpetually plead the merits of His saving Name. And it is in that Name alone that there is hope for sinners. That Name, Jehovah-Saviour, means one able and willing to save; and it is the only excellent one to which all must look (Isa_45:22).
2. As a power to holiness (Act_2:33). The ascended Saviour has given to the Church the grace of His Holy Spirit, to be implored in His Name, and sent forth in His Name (Joh_14:26; Joh_16:24). The Holy Ghost teaches us the things of Christ, and makes us so realise the excellence of His name, that for it we count all things but loss. (T. H. Barnett.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Psalms 8
Psalms 8
THE exclamation which begins and ends this psalm, enclosing it as a jewel in a setting, determines its theme as being neither the nightly heaven with all its stars, nor the dignity of man, but the name of the Lord as proclaimed by both. The Biblical contemplation of nature and man starts from and ends in God. The main thought of the psalm is the superiority of the revelation in mans nature and place to that in the vault of heaven. The very smallness of man makes the revelation of God in His dealings with him great. In his insignificance is lodged a Divine spark, and, lowly as is his head as he stands beneath the midnight sky blazing with inaccessible lights, it is crowned with a halo which reflects Gods glory more brightly than does their lustre. That one idea is the theme of both parts of the psalm. In the former (Psa_8:1-2) it is briefly stated; in the latter (Psa_8:3-8) it is wrought out in detail. The movement of thought is by expansion rather than progress.
Read full note →
The name of the Lord is His character as made known. The psalmist looks beyond Israel, the recipient of a fuller manifestation, and, with adoring wonder, sees far flashing through all the earth, as if written in light, the splendour of that name. The universal revelation in the depths of the sparkling heavens and the special one by which Israel can say, "our Lord," are both recognised. The very abruptness of the exclamation in Psa_8:1 tells that it is the end of long, silent contemplation, which overflows at last in speech. The remainder of Psa_8:1 and Psa_8:2 present the two forms of Divine manifestation which it is the main purpose of the psalm to contrast, and which effect the world wide diffusion of the glory of the Name. These are the apocalypse in the nightly heavens and the witness from the mouth of babes and sucklings. As to the former, there is some difficulty in the text as it stands; and there may be a question also as to the connection with the preceding burst of praise. The word rendered "hast set" is an imperative, which introduces an incongruous thought, since the psalm proceeds on the conviction that God has already done what such a reading would be asking him to do. The simplest solution is to suppose a textual corruption, and to make the slight change required for the rendering of the A.V and R.V Gods name is glorious in all the earth, first, because He has set His glory upon the heavens, which stretch their solemn magnificence above every land. It is His glory of which theirs is the shimmering reflection, visible to every eye upturned from "this dim spot which men call earth." May we attach significance to the difference between "Thy name" and "Thy glory"? Possibly there is a hint of the relative inferiority even of the heavenly proclamation, inasmuch as, while it rays out "glory," the lustre of power and infinitude, it is only on earth that that revelation becomes the utterance of the Name, since here are hearts and minds to interpret.
The relative at the beginning of the last clause of Psa_8:1 seems to require that the initial exclamation should not be isolated, as it is in the last verse; but, in any case, the two methods of revelation must be taken in the closest connection and brought into line as parallel media of revelation.
Psa_8:2 gives the second of these. The sudden drop from the glories of the heavens to the babble and prattle of infancy and childhood is most impressive, and gives extraordinary force to the paradox that the latters witness is more powerful to silence gainsayers than that of the former. This conviction is expressed in a noble metaphor, which is blurred by the rendering "strength." The word here rather means a strength in the old use of the term-that is, a stronghold or fortress-and the image, somewhat more daring than colder Western taste finds permissible, is that, out of such frail material as childrens speech, God builds a tower of strength, which, like some border castle, will bridle and still the restless enemy. There seems no sufficient reason for taking "children and sucklings" in any but its natural meaning, however the reference to lowly believers may accord with the spirit of the psalm. The childrens voices are taken as a type of feeble instruments, which are yet strong enough to silence the enemy. Childhood, "with no language but a cry," is, if rightly regarded in its source, its budding possibilities, its dependence, its growth, a more potent witness to a more wondrous name than are all the stars. In like manner, man is mans clearest revelation of God. The more lowly he is, the more lofty his testimony. What are all His servants words but the babbling of children who "do not know half the deep things they speak"? Gods strongest fortress is built of weakest stones. The rendering of the LXX, which is that used by our Lord in the Temple when He claimed the childrens shrill hosannas as perfected praise, is an explanation rather than a translation, and as such is quite in the line of the psalmists meaning. To find in the "children and sucklings" a reference either to the humble believers in Israel or to the nation as a whole, and in the "enemy and the vengeful man" hostile nations, introduces thoughts alien to the universality of the psalm, which deals with humanity as a whole and with the great revelations wide as humanity. If the two parts of the psalm are to be kept together, the theme of the compendious first portion must be the same as that of the second, namely, the glory of God as revealed by nature and man, but most chiefly by the latter, notwithstanding and even by his comparative feebleness.
The second part (Psa_8:3-8) expands the theme of the first. The nightly sky is more overwhelming than the bare blue vault of day. Light conceals and darkness unveils the solemn glories. The silent depths, the inaccessible splendours, spoke to this psalmist, as they do to all sensitive souls, of mans relative insignificance, but they spoke also of the God whose hand had fashioned them, and the thought of Him carried with it the assurance of His care for so small a creature, and therefore changed the aspect of his insignificance. To an ear deaf to the witness of the heavens to their Maker, the only voice which sounds from their crushing magnificence is one which counsels unmitigated despair, insists on mans nothingness, and mocks his aspirations. If we stop with "What is man?" the answer is, A fleeting nothing. The magnitude, the duration, the multitudes of these awful suns and stars dwarf him. Modern astronomy has so far increased the impression that it has landed many minds in blank unbelief that God has visited so small a speck as earth, and abundant ridicule has been poured on the arrogance which dreams that such stupendous events, as the Christian revelation asserts, have been transacted on earth for man. If we begin with man, certainly his insignificance makes it supremely absurd to suppose him thus distinguished; but if we begin at the other end, the supposition takes a new appearance of probability. If there is a God, and men are His creatures, it is supremely unlikely that He should not have a care of them. Nothing can be more absurd than the supposition of a dumb God, who has never spoken to such a being as man. The psalmist gives full weight to mans smallness, his frailty, and his lowly origin, for his exclamation, "What is man?" means, "How little is he!" and he uses the words which connote frailty and mortality, and emphasise the fact of birth as if in contrast with "the work of Thy fingers"; but all these points only enhance the wonderfulness of what is to the poet an axiom-that God has personal relations with His creature. "Thou art mindful of him" refers to Gods thought, "Thou visitest him" to His acts of loving care; and both point to Gods universal beneficence, not to His special revelation. The bitter parody in Job_7:17-18 takes the truth by the other handle, and makes the personal relations those of a rigid inspector on the one hand and a creature not worth being so strict with on the other. Mindfulness is only watchfulness for slips and visiting means penal visitation. So the same fact may be the source of thankful wonder or of almost blasphemous murmuring.
Psa_8:5-8 draw out the consequences of Gods loving regard which has made the insignificance of man the medium of a nobler manifestation of the Divine name than streams from all the stars. There is no allusion here to sin; and its absence has led to the assertion that this psalmist knew nothing of a fall, and was not in harmony with the prevalent Old Testament tone as to the condition of humanity. But surely the contemplation of the ideal manhood, as it came from Gods hand, does not need to be darkened by the shadows of the actual. The picture of man as God made him is the only theme which concerns the psalmist; and he paints it with colours drawn from the Genesis account, which tells of the fall as well as the creation of man.
The picture contains three elements: man is Deiform, crowned with glory and honour, and lord of the creatures on earth. The rendering "than the angels" in the A.V comes from the LXX, but though defensible, is less probable than the more lofty conception contained in "than God," which is vindicated, not only by lexical considerations, but as embodying an allusion to the original creation "in the image of God." What then is the "little" which marks mans inferiority? It is mainly that the spirit, which is Gods image, is confined in and limited by flesh, and subject to death. The distance from the apex of creation to the Creator must ever be infinite; but man is so far above the non-sentient, though mighty, stars and the creatures which share earth with him, by reason of his being made in the Divine image-i.e., having consciousness, will, and reason-that the distance is foreshortened. The gulf between man and matter is greater than that between man and God. The moral separation caused by sin is not in the psalmists mind. Thus man is invested with some reflection of Gods glory, and wears this as a crown. He is king on earth.
The enumeration of his subjects follows, in language reminding again of the Genesis narrative. The catalogue begins with those nearest to him, the long-tamed domestic animals, and of these the most submissive (sheep) first; it then passes to the untamed animals, whose home is "the field" or uncultivated land, and from them goes to the heights and depths, where the free fowls of the air and fish of the sea and all the mysterious monsters that may roam the hidden ways of that unknown ocean dwell. The power of taming and disciplining some, the right to use all, belong to man, but his subjects have their rights and their king his limits of power and his duties.
Such then is man, as God meant him to be. Such a being is a more glorious revelation of the Name than all stars and systems. Looked at in regard to his duration, his years are a hand-breadth before these shining ancients of days that have seen his generations fret their little hour and sink into silence; looked at in contrast with their magnitude and numbers numberless, he is but an atom, and his dwelling place a speck. Science increases the knowledge of his insignificance, but perhaps not the impression of it made on a quiet heart by the simple sight of the heavens. But besides the merely scientific view, and the merely poetic, and the grimly Agnostic, there is the other, the religious, and it is as valid today as ever. To it the heavens are the work of Gods finger, and their glories are His, set there by Him. That being so, mans littleness magnifies the name, because it enhances the condescending love of God, which has greatened the littleness by such nearness of care and such gifts of dignity. The reflection of His glory which blazes in the heavens is less bright than that which gleams in the crown of glory and honour on mans lowly yet lofty head. The "babe and suckling" of creation has a mouth from which the strength of perfected praise issues and makes a bulwark against all gainsayers.
The use made of this psalm in the Epistle to the Hebrews proceeds on the understanding that it describes ideal humanity. Where, then, says the writer of the epistle, shall we look for the realisation of that ideal? Do not the grand words sound liker irony than truth? Is this poor creature that crawls about the world, its slave, discrowned and sure to die, the Man whom the psalmist saw? No. Then was the fair vision a baseless fabric, and is there nothing to be looked for but a dreary continuance of such abortions dragging out their futile being through hopeless generations? No; the promise shall be fulfilled for humanity, because it has been fulfilled in one Man: the Man Christ Jesus. He is the realised ideal, and in Him is a life which will be communicated to all who trust and obey Him, and they, too, will become all that God meant man to be. The psalm was not intended as a prophecy, but every clear vision of Gods purpose is a prophecy, for none of His purposes remain unfulfilled. It was not intended as a picture of the Christ, but it is so; for He, and He alone, is the Man who answers to that fair Divine Ideal, and He will make all His people partakers of His royalty and perfect manhood.
So the psalm ends, as it began, with adoring wonder, and proclaims this as the result of the twofold witness which it has so nobly set forth: that Gods name shines glorious through all the earth, and every eye may see its lustre.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain “This is a psalm of thanksgiving to God for…
INTRODUCTION
“This is a psalm of thanksgiving to God for the exaltation of man above all terrestrial creatures. It is quoted by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews with reference to Christ; but whether it is to be considered a prophecy, or whether it is quoted simply because it describes by way of accommodation the character of our Lord, does not appear certain. The most sober commentators have adopted the latter view, considering that the author of the psalm intended simply to celebrate the glory of Jehovah, and the power and dignity He has conferred on the human race. It is, however, they say, appropriately applied to our Lord by way of illustration; for this power and dignity did not obtain their full consummation till He became invested with our nature, and was exalted ‘above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come,’ ”—Phillips.
Read full note →
THE GOSPEL OF THE STARS
(Psa_8:1.)
We are led to consider:
I. Creation as deriving its glory from God.
The Psalmist here looks upon creation, not as God, not as independent of God, but as a glass reflecting the glory of God. “Thy heavens.” “Who hast set Thy glory” above or upon the heavens. “It here implies that the glory belonging to the frame of nature is not inherent, but derivative.”—Alexander. “The sense of God’s presence, of which the Psalmist is so profoundly conscious in his own spiritual life, is that which gives its glory and its meaning to the natural world. There is a vivid realisation of that presence as of a presence which fills the world. Nature is full of God; nature is the theatre of His glory. All admiration of nature in a rightly-tuned heart is a confession of that glory. To such a heart there can be no praise of nature apart from the praise of God. All things are ‘of Him, and through Him, and to Him.’ Apart from Him, the unwise is void and waste; He gives it its life and meaning.”—Perowne. “God is the principle of beauty, both as author of the physical world, and as father of the intellectual and moral world. He is the life, the light, the movement, the ineffable grace of visible and finite nature.”—Cousin. Let us remember that the glory of creation is but the reflected glory of Him who sits above it. This as against atheism, pantheism, naturalism.
Consider:
II. Creation as revealing the glory of God.
The glory of God as seen in nature is:
1. Unspeakable. “How excellent!” No poet, no saint, can adequately speak of it. It fills us with a wonder and joy too deep for words.
2. Gracious. “How excellent!” The earth, so far as its primitive and essential arrangements are concerned, declares the loving God. The glory of God is His goodness.
3. Universal. “In all the earth.” Everywhere, under the whole heavens, we see the glory of God.
“Known through the earth by thousand signs,
By thousands through the skies.”
“He whose eyes are open cannot want an instructor, unless he wants a heart.”—Charnock, quoted by Spurgeon.
Consider:
III. Creation as awakening admiration and love in the children of God.
“O Lord, our Lord!” Unbelieving men make nature to hide God, to put Him far away; but nature rejoices the saint as he beholds in it the workmanship of his Father. The sceptical philosopher is reminded by nature of the Eternal, the Infinite, the Absolute; but the saint responds—
“This glorious God is ours,
Our Father, and our Friend.”
THE APOLOGETICS OF CHILDHOOD
(Psa_8:2.)
David speaks literally of children; and so our Lord Himself applies the words (Mat_21:16). “Even the faith of a little child is bulwark enough against the folly of men of corrupt heart and perverted intellect. The stars above, and the lips of the infants below, show forth His praise.”—Perowne.
The Psalmist has been looking at the magnificence of the firmament, and he passes at once to children, little children. But there is really no shock in this, for children are, as they have been justly and beautifully designated, “little majesties.”
Observe:
I. The religious capacity of childhood.
This is indicated here. The young children with their first breath ask for God, and recognise Him in the glory of the universe. The spirituality of childhood is frequently recognised in the Old Testament; and in the New Testament Christ distinctly recognises the spirituality of the child-nature. The poet recognises in the child natural innocence and grace; the painter, physical beauty; the parent exalts the child from a sentiment of natural affection; but Christ gave children a conspicuous place in His teaching and system, on the ground of their spiritual faculty. The children recognised Christ when the patriarchs of the nation failed to do so; they welcomed Him when their fathers were cold and blind. Christianity is peculiarly, as no other religion has ever been, the religion of the children. Let them have it. Give them “the truth as it is in Jesus;” do not be sceptical about their conversion.
Observe:
II. The religious service of childhood.
“That Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.” “The instinctive admiration of Thy works, even by the youngest children, is a strong defence against those who would question Thy being or obscure Thy glory. The effect, or rather the legitimate tendency of this spontaneous testimony, is to silence enemy and avenger, i.e., to stop the mouths of all malignant railers against God, whose cavils and sophisms are put to shame by the instinctive recognition of God’s being and His glory by the youngest children.”—Alexander. How often the simple speech of a little child cleaves to the heart of a great subject, and silences the gainsayer! “Have we never seen how a child, simple and near to God, cuts asunder a web of sophistry with a single direct question? How, before its steady look and simple argument, some fashionable utterer of a conventional falsehood has been abashed?”—Robertson. And it is remarkable how at great crises the children have become defenders of Christ and His cause. Notably, Mat_21:16; and again in the Reformation. When Melancthon was greatly depressed about the fortunes of the Reformation, one day he passed a house in which he found some young people praying for the Protestant cause. Coming to Luther, he exclaimed triumphantly, “We are saved: the children are praying for us.” And again, in the great revival of religion under Wesley and Whitfield. When Whitfield was preaching in New England, a certain lady became a subject of grace and a praying Christian. But she could influence none to pray with her but her little daughter, about ten years of age. This child was daily in her closet as a witness of her cries and tears, and soon became the subject of Divine grace. The child, in a transport peculiar to such blessed experience, said, “O mother! if all the world knew this! I wish I could tell everybody! Pray, mother, let me tell all the neighbours, that they may be happy, and love my Saviour too!” “Ah! my dear child,” said the mother, “it would be useless; if you were to tell your experience, they would call it a delusion.” “O mother! I think they would believe me. I must go at once to the shoemaker, and tell him; he will believe me.” She ran over, and found him at work in his shop. She began telling him that he must die; that he and she were sinners; but that Christ had heard her mother’s prayers, and forgiven all her sins, and that now she was very happy. The shoemaker was struck; his tears flowed down like rain; he threw aside his work, and so earnestly cried for mercy as to alarm the neighbourhood; and in a few months from that time, about fifty people were brought to the saving knowledge of Christ. Whitfield, adverting to his preaching in Moorfields, says, “I cannot help adding, that several little boys and girls who were fond of sitting round me on the pulpit while I preached, and handed to me people’s notes—though they were often pelted with eggs, dirt, &c., thrown at me—never once gave way; but, on the contrary, every time I was struck, turned up their little weeping eyes, and seemed to wish they could receive the blows for me. God make them, in their growing years, great and living martyrs for Him who, out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, perfects praise!” There is a feast celebrated at Naumburg called the “Feast of Cherries,” in which troops of children parade the streets with green boughs ornamented with cherries, to commemorate a triumph obtained in the following manner:—In 1432, the Hussites threatened the city of Naumburg with immediate destruction, when one of the citizens proposed that all the children in the city should be clad in mourning, and sent as supplicants to the enemy. Procopius Nasus, chief of the Hussites, was so touched with this spectacle, that he received the young supplicants, regaled them with fruits, and promised them to spare the city. The children returned crowned with leaves, holding cherries, and crying “Victory!” Thus the children are often ambassadors for God, and their words, prayers, tears, often confound or melt “the enemy and the avenger.” Every house that has a child in it has a chaplain. Let us in the Christian Church believe more in the spiritual faculty of the children; let us teach them spiritual truth; let us believe in their conversion; let us economise their evangelic power. The smaller magnets have proportionately much the greater power; and the children have a remarkable spiritual force which the Church must not ignore.
THE DIGNITY OF HUMAN NATURE
(Psa_8:3-9.)
We observe:
I. The apparent weakness of human nature.
“What is man?” “It describes man from the side of his impotence, frailty, and mortality.”—Delitzsch. “Man. The Hebrew word denotes man in his weakness and frailty, as in the next member, Son of man (son of Adam), refers also to his earthly nature as formed out of the ground”—Perowne. “What is man? The first feeling is an overpowering sense of man’s insignificance in presence of the vastness and splendour, the mysterious depth, and the exceeding glory of the heavens, as seen at night.”—Perowne. Compare the vastness of creation with the littleness of man; the power of creation with the feebleness of man; the duration of creation with the fugitiveness of man. “One generation goeth, and another cometh, but the earth abideth for ever.”
II. The essential greatness of human nature.
Psa_8:5-9. “Although man appears so insignificant, yet, through God’s marvellous condescension, how great is man, little less than Divine in nature, and lord of all creation.”—Perowne. This greatness is found:
1. In the quality of his being. He is a partaker of the Divine nature. A “little lower than the angels.” It is generally acknowledged that the A. V. does not give the full sense of the original of these words. “ ‘Thou madest him only a little lower than Elohim;’ so the original; and Elohim is by some rendered, as A. V., angels; but modern interpreters, however, generally are in favour of translating the words thus:—‘Thou madest him little less than God.’ ”—Wordsworth. “Thou hast made him to want but little (or, to come short but little) of God.”—Perowne. “And hast made him a little less than divine.”—Delitzsch. “And madest him lack but little of God.”—Kay. Man only appears insignificant. His rounded brow speaks more than the arched sky, his eyes shine out deeper things than stars, and in his lips there is a music beyond that of wind or wave. Less bright than the sun, less bulky than the planet, less abiding than the stars, he is greater than them all! “Noble in reason, infinite in faculty, in action like an angel, in apprehension like a god.”—Shakespeare. The day was when the Church had to insist upon the depravity and degradation of human nature in opposition to the philosophy which descanted on the purity and dignity of human nature; now, perhaps, it is the duty of the Church to insist on the dignity of human nature in opposition to the dishonouring theories of modern science. The greatness of man is seen:
2. In the extent of his dominion (Psa_8:6-8). “Man is a king, and not a king without territory; the world around, with the works of creative wisdom which fill it, is his kingdom.”—Delitzsch. “All, everything, hast Thou put under his feet, i.e., subjected to his power.”—Alexander. Earth, sea, sky (Gen_1:26; Gen_1:28; Gen_9:2). Man is God’s vicegerent, and through man God seeks to govern all things. We ought to seek to exercise our regal glory in the right spirit and to the right end. “ ‘All things under his feet’ teaches us:
(1.) To trample upon earthly things as base and bootiess, not to dote upon them with our hearts, nor grasp them greedily with our hands.
(2.) By this posture of all things under man’s foot God would teach him to use them as a stirrup, for the raising of his heart to those things above. A sanctified fancy can make every creature a ladder to heaven.”—Trapp.
III. The source of the greatness of human nature.
It is because God “is mindful of him.” All his glory and empire is derived from God, and only continues whilst God blesses him. God puts the crown on our head; let us, in the spirit of Psa_8:9, lay that crown at His feet. “Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,” &c. (Jer_9:23-24).
HUMAN NATURE IN THE LIGHT OF CHRISTIANITY
This psalm is frequently quoted in the New Testament, and may be considered as an eminently Christian psalm. It is often objected to Christianity that it deals harshly with human nature, that it ignores the dignity of our nature, &c. We submit, on the contrary, that the Christian estimate of human nature commends itself to the common conscience in the sight of God.
I. Christianity recognises the intrinsic grandeur of human nature.
It asserts the spirituality, the infinity, the immortality of man. He is made in the image of God’s spirituality, infinity, immortality. And Christianity gives the crowning illustration of man’s mysterious greatness. The Psalmist, in the 4th verse, affirms that the glory of man springs from the condescension and visitations of God; but do we not find the supreme illustration of this verse in the fact that Deity, in Christ, took upon itself our human nature? Whilst scepticism is degrading human nature, talking of its origin in the ape, and its destination in the dust, Christianity crowns man with honour and glory by declaring that God took upon Himself our nature, and lived on the earth as man with man. The incarnation stands out as the crowning demonstration of the mysterious grandeur of human nature, and as a lofty protest against all those theories of sceptical science which would drag man down to the level of the beasts which perish.
II. Christianity restores the lost grandeur of human nature.
The Gospel denies that man, as we find him to be, dishonoured and discrowned, is as he ought to be; it says he ought to be far otherwise, and it seeks to put the lost sceptre into his hand, to restore the fallen diadem to his brow. It aims to restore:
1. The glory of his character.
(1.) Christ becomes the pattern of life. He shows us what we may be, what we ought to be. How truly kingly is Christ! How glorious is the human character as seen in Him, arrayed in all the gold and purple of sublimest graces!
(2.) Christ becomes the perfecter of life. He is the power to make us as glorious as Himself. “We all, with open face,” &c. The Gospel aims to restore us faultless before the throne of God. It aims to restore:
2. The fulness of his dominion. This has been lost. A mere scrap of man’s sovereignty is left to him in his fallen estate. Instead of ruling, man is ruled; instead of being a monarch, he is a slave. He is the sport of elements he was born to rule. But Christianity recognises man’s right to rule, and seeks to fit him once more to exercise that rule.
(1.) In this world. Whilst many of our scientific men are denying that the chief end of the earth is for man, Christianity insists that it is so. “The world is yours.” As the Gospel prevails, the earth becomes more subjected to man. With the prevalence of Christianity you have the advancement of civilisation, of science, of art, and thus the earth is more and more made the property of the human race, and subordinated to the utility, and in a great measure to the command of man. As man acquires his kingly character in Christ, the world returns to its allegiance to him.
(2.) In the spiritual and eternal world. “The centre of the New Testament consciousness is Jesus, the restorer of that which is lost. The dominion of the world lost to fallen man, and only retained by him in a ruined condition, is allotted to mankind, when redeemed by Him, in fuller and more perfect reality. This dominion is not yet in the actual possession of mankind, but in the person of Jesus it now sits enthroned at the right hand of God. Everything is really put under Him with just as little limitation as is expressed in this psalm: not merely the animal kingdom, not merely the world itself, but the universe with all the ruling powers in it, whether they be in subjection or in hostility to God, yea, even the power of death (1Co_15:27; cf. Eph_1:22).”—Delitzsch. And Christ is thus exalted on our behalf, to make us sharers of His power and empire.
Only in Christ can man’s magnificent destiny be realised. “Man’s destiny as depicted in this psalm is not, and cannot be, accomplished out of Christ. He is the true Lord of all. In Him man reigns, in Him man shall yet be restored to his rightful lordship, and shall really and completely be in the new world of redemption what now he is but very imperfectly, God’s vicegerent, ruling a subject creation in peace, and harmony, and love.”—Perowne.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain The text is now to be used as the…
Psa 8:3
The text is now to be used as the basis of the inquiry, What is the moral effect of studying great subjects? When we consider the heavens, four results are secured:—
Read full note →
I. We are impressed with God’s infinite independence of human help. We cannot touch one of His stars; we cannot control their courses; we cannot increase or diminish their light. When then God asks our help in anything, He does so for our good, and never to fill up the circle of His own ability.
II. We see that creation is established upon a basis of order. The moral significance of this is plain. See what God would have in the moral universe. God is the God of order, and order is peace
III. We see the infinite sufficiency of God to preserve all the interests we commit to Him. Is our house greater than God’s heavens, that He cannot be trusted with it?
IV. We see the essential difference between physical sovereignty and moral control. The weakest man is greater than the most magnificent star. In what does his superiority consist? In all that is implied in the term "will." God seeks, by all the tender persuasiveness of His love, to bring that will into harmony with His own; when that is done, there will be a great calm. A consideration of the heavens will (1) enlarge and strengthen the mind; (2) show contrastively the power and weakness of man; (3) excite the highest hopes regarding human destiny; (4) tranquillise the impatience and fretfulness incident to an incomplete life. The student of nature should be on his guard against two possibilities: (1) against mistaking creation for the Creator; (2) against mistaking the transient for the permanent.
Parker, City Temple, vol. i., p. 364 (see also Pulpit Notes, p. 163).
Psa 8:3-4
These words express a conviction which lies at the root of all natural as well as all revealed religion, a conviction which may be regarded as a distinctive feature, which separates that conception of God’s nature which is properly a religious one from that which is merely a philosophical speculation, a conception without which indeed there can be no real belief in God at all.
I. The root and groundwork of all religion is the impulse which leads men to pray. In this is found the primary source from which all inquiries concerning the nature of God must set out, and to which all must ultimately return, viz., of man’s relation to God as a person to a person, of man’s dependence upon God, of man’s power to ask and God’s power to give such things as that dependence makes necessary.
II. If we turn to the sacred record of God’s creation of the world, we cannot overlook or mistake the two great religious truths which stand side by side on its page, the twofold revelation of one and the same God as the Creator of the material universe and as the personal Providence that watches over the life and actions of men. The whole scheme of Holy Scripture from the beginning to the end is one continuous record of God’s love and care for man in creation, government, redemption; and as such it is a revelation, not for this or that age alone, but for every generation of mankind, as our best and truest safeguard against an error into which human thought in every age is very prone to fall. Modern sophistry is ready to tell us that one law of cause and effect reigns supreme over mind as well as matter, that the actions of man, like the other phenomena of the universe, are but links in a chain of rigid and necessary consequences. Against this perversion Scripture furnishes a standing protest, and if read aright, a safeguard. God is revealed to man as He is revealed to no other of His visible creatures, not as God merely, but as our God, the personal God of His personal creatures.
H. L. Mansel, Penny Pulpit, No. 447.
The Gospel and the magnitude of creation.
Objection has been taken to the Gospel from the vastness of creation as displayed in astronomy. So far as we can see, that objection takes one of two shapes—either that man, looked at in the light of such a universe, is too insignificant for this interposition, or that God is too exalted for us to expect such an interposition from Him.
I. As regards man, the professed aim of the Gospel is his deliverance from spiritual error and sin and his introduction to that which alone can satisfy the wants of his nature—the favour and fellowship of the God who made him. This is a sphere of action entirely different from astronomy, and at its very first step as much higher as mind is above matter. It is the presence of life—above all, of intelligent life—which gives significance to creation, and which stands, like the positive digit in arithmetic, before all its blank ciphers. (1) The mind of man receives a further dignity when we turn from its power over the material to its capacity in the moral world. It is able to conceive and to reason from those distinctions of truth and falsehood, right and wrong, good and evil, which underlie and govern the spiritual world, as the laws of mathematics do the material. Here, if anywhere, mind grasps the absolute and infinite; and because it is able to do this, it holds rank above the highest things that eyes can see or heart conceive in the physical creation. (2) To this dignity of mind, derived from its power of thought, we have to add its value in the light of immortality. (3) So far from what God has done for the world of matter in the fields of astronomy being any reason for discrediting what the Gospel declares He has done for the world of mind in man, it should be a reason for believing it. If He has lavished so much pains and skill upon a universe of death, what may we not anticipate for one of life?
II. We come now to the second form which the objection may take—that as the Gospel revelation sets man in a rank that is too high, so does it bring God too low. In the character of a really great man we require a balance of qualities to satisfy us. This is a principle which we are justly warranted in applying to God. In astronomy we see Him touching the extremity of omnipotence; and if His character is not to be one-sided, we may expect to see Him touching in some other work the extremity of love. We shall seek it vainly all through creation if we do not meet with it in the Gospel. It alone discloses depths of compassion transcending even those heights of power, and points us to a Being who crowns His own nature, as He crowns us, "with loving-kindness and tender mercy." When we take this view, we see that man has been placed in this world in the midst of concentric circles of Divine attributes, which become charged with deeper interest as they press in closer towards him. The inmost circle of fatherly love and forgiving mercy remains in the approach of God to the individual soul. Such a circle there must be; and when we feel its clasp on our hearts, we learn, in the language of the poet, "that the world is made for each of us."
J. Ker, Sermons, p. 227.
The nocturnal heavens at once symbolise and demonstrate the concealed existence and attributes of God, just as the presence and symmetry of a man are made known to the distant spectator when the shadow of his person, in sharp outline, falls upon a brightly illuminated surface. In such a case we do not indeed see the man, nor, strictly speaking, is it more than his exterior form of which we have direct evidence; nevertheless we do not fail to fill up in idea what is wanting in formal proof; and we think almost as distinctly of the person as if he stood, without a screen, fronting us in the blaze of light. Thus it is that both in the vastness and the richness of the visible universe the invisible God is adumbrated.
I. We may boldly affirm that earth is not too small a globe to be thought worthy of giving birth to the heirs of immortality; nor is man too diminutive a being to hold converse with his Creator, or to be amenable to the Divine government. The very multiplicity of worlds, instead of favouring such a conclusion, refutes it by showing that the Creator prefers, as the field of His cares and beneficence, limited and separate portions of matter rather than immense masses. It is manifest that the omnipotent wisdom and power laves to divide itself upon the individuality of its works.
II. But if we must not indulge this feeling, the tendency of which is to quash every aspiring thought and to reduce us from the rank we hold to the level of the brutes, our alternative is another which, without checking any noble emotion, at once imposes a restraint upon presumption, and leads us to estimate more rightly than otherwise we should the consequences of our present course. To exist at all as a member of so vast an assemblage of beings, and to occupy a footing in the universe such as it is, involves incalculable probabilities of future good or ill.
I. Taylor, Saturday Evening, p. 124.
I. How is God mindful of man? He is mindful of man at every moment of his existence—mindful of infancy, of boyhood, manhood in the toils of active life, of age, when all other mindfulness terminates, and when the ties of earth have been loosened one by one.
II. He is mindful of us inasmuch as He has provided all things needful for our existence. Nature brings the keys of her magnificent treasure-house, and lays them, a vassal, at the feet of man.
III. He is mindful of us, again, because He has provided everything, not only for our existence, but for our happiness. If you want to see how He has not left the world to itself from the beginning, take its history from Adam downward. And when, in the fulness of time, the Son of God was incarnate in furtherance of the purpose of the Father, surely God was mindful of His creatures then. The visit of Christ was (1) a visit of humility, and (2) a visit of atonement.
IV. Since the Son has ascended up to heaven, God has been mindful of man in the operations and influences of the Spirit.
V. He is mindful, too, in the dispensations of His providence. The great end of man’s existence in the present life is to prepare for a better. He is so thoroughly earthly, so wedded to the scenes of time, that vigorous means are needed in order to wean him from earth and attach him to the skies. It would save us from misery sometimes if we could only regard our afflictions as having this disciplining and corrective end.
W. Morley Punshon, Penny Pulpit, No. 3608.
Reference: Psa 8:3, Psa 8:4.—Bishop Temple, Rugby Sermons, 3rd series, p. 91.
Psa 8:3-6
I. True greatness consists, not in weight and extension, but in intellectual power and moral worth. When the Psalmist looked up to the heavens, he was at first overwhelmed with a sense of his own littleness; but, on second thoughts, David bethought himself that this was an entire misconception of the matter, and that man could not be inferior to the heavens, for God had, in point of fact, made him only a little lower than the angels—"than the Elohim," is the word in the Hebrew. This term, in the Elohistic portion of the Pentateuch, is applied to the Almighty instead of the term "Jehovah." God had made man, we may therefore read, a little lower than Himself, had crowned him with glory and honour, had given him dominion over the works of His hands, and had put all things under his feet. So far from being insignificant in comparison with the heavens, man is of infinitely more value than they.
II. The progress of science has had a tendency to make us underrate our manhood. The language of very many thinkers nowadays is the first hasty utterance of the Psalmist—"What is man?" And the answer they give to the question is this: Man is but a mote in the sunbeam, a grain of sand in the desert, a ripple upon an infinite ocean, an atom in immensity. They forget that he is an atom which feels, and knows, and thinks, an atom that believes itself endowed with "the power of an endless life."
III. The doctrine of man’s paltriness is no less pernicious than erroneous. So morbid a belief must react injuriously upon character. If we believe that we are more insignificant than the dead and mindless world around us, we shall never give ourselves much trouble about character. On the other hand, if we remember that our spiritual nature is akin to God’s, made only a little lower than His, then we are stimulated to cultivate the manhood with which we have been endowed, to agonise, if need be, till we become perfect, even as He is perfect.
A. W. Momerie, Defects of Modern Christianity, and Other Sermons, p. 266.
Psa 8:4
I. The thought which lies behind this text is of far deeper intensity now than when it was first uttered by the awe-stricken Psalmist. The author of this eighth Psalm could have had but a faint conception of the scale of creation compared with that at which we are now arriving. What is man in presence of the overwhelming display of creative power?
II. But there is another consideration which helps to impress the thought of our insignificance. We cannot but speculate as to the ends which this infinitely vast creation may be serving; and then of what account do human pretensions appear? What becomes of man’s interests, his creation, his redemption, if these innumerable worlds are peopled by beings who wait, as he does, upon God? And yet, strange to say, our very doubts and misgivings may themselves serve to reassure us; for is not the capacity to reflect upon our position and to speculate about our destiny a witness to our greatness? It has been truly said that the very discoveries of astronomy, which unfold to us the vastness of the material creation, reveal at the same time the majesty of man. The discoverer is above his discovery at every step of the process.
III. What then is the right effect upon our hearts of this discovery of God’s limitless working, His immeasurable condescension? It is to do away with our fear; it is to tell us that there is nothing incredible or preposterous in the thought that He visits us, and expends even upon us all the riches of His care and love. The heavens declare His glory, and proclaim it to be infinite. Why may not the Gospel be a similar declaration of His highest attribute, a witness borne to the universe that His mercy is infinite also?
IV. If man is a being so precious, so unique in his origin and destiny, if God has bestowed such manner of love upon him as Christ bids us believe, then what an appeal is made to him to live up to his unspeakable dignity! "It is the highest effort of his culture," says St. Bernard, "when a man comes to care for himself for the sake of his God;" when, that is, his sovereign desire is to be worthier of the rank with which God has invested him and of the love which God has lavished upon him.
R. Duckworth, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 193.
How are we to verify the hope that it is possible for man to have access to God’s presence? St. Paul declares that ever since the creation of the world the invisible things of God, even His power and Godhead, have been revealed in the material universe. But the influence on religious faith and hope of what we call "nature" varies with different men. There are some aspects of nature which sometimes make it difficult to believe that there can be any real communion between the Creator and ourselves. The vastness, the grandeur, of the material universe sometimes oppress us; we are crushed by the sense of our insignificance. What is man that God is mindful of him, and what is man that God should visit him? Our humiliation is deepened by the discovery that our own life is akin to the inferior forms of life around us,—akin to forms of life which look at first sight most remote from us. What right have I to separate myself from the creatures to which I am so closely related? What right have I to claim any special remembrance from God? This is the gospel of science; is it true, or is it false? What are the pleas which are urged against our faith?
I. The whole world, we are told, is a mere speck in the universe, and it is said to be incredible that God should have any special care for it or for those that inhabit it. There is a certain intellectual and moral vulgarity in attaching such importance to mere material magnitude. A few square inches of canvas show sometimes a more costly work than a picture which would cover the side of a house. The world is very small, but what of that if it is big enough to hold the children of God?
II. The second plea is that the life of man is too brief and momentary compared with the ages during which the universe has existed. No doubt, but science itself contains the reply to this argument. Let the doctrine of evolution, on its purely scientific side, be true,—instead of being overawed and humbled by the long succession of ages which have preceded me, I find in them new testimony to the greatness of my nature and the possible dignity of my position. I myself am the consummate result and the ripe fruit of these immense and awful ages.
III. The third plea is that we are encompassed by laws which take no heed of the personal differences of men, of the varieties of their character, or of the vicissitudes of their condition. You tell me of law, but there is another law, even the law of my moral nature. While you have demonstrated that the whole universe is subjected to the authority of natural law, for me there is reserved an inviolable liberty. Separate from nature, I may be akin to God. It is possible, after all, that God may be mindful of me, and that God may visit me. But let us not forget that God is near, and yet He may surround Himself with clouds and thick darkness and may be altogether hidden from us. It is not enough that we draw nigh to God; God Himself must draw nigh to us. If the brightness of His presence shines upon us, that brightness does not come like the splendours of the rising sun, but as the effect of His own voluntary revelation of His glory.
R. W. Dale, Penny Pulpit, Nos. 992, 993.
References: Psa 8:4.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 193; W. Lindsay Alexander, Christian Thought and Work, p. 123; Congregationalist, vol. x., p. 500; J. Baldwin Brown, The Higher Life, pp. 1, 387; H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines, p. 101.
Psa 8:4-5
Man stands on the frontier of two worlds. There is a supernatural sphere, and man’s connection with it is his glory, his endowments from it his highest treasures. "Made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honour."
I. What then is that connection? Can the supernatural world unfold itself before man? The answer is, Most certainly it can. (1) God has laid bare to man the splendid vision by prophecy. Prophecy is God’s revelation by word. Wherever any spiritual truth is taught, the words that teach reveal something of God. (2) What prophecy was by word, that miracle was by act—a revelation of the supernatural world. Miracles have revealed the nearness and power of the personal God; they have been the seal which He has placed visibly upon some great moral revelation, to mark by an act in nature the reality of a supernatural world. (3) Above all, there was the great revelation—the revelation by Himself. "God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son."
II. Can man take in the vision? Can he respond to the revelation? Certainly he can. Man’s apparent activities are limited to the domains of time and sense. The forces by which he conquers, by which he transfigures the temptations of time and sense into the stepping-stones to a higher life, are: (1) That Divine gift which is the power of inward vision. It is given to the soul first as a tendency; it grows if used until it attains the strength of a clear-sighted inward eye. That capacity is faith. (2) Hope, the supernatural virtue which strengthens the soul, not merely to gaze at the beauty of that fair, that unearthly, landscape, but to enter in, and say with holy fear, with humble confidence, "This paradise is mine." (3) Love. To love God is the source of penitence, the crown of joy, the power of union with the supernatural world.
J. Knox Little, Manchester Sermons, p. 41.
I. Consider the exaltation of the humanity in the Divine purpose. It formed the great Divine idea ere the earth was made, and when God dwelt alone in the solitudes of infinite space. The almighty Creator Himself condescended to assume the human nature in union with the Divine in order to exalt that nature, fallen and degraded, to glory and honour.
II. Notice the exaltation of the humanity in the incarnation of the Son of God. "Manifest in the flesh." How magnificent does fallen nature appear, even in its ruins, in thus becoming the very sanctuary and residence of Deity. Christ consecrated infancy, poverty, bereavement, suffering, and death itself, and the grave.
III. Note the exaltation of the humanity in the ascension of Christ. Our human nature occupies the central throne of heaven. "Great is the mystery of godliness, man manifest on the throne of God." It is in glorified human nature that Christ there lives and loves.
IV. Notice the exaltation of the humanity in the day of judgment. "The Father hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of man." Here, again, it is humanity exalted on the throne of final reckoning—the Man Christ Jesus.
V. Once more, contemplate the exaltation of the humanity throughout all eternity. The humanity Christ wore on earth will continue evermore on the throne. The Divine Father, by immutable covenant, invested Him as Mediator with "length of days for ever and ever."
J. R. Macduff, Communion Memories, p. 51.
References: Psa 8:4, Psa 8:5.—S. A. Brooke, Christ in Modern Life, p. 365. Psa 8:5.—H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2273; Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 306.
Psa 8:6
This Psalm is stamped with a worldwide breadth; it is of no nation; it is of all time; it shines with a light transcending that of mere human genius. We are brought face to face with these three: nature, man, God.
I. Look, first, at the text in the light of Old Testament Scripture. It is quite plain that here is no description drawn from nature. All things are not put under man. He does not reign over nature; he wrestles with nature; step by step he gains upon nature, and subdues it to his purposes; but he has still to keep continual watch and ward lest nature should rebel against him and destroy him. The context clearly shows that the Psalmist is looking back to the primitive glory, the primeval character, of man, as it is written upon the very first page of this book. In the light of the Bible man can tell whence he cometh and whither he goeth. Sorrowful and confused as his earthly life is and has been all these thousands of years, still in the light that shines from Scripture it shows like a stormy day that had a splendid rise and that shall yet have a glorious sunset.
II. When we look at these words in the light of New Testament Scripture, a new glory suddenly breaks forth from them. "Now we see not yet all things put under him; but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour," etc. The highest fulfilment of these words can be found nowhere short of Him who loved to call Himself the "Son of man." "Thou hast put all things under His feet." (1) This is what only God has either the right or the power to do. It is not merely supreme power that is here spoken of; it is supreme authority, as when our Lord said to His disciples, "All power is given to Me." In the days of His flesh He constantly exercised four kinds of authority: the authority to forgive sin, the authority to declare truth, the authority to rule nature, and the authority over human hearts and consciences. The claim of universal and absolute obedience and these four are in close, inseparable moral unity. (2) "All things"—small things as well as great. The hairs of your head are all numbered; your name is not unknown to Him. The chief lesson in these words is for every Christian a lesson of restful calm, peaceful, untroubled faith, but faith surely tempered with reverence. All things are naked and open to Him with Whom we have to do.
E. R. Conder, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 161.
References: Psalm 8—C. Kingsley, Sermons for the Times, p. 148; A. Maclaren, Life of David, p. 28; F. D. Maurice, Sermons in Country Churches, p. 148; I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 178; P. Thomson, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. i., p. 173. Psa 9:1.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 304. Psa 9:4.—J. P. Chown, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 63; Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 112. Psa 9:6.—Bishop Magee, The Gospel and the Age, p. 31. Psa 9:10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., No. 287. Psa 9:16.—Congregationalist, vol. vi., p. 536. Psa 9:17.—Spurgeon, Sermons, No. 344; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 250; F. E. Paget, Sermons on the Duties of Daily Life, p. 23; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. v., p. 169; G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 221. Psa 9:18.—Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Genesis to Proverbs, p. 144. Psalm 9—I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 189. Psa 10:4.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv.,p. 57. Psa 10:5.—C. Kingsley, Sermons on National Subjects, p. 174. Psa 10:16.—Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 118. Psa 10:17.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1802.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain Section 3. (Psa 8:1-9.)
Section 3. (Psa 8:1-9.)
The Son of man in possession of His inheritance glorifies Jehovah in all the earth.
Read full note →
Psa 8:1-9.
To the chief musician, upon the Gittith: a psalm of David.
{Verse 1 and verse 9, a "plural of majesty."
Verse 5, Angels -"Elohim," God or gods, sometimes applied to angels; and so the Septuagint and Heb 2:6. (See notes.)}
The third section contains only one psalm, quite distinct in character from the series before it, and which yet leads up to it, as we have seen. But it is (as they are not) Messianic, -a revival, as it were, of those claims of the Son of God to the throne, which, being rejected by the nations, He has forborne as yet to make good in power, as He will surely do. His time of patience has accomplished, in the mean while, the fulfillment of other purposes, even those in which to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, is made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." (Eph 3:10.) Of this we must not expect any intimation here. We are here (as in Old Testament prophecy generally) in the line of Jewish hopes and promises.
Still we have not here the King on Zion, but the wider title of Son of man. This, of course, implies the taking of His other glories, and we shall have many a psalm later on that will present these. Here at the outset we need expect little detail, but the general features sketched of a picture that is to be filled in afterwards. The outline is given with a few bold touches sufficiently comprehensive. Not the King on Zion nor the Son owned of God is here, but the ideal man, the answer to the question, "what is man?" -God’s head over the earth, and with gleams of higher glories, -Son of man, nevertheless, (decisively different in this from the first Adam,) through whom God is glorified on earth, and His glory set even above the heavens. Such is the wonderful scene that is here opened out to us.
It is a psalm of David, "upon the Gittith." Two interpretations of this are given, which practically are not far apart, however. "Some Hebrew scholars," says an anonymous writer whom we may often quote, "would regard it as the name of a musical instrument peculiar to Gath, where David once sought shelter from the unrelenting persecution of Saul. Just as there was among the Greeks a Dorian lyre, which had a wide celebrity on account of its excellent sweetness, so, it is suggested, this psaltery, Gittith, was borrowed by David from the citizens of Gath, and thence introduced by him on account of the superior sweetness of its tone and the beauty and elegance of its form. If this be the true interpretation, it suggests also a deeply spiritual reflection: for how often from the saddest occasions of temptation and distress in the devout life arise the gladdest songs of praise! The wild storm often makes the sweetest music on the Aeolian harp.
"But a more likely derivation may be found for this title, Gittith, in a Hebrew root, signifying "wine-press." And now it is an autumnal song chanted by the vine-dressers at the joyful vintage-season, when the blood of the grape is poured into the wine-vat. Still the same idea is prominent: sorrow and anguish, like the trodden clusters, are fruitful in the wine of a holy joy."
Whether it be Gath the city, or gath the wine-press, the root-word, and so the meaning, is the same, and the thought suggested acquires its fullest significance when we connect it with the cross. The wrath borne for men, the blood outpoured, were there for us the cause of a joy that shall never cease. And how simply it brings before us the apostle’s quotation of this psalm, and the note which he makes upon the quotation: "we see Jesus, made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor." (Heb 2:9.) One might easily imagine that the apostle had in mind the "al haggittith" of the psalm from which he quotes.
1. So brief yet so comprehensive as it is, the psalm has comparatively many divisions. It begins and ends with the glory of God, Jehovah’s name being now excellent in all the earth. But there is more than this: He has set His glory also above the heavens.
It should be evident when we consider what is the great subject before us, that all this has a deeper meaning than at first sight we might give it. The Lord as Son of man, taking possession of the earth as His inheritance, makes everywhere Jehovah’s name excellent in it. When, as Zechariah prophesies, "the Lord my God shall come, and all His saints with Thee," His feet standing upon the mount of Olives, from which He went up, then "Jehovah shall be King over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Jehovah, and His Name one." (Zec 14:3; Zec 14:5; Zec 14:10.)
The application in this way is simple, and it throws light upon the rest of the verse: for then surely we can see that the glory that is set above the heavens is connected with the work of this same blessed Person. It is not the glory of moon and stars spread over the heavens, such as the psalmist speaks of in the third verse, but a glory above all created things, however wondrous. Jehovah it is who is manifest in this Son of man, in whose lowly position just the wonder of His condescending love appears. Supreme in power, He is as supreme in moral glory, and in Christ how does this shine out! Thus the praise of earth ascends to Him, owning His rightful rule: "Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the earth!"
2. Its deliverance has come, therefore, from the oppressor: it is not merely that the voice of calumny has been stopped, as interpreters have taken this verse to mean, but the enemy has passed away. In a fuller sense than could be said of Solomon’s peaceful reign, there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent." So then it is by more than the praise of babes and sucklings that the enemy is silenced, and the Lord’s quotation of the passage with reference to the hosannas of the children does not at all entail such a consequence as this. It is He Himself who will "smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips destroy the wicked." But yet for this He will establish praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings; that is, I doubt not, of new-converted souls, humbled and brought down to such conscious littleness and weakness as this implies. We have again from His lips such a comparison in the well-known words, "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." Thus we see clearly why He must produce such praise in order that the kingdom may come: the heirs of it must be made ready.
The little children in the temple foreshadowed such praise as this, and in this way the language could be suitably used with reference to them. The actual fulfillment will be in those future days to which, as we have seen, these psalms look on.
3. The third section brings us to the central subject of the psalm, a spiritual enigma, no doubt, scarcely read in its true meaning until the New Testament light was thrown upon it. At first sight it is just man -the race -of which the psalmist speaks; and the question asked is really of this nature: but the answer is a secret for the ear of faith, like much more that we shall find as we go on with him. Man (the race) is, in fact, but what the fall has made him; and what can be really said for him? What can justify God’s regard for this ruined creature? Go back to his creation, -put him in the seat from which he fell, -think of the earth as subjected to him, -alas, he seems but to mock the approving words with which his Maker greeted him. Restore him, if it were possible, even to that original excellency, how shall the scepter be again entrusted to hands that have failed so signally to Wield it? How, then, could God go on with such an one?
Really you have no answer till you have a Second Man, -until you can find one unruined, and with better pledges for the future: no use in mere restoration, in mending such a broken vessel as the first; set him aside, and let another take his office; if, indeed, that other can be found.
Here Christ then comes in, really a Second Man. Yet "Son of Man" also, linked with the race in that manner, so as to be able to stand before God the representative of those who in faith look to Him, -the "Seed of the woman," who should bruise the serpent’s head.
Thus He is "made a little lower than the angels," as the apostle explains, "on account of the suffering of death." It is not merely that man’s condition is by creation a little lower, but Christ as become Son of man is made that. It is a true descent that we are to think of here, and the word used for "angels "really "gods," and the ordinary word for "God" (Elohim) -has thus in its very ambiguity peculiar significance. God He indeed was, who had come down to be a little lower than God, -lower even than those habitually representing Him to men,* and so identified with Him, as the angels are: the apostle accepts the Septuagint translation, therefore, "angels."
{*See Joh 10:34-35: where, though the principle is the same, the application is to the judges in Israel.}
"On account of the suffering of death" He had to come down there. Man was under death as penalty, and therefore One had to come in who by voluntary submission to the penalty could glorify God as righteous in it, manifest the holiness of His nature as against sin, but thus also manifest His love in providing escape. And for this, humanity had to be taken; immeasurably exalted indeed, by that which was His humiliation, but now how wondrously in His exaltation! For He laid down only to take up again that "body prepared," and as a Man forever is risen and gone up to God. What meaning is in this way given to the words, "with glory and honor Thou crownest Him"!
4. Now we have his dominion, the first man’s rule being repeated and emphasized in the Second Man. "Thou makest Him rule over the works of Thy hands: Thou halt put everything under His feet." Here again, as we take earth-angles to measure the heavens, so the earth-kingdom of Adam is made to indicate an empire that is universal. And the apostle teaches us that we may take the expressions here in the uttermost truth of them: "in that He put all things under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him."
The psalm naturally, however, clings to earth, though the things mentioned are not forbidden a deeper meaning: "sheep and oxen" give us, of course, the domestic animals; the "beasts of the field," what we speak of as untamed. The spiritual meaning may without difficulty be found by those that will. The heavens and the deep speak of spheres above and below the earth, as the spiritual ranks of the higher heavens serve with delight the Son of man on the one hand, while He has also on the other "the keys of death and of hell."
In all this we are dull scholars, but the general thought is plain. It is no wonder that the psalm ends with that with which it begins; the whole clasped, as it were, together with the uniting bond that has joined God with man, and thus made His name excellent in all the earth, -with a glory, too, which is set above the heavens!
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain This Ps. is a poem of wondering praise, called…
This Ps. is a poem of wondering praise, called forth by the thought of the supremacy and honour that God has given to man, who in himself holds such an insignificant place in the universe. The glory of the heavens and the variety of the works of nature combine to emphasise the marvel of this choice. The Ps. is based upon the story of creation (Gen_1:26-28), and sets forth the ideal dignity of man. Psa_8:6 is applied in 1Co_15:27; Eph_1:22 to the exaltation of Christ, in whom alone the ideal is realised. In Heb_2:6-8 the same thought is expressed in another way, man's failure to attain to full dominion being contrasted with the supremacy Christ has won. The Ps. is used on Ascension Day.
Title.—Upon Gittith] RV 'set to the Gittith' (perhaps an instrument, or tune, of Gath).
Read full note →
1. O Lord our Lord] lit. 'Jehovah, our Lord.' So in Psa_8:9. Thy name] see on Psa_5:11.
Above] RV 'upon.' The glory of God is stamped or impressed on the visible universe.
2. Babes and sucklings] a figure for men in their weakness and ignorance. The words are quoted by our Lord in a more literal sense (Mat_21:16). Ordained strength] RV 'established strength,' laid a foundation for Thy great work. LXX has 'perfected praise,' and our Lord follows this version in the quotation just mentioned. Because of thine enemies, etc.] God's use of feeble instruments to display His glory puts His adversaries to silence: see 1Co_1:27-29.
3. The work of thy fingers] The wisdom and skill of the Creator are thus poetically expressed. The moon and the stars] It is the glory of the sky by night which is before the writer's mind. The discoveries of astronomy only make the conceptions of the Ps. more impressive.
4. What is man] The word rendered 'man' means 'frail man'—humanity in all its weakness and limitation. The son of man] the human race. The expression is a simple variant, and is exactly equivalent to 'man' in the former clause. Visitest] with loving care and remembrance.
5. A little lower than the angels] RV 'but 'a little lower than God.' 'A little less than divine' would represent the meaning. Man, the only creature made in God's image, stands nearest to Him in the ranks of the universe. Philosophy and science are at one with Scripture in placing man at the top of the scale of creation.
6. All things under his feet] A reference to Gen_1:26-28 : applied to Christ, 1Co_15:27; Heb_2:6-8.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain 1 Gittith= "winepress," and so, of the harvest, in…
1 Gittith= "winepress," and so, of the harvest, in the sense of judgment Isa 63:3; Rev 19:15; Psa 7:1, to which the title of Psalms 8. properly belongs, is a Psalm of judgment.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain Psalm 8
Psalm 8
The Son of Man: All Things Put Under His Feet
Read full note →
1. A little lower than the angels; crowned with glory (Psa 8:1-5)
2. All things put under Him (Psa 8:6-8)
3. How excellent is Thy Name over all the earth (Psa 8:9)
Psa 8:1-5. In this Psalm we behold Christ again, and here as Son of Man. Three times this Psalm is quoted in the New Testament; in Mat 21:16, 1Co 15:27 and Heb 2:6-9. The latter passage shows clearly who the Son of Man is who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, to taste death for everything and who is now crowned with glory and honor.
(The inscription of this Psalm is “upon Gittith”--the winepress. If the theory is correct that the titles of the Psalms were misplaced, then “Gittith” should belong to the preceding Psalm, where it would find a good application. But it is equally in place in the beginning of this Psalm, for the Son of Man went into the winepress, the suffering of death when He shed His precious blood.)
The Psalm begins with praise; it will be His praise in that coming day when all things are put under His feet as the second Man, the last Adam, then His Name will be excellent in all the earth and His glory will be set in the heavens (the New Jerusalem). The little children in the temple who sang their Hosannahs when the Lord Jesus was there foreshadow this coming praise. Many expositors have made of “the son of Man” Adam, the first man; but he is the type of the last Adam; the Lord Jesus is meant as Heb 2:6-9 tells us so clearly.
Psa 8:6-8. The first man lost his dominion through sin, the second Man has bought it back by His death. When He comes again then all things will be put under His feet. During His absence “we see not yet all things put under Him.” He must reign till all enemies are put under His feet.
Psa 8:9. The Psalm closes with the same praise with which it begins. It is the future praise of Him, who was made a little lower than the angels and whose Name in that day will be excellent in all the earth. We beheld Him as the perfect Man, as the King, rejected by men, enthroned by God, with the nations for His inheritance, in the opening Psalms. Then followed (Psa 3:1-8; Psa 4:1-8; Psa 5:1-12; Psa 6:1-10; Psa 7:1-17) the experiences of the godly during His absence, especially the Jewish remnant and the Eighth Psalm shows Him as Son of Man, who comes for the deliverance of His people and receives the dominion over all the earth.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Glory of Messiah’s Name.
The Glory of Messiah’s Name.
To the chief musician, for liturgical performance, upon Gittith, a form of zither, named from the Philistine city of Gath, where the author had lived for some time. A psalm of David.
Read full note →
v. 1. O Lord, our Lord, Jehovah, our Ruler, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! The congregation here praises the imprint and evidence of God’s being, both in the works of creation and in the miracles of redemption. Who hast set Thy glory above the heavens, on the entire heavens; for they are fitted out and adorned with His glory. This Lord, the infinite excellence and majesty of whose essence is reflected in the heavens, is glorified also here on earth, in the midst of His congregation.
v. 2. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength, the praise of the very infants in arms proving a victorious power, a rampart and bulwark of might, because of Thine enemies, on account of the adversaries, whose attack would be foiled by the almighty power of God in the praise out of the mouth of children, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger, causing Satan and all his allies to be quiet, fully silenced in their opposition to the works of God. After this stately introduction, to which Jesus Himself refers as finding its fulfillment on the Sunday before His death, Mat 21:15-17, David describes the mystery of the exaltation of the human nature in the person of Christ.
v. 3. When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, productions of Jehovah’s almighty power, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, all of them examples and proofs of the infinite greatness and immeasurable power of God,
v. 4. what is man that Thou art mindful of him, that the great God should spend any thoughts upon human nature, so far below Him that a comparison is not possible, and the Son of Man, that Thou visitest Him? The reference, as Heb 2:6-10 shows, is to Christ, who assumed human nature, with all its weakness and lowliness, who was made in the likeness of men and was found in fashion as a man, Php 2:7-8. It is to this singular man alone that the next words can apply.
v. 5. For Thou hast made Him a little lower than the angels, literally, "Thou hast caused Him to lack a little of God," this being fulfilled when the Son of Man, in the depths of His sufferings for mankind, was forsaken by His heavenly Father, as He Himself cries out, and hast crowned Him with glory and honor, with the majesty and glory peculiar to the essence of God, this taking place when Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, entered upon His state of exaltation, when the Savior, who had deliberately waived the right to use the divine power and majesty communicated to His human nature, assumed and practiced this right, also according to His humanity.
v. 6. Thou madest Him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands, as the Ruler of the entire universe, with boundless power and majesty, and that according to His human nature; Thou hast put all things under His feet, Eph 1:22:
v. 7. all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field,
v. 8. the fowls of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas, these creatures being mentioned as the representatives of all creation. Into the heritage of mankind, lost by the Fall, the singular Son of Man, the Restorer of the human race, has entered. In this one Man, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, mankind has regained the lost happiness and dominion. the lost honor and dignity. In this Man the name of Jehovah has been revealed in its full glory.
v. 9. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth, and not only in the Kingdom of Grace, whose representatives are here praising His great name, but in the Kingdom of Power! Jehovah, Jesus Christ, Messiah, Son of Man, our almighty King: that is the Church’s consolation, that is the sum of its message.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 General Information:
General Information:
Parallelism is common in Hebrew poetry. (See: Poetry and Parallelism)
Read full note →
For the chief musician
"This is for the director of music to use in worship"
set to the gittith style
This may refer to a style of music.
A psalm of David
Possible meanings are 1) David wrote the psalm or 2) the psalm is about David or 3) the psalm is in the style of David's psalms.
how magnificent is your name in all the earth
God's "name" represents his whole being. AT: "people all over the world know that you are very great" (See: Metonymy)
Out of the mouth of babies and infants you have established praise
Possible meanings are 1) praise is spoken of as a solid object that God takes out of babies' mouths and sets up as a defensive wall or 2) God has created the world so that true praise comes to him from babies. AT: "You have given babies and infants the ability to praise you" or "It is babies and infants who truly praise you" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
psalm
David
Yahweh
lord
name
reveal
glory
heaven
praise
adversary
avenge
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Ps 8 Psalm 8 opens the second segment of…
Ps 8 Psalm 8 opens the second segment of Book One (Pss 8–14). The psalmist celebrates God’s creation and the dignity of the ideal human being (see Ps 1). Instead of the world of enemies, wicked people, and distorted justice that is presented in Pss 3–7, this psalm promotes an image of the world as God originally created it. A weary person can envision a place of dignity in God’s world.
8:1 The Lord (Hebrew Yahweh), the covenant God of Israel (Exod 3:15), also holds the title of Lord (Hebrew ’adonay), the king of the earth. • The word translated majestic (sometimes translated “mighty”) can describe kings (Ps 136:18), heroes (16:3), mountains (76:4), or waves breaking on the seashore (93:4). While all are awe-inspiring and mighty, the created order pales in comparison with the Lord. • A person’s name embodies their reputation. • The earth and the heavens reveal the Lord’s splendor. All creation worships and praises the Lord (66:4; 113:3; 145:21).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.