Psalm 8
A Psalm of David
This is a psalm of pure worship to God. In it we find the excellence of God and the great goodness with which He has dealt with man. On both accounts He is to be praised and His wonder is revealed.
1 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
More excellent that anything known in the whole realm of man’s reality is the ‘name’ of God. The Jews used this word in a very interesting way. We think of one’s name as the arrangement of vocal sounds or written characters by which a person is identified.
But as used in scripture, the idea of ‘name’ carries the idea of one’s whole essence, the sounds and characters by which a person is called for sure, but also the authority and status of the person, a sense of the entirety of the person. This is the understanding behind a person’s name being changed as Abram to Abraham and Jacob to Israel. Those men’s essence had been changed by the grace of God and the name alteration signified that change.
The ‘essence’ of God as represented to humans by His ‘name’ is wonderful, glorious, ‘excellent’ beyond description and beyond imagination. He is Perfect and Perfectly Perfect. The language of humanity and the best minds ever given to any of His human creations cannot touch by understanding even the tiniest fragment of the Wonderfulness that is God.
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.
This is an odd statement and it is carried in this form through most of the standard translations. However, the NIV and the Living Bible have a different reading.
Ps 8:2 2 From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praisebecause of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. (from New International Version)
Ps 8:2 2 You have taught the little children to praise you perfectly. May their example shame and silence your enemies! TLB
The commentaries are all over the place on this as well but this is the best I found and I think I agree with
it.
“Ps 8:2 [Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings] We have seen how our Lord applied this passage to the Jewish children, who, seeing his miracles, cried out in the temple “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Matt 21:16. And we have seen how the enemy and the avenger-the chief priests and the scribes-were offended because of these things; and as the Psalm wholly concerns Jesus Christ, it is most probable that in this act of the Jewish children the prophecy had its primary fulfilment; and was left to the Jews as a witness and a sign of the Messiah, which they should have acknowledged when our Lord directed their attention to it.” (from Adam Clarke’s Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Biblesoft)
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?
This is a question every repentant soul asks, “Why would God, the One Who made all of this majestic creation, stoop so far as to rescue me?”
Then, he is carried by the Spirit into what is revealed to be a prophetic foreview of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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:
Heb 2:9 9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. KJV
Eph 1:20-22 22 …he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
21 Far 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:
22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, KJV
It is another way of David saying, “the Word became flesh.” Though mankind has a position lower than the angels, he is still the apex of the Creation in general.
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! KJV
When anyone looks at the entirety of the revelation concerning what the Might God has done for man, he is carried away with worship.