Ok, it’s been more than a week since the last blog, but it’s been a little while longer since our last look at the Psalms. Consider that remedied. Today we look at the Eighth Psalm, which is all about the majesty of our Great King!
Let’s get started…
For the music director, on the Gittith. A psalm of David.
1 Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, who put your splendor above the heavens.
I don’t always choose a translation which chooses to use one of the transliterations of the tetragrammaton, but it seemed appropriate here since David mentions how majestic His name is in all the earth. In case anyone is wondering, here I used the LEB translation.
2 From the mouth of children and infants you have founded strength on account of your enemies, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
This brings to mind Matthew 11:25 where Jesus says that God has hidden things from the wise but revealed them to the little children. Or, likewise, where Jesus says that we have to have faith like children. It’s when we stop trying to argue with God over what’s possible that we’re truly starting to live in the faith that we’re supposed to walk out our lives. Faith isn’t some nebulous thing that is hard to pin down. Faith isn’t some mental concept that you can only understand in your brain. If a man is faithful to his wife, that doesn’t mean that he only walks out his love in his head; the man is faithful to her by his actions as well as his mental decisions. So let us have the faith of children and infants in our actions with God.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place— 4 what is a human being that you think of him? and a child of humankind that you care for him?
It really is amazing to think of all the things in creation and how we’re the created thing that God has chosen to interact with. God created everything, and then He closed creation by creating us in His image. And He created us to be his representatives throughout the earth to all of creation. But look at all the stars in the heavens, and look at the beauty of the leaves on the trees turning color in the autumn. And, we’re God’s ambassadors. He has chosen to be intimate with us, above all of creation. This is readily apparent in Psalm 115:16 where we read, “The highest heavens belong to the LORD, but He gave the earth to human beings.”
5 And you made him a little lower than heavenly beings, and with glory and with majesty you crowned him.
This almost sounds like we’re starting to talk about Messiah here. Frankly, when I first read this to start talking about the verse I read this as being about Messiah. In the second chapter of the book of Hebrews we get this description of Jesus, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of the death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.” So while this verse is talking here about human kind, it was also taken by the author of Hebrews to be about Jesus. This is probably a good time to mention that God does this more than a few times. Sometimes, you may think you’re reading about one thing, but then you realize you’re reading about something else. Does that mean that it’s no longer about the first thing? Not at all. In my opinion (and that’s all this is…), God does this to show us that things are bigger than just our puny view of things.
6 You make him over the works of your hands; all things you have placed under his feet: 7 sheep and cattle, all of them, and also the wild animals of the field, 8 the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, everything that passes along the paths of seas.
Again, this is still, on the surface level, about mankind and his place in creation, but this is beautiful illustration of how the Messiah is not only the Son of God but is also the Son of Man.
9 Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all of the earth!
It’s a somewhat short verse but it’s huge in its scope. There are many different sides to the argument of how you pronounce “the Name”, but I think the point is that He is BIGGER than this argument. Whether you say “Yahweh”, or “Jehovah”, or “Yehovah”, or “Yahuah”, or “Adonai”, or just “the LORD”… He’s bigger than the argument. He knows who you are and everything about you. Historically, proclaiming the name of someone wasn’t necessarily just saying that person’s name; it was more along the lines of speaking with their authority, and it was declaring their very being. So in saying, “how majestic is your name in all of the earth,” what we’re actually seeing is the declaration that YHVH is the very essence of what majesty is on the earth. Majesty, a term used of kings; and He is our great King. The King of Kings. David wrote this while being the king of Israel, yet he had a great Suzerain King, who he gave his fealty to. So if the king of a nation can give fealty to our great King, how much more should we do the same?
This was first posted on my personal blog at the following address:
http://thepoiema.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-psalms-8-how-majestic-is-your-name.html