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It is very worth our while to read and study and contemplate the words of the Psalms. As Rabbi Loren has already pointed out:

• The Psalms are part of Scripture, and all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.
• The Psalms teach us about God and about Messiah
• The Psalms help us learn to talk to God honestly and reverently
• The Psalms help us learn how to be better worshipers
• The Psalms help us connect emotionally with God in situations

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To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David

Who was the choirmaster? What choir? We usually think of Psalms that have this ascription as being purposed for corporate worship in the Temple. But there was no Temple in King David’s time. There was, however, a Tabernacle; and there were assemblies for the purpose of worship and/or dedication. We do know that David was an avid musician and songwriter. He played various stringed instruments, and was even commissioned as a very young man to play the lyre for King Saul. In fact, in his last words, David described himself as the sweet psalmist of Israel.

In 1 Chronicles 6, David appointed two men from the tribe of Levi, Heman and Asaph, to oversee all music in the Tabernacle. The worship of Adonai through music is so important that the biblical writer, inspired by the Holy Spirit, included their complete genealogies! I think it likely that these men were the ones David had in mind when this and others of his psalms were ascribed to ‘the choirmaster’.

According to Gittith would mean instrumentation from Gath, in Philistia! Perhaps during his sojourn there (1 Samuel 27 – hiding from Saul), David heard a beautiful melody, and brought it back with him when at last he was able to return to Israel, writing words to it that would exalt Adonai, the true God.

This morning, I’d like us to read, enjoy and contemplate the message of Psalm 8 – one of my very favorites. There are just nine verses, so we have the luxury to take our time, and to consider it a little at a time. But first I’ll read it straight through. As we read and reflect on this Psalm, may the Lord fill our hearts afresh with wonder at all He has done!

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!

You have set Your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babies and infants You have established strength, because of Your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!

Verse 1

O Lord, our Lord,

Adonai, Adoneinu…

The first name is the Tetragrammaton, the sacred, covenant name of the Creator. The second one is actually Adoneinu spelled out from the Hebrew Adon – ‘Lord,’ ‘Master,’ or ‘Sovereign’. The Eternal One who created the heavens and the earth is, on a much more personal level, the One we serve. He isn’t just The LORD, but He is our Lord! How cool (and reassuring) is that?

how majestic is Your name in all the earth!

Ma adir shim’cha b’chol haAretz!

The word adir can mean ‘mighty’ or ‘majestic’ and is recognizable from a familiar song sung at Passover – Adir Hu – a song that extols the attributes of God. As I think most of you already understand, when we read about God’s name, it isn’t usually meant to be understood as a moniker, but rather it has to do with His reputation, His renown. And His renown is mighty and majestic across this world which He made (magnificently), and is recognized especially by those who have come to know Him.

You have set Your glory above the heavens.

Asher t’na hod’cha al haShamayim.

Ever since I became a follower of Yeshua, clouds have fascinated me. Anyone else? Certain cloud formations and the way light hits them and highlights their structure, just make me think about eternity. In my first year and a half of college, Astronomy became my favorite subject. And, to this day, whenever I see infrared photographs of planets and nebulae in the heavens, or even time-lapse photographs of the spiral arm of the Milky Way taken from a remote area of the earth, it fills me with awe and wonder. But perhaps I’m too easily impressed, since David says that God has set His glory above the heavens. How much glory must that be?

The word hod’cha (from hod, meaning ‘glory’) is one of several Hebrew words that can be translated that way. Other Hebrew words translated as ‘glory’ include tiferet and kavod. But it has been suggested by some Jewish commentators that hod refers to inner glory – the very nature and character of God. And David says He has set it above the heavens. If Creation itself reveals God’s glory, we need to know that His greater glory isn’t to be found in what He made – it is beyond the farthest reaches of the cosmos! And to think that one day we’ll see Him as He is!

Verse 2

Out of the mouth of babies and infants, You have established strength because of Your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

God is so powerful and wise that He will perfectly accomplish His purpose, using even the unlikeliest of people to bring it to pass. Babies and toddlers are hardly thought of as wielding great strength.

God does things in ways that to us seem counter-intuitive. Influenced by the world around us, we get this idea that the key to success is to attain notoriety, and build a big constituency. And so we strive for credibility, and we completely run afoul of God’s ways.

Adonai has never sought to impress the sophisticates and the power-brokers of the world. In fact, whenever He was doing something significant, He did a complete end-around the big shots, and revealed what He was doing to the humblest, even despised groups of people.

• Messiah’s birth was revealed, not to the sophisticates, but to shepherds
• Messiah’s chosen disciples weren’t Judean scholars, but Galilean fishermen
• The first witnesses of Messiah’s resurrection? Women – usually not trusted
• Messiah said that if we would enter Heaven, we must become like children

And listen to how Yeshua applied this Psalm to Himself (cf. Matthew 21:14-16)

And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to Him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Yeshua said to them, “Yes; have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise’?”

In fact, Psalm 8 is quoted four times in the New Covenant!

(Matthew 21:16, Hebrews 2:6-8, 1 Corinthians 15:27, and Ephesians 1:22)

And listen to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 (my rendering of the Greek):

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly of this world and the despised – and the ‘nobodies’ – to nullify the ‘somebodies’ so that no one may boast before God.

So now back to Psalm 8, verse 2. Why did God establish strength out of the mouth of babies and infants? David wrote that it was because of His foes, and then says, to still the enemy and the avenger. Not only will God triumph over His enemies, and in particular His ancient foe – Satan – but they will be put to silence and shame when He does so through the littlest and weakest and simplest of human beings. Adonai will receive all the glory, and those who set themselves against Him will be eternally humiliated at how it came to pass. Tolkien understood this. Think: Frodo!

When I hear the words, out of the mouth of babies and infants, it reminds me of the stanza in the hymn “A Mighty Fortress”

The Prince of Darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! His doom is sure.
One little word shall fell him.

Alexander Solzhenitzyn wrote,

“One word of truth outweighs the whole world.”

Verses 3-4

When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place,

Along with Psalm 19, which Rabbi Loren beautifully unpacked for us two weeks ago, Psalm 8 is one of five psalms considered “Creation Psalms”. The night sky exhibits God’s great power and artistry. Sadly, our living in densely populated cities, flooded with so much ambient light at night, has robbed us of seeing the magnificence of it.

At the tip of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, just outside of Mackinaw City, is a place that’s on my must-visit list. It’s the Headlands International Dark Sky Park; a place established to enable people to get a very clear and unimpeded view of the night sky. In the days before electricity was harnessed for our use in lighting up our homes, all a person had to do was take a night time stroll to see the beauty of God’s heavens. Gratefully, the development of telescopic technology and stellar photography has renewed the wonder of seeing the details of the moon, the planets, and even to see distant galaxies. And, as a little bonus, we are able to see the beautiful world we occupy from space, and it is truly lovely and unique.

One of my favorite Bible teachers, David Guzik, notes: “With the naked eye, one can see about 5,000 stars. With a four-inch telescope, one can see about 2 million stars. With a 200-inch mirror of a great observatory, one can see more than a billion stars. The universe is so big that if one were to travel at the speed of light, it would take 40 billion years to reach the edge of the universe. Considering the heavens makes us see the greatness of God.”

And when he considers all this, David flat out marvels, saying,

what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him?

He wasn’t asking about human nature or intrinsic worth. He was declaring his amazement to think that God, the Creator of this vast universe with its innumerable galaxies, could also be so full of love and have genuine regard for us little human beings. That’s the point! David, filled with wonder, simply phrased it as a question.

And what about that thing called ‘wonder’? Have we lost the capacity for it? I’d like to quote our brother of blessed memory, Ravi Zacharias:

Plato said that all philosophy begins with wonder. Wonder, to Plato, was that impulse that probed, investigated, and sought out explanations. Give a toy to a little boy and in moments it is broken because he has opened it up to see what makes it whir or tick or chime or speak. It is our hidden Narnia, into which we long to step and explore. It is the rotating musical merry-go-round that entrances the child. It is the sight of a jet plane or a rocket surging into the skies and the marvel, if only for a moment, at such design and power and beauty. It is also the touch of a hand that makes you wish that time would stand still, the musical score that grips the soul.

Yet it was Francis Bacon who ruefully observed that though it may be true that all philosophy begins with wonder, it is also true that wonder dies with knowledge. Explanation is the termination point of mystery, analysis the death-knell of curiosity. The parts are greater than the whole when you are in pursuit, but they become lesser than the whole when it is no longer a mystery and the toy no longer enchants.

I believe G.K Chesterton was absolutely right when he astutely observed that the older one gets, the more it takes to fill the heart with wonder—and only God is big enough for that.

And that is the truth and beauty and the great assurance of Psalm 8. When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? God is big enough, and God really does care for us. We are important to Him!

Verse 5

Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.

You may have heard it said that you are not a physical body that contains a soul. You are a soul that, for the moment, occupies a physical body. Scripture promises that all who have surrendered their will and transferred their allegiance to Messiah Yeshua will be glorified together with Him on that great Day. For the time being, we exist in these limited bodies, a tier lower than the angels, yet with authority to govern affairs on the earth; a measure of glory and honor.

You would be right to say that, for the most part, our governance leaves much to be desired. It is on account of the Fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden – Adam and Eve joining the ancient rebellion of Satan, that our governance is corrupted, and the world is filled with injustice, violence, greed and so lacks in compassion.

Nevertheless, God has crowned man as viceroy over the Earth. We have dominion over the things God has made, as the Psalm goes on to say.

Verses 6-8

You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

David includes the fact that our dominion extends to the animal kingdom. We may not be able to breathe underwater like fish, or be able to fly like birds, but we have authority over them, just as over the earth, to cultivate and to use for our purposes and according to our will. Unfortunately, as I stated a few moments ago, our fallen nature has corrupted our management of the world and its resources.

Rabbi Paul quotes verses 5-8 in 1 Corinthians 15, and attributes it to Messiah, who existed from all eternity with the Father in unimaginable glory, yet for a time willingly emptied Himself and then surrendered His life to make atonement for us, so that we could be reconciled to God. Paul extends the words of the Psalm to show that Messiah Yeshua was also made a little lower than the angels, yet rose from the dead, to be crowned with all glory and honor.

As though framed on each side like lovely, ornate bookends, David ends the psalm the same way he began it – with a great exclamation.

Verse 9

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!

If we’ll just have eyes to see and ears to hear, a heart that is humble and teachable, we will see how wonderful our God is, and that the whole earth resonates with His artistry and creative power.

His name is majestic. His renown will be made known across all the earth. One day every knee will bow in acknowledgment to the Lord God of Israel, and to His Messiah, and our Kinsman Redeemer, Yeshua. May our knees bow in adoration and joy even now, and all the more on that day. That Great Day is coming when, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. Sometimes I feel like that day can’t come soon enough. Come, Lord Yeshua!