Psalm 8, The Awesome Heavens

Psalm 8 is a simple psalm of joyful praise.  This time there are no enemies, no trials, no pleas.  A shepherd, out among the night stars, sings to the Creator.

For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David.

The Hebrew word "gittith" probably describes a musical instrument or instruction.  The serious musicians whom I have known delight in exploring different instruments, in finding new ways to make interesting sounds.  David seems to have had the same desire. 

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

Consider a picture of a hundred galaxies....  In the Astronomy Picture of the Day here, the Coma Cluster of Galaxies is visible; almost every pixel of light in this picture is a galaxy, each with many billions of stars.  

Many other incredible pictures are available at NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day website. Another similar set of dramatic pictures occurs in the Hubble Deep Sky survey, in which a very small dark part of sky was revealed, under Hubble's magnification, to be filled with about ten thousand galaxies!  (That small portion of sky photographed was about one thirteen-millionth of the total night sky!)

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

David lists several domains where God name & glory are set.  What are they?

Is the statement in verse 2 hyperbole (poetic exaggeration)?  Do you think David really means that the infants praise God?

How does this praise "silence" the foe?  (Or does it really?)

When I consider 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, 
the son of man that you care for him?  

You made him ruler over the works of your hands; 
you put everything under his feet: 
all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field, 
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

What scenery, what parts of creation, set David into this aspect of prayer?

David turns from considering the stars to considering humankind.  His question, "What his man?" is not a negative one, but one of astonishment.  The One who created the immense heavens also created mankind as a special, important part of Creation.  "How can that be?" asks the psalmist.

We are made just a little lower than the elohim, the other divine beings, other "gods".  (Some translations use the word "angels" here.)  Yet in all this, humankind is sub-ruler over much of God's work, caring for God's creation.  Recall the close relationship between "flocks and herds" and one's daily life in Old Testament times?  David, particularly, was a shepherd.

Who can notice God's glory?  Is it hard to find or clearly visible to everyone?   David assumes that this glory is clear and obvious, easy for all to see.  Maybe even the nursing babes and small children are awed by it all!

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

The psalm ends by repeating, as a bookend, the original verse of praise:

Note.  Our understanding of this psalm is further developed by commentaries on it in the New Testament.  See, for example, Hebrews 2:5-10 and I Corinthians 15:25-28.  The Hebrews passage will interpret  "son of man", occurring in verse 4, as a reference to Jesus.

For next time: Read Psalms 9 & 10 (read them together, as a single song.)

I will post on Psalm 9 on Friday, June 12, 2015.