Psalm 08

The eighth psalm is, undoubtedly, one of the pearls in the Book of Psalms . In this psalm, David lets his gaze roam over the whole of creation: heaven and earth as the product of God's hand, and he sees himself in the center of it all. This view is based on the fact that he recognizes the reality of the relationship between creation and its Creator, and because he sees the sense and purpose of it all in the miracle of the macrocosms and the microcosms.

The opening sentence contains the words: YHWH and Adoni with majesty and glory. The accent of the whole psalm is upon the Lord as Creator, but the names used for God are those that make reference to Him as the One who entered into the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who is the Almighty, who rules over all. YHWH is the "I AM," Adoni is the Lord to whom we owe obedience. When David calls Him "our Lord," he means that the Lord ought to be obeyed by us all. "Our Lord," after all, means that He is Lord of my life and I am His servant. The Redeemer, Ruler, and Creator is one and the same God.

Modern man feels lost in a hostile world; he tries to conquer the space in which he lives. Redeemed man sees the harmony between himself and the rest of creation. The difference is in our relationship with God.

David's choice of words in the poem is superb. He says, not only that God's glory and majesty are seen in creation, but also that His Name is majestic in all the earth. He speaks about God's Name, that is, His character, the essence of His being. It is the character of God that makes creation vibrate with life and beauty. I wrote these words, early in the morning, sitting on the front porch of a friend's home in Jayapura, Irian Jaya, Indonesia. From there I had a breathtaking view of the bay of the city. Just at that moment the sun came up. It was as if the Lord wanted to prove to me the point that the reason this view was so overwhelming was because it expressed His character and beauty. God is light, and this light breaks up in the prism of nature into glorious gold and deep red with purple of this sunrise. I was given a private demonstration of a meaningful expression of God's character. In his book The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis says some interesting things about the observation of beauty. Beauty is not the subjective reaction of a man to what he sees; it is an objective expression of God's absolute being.

The psalm is written from the viewpoint of a redeemed man. Nothing of what David says here would make any sense for a person who still lives in sin. In quoting this psalm, the writer to the Hebrews says: "At present we do not see everything subject to him. But we see Jesus, ... now crowned with glory and honor."¹ David sees the relationships between God, himself, and the rest of creation as a harmonious unity, because he "sees Jesus." For a man who does not know fellowship with God, the whole of nature is one hotchpotch of senseless cannibalism and cruelty, of disaster and whim, of nonsense and fate. And this picture is partly true. We find a suggestion of the shadow that falls over the work of God's fingers in the question David asks: "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?"

David does not shut his eyes for the fallen condition of creation; he is conscious of the presence of evil, but his understanding of God's character makes him see that evil is a temporary phenomenon. This psalm is, therefore, a confession of faith; it is written from a position of victory, "because of [the] enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger."

In the opening verses David says that God reveals His majesty in the infinity of space, but also in children and infants on earth. We tend to see the inhabitants of the world of David's time as primitive barbarians, who thought that the world was square and that the stars were like little candles on the ceiling of the planet. This psalm exposes our own ignorance about history. David's concept of space is quite realistic and up-to-date. If the infinite God fills space, then space must be infinite, and God has set His glory above the heavens.

David looks up into the night sky, we gather from vs. 3. This psalm is a nocturne. Spurgeon entitled the psalm "The Astronomers' Psalm."² Modern space exploration, in no way diminishes the greatness of God which David depicts here. The most we can add to David's vision at the beginning of the twenty-first century, is that God is even greater than David supposed He was. He is the Creator of this universe.

Bishop Robinson, in his book I Cannot Believe That, quotes the remark one of his children made, when looking at the starry sky: "Which one is ours?" He saw in this an awareness of human greatness; as if a few satellites would have any significance amidst heavenly bodies that are millions of light-years away from us! In comparison, the achievements of man are like the production of one grain of sand at the beach of an ocean. Isaiah's words are more appropriate in this context: "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing."³ And the apostle Paul declares: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-- his eternal power and divine nature-- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made."

However, just as much as God's majesty is revealed in the infinite greatness of space, so He manifests Himself also in the infinite smallness of creation. God's power is founded upon atoms and molecules, upon the testimony of children and infants. J. B. Phillips wrote a book entitled Your God Is Too Small. Our God is not only too small for our understanding, He is also too great. A book should be written, entitled Your God Is Too Great. Somehow, we think that God is too big to occupy Himself with small things. The devil is not defeated by God's overwhelming power, but by His weakness, by the small things of this life. The defeat of the enemy is caused by God's glory in the microcosms. The foe and the avenger are silenced by the praise from the lips of children and infants. The victory over Satan began when God became a baby.

Jesus quotes vs. 2 in his confrontation with the priests and scribes, thus silencing His opponents. He says: "Have you never read, 'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise'?"⁴ The Hebrew word translated "praise" is `oz, which, according to Strong's definition means: "strength in various applications (force, security, majesty, praise)." The Greek word used in the New Testament is ainos, which literally means "a story." Little children tell God's story. Children play an important role in the Kingdom of Heaven and in Jesus' ministry.⁵ It is not only by the Incarnation of Jesus Christ that the devil is silenced, but by the birth of every baby in this world. The creation of man is God's masterpiece.

Yet, the perception of man is limited to the average: our ear only hears tones that are within a certain scale; our eye can only see that which it not too big or too small. Space and infants do not mark the boundaries of God's strength, but they are sufficient in David's argumentation. He does not want to indicate the limits of God's omnipotence, but he wants to determine the place of man in God's creation. God demonstrates His greatness both in the solar systems of the universe and in the crib of a baby.

I witnessed the birth of my four children and the experience was too great for me to comprehend. My emotions expressed effectively what my mind could not; I broke down and sobbed. The whole process of the making of a person, from the moment of loving conception, via the miracle of the first draught of breath to the maturing into adulthood, is a demonstration of majesty which the devil hates, and in the face of which he is made powerless.

God intended to use man to crush Satan, as Paul says: "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet."⁶ We often, mistakenly, think that we need spiritual maturity to conquer the enemy. Psalm Eight proves to us that it is the work of a child! The devil is not defeated by what we do, but by what we are. The birth of the babe of Bethlehem was a fatal blow to Satan, because Jesus was more man than anyone else. The devil hates children with a reason.

In the first two verses of this psalm David puts everything he has to say in a nutshell: God is infinite, both in the greatest and in the smallest things. In the verses 3-9 he says the same thing by giving a practical and prophetic application to the theme.

The nocturne of vs. 3 and 4 is a masterpiece of poetry. David stands outside and gazes into the cloudless night sky. It is amazing that we see the relationship between the heavenly bodies in the universe in which we live, the best when it is dark. The sun, which is for us the source of light and life, draws our gaze downward and blocks the perspective. Evening is a wonderful time of the day for man.

For Adam and Eve the evening was specifically a time of fellowship with God. For Abraham it was the time God imputed righteousness to him because of his faith. For David it became the revelation of the divine paradox of his own smallness and greatness.

In the first place, David acknowledges that the universe is the work of God's fingers, as if the creation was something the Almighty played with his fingers on a stringed instrument. God's fingers are usually mentioned in connection with creation; God's arm symbolizes redemption, and God uses His hand to protect man. God says to Israel: "I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment."⁷ Moses says in his farewell message: "Surely it is you who love the people; all the holy ones are in your hand."⁸ And David sings in one of the psalms: "Show the wonder of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes."⁹

The Stone Tablets were written by the finger of God.¹⁰ Jesus says that He drives out demons by the finger of God.¹¹ All this fits into the framework of creation, which does not merely consist of the formation of matter, but also has a moral connotation. We find the unity between these two facets described in Psalm 19, where David says in the same breath: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands," and "the law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple."¹²

As we said, David must have had a realistic concept of the infinity of the universe, otherwise, he could hardly have seen himself as a puny little creature. Obviously, he gives no indication of being a "primitive" man. Primitive people usually see themselves as "Lords of the Earth."¹³ There is in this psalm no question of a distortion of God's plan for man, such as many primitive tribes hold. David sees man at the highest rank in God's order of creation, but he is astonished to make this discovery. He certainly does not think that man occupies that place matter-of-factly. His humble questions: "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" indicate a sense of reality that forms the basis of David's own greatness. Against the background of this infinite universe, David is utterly amazed by the fact that God even notices him.

Vs. 5, "You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings ..." poses seriously hermeneutical problems. In the book Walvoord: A Tribute, there is a chapter by Donald R. Glenn entitled: Psalm 8 and Hebrews 2: A Case Study in Biblical Hermeneutics and Biblical Theology. The problem is in the words "You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings." The Hebrew reads: watªchacreechuw mª`aT mee-'ªlohiym, which according to The Adam Clarke's Commentary, means: "Thou hast lessened him for a little time from God." Watªchacreechuw comes from the Hebrew word chacer, which is translated as "to lack." Mee-'ªlohiym is derived from `elohim, which has the multiple meaning of "angels," "God" or "gods." In the epistle to the Hebrews, this phrase is translated as: "Thou hast made him for a little while lower than the angels." (NAS). The quote in Hebrews is based on the Septuagint and on the Jewish Targums, and the Syriac Peshitta and the Vulgate agree with this. The problem lies in the ambiguity of the Hebrew; Mee-'ªlohiym can mean either "below God" or "below the gods," since `elohim is a plural form. The term bªneey haa-'Elohiym is used in the book Job for "angels."¹⁴ Also the word watªchacreechuw has the double meaning of "less" as in degree or in time. Apparently, we are dealing here with another example of divine ambiguity. The Holy Spirit uses the same word to express two different nuances. In David's vocabulary Mee-'ªlohiym is used to give expression to his amazement that God can take something as low as man and place him in such a high position. In the epistle to the Hebrews, the Holy Spirit uses the same words to convey the opposite idea. Another example of the use of words or phrases with a double meaning is in Caiphas' speech, where he says: "You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish." John comments on this by saying: "He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one."¹⁵

The most important difference between Psalm 8 and Heb. 2 is the fact that David speaks from the viewpoint of a man who is conceived and born in sin, for whom it is impossible to discover man's original place in God's order of creation. For him it is a most amazing discovery that man would be almost on the same level as the angels. The author of the Hebrew epistle, however, speaks as a redeemed person, to whom the Holy Spirit indicated that God created man originally as a being superior to angels, and that his position as being below the angels is temporary as a result of man's fall into sin. So Psalm 8 and Heb. 2 use the same words to say two opposite things. For David, man's position is an honor; for the writer to the Hebrews it is a humiliation. The difference is in their insight into salvation. The paradox for David is in what the Holy Spirit shows him about himself as a being who is created in God's image and in what David sees in himself as a human being who is fallen in sin. This tension provides the background for his amazement and his worship. So the starting point in Psalm 8 is the low position of man and it accentuates the problem of sin. Hebrews' starting point is the high position of man and it puts the stress on the solution of the sin problem: "Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death."¹⁶

Also the "crowned with glory and honor" do not have the same meaning in both Scripture portions. For David it is the original glory of God's image in man, as Adam and Eve possessed on the day of their creation. In the epistle to the Hebrews it is Christ's victory over sin and death and His ascension to the throne. For David it is man's authority over the creatures of this world; for Jesus it is victory over Satan and his hordes.

The mandate God had given to Adam was the image of the great task Jesus would take upon Himself and the one He accomplished in His death on Golgotha and later will demonstrate completely at Armageddon.

God's mandate to Adam and Eve had been to be fruitful and rule over the earth. We read: "God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.' Then God said, 'I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground-- everything that has the breath of life in it-- I give every green plant for food.' And it was so."¹⁷ What this ruling over the earth would imply is not worked out in Gen. 1. In the light of the total biblical message, we believe that the mandate also included subjection of, and ruling over Satan and his demons. But, in choosing the side of the enemy, Adam never came to the point where he asserted authority over demonic powers. When he fell into sin, he also immediately lost his rule of the animal world. As we mentioned earlier, it was never God's intention that man would rule over man. Each man was to be directly responsible to God.

David's visionary statement: "You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet," is not part of visible reality at present. The writer to the Hebrews observes correctly: "Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him."¹⁸ So David prophesies about the victory of Jesus Christ in particular and of the victory of redeemed man in general. This is the moment of revelation of the sons of god for which the whole of creation waits with bated breath. The apostle Paul says: "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed."¹⁹

The psalm ends with the same words as in the opening stanza, but the words have gained in depth in the meantime. They have acquired and added dimension, and that dimension is Christ. In the first verse God is majestic in all of creation because He is the Creator. But in the last verse God's majesty is revealed through the rule of man over this creation. David does not speak in so many words about the Incarnation, but the mystery is hidden under the words. He may not have understood that himself, (how could he?), but the quotation from this psalm by the writer of the Hebrew Epistle confirms this. Man becomes ruler of God's creation because of the love of Jesus Christ, who washed him of his sins in His blood and made him king and priest for His God and Father.²⁰ When we realize this, what else can we say but: "O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"

² Charles Spurgeon - The Treasury of David

³ Isa. 40:26

⁴ Matt. 21:16

⁵ See Matt.11:25; 18:2-5; 19:13,14; Mark 10:15.

⁶ Rom. 16:20

⁷ Ex. 6:6

⁸ Deut. 33:3

⁹ Ps. 17:7

¹⁰ Ex.3118

¹¹ Luke 11:20

¹² Ps. 19:1,7

¹³ Title of a book about Papuan Tribes in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, by Don Richardson.

¹⁴ Job 1:6

¹⁵ John 11:50-52

¹⁶ Heb. 2:9 (NKJ)

¹⁷ Gen. 1:28-30

¹⁸ Heb. 2:8

¹⁹ Rom. 8:19

²⁰ See Rev. 1:5,6

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