He Excellence Of The Lord

The Excellence of the Lord Psalm 8:1-9NKJ

O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, 7 All sheep and oxen—Even the beasts of the field, 8 The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas. 9 O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

Some Theologies consider this Psalm to be a hymn of praise, because of the beginning verse and the end. However, others call it a so-called nature psalm, or psalm of creation. Definitely, this psalm is ultimately suitable to the important association of the “One last Adam, Jesus Christ!”

Psalm 8:1NLT O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens.

Notice the twin nouns (O Lord, our Lord) of direct address to God. The first is His specially revealed name Yahweh, and the second puts emphasis on His sovereignty.

God’s glory is higher than the heavens. So lets put this in perspective, “What’s keeping you defeated?”

Listen to Isaiah 6:1-8TM In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Master sitting on a throne—high, exalted!—and the train of his robes filled the Temple. Angel-seraphs hovered above him, each with six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew. And they called back and forth one to the other, Holy, Holy, Holy is God-of-the-Angel-Armies. His bright glory fills the whole earth. The foundations trembled at the sound of the angel voices, and then the whole house filled with smoke. I said,“Doom! It’s Doomsday! I’m as good as dead! Every word I’ve ever spoken is tainted—blasphemous even! And the people I live with talk the same way, using words that corrupt and desecrate. And here I’ve looked God in the face! The King! God-of-the-Angel-Armies!” Then one of the angel-seraphs flew to me. He held a live coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. He touched my mouth with the coal and said,“Look. This coal has touched your lips. Gone your guilt, your sins wiped out.” And then I heard the voice of the Master: “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us? I spoke up, “I’ll go. Send me!”

Psalm 8:2NLT You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you.

Children are dependent, while God’s enemies aren’t. God’s touched by the humble, the broken and those who throw themselves on the rock!

Psalm 8:3NLT When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place—

Abraham Lincoln once wrote: “I never behold (the heavens filled with stars) that I do not feel I am looking in the face of God. I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up, into the heavens and say there is no God.”

Psalm 8:4NLT What are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?

This verse is quoted in the NT several times, 1 Cor.15:27-28, Eph. 1:22, Heb. 2:5-10.

Psalm chapter 8, places these verses into perspective, because David is matching God’s greatness with His creation, with man’s finiteness.

Verse 4 again, What is man? God designed all of creation to bless and benefit man-kind.

Psalm 8:5-8NLT Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. 6 You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority—7 the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, 8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents.

Listen to Genesis 1:26-28NKJ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”