The Majesty of God
Psalm 8
Introduction
Mays: Psalm 8 is the first hymn of praise in the Psalter. It is unlike any other in structure and style. It is the only hymn in the OT composed completely as a direct address to God. Stafford Wright wrote, “This psalm could be killed by a commentary. it is best savoured by reciting aloud, preferably out in the country, perhaps under a blue sky, or under a cloudless night sky, like David, gazing at the march of the constellations as he kept the sheep.”
Psalm 8 explores the theme of God’s majestic splendor and our puny insignificance by way of comparison.
At the same time, God has created us in His image and graciously crowned us with glory and majesty. He has assigned us the role of ruling over His creation. All of these thoughts should lead us, as the psalm both begins and ends (Ps. 8:1, 9), to declare in worship, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!”
Derek Kidner (Psalms 1-72 [IVP], pp. 65-66) comments, “This psalm is an unsurpassed example of what a hymn should be, celebrating as it does the glory and grace of God, rehearsing who He is and what He has done, and relating us and our world to Him; all with a masterly economy of words, and in a spirit of mingled joy and awe….”
1. THE SUPREMACY OF THE CREATOR (8:1, 2).
NIV Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
AMP O Lord, our Lord, How majestic and glorious and excellent is Your name in all the earth! You have displayed Your splendor above the heavens.
Verse 1
Cole: “To try to comment on verse 1 is kind of like commenting on the splendor of the Grand Canyon. Words really can’t do it justice. You just need to get out of the way and let people see it!”
The first word translated “Lord” is the Hebrew word, Yahweh, God’s personal covenant name. It stems from the Hebrew verb, “to be.” God revealed it first to Moses at the burning bush when He said (Exod. 3:14), “I am who I am.” It points to God’s eternal self-existence. He is the only uncreated being in the universe!
The second “Lord” is the Hebrew “Adonai,” meaning sovereign or lord. We could paraphrase David’s address, “O eternal covenant God, our personal Sovereign!” Although God is eternal and totally separate from His creation, He has graciously condescended to enter into a covenant relationship with His people as their Sovereign Lord. What does it mean to say that the Lord’s name is majestic? What other words come to mind when you hear “majestic”? The word “majestic” implies royalty. When Israel celebrated God’s mighty deliverance at the exodus, they sang (Exod. 15:11), “Who is like You among the gods, O Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?”
David also says that the majesty of God’s name is seen in all the earth and above the heavens. Romans 1:20 AMP For ever since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through His workmanship [all His creation, the wonderful things that He has made], so that they [who fail to believe and trust in Him] are without excuse and without defense.
Cole: When we consider God’s majesty as seen in all the earth, I could cite enough examples to keep you here all day. There is enough evidence for the Creator in the human body alone to convince anyone willing to think about it that we are not the product of random chance over a long period of time. The complexity of the human body, the balance of the natural world, the seasons, the balance between insects and birds and the other animals, it is simply absurd to suggest that it all came about by sheer chance over time without the Creator!
Verse 2 Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. What does he mean? We usually think of children as helpless. How does the praise of children and infants create a stronghold against enemies? How do children and infants praise God?
John Calvin said that the process of the conception and birth of an infant displays God’s splendor so clearly that even a nursing infant brings down to the ground the fury of God’s enemies (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], on Psalms, p. 98). Calvin didn’t know anything about the complex biological and chemical processes that take place in the mother and child at birth. He was just observing the wonder of a newborn baby. How can you look at a baby and say that it happened by sheer chance, apart from a Creator?
Little children often praise God. On Palm Sunday, as Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem and then healed the blind and lame in the temple, little children saw these things and cried out, “Hosanna to the Son of David” (Matt. 21:15). Jesus’ enemies, the chief priests and scribes, became indignant about what the children were saying. Jesus replied by quoting this verse (21:16), “Yes, have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies You have prepared praise for Yourself’?” James Boice (Psalms, Volume 1 [Baker], p. 68).
By identifying the praise of the children of Jerusalem with Psalm 8, Jesus not only validated their words, showing them to be proper. (He was, indeed, the “son of David,” the Messiah.) Thus the Lord overcomes His enemies by the marvel of little children and the praise that they sing in their simple faith. Swindoll: It is in his love for the powerless that we see living proof of God’s creative might. This Psalm begins with the supremacy of the Creator!
2. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CREATED (8:3-4).
Psalm 8:3-4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and he stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
David looked up into the vastness of the night sky and saw the moon and the stars, the work of God’s fingers.
Compared to the vastness of the universe, what is man that God thinks of us, much less that He cares for us!
3. THE STATUS OF THE CREATED (8:5-8)
5-8 You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.
In spite of our insignificance, God has crowned us with glory to rule over the creation.
Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”, God created man in His image and likeness. In the same context, God assigned to man the task of ruling over the rest of creation, as David here enumerates.
Hebrews 2:7 You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor.
4. THE PRAISE OF THE CREATOR (8:9).
Psalm 8:9 Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Cloer: We cannot add to the majesty of His name; all we can do is proclaim it throughout the earth. God is all-glorious and nothing that we do can embellish or increase His glory; however, we can reflect His great glory in our personalities and lifestyles and declare it with our lips to others.
Smith asks, Does observing God’s world move you to worship God with praise? What role should this act have in your spiritual disciplines?
Cole: How can we apply this psalm?
-We should bow in awe before our majestic Creator! This psalm should humble us and cause us to marvel at God’s grace and love in caring for us by sending His Son as our Savior.
-We should treat each person with value and respect as beings created in God’s image. John Piper has said, “You cannot worship and glorify the majesty of God while treating his supreme creation with contempt.” (http://www.desiringod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ ByScripture/1/860_What_Is_Man/) Christians must oppose all racism. We must treat all people with respect.
-We value the creation account and do not support any other theories that leave God out of the equation.
-We should be good stewards of God’s creation. While modern man worships the creation rather than the Creator, we should not neglect the fact that we are the stewards over God’s creation. We should oppose the greed that often destroys creation with no regard for its beauty and preservation.
-We should enjoy God through his creation.
Keller’s Three reflective questions for devotional meditation
-Adore - What did you learn about God for which you could praise or thank him?
-Admit - What did you learn about yourself for which you could repent?
-Aspire - What did you learn about life that you could aspire to, ask for, and act on?
Conclusion
Faughn: God is truly majestic. Both the most brilliant star and the tiniest baby house his glory…. He deserves not only our words of praise, but also the commitment of our hearts and minds to those words.
2. In this Psalm we see God’s Glory all around us. (Cloer) In the inanimate things - stars, moon, sun, trees, hills, and grass. Without tongues, they compel us to praise Him! In intelligent life. Humans are a marvel to consider. Every part of a human declares the Maker’s praise. In non-intelligent life. The living creatures fulfill
balance of nature, the inexplicable character of the wildlife, and the exactness of their habitat all inspire a chorus of praise for these wildlife.
We should always be alert to the foreshadowing of Jesus in the Psalms.
Hebrews 2:6-9 But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? 7 You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor 8 and put everything under their feet.” In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
Smith: The wonderful theologian J. I. Packer says of the era in which we live, “We stand at the end of four centuries of God shrinking” in the public mind…He gets smaller while we get bigger. The Bible does not see it this way. David did not see it this way. We are small. God is great! Let us make his name magnificent throughout the earth!
G. K. Chesterton “The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder.”
“Lord, I believe that just by saying these words and singing them out, You will reveal Yourself to me in the same way You revealed Yourself to David. I also proclaim that Your name is wonderful. Your name is great. Your name is excellent in all the earth and in every single place. Lord, let me pick up this key, consider, and use it every single evening as I look at the night sky. Let my eyes see all of the beauty that You put in place for man. Let Your majesty stream down from the heavens, filling up the earth with the fame of Your name. Let Your beauty shining in the heavens fill everywhere with the fame of Your name, with the beauty of Your name, and let it be seen in every place. Thank You, Lord, for such beauty. When I look up at the sky, when I look up at the stars, when I look at the beauty of creation, show me who I am before You. Let me slow down and spend time considering all that You created and made with Your fingers. Show me that in all my ways, You are thinking about me, and You have me on Your mind. Let me remember through every season I am on Your mind—I am in Your heart. Oh Lord, let me take the time to consider that the same way that I look at the beauty of the stars and feel in awe of the greatness of who You are, that You also look at me the very same way. You are in awe of what You have created within me. Help me to encounter You like David, and speak into my soul who You say I am.” — 30 Days of Praying the Psalms: King David’s Keys for Victory by Julie Meyer
Resources
Cloer, Eddie. Truth for Today: Psalms, 1-50. Resource Publications, 2004.
Cole, Stephen J. God’s Majesty and Ours. https://bible.org/seriespage/psalm-8-god%E2%80%99s-majesty-and-ours
Faughn, Adam. Hymns of the Heart. Start2Finish, 2015.
Holloway, Gary. Psalms, Hymns of God’s People. Leafwood, 2022.
Mays, James L. Interpretation Commentary: Psalms. John Knox Press, 1994.
Meyer, Julie. 30 Days of Praying the Psalms: King David’s Keys for Victory. Destiny House, 2021.
Smith, J. Josh and Daniel L. Akin. Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary: Exalting Jesus in Psalm 1-50. B&H, 2022.
Swindoll, Charles R. Living the Psalms. Worthy, 2012.
Wright, J. Stafford. Psalms: A Guide, Psalm by Psalm. White Tree Publishing, 2017.
