Psalm 8, How Majestic is Your Name
1, O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens.
2, Out of the mouth of babies and infants, You have established strength because of Your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
3, When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place,
4, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him?
5, Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
6, You have given him dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,
7, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
9, O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!
Verses 1-2
David starts off with, “O LORD, our Lord.” Whenever we see “LORD” in the Old Testament, God’s personal name, Yahweh, is being used. In the Hebrew Old Testament, “Yahweh” is still written as Yahweh, except the vowels are purposefully put in the wrong places of the word because of the traditional Jewish custom of never saying or writing His personal name down out of reverence. So here, David addresses God personally, and then gives Him the honorific title of “Lord” in the Hebrew word Adonai, which is a term used to address someone as king or ruler. So David is acknowledging God as ruler of the earth, and over his own life.
We witness God’s majesty in the earth. People often ask me why photography is such an expensive hobby of mine, and it’s because I see God’s majesty and glory in all His creation. I photograph so I might capture an image of God’s majesty. The photograph to the left is one of many photographs I’ve captured that makes me ponder on God’s majesty. When we stop and admire a sunset, a sunrise, a beautiful waterfall, a field of flowers, we are stopping to admire God’s majesty in His creation whether we acknowledge it or not. His majesty extends beyond our view as we stare into the heavens. We stop and admire the stars, the Christian mesmerized by God’s creation, the unbeliever awe stricken by the beauty that supposedly blew up into existence by sheer dumb luck.
We even see God’s majesty in people—in the birth of infants, what we often dub as “the miracle of life.” God’s most majestic and glorious works are most clearly displayed in the incarnation of His only Son, Jesus Christ, and in the reconciliation He has brought us. On verse 2, Martin Luther makes this comment:
This is the way Christ’s kingdom is established, namely, not with human force, wisdom, counsel or power, but with the Word and the Gospel preached by infants and sucklings… By “infants” He does not mean young children who cannot walk… but plain, simple, unsophisticated people, who are like infant children in that they set aside all reason, grasp and accept the Word with simple faith, and let themselves be led and directed by God like children. Such people are also the best scholars and pupils in Christ’s kingdom. (Luther’s Works, 12:108.)
Thanks for this, great post! Praise and honour to our Father!