When I Look at the Heavens – Psalm 8

Thomas Manton, 17th century English Puritan clergyman best known for his skilled expository preaching, “points us to the great advantages for our faith in pondering God’s creation:  [Turning our minds to creation] is a wonderful advantage to faith to give us hope and consolation in the greatest distresses. The whole creation is a standing monument of God’s power. The works of creation are but pawns and pledges of the possibility and certainty of everything promised. Every promise is as powerful as God’s first creating word, ‘let there be light.’” [theBreadline.blog]  David’s pondering of God’s creation has led him to  some of the most sublime and encouraging words we find in the psalms.

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!  You have set your glory above the heavens.  Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at 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, and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!  (Psalm 8 ESV)

The Hebrew reads, “Yahweh our Lord, how majestic…,” using, as frequently in the Old Testament, the sacred name of God that He revealed to Israel (Exodus 3).  His name is expressive of His character and His character is seen in the glory of the creation, especially the sun, moon and stars in the heavens above, and in His covenant with mankind to share dominion with Him over His creation.  “Babies and infants,” Israelite believers who seem as children compared to the might of other Gentile nations, have been chosen by Yahweh to give Him praise and show others the way to the true and living God.

David sees the vastness and majesty of God’s creation and wonders at the seeming insignificance of human beings in comparison, but acknowledges with Genesis that Yahweh has made humans His co-regents in ruling over all things.  Humans are thus made lower than the angels (the “gods” in the Hebrew) signifying just how amazing we are as creatures.  Jesus, as the ideal human being, is the eternal Son who took on human nature, was made a little lower than the angels in his human nature, suffered and died for us, and then was crowned with glory and honor as the first human being to be resurrected and given a resurrection body suited for the kingdom.  We will follow in his steps.