Commentary on Psalm 8

Psalm 8 celebrates YHWH as creator of all and, thus, Lord of all. Since God made the world, God has the ultimate claim of ownership and governance over everything.¹ The psalm begins and ends with this central claim, that God reigns supreme (verses 1a, 9). The rest of the psalm explores the unique place that humans occupy within the cosmos and marvels that God has given humanity a position of honor (verses 1b–8).

An opening refrain

Psalm 7 ended with a vow “to sing praise to the name of the LORD, Most High” (verse 17). Psalm 8 begins, as if it were a response to that call to praise: “O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth.” The repeated refrain (verses 1, 9) sets the rhetorical goal of this psalm. The refrain is an exclamation: “How majestic!” But it can also be understood as a question: “How majestic?” The rest of the psalm (verses 2–8) provides a response to this refrain, both an answer to the question and an exposition of God’s name.

To refer to one’s “name” in the ancient world was to speak of the fullness of one’s identity. The name captured the essence of someone, the composite value of one’s actions, character, substance. As one can see in numerous biblical narratives, the name can tell a story and give insight into one’s past, present, and future actions (see, for example, Jacob, Genesis 25:26; renamed Israel, Genesis 32:22–32). God’s name is the one word by which divine power can be invoked, and the means by which one can praise God and petition God.

Humanity amid God’s creation

To catalog the majesty of God’s name, the psalm describes the extreme reaches of the cosmos. The ancient reader would have understood the whole world in view as the psalm moved from “the heavens” (verses 1–3) to the lowest points, “along the paths of the seas” (verse 8, New Revised Standard Version). In fact, the psalmist places these elements in a hierarchy. The psalmist imagines a multi-tiered system, in which the highest elements are most important.

There is a special irony in that the Hebrew word hôd, translated as God’s “glory” here (verse 1b), can also be translated “weight” or “majesty.” Ancient economic practices made use of a handheld balance, with two trays suspended by string from one stick.² Heaviness thus conveyed the idea of great value. God’s value is “heavier,” in this sense, than anything else. It would have been arresting for the ancient reader to think of the profound majesty (hôd) of God suspended high, filling the heavens. In fact, as the psalmist describes it, God’s heavy glory is “above the heavens” (verse 1).

The psalm juxtaposes the most vulnerable creatures, “babes and infants” (verse 2), with the most immense and mystifying aspects of God’s creation, “your heavens” (verses 3–4). The vastness of the sky highlights the smallness of humans. The psalmist marvels that God would care about something so relatively insignificant. The smallness of humanity is all the greater mystery because God has empowered humans to maintain all God’s creation.

The scale of God’s majesty exceeds humans’ ability to comprehend it fully. It stands outside our ability to observe it, higher than anything we can see. It is invisible, but nevertheless palpable within the world, for God protects God’s people (verse 2). This paradox of God’s glory as both powerful and incomprehensible is expressed through a unique literary image. The sounds of babbling infants are associated with the strength of a fortress (verse 3):

Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes.

For the psalmist, God’s glory is ultimately unknowable, like the meaning of baby talk, but also strong enough to repulse an enemy.³

Meditating on this paradox of God’s glory spurs the psalmist to reflect on humanity in the context of God’s creation. In verse 3, the psalmist is moving by increments downward, from above the heavens, through the heavens, and then just a little lower, to the humans whose power lies just below that of the numinous beings. The psalmist describes these numinous beings here as “gods” (’elōhîm), though the New Revised Standard Version translates this term as “God.” Either one is an appropriate translation, though in this context, “gods” is probably more accurate.

In many ancient Near Eastern religions, heavenly bodies like the moon and stars (verse 4) were in fact understood as persons, deities themselves with agency and volition, as evidenced by their constant movement through the heavens. It may be that the psalmist is naming these heavenly forces in speaking about “gods” in verse 3. In any case, the psalm understands these beings as being fashioned by God and thus controlled by God (verse 4), with their movement governed by God. To be sure, the psalm suggests that the heavens are not an object of veneration, as in the rest of the ancient world. Rather, God is “above the heavens” (verse 1). The heavenly bodies only give testimony to the greatness of God (see also Psalm 19:1), who created them.

Humanity’s authority and God’s governance

Psalm 8 makes it clear that the value of humans is not to be equated with that of God. Even so, the psalm has a very positive view of humans, describing them as “just a little lower” than God or “the gods” (verse 5). The hierarchy is filled out, in turn, by God putting all things “under” humans (verse 6). Humans do not have dominion on their own merit, but because of God’s overarching authority. Humans govern the world, but God governs them. Humans have a derived authority. The psalm shows that God has set humans to govern in a way similar to how God has set God’s glory above the heavens (verse 1) and established the moon and the stars in their proper places (verse 3).

An interpretive question for both ancient and modern communities reading this text should be: What kind of sovereignty does God exercise? Human actions and power in the world reflect God’s government, so we are obliged to act toward the world as God acts toward it. In God’s government as revealed in the Word made flesh, the most powerful one is the one who gives up power. God’s government reverses the expectations for what is valuable and who is majestic. As disciples of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we participate in the paradox of the glory of God. All authority for Christians finally derives from the one who gave up his authority.

Notes

1. Portions of this commentary appear in a slightly different form in “Trinity Sunday, Psalm 8 (Genesis 1:1-2:4a),” in Connections: Year A, Volume 3, A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship, ed. Joel Green et al. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2020), 8–9.
2. Today most of us are only familiar with a balance like this through the image of justice personified, blindfolded while holding the balance and the sword.
3. This sense of the phrase “out of the mouths of babes” in common English parlance is a keen, surprising insight from a youth. To be sure, kids do say wise stuff! While true, this is not the message of the psalm, or even a straightforward interpretation of this verse, which is exceedingly obscure and difficult to translate.