Bible Study - Psalm 8

Our Bible Study this week focuses on another psalm of David in the Old Testament, Psalm 8. As you may have heard before, the “Gittith” mentioned in the introduction is probably a musical notation or a kind of musical instrument to be used with singing the psalm. This psalm was to be given to the “choirmaster” to prepare for use in worship in the tabernacle, and later on, in the temple, in praise of the Lord.

David begins and ends this psalm with the phrase, “O LORD, our LORD, how excellent is Your Name in all the earth.” Some translations use the term “how majestic” or another term of great honor for God and His Name. The capitalization of the word “Lord” in the Old Testament always indicates that this is the special name of God, mostly likely “Yahweh.” The name was so special, though, that Jews often did not say it out loud, but used some alternative vowels which made it look like “Jehovah.” We still see that alternate Name in hymns and other materials and translations. (I do not usually capitalize all the letters, for simplicity’s sake, in what I write for my podcasts, nor are they all capitalized in the New Testament. When we hear “Jesus  is Lord,” though, it is referring to Him as Lord and God, as in the Old Testament. You can read more about this special Name for God in Exodus 3:13-16 and 6:6-7, for example.)

David also adds that the Lord’s Name is excellent “in all the earth” - or it should be! The earth and the whole universe are the Lord’s. His glory is everywhere, even “above the heavens” that we can see (Psalm 8:1). Though there are “enemies” and “foes” and “avengers” against the Lord, He is still in control and can finally “still” them and their opposition. (Psalm 8:2).

Isaiah 40:22-24 describes the enemies as like “grasshoppers” compared with God, even if they are “princes” and “rulers.” They come and go, and the heat and tempest of life will eventually bring them to “nothing,” like “stubble.” 1 Corinthians 1:27-28 says God can “choose what is “foolish” and “weak” in the world to “shame the wise and the strong” in the world’s eyes. Even what looks “low and despised” in the world can “bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

David says that God can even use babies and infants to accomplish His purposes (Psalm 8:2). Jesus Himself quoted this passage in Matthew 21:14-16 when He was “healing the blind and the lame,” people weak and despised by the religious leaders, and “the children were crying out, ”Hosannah to the Son of David.” Little children could recognize who Jesus was, while the “chief priests and scribes” could not. Jesus said that the Lord had “prepared perfect praise out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies,” just as David had predicted. Earlier, Jesus had also said, “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will” (Matthew 11:25-26). Simple, childlike trust in the Lord is what God wishes to bring to all of us.

In Psalm 8:3, David “looks at the heavens” …. “ the moon and the stars” and all “the work” of God that He has created,” and marvels that God still cares about the little people of this earth. David “clearly perceived” “the eternal power and divine nature” of God “through His creation and the things that have been made” by God, as Paul described in Romans 1:18-32. So many people, then and now, have rejected God as Creator and think that this amazing universe just happened through natural and/or accidental, random processes. They have worshipped things in the creation and themselves and their wisdom and ideas, instead of God. Terrible things have happened as a result. The Scriptures say that all of this has happened, of course, because of rebellion against God and the fall into sin, beginning with Adam and Eve and now infecting all people.

Then David, in Psalm 8:4, by the inspiration of God, speaks in a prophetic way of “the Son of Man.” This is a phrase in Daniel 7:13-14 and here in Psalm 8 and in other places, predicting the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus used this phrase more than 80 times in the Gospels of the New Testament to refer to Himself, as “the Son of Man sent to seek and to save those who were lost” (Luke 19:10).

Jesus was God the Son, the second “Person” of the Triune God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, from all eternity. As David prophesied, though, in Psalm 8:5, God the Son needed to be made a real human being, “a little lower than the heavenly beings,” in order to come into this world and do His saving work for us all. The Hebrew phrase here is hard to translate. It literally seems to say that the Savior, Jesus, would be a little lower than God. What we see in the New Testament is that God the Son was still God, and yet did not use His Godly power much of the time, and became the true man, Jesus. Sometimes Jesus said, as true man, not using all power, that only the Father knew certain things. (See passages like Matthew 24:35-36 and Acts 1:7.) As true man, Jesus would be tempted as we are, yet did not sin, and would fulfill perfectly what we fail to do in our lives, as we do not always follow God’s will as we should. He would also suffer the penalty for all of our sins, as He suffered and died for us, to free us from condemnation for our sins, and earn for us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life.

This amazing, humble work of Jesus, as true God and yet true man, is described for us also in passages like Philippians 2:5-8, 2 Corinthians 5:21, and 1 Peter 2:24-25. When that work was complete, the Lord did exactly what David also predicted in Psalm 8:5b-8. Jesus, with His Ascension into heaven, was “crowned with glory and honor.” See the words of Jesus in John 17:4-5, and what happened after Jesus’ “state of humiliation” for our sake was completed, in Philippians 2:9-11. The name of Jesus is now “the name that is above every other human name.” “Jesus Christ is Lord, the Lord, our Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

As David also predicted, God the Son, Jesus, also had His “dominion” over all creation restored, and “all things were again put under His feet” as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Psalm 8:6-8 and Revelation 19:16, etc.). Notice also how the writer to the Hebrews quotes also from Psalm 8:4-8 in Hebrews 2:5-9. God the Son was even made lower than “the heavenly beings, the angels,” as well as God the Father “for a little while” when on earth: but His power and authority have been restored, though “at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him.” The world is still in great chaos, and we have our own struggles. We can’t see it all yet, but we know the Lord’s promises in Christ, and “we have that peace in Christ that surpasses all human understanding” (Philippians 4:4-7).

Psalm 8:6 is quoted two more times in the New Testament, with regard to “all things being put under the feet of Jesus,” after His resurrection and ascension. See 1 Corinthians 15:22-27, when Christ returns on the last day and death will no longer bother any believers any more. See also Ephesians 1:18-23, especially v.22. God the Son, Jesus, will rule, “not only in this age, but also in the one to come.”

We will also be with Him in that eternal existence, as His church, the body of Christ, all who trust in Him. What a future is in store for us, too, because of Jesus, Son of God and true man, and all He sacrificed for us, along with the plan and working of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. We, too, look forward and say with David, again and again, “O LORD, our LORD, how excellent, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth.” We are secure in Christ.