DAVID IS A COMPLEX MAN , and “a man after God’s own heart.” (1 Sam. 13:14) He is shepherd boy and king, warrior and prophet. He is also reflective, musical, and poetic. Of the one hundred fifty psalms of the Christian bible, by the accounts of varying sources, more than seventy are attributed to David; this does not mean he actually wrote all of these, though there is fundamentalistic dispute about this, but that he wrote many, and many others are written “in the style or substance of David.” Some, like Psalm 51, for instance, are so intensely personal with historical detail that only David could have written them. There is no clear consensus of opinion agreeing on all the specific ones he actually wrote.
Psalm 8 is a psalm that has more of a priestly flavor than a flair of person. Perhaps it is the rumination of a skilled musical Levitical priest writing in mind of David and what David might have been thinking and feeling. It begins with an exalted view of God as both supreme over the cosmos, and yet ensconced in the center of human reality. “LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens.” (Psa. 8:1) The two names ascribed to God are quite different, but linked. The first is Jehovah, *“the existing one,” a clear reference to the sovereign creator. The second, **“Adonai,” suggests the tensioned relationship of the master in God-human relationships. In either case, this name is a great one – mightiest in comparison to all others, whether in heaven or on the earth.
The next verse is both descriptive and prophetic. It seems odd to us that “children and infants” can overpower enemies, and “silence the foe and the avenger.” (Psa. 8:2) As Christians, we may well interpret this through Paul’s insight that, “God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” (1 Cor. 1:27) But we must also consider fulfillment of prophecy. In a tense time at the Temple, children shout “Hosanna to the Son of David.” (Matt. 21:15) The priests are furious with Jesus, who quotes Psalm 8 to them: “Have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise?’” (Matt. 21:16)
But then the psalm takes on a deeply reflective tone. Overcome by a nighttime view, perhaps as we ourselves were as children, the Psalmist says, “When I consider your heavens, the moon and the stars, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psa. 8:3-4) This is in counter-balance to the first verse—God is exalted, and we are, by comparison, insignificant; yet God loves us, and has high purpose for us. We have been created “a little lower than the angels,” yet somehow, by intimation, greater: “crowned with glory and honor.” (Psa. 8:5) Peter addresses this idea in the context of salvation, revealed through God’s prophets, when he says, “Even angels long to look into these things.” (1 Pet. 1:12)
The psalmist, awestruck by his own thoughts, turns to God’s purposes beginning in the creation account. We were made “rulers over the works of your hands; all flocks and herds, the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, all that swim the paths of the seas.” (Psa. 8:6-8) This is a specific reference from Genesis: “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.” (Gen. 1:26)
The writer ends the psalm with what appears to be a very simple closing thought, seemingly only a repetition of the first verse. “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psa. 8:9). Though the words are the same, we note the depth of meaning that established the Psalmist’s personal journey between the first and last iteration. Heaven and earth, God and man, creation and purpose, all have been explored and placed in proper balance. The internal dynamic response of the writer has taken him, and us, from reflecting upon to revering the majesty of God. He is supreme above all others. His nobility of character, his fame and glory, his omnipotent power—these all pre-exist all others, and are the archetype of these same but diminished characteristics in mankind, and he has chosen to share them with us.
We are complex beings, formed in the image of God. (cf. Gen. 1:27) But we can oftentimes make our relationship with God far too complex, when it should be as simple as breathing out the breath of life he breathed into us. “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Gen. 2:7) The entirety of man’s right, righteous, and rightful relationship with God is described with the very last scripture from the very last psalm. “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.” (Psa. 150:6)
Q. Does my dominion over the life given me show allegiance and integrity to the one who gave it?
*Strong’s 3068.
**Strong’s 113.
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