"To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
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 honour.
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!"
Psalm 8
This is a notable utterance, and done in the grand manner. It is a Psalm of purest worship and adoration, and full of deep doctrinal teaching. The theme of the Psalm is the marvel of God's choice of man to be the chief revelation of Himself, and His representative on earth. What this statement means will become clear as we study what the Psalm says. It is bounded, at the beginning and end, by a glorious ascription of praise, 'How excellent is Thy Name in all the earth', and within the opening and closing verses the revelation of that Name on earth is opened up. The theme, then, is this: 'There is a twofold revelation of 'the Name of the Lord' - in the heavens, which declare His glory and in the insignificance of man, here represented by 'babes and sucklings'. The Psalmist is intent upon contrasting these two forms of divine manifestation, and the second section of the Psalm (3-8) amplifies and explains why the latter revelation is greater than the former. The glory of the heavens is something which stands in its own right in the Psalter, and is many times referred to and exulted in by Old Testament saints. There is no doubt that a contemplation of the glories of the heavens, with their myriads of galaxies and nebulae, brings home to every thoughtful soul man's relative insignificance and nothingness. In this space age, when the vastnesses of the universe are being accentuated, this feeling is intensified a thousand-fold. The words in 4, 'what is man...? 'are meant to convey this. But - and this is what transforms and explains everything - God is mindful of him and has visited him, conferring upon him a dignity and a destiny. This is why the revelation even in babes and sucklings is greater by far. The suns and stars in space, glorious and awe-inspiring as they are, will one day be no more - but there will still be men, sharing the eternal glory of God forever. That is the thrust of the Psalm.