How Majestic Is Your Name (Psalm 8)

This Psalm is a Praise psalm and is unlike some of the Psalms we have considered before. Evidently, David is writing this during a good season in his life because he doesn't make any mention of his troubles. The Psalm can be divided into two parts. In the first part, David attempts to glorify the name of God by describing Him and his works. In the second part, David ponders on the position of mankind in God's created universe.


1. O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

David uses the word "Lord" in two different ways here in the opening verse. The first time he uses it, he refers to the revealed name of God, Yahweh. The second time he uses the word, it is to show God's ownership of his life and that of Israel.

2. Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.

David ponders on how God has used the weak and the defenseless to make them strong and then wage war against much larger and stronger enemies.

3,4. When I look at your heavens, the works 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?

This verse is the heart of the Psalm and possibly the initial thought that made David pen this Psalm. David starts by first acknowledging that the heavens were made by God, but note the words he uses to bring out God's glory in the fullest possible manner. He maintains that the "fingers" of God were involved in the making of the moon and the stars. This is not a contradiction with the Genesis account, but a poetic way of making the Creator larger than the creation. If the fingers of God made the moon and the stars, he wants the reader to understand that the Creator is infinitely larger than creation and that God exists outside of its limitations.

The second part of the verse is a rhetorical question that magnifies God and diminishes mankind. David looks at the heavens in all its glory and then thinks to himself what man is worth in all of creation. He comes to the rather logical assumption that mankind is not worth a mention compared to the vastness of the universe. All pride must be laid down, before one can witness the greatness of God. This is what David tries to do here.

Verses 5-8

In spite of the smallness of man, God has made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned man with glory and honor. Not only that, God also gave man dominion over all the animals that he created. We learn this truth from the creation account in Genesis.This is where the agnostic and the Christian part ways. The agnostic would come to the same conclusion that David came to in the previous verse concerning the insignificance of mankind. In this sense, the agnostics are more honorable that atheists,  as in they at least see their weak nature! However, they refuse to believe that the God or the being that is supposedly responsible for the creation of the universe would have anything to do with mankind. However, they come to this conclusion because they look at the whole scenario through fallen eyes. In their eyes, rulers, creators, bosses and the like are all entitled individuals who don't care a bit about the common man. Then, they project the same character onto God who they think would be worse than the proudest of earthly bosses. This is a wrong conclusion, since God is not a man. God is love, and he loves his creation, especially the human race who he has placed as the crown of creation.

This position that God has given us and the news that we are treasured and loved even to the point that God gave His own Son for us, is the gospel. It is good news, that asks all men to repent and follow this God in this life and the life to come.