Psalm 8
Awe & Wonder
Come and step into the awe and wonder of this Psalm.
Come and behold the majesty and might of the God through the vastness and variety of his creation.
Come and consider that in the grand theater of God’s creation, you are known, loved and cared for by the Author and Architect of it all.
For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David.
1 LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honour.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Everything in this Psalm is constructed around the questions in v4. These questions voice the astonishment of David that God would not just consider humans, but that he cares intimately for them.
For David considers the night sky. He marvels at the splendour of the celestial bodies, which shine brightly against the cold dark expanse of the universe.
The sun is our local star and it is 109 times larger than our planet. God made that star. With the naked eye, we can between 2-4,000 stars on a clear moonless night away from the orange glow of streetlights. God crafted each one of those. In the Milky Way, there are an estimated 100 thousand million stars. God created each one of those. Across the whole cosmos, there are a quadrillion (10 the power of 24) stars. Each and every one of those is the work of his fingers (v3).
Here’s the reality check: our own star, the sun, is but a speck of dust on the map of the universe. And humanity is just dust from a small ellipsoid 93 million miles from the sun.
Yet here is the truth that staggers David and us. God cares for you. He cares for us.
This exalted picture of humanity in God’s creation is drawn from the creation account in Genesis 1-2. When God fashioned man and woman, he made them in his image, breathing life into dust, tasking them to fill the world and rule over it.
We fell from this exalted task due to the whispers of the Enemy. But God did not move onto a different plan.
Verse 2 seems strange, but if we go back to Genesis, we get some clues to what is happening. To fight the deception of Satan, God would show his strength through a baby of a woman (Gen 3.15). And it was in the birth of a virgin girl, God sent the one who by his death would break the power of the devil (Hebrews 2.14).
For God’s plan was not to win back his creation through the radiant angels and powers of heaven. But it was to still be through humanity (v5). And that happened through his Son, who robed himself in human flesh and became the new and true Adam, putting all of creation under his feet in triumph (Hebrews 2.5-9; 1 Corinthians 15.20-28; Ephesians 1.22).
This is the testimony of the New Testament. The man whom Psalm 8 sings of is ultimately Jesus. And it is through uniting ourselves to him, we will overcome and rule (Romans 8.37, Ephesians 6.10-12). The experience of this Psalm becomes our own reality when we unite ourselves to Christ by faith.
Come and join with the King as we sing in awe and wonder, “LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
Glory be to the Father, the one whose name is majestic over all the earth.
Glory be to the Son, the true Son of Man, who rules and reigns with all authority over all the cosmos.
Glory be to the Spirit, who is the power of Jesus from on high.