Psalm 8: Divine Majesty

For the choir director: A psalm of David, to be accompanied by a stringed instrument.

O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!  

Your glory is higher than the heavens.  
You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength,
silencing your enemies and all who oppose you.

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—
the moon and the stars you set in place—
what are mere mortals that you should think about them,
human beings that you should care for them?

Yet you made them only a little lower than God 
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You gave them charge of everything you made,
putting all things under their authority—the flocks and the herds
and all the wild animals, the birds in the sky,
the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents.

O LORD, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth!

Context:  This psalm is attributed to David, the King who once was a shepherd boy with the heart of a poet and a musician.  Imagine how many nights the young boy lay alone, under the stars, gazing up into the night sky … no ambient lighting, complete darkness except for the light of the moon and the stars, praying and talking and listening to God.  Imagine what it was like for this outdoorsman to have his whole life changed by a God who calls the unlikely to do the impossible.   Imagine David sitting on the throne taking care of the business of running a kingdom.  Can you hear his longing for those gentle nights of long ago as he gazes up toward “heaven?”  I wonder if David the King felt the weight of being charged with “everything God made.”   

Psalm 8 is written with a chiastic structure.  Chiasm, also referred to a parallelism, is a symmetrical literary structure found in ancient literature which is used to symbolize an “inverted” or “crossover” of parallel words or ideas in a literary unit.   The chiastic structure as a literary technique aids memorization which was especially helpful in biblical times because the bible was an oral tradition spoken from generation to generation until it could be written down.    

A O Lord, our Lord ... (verse 1a)             LORD … Divine Majesty
B Your glory is higher ... (verses 1b-2)   YOU …    God’s Glory at work
C When I look... (verses 3-4)                   I …          Human Dignity … Relationship
B' Yet, you made them ... (verses 5-8)    YOU …    God’s Glory at work
A' O Lord, our Sovereign (verse 9)        LORD … Divine Majesty

Fred Gaiser, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, invites us to pay attention to what the psalmist is saying to us by using the chiastic structure in this psalm.  He says, “A modern, Western reading of the psalm tends to focus on the question ‘What are humans that you are mindful of them? as an outburst of existential anxiety from an "I" alone in the midst of overwhelming vastness.’ There might be something to that in today’s world, but the structure of the psalm puts the singer in a different place.”   The “I” that is you and me is not sitting alone in a vast universe separated from a God who does not care, but is surrounded by our glorious Creator and Protector who loves us deeply.   We are not alone … and life is not all about us!

Going Deeper:  Psalm 8 is full of images, both literal and figurative.  Read Psalm 8 through the sense of sight.  What do you see in your mind’s eye as you read?   As you read psalm 8 again, what image of God emerges for you?  What words describe the God you know?  When have you felt the way the psalmist feels?  What do you learn about the relationship between God and human beings?   

Pondering:  Read Psalm 8 aloud again as you engage in the art of Lectio Divina (divine reading)
 

• Lectio=Listen to the words. Read the words slowly, repeating them again and again, allowing them to linger on the tongue, savoring their beauty ...

• Meditatio=Prayerfully listen as you read until a small portion of the psalm (a word or a thought or a phrase) begins to draw you deep within.  Turn your “portion” over and over in your mind and consider what God may be inviting you to think or feel or do or be … Write down the “portion” that Spirit has given you:

Stay with your “portion” and commit it to memory as your thought for the day …

Praying:  

• Oratio=Spend some time in prayer responding to God’s invitation … allow prayers of confession, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, praise, or ...

• Contemplatio=When you runs out of words to say, simply rest in the presence of God, lingering with God in loving companionship …

Click here for an unusual arrangement for a song that was inspired by Psalm 8 accompanied by some amazing nature photos on YouTube ... some of God's best work!