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Expositor's Bible Commentary Psalm 8:1 To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David. O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Psalm 8:1-9 THE exclamation which begins and ends this psalm, enclosing it as a jewel in a setting, determines its theme as being neither the nightly heaven with all its stars, nor the dignity of man, but the name of the Lord as proclaimed by both. The Biblical contemplation of nature and man starts from and ends in God. The main thought of the psalm is the superiority of the revelation in man’s nature and place to that in the vault of heaven. The very smallness of man makes the revelation of God in His dealings with him great. In his insignificance is lodged a Divine spark, and, lowly as is his head as he stands beneath the midnight sky blazing with inaccessible lights, it is crowned with a halo which reflects God’s glory more brightly than does their lustre. That one idea is the theme of both parts of the psalm. In the former ( Psalm 8:1-2 ) it is briefly stated; in the latter ( Psalm 8:3-8 ) it is wrought out in detail. The movement of thought is by expansion rather than progress. The name of the Lord is His character as made known. The psalmist looks beyond Israel, the recipient of a fuller manifestation, and, with adoring wonder, sees far flashing through all the earth, as if written in light, the splendour of that name. The universal revelation in the depths of the sparkling heavens and the special one by which Israel can say, "our Lord," are both recognised. The very abruptness of the exclamation in Psalm 8:1 tells that it is the end of long, silent contemplation, which overflows at last in speech. The remainder of Psalm 8:1 and Psalm 8:2 present the two forms of Divine manifestation which it is the main purpose of the psalm to contrast, and which effect the world wide diffusion of the glory of the Name. These are the apocalypse in the nightly heavens and the witness from the mouth of babes and sucklings. As to the former, there is some difficulty in the text as it stands; and there may be a question also as to the connection with the preceding burst of praise. The word rendered "hast set" is an imperative, which introduces an incongruous thought, since the psalm proceeds on the conviction that God has already done what such a reading would be asking him to do. The simplest solution is to suppose a textual corruption, and to make the slight change required for the rendering of the A.V and R.V God’s name is glorious in all the earth, first, because He has set His glory upon the heavens, which stretch their solemn magnificence above every land. It is His glory of which theirs is the shimmering reflection, visible to every eye upturned from "this dim spot which men call earth." May we attach significance to the difference between "Thy name" and "Thy glory"? Possibly there is a hint of the relative inferiority even of the heavenly proclamation, inasmuch as, while it rays out "glory," the lustre of power and infinitude, it is only on earth that that revelation becomes the utterance of the Name, since here are hearts and minds to interpret. The relative at the beginning of the last clause of Psalm 8:1 seems to require that the initial exclamation should not be isolated, as it is in the last verse; but, in any case, the two methods of revelation must be taken in the closest connection and brought into line as parallel media of revelation. Psalm 8:2 gives the second of these. The sudden drop from the glories of the heavens to the babble and prattle of infancy and childhood is most impressive, and gives extraordinary force to the paradox that the latter’s witness is more powerful to silence gainsayers than that of the former. This conviction is expressed in a noble metaphor, which is blurred by the rendering "strength." The word here rather means a strength in the old use of the term-that is, a stronghold or fortress-and the image, somewhat more daring than colder Western taste finds permissible, is that, out of such frail material as children’s speech, God builds a tower of strength, which, like some border castle, will bridle and still the restless enemy. There seems no sufficient reason for taking "children and sucklings" in any but its natural meaning, however the reference to lowly believers may accord with the spirit of the psalm. The children’s voices are taken as a type of feeble instruments, which are yet strong enough to silence the enemy. Childhood, "with no language but a cry," is, if rightly regarded in its source, its budding possibilities, its dependence, its growth, a more potent witness to a more wondrous name than are all the stars. In like manner, man is man’s clearest revelation of God. The more lowly he is, the more lofty his testimony. What are all His servants’ words but the babbling of children who "do not know half the deep things they speak"? God’s strongest fortress is built of weakest stones. The rendering of the LXX, which is that used by our Lord in the Temple when He claimed the children’s shrill hosannas as perfected praise, is an explanation rather than a translation, and as such is quite in the line of the psalmist’s meaning. To find in the "children and sucklings" a reference either to the humble believers in Israel or to the nation as a whole, and in the "enemy and the vengeful man" hostile nations, introduces thoughts alien to the universality of the psalm, which deals with humanity as a whole and with the great revelations wide as humanity. If the two parts of the psalm are to be kept together, the theme of the compendious first portion must be the same as that of the second, namely, the glory of God as revealed by nature and man, but most chiefly by the latter, notwithstanding and even by his comparative feebleness. The second part ( Psalm 8:3-8 ) expands the theme of the first. The nightly sky is more overwhelming than the bare blue vault of day. Light conceals and darkness unveils the solemn glories. The silent depths, the inaccessible splendours, spoke to this psalmist, as they do to all sensitive souls, of man’s relative insignificance, but they spoke also of the God whose hand had fashioned them, and the thought of Him carried with it the assurance of His care for so small a creature, and therefore changed the aspect of his insignificance. To an ear deaf to the witness of the heavens to their Maker, the only voice which sounds from their crushing magnificence is one which counsels unmitigated despair, insists on man’s nothingness, and mocks his aspirations. If we stop with "What is man?" the answer is, A fleeting nothing. The magnitude, the duration, the multitudes of these awful suns and stars dwarf him. Modern astronomy has so far increased the impression that it has landed many minds in blank unbelief that God has visited so small a speck as earth, and abundant ridicule has been poured on the arrogance which dreams that such stupendous events, as the Christian revelation asserts, have been transacted on earth for man. If we begin with man, certainly his insignificance makes it supremely absurd to suppose him thus distinguished; but if we begin at the other end, the supposition takes a new appearance of probability. If there is a God, and men are His creatures, it is supremely unlikely that He should not have a care of them. Nothing can be more absurd than the supposition of a dumb God, who has never spoken to such a being as man. The psalmist gives full weight to man’s smallness, his frailty, and his lowly origin, for his exclamation, "What is man?" means, "How little is he!" and he uses the words which connote frailty and mortality, and emphasise the fact of birth as if in contrast with "the work of Thy fingers"; but all these points only enhance the wonderfulness of what is to the poet an axiom-that God has personal relations with His creature. "Thou art mindful of him" refers to God’s thought, "Thou visitest him" to His acts of loving care; and both point to God’s universal beneficence, not to His special revelation. The bitter parody in Job 7:17-18 takes the truth by the other handle, and makes the personal relations those of a rigid inspector on the one hand and a creature not worth being so strict with on the other. Mindfulness is only watchfulness for slips and visiting means penal visitation. So the same fact may be the source of thankful wonder or of almost blasphemous murmuring. Psalm 8:5-8 draw out the consequences of God’s loving regard which has made the insignificance of man the medium of a nobler manifestation of the Divine name than streams from all the stars. There is no allusion here to sin; and its absence has led to the assertion that this psalmist knew nothing of a fall, and was not in harmony with the prevalent Old Testament tone as to the condition of humanity. But surely the contemplation of the ideal manhood, as it came from God’s hand, does not need to be darkened by the shadows of the actual. The picture of man as God made him is the only theme which concerns the psalmist; and he paints it with colours drawn from the Genesis account, which tells of the fall as well as the creation of man. The picture contains three elements: man is Deiform, crowned with glory and honour, and lord of the creatures on earth. The rendering "than the angels" in the A.V comes from the LXX, but though defensible, is less probable than the more lofty conception contained in "than God," which is vindicated, not only by lexical considerations, but as embodying an allusion to the original creation "in the image of God." What then is the "little" which marks man’s inferiority? It is mainly that the spirit, which is God’s image, is confined in and limited by flesh, and subject to death. The distance from the apex of creation to the Creator must ever be infinite; but man is so far above the non-sentient, though mighty, stars and the creatures which share earth with him, by reason of his being made in the Divine image- i.e. , having consciousness, will, and reason-that the distance is foreshortened. The gulf between man and matter is greater than that between man and God. The moral separation caused by sin is not in the psalmist’s mind. Thus man is invested with some reflection of God’s glory, and wears this as a crown. He is king on earth. The enumeration of his subjects follows, in language reminding again of the Genesis narrative. The catalogue begins with those nearest to him, the long-tamed domestic animals, and of these the most submissive (sheep) first; it then passes to the untamed animals, whose home is "the field" or uncultivated land, and from them goes to the heights and depths, where the free fowls of the air and fish of the sea and all the mysterious monsters that may roam the hidden ways of that unknown ocean dwell. The power of taming and disciplining some, the right to use all, belong to man, but his subjects have their rights and their king his limits of power and his duties. Such then is man, as God meant him to be. Such a being is a more glorious revelation of the Name than all stars and systems. Looked at in regard to his duration, his years are a hand-breadth before these shining ancients of days that have seen his generations fret their little hour and sink into silence; looked at in contrast with their magnitude and numbers numberless, he is but an atom, and his dwelling place a speck. Science increases the knowledge of his insignificance, but perhaps not the impression of it made on a quiet heart by the simple sight of the heavens. But besides the merely scientific view, and the merely poetic, and the grimly Agnostic, there is the other, the religious, and it is as valid today as ever. To it the heavens are the work of God’s finger, and their glories are His, set there by Him. That being so, man’s littleness magnifies the name, because it enhances the condescending love of God, which has greatened the littleness by such nearness of care and such gifts of dignity. The reflection of His glory which blazes in the heavens is less bright than that which gleams in the crown of glory and honour on man’s lowly yet lofty head. The "babe and suckling" of creation has a mouth from which the strength of perfected praise issues and makes a bulwark against all gainsayers. The use made of this psalm in the Epistle to the Hebrews proceeds on the understanding that it describes ideal humanity. Where, then, says the writer of the epistle, shall we look for the realisation of that ideal? Do not the grand words sound liker irony than truth? Is this poor creature that crawls about the world, its slave, discrowned and sure to die, the Man whom the psalmist saw? No. Then was the fair vision a baseless fabric, and is there nothing to be looked for but a dreary continuance of such abortions dragging out their futile being through hopeless generations? No; the promise shall be fulfilled for humanity, because it has been fulfilled in one Man: the Man Christ Jesus. He is the realised ideal, and in Him is a life which will be communicated to all who trust and obey Him, and they, too, will become all that God meant man to be. The psalm was not intended as a prophecy, but every clear vision of God’s purpose is a prophecy, for none of His purposes remain unfulfilled. It was not intended as a picture of the Christ, but it is so; for He, and He alone, is the Man who answers to that fair Divine Ideal, and He will make all His people partakers of His royalty and perfect manhood. So the psalm ends, as it began, with adoring wonder, and proclaims this as the result of the twofold witness which it has so nobly set forth: that God’s name shines glorious through all the earth, and every eye may see its lustre. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

How excellent is Thy name in all the earth! Psalm 8 David's poetical sensitiveness Henry Housman. In all probability this Psalm is the first, or at all events one of the very first, David ever wrote. It breathes the spirit of those lonely nights which he must so often have passed keeping watch over his father's sheep on the wild hills of Bethlehem. To a lad of his strong poetical temperament, the glory of the Syrian sunset, the gradual assembling of the stars, as of an innumerable flock in the silent pastures overhead; the moon, "like a fair shepherdess," walking in her beauty; and, as night began to wane, "the bright and morning star," flashing over the hills of Moab, must have spoken in a language which he was inspired to understand of the excellence of the great Creator of all — of the nothingness, yet at the same time the dignity, of man. In after life how often had he to "tune his harp to notes of woe"? but its first recorded strains are those of adoring praise. David appears to me to stand out eminently from other men, as hearing a voice in the phenomena of nature. I account him as the first of the prophets of nature, of whom, in some sense, Wordsworth was the last. The lessons once learned have become obvious; but to utter them for the first time required inspiration. ( Henry Housman. ) The excellence of the Divine name and nature universal Joshua Reynolds closing his lecture on art said, "And now, gentlemen, there is but one name which I bring to your attention, it is the name of Michael Angelo." And so in all the spheres of art, science, and discovery, there are names which rise peerless above all others. But names which are known in one land are unknown in another, or their right to distinction is often disputed. You would not get universal unanimity about any one celebrity, however worthy. Only concerning Christ can it be said, "How excellent is Thy name in all the earth." The glory of God in His works Thomas Wilcocks. The glory of God in His creatures, rightly considered, should, for the excellency of the work, strike an astonishment into us on the one side, and enforce us on the other to be thankful unto Him, that maketh His power and providence appear so clearly in them, and that not only for His glory, but for our good. God's power and providence seen in His creatures serveth for a double end — the comfort of His children, and the terror and confusion of the wicked. Ver. 4 serveth to humble man, and to beat him down; for if he be compared with other creatures, there is no such excellency and durableness in him as in them; neither yet such as he himself imagineth to be in himself. Vers. 5-8 set forth the graces and blessings that God hath bestowed upon man, not to the end that man thereby should wax proud, and swell above measure, but to enforce him — 1. To thankfulness to the giver; 2. To a right use of them in himself and for others; 3. The more and more to humble him.Let man consider what excellency he hath lost through Adam's fall, and bewail his misery; and let him, on the other side, well weigh the grace bestowed on him in Christ, and be joyful and thankful for mercy: knowing this, that if the creatures be not now subject to us, it is by reason of the body and relies of sin which yet remain in us; and that therefore, if we would have a conquest over the creatures, we must begin first to get a victory upon sin, or else we shall never profit or prevail that way. If any man will object and say that many creatures are subdued to many people that are without a God in the world, and which notwithstanding remain in their sin, I answer, that God's dispensing in mercy with our iniquity, or other men's, is no impeachment of the truth of this doctrine; nay rather, it should the more further us, not only in thankfulness to Him for His goodness, but in valiancy and courage to. combat against iniquity, and that unto blood, because we already have half a victory, and may be sure of all needful supply in order to complete the victory. ( Thomas Wilcocks. ) The supremely excellent name F. B. Meyer, B. A. Was "Gittith" a tune or instrument brought from Gath? ( 1 Samuel 27:2 ) This exquisite ode, which can only reach its fulfilment in Christ ( Hebrews 2:6-9 ), was evidently composed at night. It probably dates from the early shepherd days, when wild creatures crept around the fold, and night. birds screamed, reminding the singer of the animal world, as constituting the human kingdom. I. THE INSCRIPTION (ver. 1). Jehovah our Lord. Our Lord Jesus is here. II. THE ASCRIPTION (vers. 1, 2). His name excellent, and so mighty that His strength communicated to babes is mere than enough to vanquish and silence His foes ( 1 Corinthians 1:25 ; Matthew 21:16 ). III. THE COMPARISON (vers. 3, 4). At first sight there is a great descent from the glory of the heavens to frail man. But we may not confound size and greatness. There are as many worlds of wonder too minute for our vision as there are which are too great for our understanding. IV. THE COMPENSATION (vers. 5-8). Man, though so seemingly insignificant, was only a little lower than the angels, and is invested with the vicegerency of the lower orders of creation ( Genesis 1:26 ). As yet the Psalm is fulfilled only in Jesus. But it shall be restored to man ( Isaiah 11:6-9 ). ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) Good reasons for praising God Homilist. I. AS FILLING THE UNIVERSE WITH HIS GLORY: — 1. His excellence fills the earth — in its natural constitution, in its human history, and in its redemptive economy. 2. His excellency is above the heavens. How high are the heavens! II. AS HONOURING THE FEEBLEST INSTRUMENTALITY. He does not depend, like human sovereigns, on the great and mighty. History abounds with examples of God accomplishing great ends by feeble means — such as, the exodus of the Jews by Moses, the redemption of the world by Christ, the propagation of the gospel by feeble men. This truth serves to cheek an unholy humility, and also an unholy pride. III. AS CREATING THE WONDERS OF THE STELLAR HEAVENS. Here is a figurative mode of representing the skill and delicacy of the work — "the work of Thy fingers. How does the study of the heavens impress man with the glory of God! IV. AS REGARDING MANKIND WITH HIS SPECIAL FAVOUR. The Psalmist seems to be impressed with God's infinite goodness to man in three respects. 1. In the greatness of the attention He pays him. 2. In the greatness of the nature He has given him. 3. In the greatness of the authority He entrusts to him. This Psalm reminds us of our heavenly origin, wonderful natures, and sublime destinies. ( Homilist. ) The excellency of the Divine name J. Addison Alexander, D. D. How affecting to the mind is the traditional and immemorial suppression of the name "Jehovah." Though false in principle and destitute of Scripture authority, it cannot be denied that this reticence has something almost sublime about it, and is far better than the frivolous levity with which God's holy name is tossed from mouth to mouth, not only in profane discussion, but even in courts of justice, not to say in the pulpit and in ordinary religious speech. Religious awe was no doubt indicated by the suppression of this name, and could not have been associated with a more legitimate or worthy object than that pregnant tetragrammaton, in the four characters of which, as in a sacramental symbol, is wrapped up the germ, or rather the quintessence, of that wonderful preparatory system which excited and sustained the expectation of the Saviour until He came. We cannot tell all the reasons for the use of the two principal Divine names by the sacred writers in specific cases, but there can be little doubt that Jehovah is distinguished in the Hebrew Scriptures from all other names of the Godhead as the name of the God of Israel, His Church, His chosen people. Elohim was a generic name which was common to the true God with all others, but Jehovah was the name of God as in especial covenant with His people. It suggested no vague idea of divinity, but was a much warmer name, telling of God as making Himself known to and dwelling in the midst of them. But the name itself does not signify anything of this singular relation, it suggests nothing of a local or national kind, but only tells of God as the self-existent, independent, and eternal essence, "I am what I am." This may have been in order to remind Israel that He was not a God distinct from the Creator of the universe, but the one sole self-existent one. And there was need for such precaution, for never was a people more prone to arrogate to themselves exclusive possession in God. They would not allow that He was the God of the Gentiles also, and from this the fatal step was almost unavoidable to the conclusion that their God was not the God of nature or the universe, but either the antagonistic principle in some monstrous scheme of dualism, or an inferior Deity restricted to the Holy Land. And so the Greeks and Romans learned to sneer at the provincial God of Palestine. The Scriptures contain the clearest exposition of the true sense of the name Jehovah, and declare His name glorious in all the earth. They describe the heavens as the work of His fingers. Hence, as men saw His glory they saw too their own littleness, and wondered that God should remember man. It is not, however, before their material works that man is called to bow, for matter is no more above mind on a largo scale than on a smaller one, no more in the earth than in a clod, in a sea than in a drop. Mind is ever superior to matter. Hence the Psalm boldly declares of man, "Thou hast made him to lack little of divinity" — for so the words affirm, — "Thou hast crowned him with glory and honour." And yet more because of man's moral resemblance to God. But though unfallen man might have triumphed in this blessed likeness, how can we who have fallen away from it so terribly? How, then, could David so speak of man? He could not had he deemed that likeness irrevocably lost. He contemplates man as saved in Christ, not only reinstated, but exalted higher — "The first man is of the earth earthy, the second man is the Lord from heaven." Contemplate, then, the glorious face of nature, and remember what man once was, what he is, and what he yet shall be. Then shall we, as Stephen, exclaim, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." Read, then, the name of God our King and Saviour traced in letters of light upon the whole material universe. ( J. Addison Alexander, D. D. ) Religious affections in their objective ground L. O. Thompson. Gracious affections spring from the beauty and excellence of Divine things. "Christian love is the fountain of all gracious affections. The Divine excellency and glory of God and of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, the works of God and the ways of God, are the primary reasons why a true saint loves these things; and not any supposed interest that he has in them, or any conceived benefit that he has received from them. Self-love cannot properly be said to be the first foundation of his love to these things." I. THE WORLD'S PEOPLE. 1. Self-love is a principle that is entirely natural, and hence cannot be the foundation of what is gracious or spiritual ( Luke 6:32 ). 2. Self-love is also the foundation of gratitude in the world's people. 3. Self-love may give rise to a sort of love to God. False education will make men grateful to a God of their own imagination. Insensibility to the heinousness of sin may move the natural affections toward a being they imagine to be like themselves. II. THE HYPOCRITE. The genesis of their affections follows much the order of the world's people. 1. They rejoice in themselves. 2. They secondarily rejoice in God because He is so good to them, and has made so much of them. 3. They rejoice in their own experiences. 4. Their affections are moved by impulses, pride, conceit, and selfish considerations. 5. They are great talkers about themselves. If we will believe them, they are no ordinary saints. III. GOD'S PEOPLE. 1. They contemplate and adore the matchless perfections of God, the beauty of Christ, the sweetness of grace, the wisdom of redemption, the completeness of God's law, and the like. A natural affection does not have its chief roots in such a soil as this. 2. Secondarily, they rejoice that so glorious a Being is theirs. 3. Then they love God because of His marvellous kindness and unparalleled condescension ( Psalm 116:1 ). 4. In God's goodness they see a mirror that reflects the beauty, the grace and the perfection of His being and attributes, and from hence are begotten a holy gratitude and a heavenly love. 5. "The saints' love to God is the fruit of God's love to them, as it is the gift of that love." 6. As is the genesis of love, so is the genesis of spiritual joy, delight, and pleasure: "All my springs are in Thee" ( Psalm 87:7 ). ( L. O. Thompson. ) The excellent Name T. H. Barnett. I. THIS PSALM IS — 1. A hymn of praise to the Creator, giving glory to "Jehovah our Lord." By His "Name" we understand His revealed nature, as made manifest in His — (1) works of creation (vers. 3, 6, 7, 8); (2) acts of salvation (vers. 4, 5). 2. A Messianic hymn — (1) referred by Christ to Himself ( Matthew 21:16 ); (2) quoted of Him ( Hebrews 2:6-9 ; 1 Corinthians 15:27 ). 3. A hymn of the Ascension. This seems the special thought ( Hebrews 2:9 , where ver. 5 is alluded to, and Acts 2:33 ). II. THE TEXT IN PARTICULAR IS EXPRESSIVE OF THE GREAT DOCTRINE OF THE ASCENSION. 1. "Our Lord" Jesus Christ is "the LORD," i.e. JEHOVAH. His "Name" is indeed the Divine Name, for Jesus signifies "JEHOVAH-SAVIOUR" ( Hebrews 1:4 ;-see its lengthened form in Numbers 13:16 ). 2. "The earth" is the sphere in which the "excellence" of His Name is manifested. (1) In the past, by the marvellous revelation of His sinless human life, by His mighty words and works, by His sacrifice for sin, and by His "glorious resurrection and ascension." (2) In the present, by the power of His gospel, subduing, as it is, all things under His feet." 3. "All the earth" shall one day be brought to own that His "Name" is "excellent." 4. Yet His chiefest "glory" is now "set" "above the heavens," to be revealed in its full excellence only when He shall come again to take to Him His power and reign. III. THE "NAME" OF JESUS SHOULD BE PROVED "EXCELLENT" IN OUR EXPERIENCE. 1. As a power to salvation ( Acts 4:12 ). He is ascended up on high to perpetually plead the merits of His saving Name. And it is in that Name alone that there is hope for sinners. That Name, "Jehovah-Saviour," means one able and willing to save; and it is the only "excellent" one to which all must look ( Isaiah 45:22 ). 2. As a power to holiness ( Acts 2:33 ). The ascended Saviour has given to the Church the grace of His Holy Spirit, to be implored in His "Name," and sent forth in His "Name" ( John 14:26 ; John 16:24 ). The Holy Ghost teaches us the "things of Christ," and makes us so realise the excellence of His name, that for it we "count all things but loss." ( T. H. Barnett. ) Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength. Psalm 8:2 The strength of feeble instrumentalities A. Maclaren, D. D. The sudden drop from the glories of the heavens to the babble and prattle of infancy and childhood is most impressive, and gives extraordinary force to the paradox that the latter's witness is more powerful to silence gainsayers than that of the former. This conviction is expressed in a noble metaphor, which is blurred by the rendering "strength." The word here rather means "a strength," in the old use of the term — that is, a stronghold or fortress; and the image, somewhat more daring than cold western taste finds permissible, is that out of such frail material as children's speech, God builds a tower of strength, which, like some border castle, will bridle and still the restless enemy. There seems no sufficient reason for taking "children and sucklings" in any but its natural meaning, however the reference to lowly believers may accord with the spirit of the Psalm. The children's voices are taken as a type of feeble instruments, which are yet strong enough to silence the enemy. Childhood, "with no language but a cry," is, if rightly regarded in its source, its budding possibilities, its dependence, its growth, a more potent witness to a more wondrous name than are all the stars. In like manner, man is man's clearest revelation of God. The more lowly he is, the more lofty his testimony. What are all His servants' words but the babbling of children who "do not know half the deep things they speak"? God's strongest fortress is built of weakest stones If the two parts of the Psalm are to be kept together, the theme of the compendious first portion must be the same as that of the second, namely, the glory of God as revealed by nature and man, but most chiefly by the latter, notwithstanding and even by his comparative feebleness. ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) God glorified by children's mouths This Psalm sings of the grandeur of God as seen in creation. Our subject is His power displayed in human weakness. I. THERE IS A CONFLICT. Our text speaks of enemies. We know who they are — the seed of the serpent. We know how it began, and it goes on, on the enemy's part, in the same fashion. God uses weapons, mainly, of a moral and spiritual sort. He has used, and He can and will, when needful, use others. II. IN THIS CONFLICT THE WEAPONS ARE VERY SINGULAR. "Out of the mouth of babes," etc. Bring hither that sweet babe. See that little mouth — it challenges a kiss: and note with joy that God may use that little mouth as His conquering weapon against the devil. I have seen many an ancient cannon upon which were moulded in bronze the words, "The last argument of kings." Yes, but the gracious arguments of the King of kings are sent home by a human mouth, and that of a little child. How Satan must be angered that his craft is not met by craft. Already the testimony of feeble men has been used as the great power of God. How are these weapons used? These strangely soft, yet sharp, feeble, yet mighty weapons — how are they used? 1. They smite by prayer. Children pray and they are heard. 2. By praise, which louvers the pride of His adversaries, while they cry "Hosannah!" and sing the praise of Jesus' name. 3. And by testimony. We never know what one child's mouth can do. Christ is the Word, but these mouths supply the voices by which it is sounded forth. The Hebrew reads, "hast Thou founded strength," as if the very foundation of the Church's strength lay in the mouths that God moves to speak. III. THE WARRIORS IN THIS WARFARE ARE VERY SPECIAL. "Babes and sucklings" ( Matthew 11:25 ; 1 Corinthians 1:1 ). Such are those who proclaim Christ in the world. Our Lord would get little honour from our race if all children's voices were hushed, and all childlike spirits with them. Scribes and Pharisees never cry "Hosannah!" they are so busy binding on their phylacteries, washing their hands, and devouring widows' houses. The first to cry "Hosannah!" are the children, and the next are those who are like them. Some say, "To shout and sing is children's work"; so it is, and it is ours because we are children too. Now, note IV. That THE QUALIFICATION OF THESE WARRIORS LIES IN THEIR WEAK SIDE. If it lay on the strong side, we should react, "Out of the mouth of men of middle age, in the prime of life; of wise old men, who have had long experience, God ordaineth strength." But no, it is "Out of the mouths of babes," etc. Thus the Lord puts the adversary to a perpetual reproach. He puts a child against His giant foe, and overcomes him. Our power to serve God lies on our weak side. He uses not our greatness, but our littleness. You know what the learned men say is the weak part of some of us — they put it something like this: "We regret the preacher's total inability to keep abreast of the times; his incapacity for modern thought; and his want of affection for the higher culture." That is our weakness. Yes, and our strength, and therefore we glory in it. "I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." If all God's servants will come to this, they will do far more good than by the so-called "culture," which is nothing but the science of growing more weeds than usual I have desired to be a little child again, and wished that I had never heard of the existence of a quibbler. We hear now-a-days much of "great thinkers"; we prefer to be great believers. When the Church gets back to her simple faith in Jesus, she shall be qualified for victory. She shall vanquish the world. When she has thrown aside the wooden sword of carnal reason and has taken up the true Jerusalem blade of faith in God. Then because of all this, let me plead — V. FOR A LOVING REVERENCE FOR CHILDHOOD. It seems to me that in the Lord's battle there is always a babe in the forefront. The child found in the ark of bulrushes crushes the power of Pharaoh; the boy David, Goliath; and the still loftier story of the battle of the Lamb opens in like manner, "Unto us a Child is born," etc. Never doubt the possibility of children's conversions. Never despise them. Do not say, "Oh, they are only a parcel of boys and girls!" What if they are? May they not be a better parcel than some of you? If we could get the simple trustfulness of childhood back again, it would be a great gain. Let us not undervalue the praises or the service of children. That is a sweet vein. "And Samuel ministered before the Lord, being a child. In the victory of the Church it is written, A little child shall lead them." This city of ours is better evangelised by our Sunday schools than by all the rest of us put together. Little Mary and Tommy come back from school, and they find that father is hardly dressed; he has not been to a place of worship, but reading the Sunday paper; he don't want any of your singing and preaching. But the children begin to sing, and when dinner is over, they talk about What teacher said, and perhaps say something about the sermon. And so the father gets more singing and preaching than he bargained for. When they go to bed, they clasp their little hands and pray for their father, and he is obliged to hear them. Thus he gets praying as well as singing. The children are missionaries. They enter where others cannot. Tommy and Mary can't be shut out. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Little children God's stronghold for troubled men Samuel Cox, D. D. The common interpretation is, that God uses men who are, for weakness and insufficiency, as babes. Not that He literally uses "babes and sucklings." This interpretation, so common in the Church, has never found favour in the synagogue. The Rabbis have a surprising love for children. They apply to children and schools all the Scripture verses that speak of flowers and gardens. The Talmud is full of stories which indicate this love for the little ones — e.g. "There was once a great drought, and the most pious men wept and prayed for rain, but none came. At length an insignificant person prayed, and instantly the heavens covered themselves with clouds, and the rain fell, 'Who are you,' they cried, 'whose prayers have alone prevailed?' And he answered, 'I am a teacher of little children.'" Again, "When God was about to give His law to His people, He asked them whom they would offer as guarantees that they would keep it holy, and they said, 'Abraham.' God said, 'Abraham has sinned; Isaac, Jacob, Moses himself, they have all sinned; I cannot accept them.' Then they said, 'May our children be witnesses and our guarantees?' And God accepted them, even as it is written. 'From the mouth of the little babes has He preached His empire.'" The literal rendering is to he preferred. This verse is quoted in the Gospel by Matthew in a way which is quite decisive of the meaning. That we should thus understand them is shown — 1. From the general drift of the Psalm. The little children trust and love and are at peace, though men be so different. 2. From sympathy and agreement in this truth, which we find in other great poets, such as Wordsworth, "Trailing clouds of glory," etc. 3. From our own experience, children suggest helpful, restful thoughts. If in his origin man is so pure and so divine, must he not be capable of a Divine strength and blessedness? ( Samuel Cox, D. D. ) The useful ministry of children Dean Farrar, D. D. In the Middle Ages lived the great theologian, the great Chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson , whose whole life was spent in storms of political struggle and religious strife, and when, after his long years of turbulent battle to beard popes and burn heretics, he took refuge in the silence and solitude of a monastic cell, his one joy was to gather the little children round his bed and bid them pray, "Lord, have mercy on Thy poor servant, Jean Gerson"; and even the strong combative soul of Luther melted to tenderness in the presence of little ones; and it was the voice of a little girl singing a hymn on a doorstep at Weimar that dispelled the heartache of Philip Melanchthon ; and the agonies of the Scotch martyr Wishart were soothed when, to the taunt that he had a devil, the voice of a little child was heard replying, "You man does not speak like a man that hath a devil"; and George Whitfield was cheered and encouraged when he saw the little boys and girls who had gathered around his pulpit lifting to him in pity their tearful faces when the mobs pelted him with stones and dirt. And thus to these saints, and many more, has the trustfulness and simplicity of little children been, as it was to the heart of David, a strength made perfect in weakness to still their own enemies and the enemies of God. And which of us personally has not felt from the reminiscences of his own childhood, if, indeed, a pang of shame to think that we are in some things farther from heaven than then, yet also an inspiration of hope and strength? ( Dean Farrar, D. D. ) A prophecy of the Incarnation Joseph Mede, B. D. These words are alleged by our blessed Saviour ( Matthew 21:16 ), to prove that Christ must reign till He has subdued all His enemies under His feet. He that reads this whole Psalm would think it were nothing else but a description of man's excellency, whom God had made next to the angels in dignity, and given him dominion over all things He had made. How is that which is a description of mankind in general, a prophecy of Christ in special! The key of the interpretation of this Psalm is to be sought in the words, "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings," etc. 1. The meaning of the words as they stand in the Psalm. The whole drift of the Psalm is to praise and glorify God for the dignity wherewith Fie hath invested man. This glory and honour is seen in two particulars. (1) In that God hath ordained that weak and feeble creature man to subdue and conquer His enemies. (2) In that He hath made man the lord of all His creatures. 2. The purport of these words was fulfilled in our blessed Saviour's incarnation. The devil by sin brought mankind into thraldom, and became the prince of this world, himself with his angels being worshipped and served everywhere as gods. To vanquish and exterminate this enemy, and redeem the world from this miserable thraldom, the Son of God took on Him, not the nature of angels, but the nature of weak and despicable man, that grows from a babe and suckling. And the Son of Man enables also other sons of men, His disciples and ministers, to do the like in His name. 3. This victory, as for the event, so for the manner of achieving it, is agreeable to our prophecy. Forasmuch as Christ our General nor fights, nor conquers by force of arms, but by the power of His Word and Spirit, which is "the power of His mouth," according to the text, "Out of the mouth," etc. ( Joseph Mede, B. D. ) When I consider Thy heavens. Psalm 8:3, 4 Considering J. Parker, D. D. That is what people will not do. They are thoughtless, superficial, frivolous; they do not sit down and put things together and add them up, and ask the meaning of the poetry of the total. 1. "When I consider" — I become a new man, much larger, nobler, saintlier. What does consider mean? I wonder if any six men in any audience could tell the meaning, etymological and historical and parabolical, of consider. It is a word which everybody knows. It is two words, it is two Latin words; it is con or cum , with, together: sider — what is there in the word sider ? Nothing. Take care! Sider comes a long way up the track of language; it was born sidus . That is what you say when you write, your married name; under it you put nee, born — another name, your father's name, which you have relinquished in favour of another name. Sidus means star; it is the root of siderial heavens, the starry heavens, the stellar universe, and the like. Considerealise — when we star together — put the planets into syllables and words and paragraphs; when I considerealise, make a lesson book of the stars; when I punctuate my discourse with millenniums, then I pray. If men would do this they would be religious, but they are frivolous — "What is in the paper this morning?" Ah me! 'tis hideous and disheartening. When I, said the Psalmist, who kept his shepherd's crook in the belt of Orion, when I considerealise, talk in stars and think in planets and pray in constellations — Reverence is the basis of true character. Little subjects will make little men; gossip will dethrone an Aristotle. 2. How this considerealising of things changes their whole aspect, their entire value, relation, and meaning. We do not loop our subjects on to the great cars, so we perform little journeys, and we are no sooner out of the house than we are in it again. We do not outrun the height of the planets; we are so easily excited by subjects that really have nothing in them. Who would speak of a great earthquake? There never was such a thing, except within the limits of the little earth itself; then it was very great, it almost shook down the chest of drawers in my house! For a time I thought the bookcase was going to fall over me; it was a great earthquake! No, a spasm not worth talking about; if the earth had quaked itself out of existence it would not have deserved the epithet great. God is great, and His heavens are as nothing before Him, and the universe is to Him like a dewdrop trembling on the leaf of a flower. 3. We must therefore get into the right way of thinking about things; we must consider, we must read much in starlight; we must bring the right scale to bear upon the events which disturb us so much, and then they will disturb us no longer. The Psalmist says, "When I consider Thy heavens, the moon, and the stars, which Thou hast ordained," then I get the right view of everything else. We must get back to the geometric measurements, to the stellar spaces, to the all-quieting immensities; then we shall be great, because we shall be in our measure like God. 4. And when I thus consider, my spirit is tranquillised; a great peace steals over my soul. When I look at death I am disquieted and overborne and impoverished; when I look at immortality I am young, I come out of my chamber as a bridegroom ready to run a race, like a giant that cannot be tired. Thus there are two views of life, the detranquillising view and the all-tranquillising view. We may spend so much time with death as to think the universe is but a ghostly shadow. Why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God, count His stars, be familiar with His heavens; hear the man of science who tells thee that, having seen the night glory, the telescope has found forty thousand galleries such as the gallery which is visible to the poor struggling astronomical instrument; and when thou dost bathe thyself in the rivers of the stars thy flesh shall come again as the flesh of a little child, and thou shalt begin to praise God in a new sweet hymn. 5. "When I consider," I find that things are not so roughly related and antagonised as at first they seemed to be. I was not looking from the right point of view, I did not get far enough away from my subject, I was in the thick of the battle, in the very midst of the storm of dust, I could not see things in their right relation and proportion; but when I climbed the stairway of the stars and looked down upon the earth and time and measurable space I said, All things work together for good to them that love God. 6. "When I consider," consideralise, put the stars together, I get time drawn into its right relation or driven off into its right prospective, I punctuate the li

8:1,2 The psalmist seeks to give unto God the glory due to his name. How bright this glory shines even in this lower world! He is ours, for he made us, protects us, and takes special care of us. The birth, life, preaching, miracles, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus are known through the world. No name is so universal, no power and influence so generally felt, as those of the Saviour of mankind. But how much brighter it shines in the upper world! We, on this earth, only hear God's excellent name, and praise that; the angels and blessed spirits above, see his glory, and praise that; yet he is exalted far above even their blessing and praise. Sometimes the grace of God appears wonderfully in young children. Sometimes the power of God brings to pass great things in his church, by very weak and unlikely instruments, that the excellency of the power might the more evidently appear to be of God, and not of man. This he does, because of his enemies, that he may put them to silence. 8:3-9 We are to consider the heavens, that man thus may be directed to set his affections on things above. What is man, so mean a creature, that he should be thus honoured! so sinful a creature, that he should be thus favoured! Man has sovereign dominion over the inferior creatures, under God, and is appointed their lord. This refers to Christ. In Heb 2:6-8, the apostle, to prove the sovereign dominion of Christ, shows he is that Man, that Son of man, here spoken of, whom God has made to have dominion over the works of his hands. The greatest favour ever showed to the human race, and the greatest honour ever put upon human nature, were exemplified in the Lord Jesus. With good reason does the psalmist conclude as he began, Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth, which has been honoured with the presence of the Redeemer, and is still enlightened by his gospel, and governed by his wisdom and power! What words can reach his praises, who has a right to our obedience as our Redeemer?