Psalms 8

Psalms 8:1-9

Section 3. (Psalms 8:1-9.)The Son of man in possession of His inheritance glorifies Jehovah in all the earth. Psalms 8:1-9. To the chief musician, upon the Gittith: a psalm of David.
The third section contains only one psalm, quite distinct in character from the series before it, and which yet leads up to it, as we have seen. But it is (as they are not) Messianic, -a revival, as it were, of those claims of the Son of God to the throne, which, being rejected by the nations, He has forborne as yet to make good in power, as He will surely do. His time of patience has accomplished, in the mean while, the fulfillment of other purposes, even those in which to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, is made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." (Ephesians 3:10.) Of this we must not expect any intimation here. We are here (as in Old Testament prophecy generally) in the line of Jewish hopes and promises. Still we have not here the King on Zion, but the wider title of Son of man. This, of course, implies the taking of His other glories, and we shall have many a psalm later on that will present these. Here at the outset we need expect little detail, but the general features sketched of a picture that is to be filled in afterwards. The outline is given with a few bold touches sufficiently comprehensive. Not the King on Zion nor the Son owned of God is here, but the ideal man, the answer to the question, “what is man?” -God’s head over the earth, and with gleams of higher glories, -Son of man, nevertheless, (decisively different in this from the first Adam,) through whom God is glorified on earth, and His glory set even above the heavens. Such is the wonderful scene that is here opened out to us. It is a psalm of David, “upon the Gittith.” Two interpretations of this are given, which practically are not far apart, however. “Some Hebrew scholars,” says an anonymous writer whom we may often quote, “would regard it as the name of a musical instrument peculiar to Gath, where David once sought shelter from the unrelenting persecution of Saul. Just as there was among the Greeks a Dorian lyre, which had a wide celebrity on account of its excellent sweetness, so, it is suggested, this psaltery, Gittith, was borrowed by David from the citizens of Gath, and thence introduced by him on account of the superior sweetness of its tone and the beauty and elegance of its form. If this be the true interpretation, it suggests also a deeply spiritual reflection: for how often from the saddest occasions of temptation and distress in the devout life arise the gladdest songs of praise! The wild storm often makes the sweetest music on the Aeolian harp. “But a more likely derivation may be found for this title, Gittith, in a Hebrew root, signifying “wine-press.” And now it is an autumnal song chanted by the vine-dressers at the joyful vintage-season, when the blood of the grape is poured into the wine-vat. Still the same idea is prominent: sorrow and anguish, like the trodden clusters, are fruitful in the wine of a holy joy.” Whether it be Gath the city, or gath the wine-press, the root-word, and so the meaning, is the same, and the thought suggested acquires its fullest significance when we connect it with the cross. The wrath borne for men, the blood outpoured, were there for us the cause of a joy that shall never cease. And how simply it brings before us the apostle’s quotation of this psalm, and the note which he makes upon the quotation: “we see Jesus, made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” (Hebrews 2:9.) One might easily imagine that the apostle had in mind the “al haggittith” of the psalm from which he quotes.

1. So brief yet so comprehensive as it is, the psalm has comparatively many divisions. It begins and ends with the glory of God, Jehovah’s name being now excellent in all the earth. But there is more than this: He has set His glory also above the heavens. It should be evident when we consider what is the great subject before us, that all this has a deeper meaning than at first sight we might give it. The Lord as Son of man, taking possession of the earth as His inheritance, makes everywhere Jehovah’s name excellent in it. When, as Zechariah prophesies, “the Lord my God shall come, and all His saints with Thee,” His feet standing upon the mount of Olives, from which He went up, then “Jehovah shall be King over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Jehovah, and His Name one.” (Zechariah 14:3; Zechariah 14:5; Zechariah 14:10.) The application in this way is simple, and it throws light upon the rest of the verse: for then surely we can see that the glory that is set above the heavens is connected with the work of this same blessed Person. It is not the glory of moon and stars spread over the heavens, such as the psalmist speaks of in the third verse, but a glory above all created things, however wondrous. Jehovah it is who is manifest in this Son of man, in whose lowly position just the wonder of His condescending love appears. Supreme in power, He is as supreme in moral glory, and in Christ how does this shine out! Thus the praise of earth ascends to Him, owning His rightful rule: “Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the earth!”
2. Its deliverance has come, therefore, from the oppressor: it is not merely that the voice of calumny has been stopped, as interpreters have taken this verse to mean, but the enemy has passed away. In a fuller sense than could be said of Solomon’s peaceful reign, there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent.” So then it is by more than the praise of babes and sucklings that the enemy is silenced, and the Lord’s quotation of the passage with reference to the hosannas of the children does not at all entail such a consequence as this. It is He Himself who will “smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips destroy the wicked.” But yet for this He will establish praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings; that is, I doubt not, of new-converted souls, humbled and brought down to such conscious littleness and weakness as this implies. We have again from His lips such a comparison in the well-known words, “Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Thus we see clearly why He must produce such praise in order that the kingdom may come: the heirs of it must be made ready. The little children in the temple foreshadowed such praise as this, and in this way the language could be suitably used with reference to them. The actual fulfillment will be in those future days to which, as we have seen, these psalms look on.
3. The third section brings us to the central subject of the psalm, a spiritual enigma, no doubt, scarcely read in its true meaning until the New Testament light was thrown upon it. At first sight it is just man -the race -of which the psalmist speaks; and the question asked is really of this nature: but the answer is a secret for the ear of faith, like much more that we shall find as we go on with him. Man (the race) is, in fact, but what the fall has made him; and what can be really said for him? What can justify God’s regard for this ruined creature? Go back to his creation, -put him in the seat from which he fell, -think of the earth as subjected to him, -alas, he seems but to mock the approving words with which his Maker greeted him.

Restore him, if it were possible, even to that original excellency, how shall the scepter be again entrusted to hands that have failed so signally to Wield it? How, then, could God go on with such an one? Really you have no answer till you have a Second Man, -until you can find one unruined, and with better pledges for the future: no use in mere restoration, in mending such a broken vessel as the first; set him aside, and let another take his office; if, indeed, that other can be found. Here Christ then comes in, really a Second Man. Yet “Son of Man” also, linked with the race in that manner, so as to be able to stand before God the representative of those who in faith look to Him, -the “Seed of the woman,” who should bruise the serpent’s head. Thus He is “made a little lower than the angels,” as the apostle explains, “on account of the suffering of death.” It is not merely that man’s condition is by creation a little lower, but Christ as become Son of man is made that. It is a true descent that we are to think of here, and the word used for “angels “really “gods,” and the ordinary word for “God” (Elohim) -has thus in its very ambiguity peculiar significance. God He indeed was, who had come down to be a little lower than God, -lower even than those habitually representing Him to men,* and so identified with Him, as the angels are: the apostle accepts the Septuagint translation, therefore, “angels.”
“On account of the suffering of death” He had to come down there. Man was under death as penalty, and therefore One had to come in who by voluntary submission to the penalty could glorify God as righteous in it, manifest the holiness of His nature as against sin, but thus also manifest His love in providing escape. And for this, humanity had to be taken; immeasurably exalted indeed, by that which was His humiliation, but now how wondrously in His exaltation! For He laid down only to take up again that “body prepared,” and as a Man forever is risen and gone up to God. What meaning is in this way given to the words, “with glory and honor Thou crownest Him”! 4. Now we have his dominion, the first man’s rule being repeated and emphasized in the Second Man. “Thou makest Him rule over the works of Thy hands: Thou halt put everything under His feet.” Here again, as we take earth-angles to measure the heavens, so the earth-kingdom of Adam is made to indicate an empire that is universal. And the apostle teaches us that we may take the expressions here in the uttermost truth of them: “in that He put all things under Him, He left nothing that is not put under Him.” The psalm naturally, however, clings to earth, though the things mentioned are not forbidden a deeper meaning: “sheep and oxen” give us, of course, the domestic animals; the “beasts of the field,” what we speak of as untamed. The spiritual meaning may without difficulty be found by those that will. The heavens and the deep speak of spheres above and below the earth, as the spiritual ranks of the higher heavens serve with delight the Son of man on the one hand, while He has also on the other “the keys of death and of hell.” In all this we are dull scholars, but the general thought is plain. It is no wonder that the psalm ends with that with which it begins; the whole clasped, as it were, together with the uniting bond that has joined God with man, and thus made His name excellent in all the earth, -with a glory, too, which is set above the heavens!