Psalms For Life
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Yahveh Elohim hear our prayers

Psalm 8

Such wisdom, power, and love!

Cynics sneer at God’s having made humans the center of so fantastic a universe. As reasonable as such cynicism may seem, David insists on a counterintuitive story.

 For the music director, on the gittith. A David psalm.

1 YHWH, our Sovereign
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Your glory outshines suns
and stars beyond counting!
2 Out of the mouths of toddlers
and babes at the breast
you established a stronghold
against your enemies
to silence the foe and avenger.
3 When I look up at the glittering night sky
it’s your handiwork I see—
the moon and stars you made.
4 So, what on earth are human beings
that you care for them?
Why give the son of Adam a second thought? 

5 Yet you made him
the pinnacle of your creation
with only you above
and crowned him with glory and honor—
6 lord of the earth—
putting everything under his feet:
7 sheep and cattle on the hillside
lions and wolves in the wild
8 every bird that flies the skies above
every fish that swims the seven seas. 

9 YHWH, our Sovereign
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

David clearly has Genesis 1-3 in mind here. He praises YHWH, whose sovereign majesty surpasses that of the heavens. His next point, that YHWH builds a stronghold, relates to the Canaanite creation myth which has Baal defeating the forces of chaos in creation and then building a temple-fortress to keep his enemies at bay.

David’s use of this fortress imagery is surprising since God uses the voices of little kids to build his stronghold. But God chooses the weak to shame the mighty, and children have always been central to his redemptive plan. In Genesis 3, God promises that the woman’s descendant will crush the serpent’s head. That child—one of the many descendants later promised to Abraham and the greater son promised to David—would be God’s ultimate defense against evil. Here David seemingly pictures a children’s chorus silencing God’s enemies.

David brings his poem to a dramatic standstill in verse 4, with two questions virtually synonymous in the Hebrew. He wonders, What can possibly explain why so wise and powerful a God made weak-willed humans lords of his creation? Only the unrelenting love embodied in the promised son, a love unique in a world where fickle gods despised their subjects.

Verse 5 pivots from presenting humans as small amidst creation’s grandeur, to seeing them as exalted, just below God in authority, representing him gloriously on earth (Gen. 1:26-28). God remains graciously committed to partnering with us on earth.[1] As the biblical story played out, God restored our race to full partnership with him through Jesus, who was given a name above every name not because he was God, but rather because he’s the true human. As the perfect man, he restored the hope of glory to our race.

David’s glimpse of God’s greatness and grace here prompts him to end as he began, praising God for his majestic sovereignty revealed in creation.

Prayer:

Your wisdom, power, and love are astounding, Lord! You have little kids silence your foes! Give me childlike faith to believe your love is unstoppable. Fill me with that love, and fit me to rule as your faithful servant over whatever you entrust to me. Amen.

In your free moments today, pray these words:

YHWH, our Sovereign
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

 

[1] In one sense, verses 2-3 contrast with verses 5-8, but in another sense, the two passages are complementary, making the poem’s chiasm: A: YHWH’s magnificence in creation (v. 1), B: Human authority over creation (vv. 2-3), C: WHAT IS HUMANITY THAT YOU CARE FOR US? (v. 4a), C: WHAT IS THE SON OF ADAM THAT YOU REGARD HIM? (v. 4b), B: Human authority over creation (vv. 5-8), A: YHWH’s magnificence in creation (v. 9).

Why YHWH?

Every translator of the Psalms must decide how to handle God’s personal name, YHWH or YHVH, which occurs repeatedly in its Hebrew text. Translators of the King James Version usually translated it “LORD” (all caps) and sometimes transliterated it (badly) as “Jehovah.” Likewise, all modern translations either translate or transliterate it. Some other options for translating it are “the Eternal,” “the Almighty,” or “the Sovereign Lord.”

While translating it aims to make it more accessible to readers, transliterating it seems to me more faithful to the text since it’s not a word at all, but rather God’s uniquely personal name. This roots it more firmly in the biblical story as the name God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. Meaning “the self-existent One who answers to no one,” the name YHWH set Israel’s God apart from all the gods of Israel’s neighbors.

Personal names are, well, very personal. Even the sound of a name can evoke strong emotion. I’ve chosen to transliterate only YHWH’s consonants since the earliest Hebrew manuscripts contain only consonants, the vowels being added much later. My aim in doing so is to honor God’s name and set it apart, as unique.

One problem with YHWH is that we aren’t sure how it was pronounced since Jews long ago stopped saying it out of reverence. (They read Adonai instead whenever they come to YHWH in the text.) I take the advice of my esteemed Hebrew professor, Raymond Dillard, who advocated pronouncing it as Yahveh (Yah·vay). He favored that over the standard Yahweh since the modern Hebrew pronunciation of its third consonant makes the name sound more robustly Jewish. It also makes it sound more robust, period.

Finding strength in the ancient psalms
May these psalms be a light to you in dark times. You can read more of Mark Anderson's writings on Christianity, culture, and inter-faith dialogue at Understanding Christianity Today.