O Lord - Hebrew, יהוה Yahweh. It is an address to God by his chosen and special title, Exodus 3:14. Compare the notes at Isaiah 1:2.

Our Lord - The word used here - אדני 'âdônay - means properly master, lord, ruler, owner, and is such a title as is given to an owner of land or of slaves, to kings, or to rulers, and is applied to God as being the ruler or governor of the universe. The meaning here is, that the psalmist acknowledged Yahweh to be the rightful ruler, king, or master of himself and of all others. He comes before him with the feeling that Yahweh is the universal ruler - the king and proprietor of all things.

How excellent is thy name - How excellent or exalted art thou - the name being often used to denote the person. The idea is," How glorious art thou in thy manifested excellence or character."

In all the earth - In all parts of the world. That is, the manifestation of his perfect character was not confined to any one country, but was seen in all lands, and among all people. In every place his true character was made known through His works; in every land there were evidences of his wisdom, his greatness, his goodness, his condescension.

Who hast set thy glory above the heavens - The word used here, and rendered "hast set," is in the imperative mood - תנה tenâh - give; and it should probably have been so rendered here, "which thy glory give thou;" that is, "which glory of thine, or implied in thy name, give or place above the heavens." In other words, let it he exalted in the highest degree, and to the highest place, even above the heavens on which he was gazing, and which were in themselves so grand, Psalm 8:3. It expresses the wish or prayer of the writer that the name or praise of God, so manifest in the earth, might be exalted in the highest possible degree - be more elevated than the moon and the stars - exalted and adored in all worlds. In His name there was such intrinsic grandeur that he desired that it might be regarded as the highest object in the universe, and might blaze forth above all worlds. On the grammatical construction of this word - תנה tenâh - see an article by Prof. Stuart, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. ix. pp. 73-77. Prof. Stuart supposes that the word is not formed from נתן nâthan - to give, as is the common explanation, but from תנה tânâh - to give presents, to distribute gifts, Hosea 8:9-10, and that it should be rendered, Thou who diffusest abroad thy glory over the heavens.

O Lord our Lord - יהוה אדנינו Yehovah Adoneynu; O Jehovah our Prop, our Stay, or Support. אדני Adonai is frequently used: sometimes, indeed often, for the word יהוה Yehovah itself. The root דן dan signifies to direct, rule, judge, support. So Adonai is the Director, Ruler, Judge, Supporter of men. It is well joined with Jehovah; this showing what God is in himself; that, what God is to man; and may here very properly refer to our Lord Jesus.

How excellent is thy name in all the earth! - How illustrious is the name of Jesus throughout the world! His incarnation, birth, humble and obscure life, preaching, miracles, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, are celebrated through the whole world. His religion, the gifts and graces of his Spirit, his people - Christians - his Gospel and the preachers of it are everywhere spoken of. No name is so universal, no power and influence so generally felt, as those of the Savior of mankind. Amen.

Thy glory above the heavens - The heavens are glorious, the most glorious of all the works of God which the eye of man can reach; but the glory of God is infinitely above even these. The words also seem to intimate that no power, earthly or diabolical, can lessen or injure that glory. The glory and honor which God has by the Gospel shall last through time, and through eternity; and of that glory none shall be able to rob him, to whom majesty and dominion are eternally due. This has been applied by some to the resurrection of our Lord. He rose from the dead, and ascended above all heavens; and by these his glory was sealed, his mission accomplished, and the last proof given to his preceding miracles.

Psalm 8:1-9Psalm 8:1

Domine Deus noster, quoniam admirabile est nomen tuum in universa terra.

Trans. Lord our Lord, qwat thi name es wonderfull in al the Erde.

continued...

O Lord our God,.... Jehovah, the one God, who is Lord of all angels and men, and in an especial manner Lord and King of saints;

how excellent is thy name in all the earth! by the "name" of God is not meant any particular name of his, by which he is called; but either himself, his nature and perfections; or rather that by which he is made known, and particularly his Gospel; see John 17:6; this is excellent in its nature, it being good news, and glad tidings of good things, which display the love, grace, mercy, and kindness of God to men, as well as his wisdom, power, truth, and faithfulness; and in the subject matter of it, Christ and his righteousness, and life and salvation by him, the spiritual blessings of grace it publishes, and the exceeding great and precious promises it contains; and in its usefulness for the enlightening, quickening, and converting sinners, and for the comforting and reviving of drooping saints. It is the glorious Gospel of the blessed God, and excels the law in glory. It cannot well be said how glorious it is; it is marvellously excellent; and that "in all the earth", being carried by the apostles, who were sent by Christ with it, into all the world; where it has shone out, and appeared gloriously to Gentiles as well as Jews. This clause shows that this is said by David prophetically of Gospel times; for not in his time, nor in any period under the Old Testament, was the name of the Lord glorious and excellent in all the earth. His name was great in Israel, but not in all the world. He showed his word, and gave his statutes and ordinances to Jacob; but as for the Gentiles, they were without them, and were strangers to the covenants of promise, Psalm 76:1; but this was true of the first times of the Gospel; and will be still more fully accomplished when the prophecies in Malachi 1:11; shall be fulfilled;

who hast set thy glory above the heavens: meaning his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the brightness of his glory; in whom is all the fulness of the Godhead, the glory of all the divine perfections; so called Psalm 63:2; and the setting of him above the heavens designs the exaltation of him at the right hand of God; where angels, principalities, and powers, became subject to him, and he was made higher than the heavens, Hebrews 7:26. And it was in consequence, and by virtue of this, that the Gospel was spread throughout the earth; for upon Christ's exaltation the Spirit was poured down upon the apostles, and they were endowed with girls qualifying them to carry the Gospel into each of the parts of the world.

1 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

Unable to express the glory of God, the Psalmist utters a note of exclamation. O Jehovah our Lord! We need not wonder at this, for no heart can measure, no tongue can utter, the half of the greatness of Jehovah. The whole creation is full of his glory and radiant with the excellency of his power; his goodness and his wisdom are manifested on every hand. The countless myriads of terrestrial beings, from man the head, to the creeping worm at the foot, are all supported and nourished by the Divine bounty. The solid fabric of the universe leans upon his eternal arm. Universally is he present, and everywhere is his name excellent. God worketh ever and everywhere. There is no place where God is not. The miracles of his power await us on all sides. Traverse the silent valleys where the rocks enclose you on either side, rising like the battlements of heaven till you can see but a strip of the blue sky far overhead; you may be the only traveller who has passed through that glen; the bird may start up affrighted, and the moss may tremble beneath the first tread of human foot; but God is there in a thousand wonders, upholding yon rocky barriers, filling the flowercups with their perfume, and refreshing the lonely pines with the breath of his mouth. Descend, if you will, into the lowest depths of the ocean, where undisturbed the water sleeps, and the very sand is motionless in unbroken quiet, but the glory of the Lord is there, revealing its excellence in the silent palace of the sea. Borrow the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the sea, but God is there. Mount to the highest heaven, or dive into the deepest hell, and God is in both hymned in everlasting song, or justified in terrible vengeance. Everywhere, and in every place, God dwells and is manifestly at work. Nor on earth alone is Jehovah extolled, for his brightness shines forth in the firmament above the earth. His glory exceeds the glory of the starry heavens; above the region of the stars he hath set fast his everlasting throne, and there he dwells in light ineffable. Let us adore him "who alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea; who maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south." (Job 9:8, Job 9:9.) We can scarcely find more fitting words than those of Nehemiah, "Thou even thou, art Lord alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee." Returning to the text we are led to observe that this Psalm is addressed to God, because none but the Lord himself can fully know his own glory. The believing heart is ravished with what it sees, but God only knows the glory of God. What a sweetness lies in the little word our, how much is God's glory endeared to us when we consider our interest in him as our Lord. How excellent is thy name! no words can express that excellency; and therefore it is left as a note of exclamation. The very name of Jehovah is excellent, what must his person be. Note the fact that even the heavens cannot contain his glory, it is set above the heavens, since it is and ever must be too great for the creature to express. When wandering amid the Alps, we felt that the Lord was infinitely greater than all his grandest works, and under that feeling we roughly wrote these few lines:-

Yet in all these how great soe'er they be,

We see not Him. The glass is all too dense

And dark, or else our earthborn eyes too dim.

Yon Alps; that lift their heads above the clouds

And hold familiar converse with the stars,

Are dust, at which the balance trembleth not,

Compared with His divine immensity.

The snow-crown'd summits fail to set Him forth,

"Who dwelleth in Eternity, and bears

Alone, the name of High and Lofty One.

Depths unfathomed are too shallow to express

The wisdom and the knowledge of the Lord.

continued...

(Heb.: 8:2-3) Here, for the first time, the subject speaking in the Psalm is not one individual, but a number of persons; and who should they be but the church of Jahve, which (as in Nehemiah 10:30) can call Jahve its Lord (אדנינוּ, like אדני from אדנים plur. excellentiae, Ges. ֗108, 2); but knowing also at the same time that what it has become by grace it is called to be for the good of the whole earth? The שׁם of God is the impress (cognate Arabic wasm, a sign, Greek σῆμα) of His nature, which we see in His works of creation and His acts of salvation, a nature which can only be known from this visible and comprehensible representation (nomen equals gnomen).

(Note: Cf. Oehler's art. Name in Herzog's Real-Encyklopdie.)

This name of God is certainly not yet so known and praised everywhere, as the church to which it has been made known by a positive revelation can know and praise it; but, nevertheless, it, viz., the divine name uttered in creation and its works, by which God has made Himself known and capable of being recognised and named, ifs אדּיר amplum et gloriosum, everywhere through out the earth, even if it were entirely without any echo. The clause with אשׁר must not be rendered: Who, do Thou be pleased to put Thy glory upon the heavens (Gesenius even: quam tuam magnificentiam pone in caelis), for such a use of the imperat. after אשׁר is unheard of; and, moreover, although it is true a thought admissible in its connection with the redemptive history (Psalm 57:6, 12) is thus obtained, it is here, however, one that runs counter to the fundamental tone, and to the circumstances, of the Psalm. For the primary thought of the Psalm is this, that the God, whose glory the heavens reflect, has also glorified Himself in the earth and in man; and the situation of the poet is this, that he has the moon and stars before his eyes: how then could he wish that heaven to be made glorious whose glory is shining into his eyes! It is just as impracticable to take תּנה as a contraction of נתנה, like תּתּה 2 Samuel 22:41, equals נתתּה, as Ammonius and others, and last of all Bhl, have done, or with Thenius (Stud. u. Krit. 1860 S. 712f.) to read it so at once. For even if the thought: "which (the earth) gives (announces) Thy glory all over the heavens" is not contrary to the connection, and if נתן עז, Psalm 68:34, and נתן כבוד, Jeremiah 13:16, can be compared with this נתן הוד, still the phrase נתן הוד על means nothing but to lay majesty on any one, to clothe him with it, Numbers 27:20; 1 Chronicles 29:25; Daniel 11:21, cf. Psalm 21:6; and this is just the thought one looks for, viz., that the name of the God, who has put His glory upon the heavens (Psalm 148:13) is also glorious here below. We must, therefore, take תּנה, although it is always the form of the imper. elsewhere, as infin., just as רדה occurs once in Genesis 46:3 as infin. (like the Arab. rı̆da a giving to drink, lı̆da a bringing forth - forms to which לדה and the like in Hebrew certainly more exactly correspond).

תּנה הודך signifies the setting of Thy glory (prop. τὸ τιθέναι τὴν δόξαν σου) just like דּעה את־ה the knowledge of Jahve, and Obad. Psa 8:5, שׂים קנּך, probably the setting of thy nest, Ges. 133. 1. It may be interpreted: O Thou whose laying of Thy glory is upon the heavens, i.e., Thou who hast chosen this as the place on which Thou hast laid Thy glory (Hengst.). In accordance with this Jerome translates it: qui posuisti gloriam tuam super caelos. Thus also the Syriac version with the Targum: dejabt (דיהבת) shubhoch 'al shemajo, and Symmachus: ὃς ἔταξας τὸν ἔπαινόν σου ὑπεράνω τῶν οὐρανῶν. This use of the nomen verbale and the genitival relation of אשׁר to תּנה הודך, which is taken as one notion, is still remarkable. Hitzig considers that no reasonable man would think and write thus: but thereby at the same time utterly condemns his own conjecture תּן ההודך (whose extending of glory over the heavens). This, moreover, goes beyond the limits of the language, which is only acquainted with תּן as the name of an animal. All difficulty would vanish if one might, with Hupfeld, read נתתּה. But תנה has not the slightest appearance of being a corruption of נתתה. It might be more readily supposed that תּנה is an erroneous pointing for תּנה (to stretch or extend, cf. Hosea 8:10 to stretch forth, distribute): Thou whose glory stretches over the heavens, - an interpretation which is more probable than that it is, with Paulus and Kurtz, to be read תּנּה: Thou whose glory is praised (pass. of the תּנּה in Judges 5:11; Judges 11:40, which belongs to the dialect of Northern Palestine), instead of which one would more readily expect יתנּה. The verbal notion, which is tacitly implied in Psalm 113:4; Psalm 148:13, would then be expressed here. But perhaps the author wrote תּנה הודך instead of נתתּ הודך, because he wishes to describe the setting out of the heavens with divine splendour

(Note: In the first Sidonian inscription אדּיר occurs as a by-name of the heavens (שמם אדרם).)

as being constantly repeated and not as done once for all. There now follows, in Psalm 8:3, the confirmation of Psalm 8:2: also all over the earth, despite its distance from the heavens above, Jahve's name is glorious; for even children, yea even sucklings glorify him there, and in fact not mutely and passively by their mere existence, but with their mouth. עולל ( equals מעולל), or עולל is a child that is more mature and capable of spontaneous action, from עולל (Poel of עלל ludere),

(Note: According to this derivation עולל (cf. Beduin עאלול, ‛âlûl a young ox) is related to תּעלוּל; whereas עוּל as a synonym of יונק signifies one who is supported, sustained. For the radical signification of עוּל according to the Arabic ‛âl, fut. o. is "to weigh heavy, to be heavy, to lie upon; to have anything incumbent upon one's self, to carry, support, preserve," whence ‛ajjil the maintained child of the house, and (ajjila (Damascene ‛êla) he who is dependent upon one for support and the family depending upon the paterfamilias for sustenance. Neither Arab. ‛âl, fut. o., nor gâl, fut. i. usually applied to a pregnant woman who still suckles, has the direct signification to suckle. Moreover, the demon Ghul does not receive its name from swallowing up or sucking out (Ges.), but from destroying (Arab. gâl, fut. o.).)

according to 1 Samuel 22:19; Psalm 15:3, distinct from יונק, i.e., a suckling, not, however, infans, but, - since the Hebrew women were accustomed to suckle their children for a long period, - a little child which is able to lisp and speak (vid., 2 Macc. 7:27). Out of the mouth of beings such as these Jahve has founded for Himself עז. The lxx translates it the utterance of praise, αἶνον; and עז certainly sometimes has the meaning of power ascribed to God in praise, and so a laudatory acknowledgment of His might; but this is only when connected with verbs of giving, Psalm 29:1; Psalm 68:35; Psalm 96:7. In itself, when standing alone, it cannot mean this. It is in this passage: might, or victorious power, which God creates for Himself out of the mouths of children that confess Him. This offensive and defensive power, as Luther has observed on this passage, is conceived of as a strong building, עז as מעוז (Jeremiah 16:19) i.e., a fortress, refuge, bulwark, fortification, for the foundation of which He has taken the mouth, i.e., the stammering of children; and this He has done because of His enemies, to restrain (השׁבּית to cause any one to sit or lie down, rest, to put him to silence, e.g., Isaiah 16:10; Ezekiel 7:24) such as are enraged against Him and His, and are inspired with a thirst for vengeance which expresses itself in curses (the same combination is found in Psalm 44:17). Those meant, are the fierce and calumniating opponents of revelation. Jahve has placed the mouth of children in opposition to these, as a strong defensive controversive power. He has chosen that which is foolish and weak in the eyes of the world to put to shame the wise and that which is strong (1 Corinthians 1:27). It is by obscure and naturally feeble instruments that He makes His name glorious here below. and overcomes whatsoever is opposed to this glorifying.

O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.

8:1 In - Not only in Israel, but among all nations. Which shews that this psalm speaks of the Messiah, and the times of the New Testament. Heavens - Where thy throne of glory is established, where the blessed angels celebrate thy praises, where Christ sitteth at thy right hand in glorious majesty, from whence he poureth down excellent gifts upon babes.

[1] Gittith

Gittith= "winepress," and so, of the harvest, in the sense of judgment Isa 63:3 Rev 19:15 Ps 7:1, to which the title of Psalm 8. properly belongs, is a Psalm of judgment.

PSALM 8

Ps 8:1-9. Upon [or according to the] Gittith, probably means that the musical performance was directed to be according to a tune of that name; which, derived from Gath, a "wine-press," denotes a tune (used in connection with gathering the vintage) of a joyous character. All the Psalms to which this term is prefixed [Ps 8:1; 81:1; 84:1] are of such a character. The Psalmist gives vent to his admiration of God's manifested perfections, by celebrating His condescending and beneficent providence to man as evinced by the position of the race, as originally created and assigned a dominion over the works of His hands.

1. thy name-perfections (Ps 5:11; 7:17).

who hast set-literally, "which set Thou Thy glory," &c., or "which glory of Thine set Thou," &c., that is, make it more conspicuous as if earth were too small a theater for its display. A similar exposition suits the usual rendering.

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.