nature, since they are immortal, and but a little, because time is
short; and when that is over, saints are no longer lower than the
angels. The margin reads it, “A little while inferior to.” _Thou
crownest him._ The dominion that God has bestowed on man is a great
_glory and honour_ to him; for all dominion is honour, and the highest
is that which wears the crown. A full list is given of the subjugated
creatures, to show that all the dominion lost by sin is restored in
Christ Jesus. Let none of us permit the possession of any earthly
creature to be a snare to us, but let us remember that we are to reign
over them, and not to allow them to reign over us. Under our feet we
must keep the world, and we must shun that base spirit which is content
to let worldly cares and pleasures sway the empire of the immortal soul.
9 O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
Here, like a good composer, the poet returns to his key-note, falling
back, as it were, into his first state of wondering adoration. What he
started with as a proposition in the first verse, he closes with as a
well proven conclusion, with a sort of _quod erat demonstrandum_. O for
grace to walk worthy of that excellent name which has been named upon
us, and which we are pledged to magnify!
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
_Title.—“Gittith,”_ was probably a musical instrument used at their
rejoicings after the vintage. The vintage closed the civil year of the
Jews, and this Psalm directs us to the latter-day glory, when the Lord
shall be King over all the earth, having subdued all his enemies. It is
very evident that the vintage was adopted as a figurative representation
of the final destruction of all God’s enemies. Isaiah lxiii. 1-6; Rev.
xix. 18-20. The ancient Jewish interpreters so understood this Psalm,
and apply it to the mystic vintage. We may then consider this
interesting composition as a prophetic anticipation of the kingdom of
Christ, to be established in glory and honour in the “world to come,”
the habitable world. Heb. ii. 5. We see not yet all things put under his
feet, but we are sure that the Word of God shall be fulfilled, and every
enemy, Satan, death, and hell, shall be for ever subdued and destroyed,
and creation itself delivered from the bondage of corruption into the
glorious liberty of the children of God. Rom. viii. 17-23. In the use of
this Psalm, then, we anticipate that victory, and in the praise we thus
celebrate, we go on from strength to strength till, with him who is our
glorious Head, we appear in Zion before God.—_W. Wilson, D.D., in loc._
_Whole Psalm._—Now, consider but the scope of the Psalm, as the apostle
quoteth it to prove the world to come. Heb. ii. Any one that reads the
Psalm would think that the Psalmist doth but set forth old Adam in his
kingdom, in his paradise, made a little lower than the angels—for we
have spirits wrapped up in flesh and blood, whereas they are spirits
simply—a degree lower, as if they were dukes, and we marquises; one
would think, I say, that this were all his meaning, and that it is
applied to Christ but by way of allusion. But the truth is, the apostle
bringeth it in to prove and to convince these Hebrews, to whom he wrote,
that that Psalm was meant of Christ, of that man whom they expected to
be the Messiah, the Man Christ Jesus. And that he doth it, I prove by
the sixth verse—it is the observation that Beza hath—“One in a certain
place,” quoting David, διεμαρτύρατο, hath testified; so we may translate
it, hath testified it, _etiam atque etiam_, testified most expressly; he
bringeth an express proof for it that it was meant of the Man Christ
Jesus; therefore it is not an allusion. And indeed it was Beza that did
first begin that interpretation that I read of, and himself therefore
doth excuse it and make an apology for it, that he diverteth out of the
common road, though since many others have followed him.
Now the scope of the Psalm is plainly this: in Rom. v. 14, you read that
Adam was a type of him that was to come. Now in Psalm viii. you find
there Adam’s world, the type of a world to come; he was the first Adam,
and had a world, so the second Adam hath a world also appointed for him;
there are his oxen and his sheep, and the fowls of the air, whereby are
meant other things, devils perhaps, and wicked men, the prince of the
air; as by the heavens there, the angels, or the apostles rather—“the
heavens declare the glory of God;” that is applied to the apostles, that
were preachers of the gospel.
To make this plain to you, that that Psalm where the phrase is used,
“All things under his feet,” and quoted by the apostle in Eph. i.
22—therefore it is proper—was not meant of man in innocency, but of the
Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore, answerably, that the
world there is not this world, but a world on purpose made for this
Messiah, as the other was for Adam.
First, it was not meant of man in innocency properly and principally.
Why? Because in the second verse he saith, “Out of the mouth of babes
and sucklings hast thou ordained strength.” There were no babes in the
time of Adam’s innocency, he fell before there were any. Secondly, he
addeth, “That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger;” the devil
that is, for he showed himself the enemy there, to be a manslayer from
the beginning. God would use man to still him; alas! he overcame Adam
presently. It must be meant of another therefore, one that is able to
still this enemy and avenger.
Then he saith, “How excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set
thy glory above the heavens.” Adam had but paradise, he never propagated
God’s name over all the earth; he did not continue so long before he
fell as to beget sons; much less did he found it in the heavens.
Again, verse 4, “What is man, and the son of man?” Adam, though he was
man, yet he was not the son of man; he is called indeed, “the son of
God” (Luke iii. 38), but he was not _filius hominis_. I remember Ribera
urgeth that.
But take an argument the apostle himself useth to prove it. This man,
saith he, must have all subject to him; all but God, saith he; he must
have the angels subject to him, for he hath put all principalities and
powers under his feet, saith he. This could not be Adam, it could not be
the man that had this world in a state of innocency; much less had Adam
all under his feet. No, my brethren, it was too great a vassalage for
Adam to have the creatures thus bow to him. But they are thus to Jesus
Christ, angels and all; they are all under his feet, he is far above
them.
Secondly, it is not meant of man fallen, that is as plain; the apostle
himself saith so. “We see not,” saith he, “all things subject unto him.”
Some think that it is meant as an objection that the apostle answereth;
but it is indeed to prove that man fallen cannot be meant in Psalm viii.
Why? Because, saith he, we do not see anything, all things at least,
subject unto him; you have not any one man, or the whole race of man, to
whom all things have been subject; the creatures are sometimes injurious
to him. We do not see him, saith he; that is, the nature of man in
general considered. Take all the monarchs in the world, they never
conquered the whole world; there was never any one man that was a sinner
that had all subject to him. “But we see,” saith he—mark the
opposition—“but we see Jesus,” that Man, “crowned with glory and
honour;” therefore, it is this Man, and no man else; the opposition
implieth it.... So now it remaineth then, that it is only Christ,
God-man, that is meant in Psalm viii. And indeed, and in truth, Christ
himself interpreteth the Psalm of himself; you have two witnesses to
confirm it, Christ himself and the apostle. Matt. xxi. 16. When they
cried hosanna to Christ, or “save now,” and made him the Saviour of the
world, the Pharisees were angry, our Saviour confuteth them by this very
Psalm: “Have ye not read,” saith he, “out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” He quoteth this very Psalm which
speaks of himself; and Paul, by his warrant, and perhaps from that hint,
doth thus argue out of it, and convince the Jews by it.—_Thomas
Goodwin._
_Verse 1._—“_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
Saviour of mankind. Amen.—_Adam Clarke._
_Verse 1._—“_Above the heavens_;” not in the heavens, but “_above the
heavens_;” even greater, beyond, and higher than they; “angels,
principalities, and powers, being made subject unto him.” As Paul says,
he hath “ascended up far above all heavens.” And with this his glory
above the heaven is connected, his sending forth his name upon earth
through his Holy Spirit. As the apostle adds in this passage, “He hath
ascended up far above all heavens; and he gave some apostles.” And thus
here: “Thy name excellent in all the world;” “Thy glory above the
heavens.”—_Isaac Williams._
_Verse 2._—“_Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained
strength_,” etc. In a prophetic manner, speaking of that which was to be
done by children many hundreds of years after, for the asserting of his
infinite mercy in sending his Son Jesus Christ into the world to save us
from our sins. For so the Lord applieth their crying, “Hosannah to the
Son of David” in the temple. And thus both Basil and other ancients, and
some new writers also understand it. But Calvin will have it meant of
God’s wonderful providing for them, by turning their mothers’ blood into
milk, and giving them the faculty to suck, thus nourishing and
preserving them, which sufficiently convinceth all gainsayers of God’s
wonderful providence towards the weakest and most shiftless of all
creatures.—_John Mayer, 1653._
_Verse 2._—Who are these “_babes and sucklings_?” 1. Man in general, who
springeth from so weak and poor a beginning as that of babes and
sucklings, yet is at length advanced to such power as to grapple with,
and overcome the enemy and the avenger. 2. David in particular, who
being but a ruddy youth, God used him as an instrument to discomfit
Goliath of Gath. 3. More especially our Lord Jesus Christ, who assuming
our nature and all the sinless infirmities of it, and submitting to the
weakness of an infant, and after dying is gone in the same nature to
reign in heaven, till he hath brought all his enemies under his feet.
Psalm cx. 1, and 1 Cor. xv. 27. Then was our human nature exalted above
all other creatures, when the Son of God was made of a woman, carried in
the womb. 4. The apostles, who to outward appearance were despicable, in
a manner children and sucklings in comparison of the great ones of the
world; poor despised creatures, yet principal instruments of God’s
service and glory. Therefore ’tis notable, that when Christ glorifieth
his Father for the wise and free dispensation of his saving grace (Matt.
xi. 25), he saith, “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes,” so called from the meanness of their
condition.... And you shall see it was spoken when the disciples were
sent abroad, and had power given them over unclean spirits. “In that
hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” This he acknowledged to be
an act of infinite condescension in God. 5. Those children that cried
_Hosanna_ to Christ, make up part of the sense, for Christ defendeth
their practice by this Scripture.... 6. Not only the apostles, but all
those that fight under Christ’s banner, and are listed into his
confederacy, may be called babes and sucklings; first, because of their
condition; secondly, their disposition.... 1. Because of their condition
... God in the government of the world is pleased to subdue the enemies
of his kingdom by weak and despised instruments. 2. Because of their
disposition: they are most humble spirited. We are told (Matt. xviii.
3), “Except ye be converted, and become as little children,” etc. As if
he had said, you strive for pre-eminence and worldly greatness in my
kingdom; I tell you my kingdom is a kingdom of babes and containeth none
but the humble, and such as are little in their own eyes, and are
contented to be small and despised in the eyes of others, and so do not
seek after great matters in the world. A young child knoweth not what
striving or state meaneth, and therefore by an emblem and visible
representation of a child set in the midst of them, Christ would take
them off from the expectation of a carnal kingdom.—_Thomas Manton,
1620-1677._
_Verse 2.—“That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.”_ This
very confusion and revenge upon Satan, who was the cause of man’s fall,
was aimed at by God at first; therefore is the first promise and
preaching of the gospel to Adam brought in rather in sentencing him than
in speaking to Adam, that the seed of the woman should break the
serpent’s head, it being in God’s aim as much to confound him as to save
poor man.—_Thomas Goodwin._
_Verse 2._—The work that is done in love loses half its tedium and
difficulty. It is as with a stone, which in the air and on the dry
ground we strain at but cannot stir. Flood the field where it lies, bury
the block beneath the rising water; and now, when its head is submerged,
bend to the work. Put your strength to it. Ah! it moves, rises from its
bed, rolls on before your arm. So, when under the heavenly influences of
grace the tide of love rises, and goes swelling over our duties and
difficulties, a child can do a man’s work, and a man can do a giant’s.
Let love be present in the heart, and “_out of the mouth of babes and
sucklings_ God ordaineth strength.”—_Thomas Guthrie, D.D._
_Verse 2.—“Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.”_ etc. That poor
martyr, Alice Driver, in the presence of many hundreds, did so silence
Popish bishops, that she and all blessed God that the proudest of them
could not resist the spirit in a silly woman; so I say to thee, “_Out of
the mouth of babes and sucklings_” God will be honoured. Even thou,
silly worm, shalt honour him, when it shall appear what God hath done
for thee, what lusts he hath mortified, and what graces he hath granted
thee. The Lord can yet do greater things for thee if thou wilt trust
him. He can carry thee upon eagles’ wings, enable thee to bear and
suffer strong affliction for him, to persevere to the end, to live by
faith, and to finish thy course with joy. Oh! in that he hath made thee
low in heart, thy other lowness shall be so much the more honour to
thee. Do not all as much and more wonder at God’s rare workmanship in
the ant, the poorest bug that creeps, as in the biggest elephant? That
so many parts and limbs should be united in such a little space; that so
poor a creature should provide in the summer-time her winter food. Who
sees not as much of God in a bee as in a greater creature? Alas! in a
great body we look for great abilities and wonder not. Therefore, to
conclude, seeing God hath clothed thy uncomely parts with the more
honour, bless God, and bear thy baseness more equally; thy greatest
glory is yet to come, that when the wise of the world have rejected the
counsel of God, thou hast (with those poor publicans and soldiers),
magnified the ministry of the gospel. Surely the Lord will also be
admired in thee (1 Thess. i.), a poor silly creature, that even thou
wert made wise to salvation and believest in that day. Be still poor in
thine own eyes, and the Lord will make thy proudest scornful enemies to
worship at thy feet, to confess God hath done much for thee, and wish
thy portion when God shall visit them.—_Daniel Rogers, 1642._
_Verse 3.—“When I consider.”_ Meditation fits for humiliation. When
David had been contemplating the works of creation, their splendour,
harmony, motion, influence, he lets the plumes of pride fall, and begins
to have self-abasing thoughts. “_When I consider thy heavens, the work
of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is
man that thou art mindful of him?_”—_Thomas Watson._
_Verse 3.—“When I consider thy heavens,”_ etc. David surveying the
firmament, broke forth into this consideration: “_When I consider thy
heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou
hast created, what is man?_” etc. How cometh he to mention the moon and
stars, and omit the sun? the other being but his pensioners, shining
with that exhibition of light which the bounty of the sun allots them.
It is answered, this was David’s night meditation, when the sun,
departing to the other world, left the lesser lights only visible in
heaven; and as the sky is best beheld by day in the glory thereof, so
too it is best surveyed by night in the variety of the same. Night was
made for man to rest in. But when I cannot sleep, may I, with the
Psalmist, entertain my waking with good thoughts. Not to use them as
opium, to invite my corrupt nature to slumber, but to bolt out bad
thoughts, which otherwise would possess my soul.—_Thomas Fuller,
1608-1661._
_Verse 3.—“Thy heavens.”_ The carnal mind sees God in nothing, not even
in spiritual things, his word and ordinances. The spiritual mind sees
him in everything, even in natural things, in looking on the heavens and
the earth and all the creatures—“THY _heavens_;” sees all in that
notion, in their relation to God as his work, and in them his glory
appearing; stands in awe, fearing to abuse his creatures and his favours
to his dishonour. “_The day is thine, and the night also is thine_;”
therefore ought not I to forget thee through the day, nor in the
night.—_Robert Leighton, D.D._
_Verse 3.—“The stars.”_ I cannot say that it is chiefly the
contemplation of their infinitude, and the immeasurable space they
occupy, that enraptures me in the stars. These conditions rather tend to
confuse the mind; and in this view of countless numbers and unlimited
space there lies, moreover, much that belongs rather to a temporary and
human than to an eternally abiding consideration. Still less do I regard
them absolutely with reference to the life after this. But the mere
thought they are so far beyond and above everything terrestrial—the
feeling, that before them everything earthly so utterly vanishes to
nothing—that the single man is so infinitely insignificant in the
comparison with these worlds strewn over all space—that his destinies,
his enjoyments, and sacrifices, to which he attaches such a minute
importance—how all these fade like nothing before such immense objects;
then, that the constellations bind together all the races of man, and
all the eras of the earth, that they have beheld all that has passed
since the beginning of time, and will see all that passes until its end;
in thoughts like these I can always lose myself with a silent delight in
the view of the starry firmament. It is, in very truth, a spectacle of
the highest solemnity, when, in the stillness of night, in a heaven
quite clear, the stars, like a choir of worlds, arise and descend, while
existence, as it were, falls asunder into two separate parts; the one,
belonging to earth, grows dumb in the utter silence of night, and
thereupon the other mounts upward in all its elevation, splendour, and
majesty. And, when contemplated from this point of view, the starry
heavens have truly a moral influence on the mind.—_Alexander Von
Humboldt, 1850._
_Verse 3.—“When I consider thy heavens,”_ etc. Could we transport
ourselves above the moon, could we reach the highest star above our
heads, we should instantly discover new skies, new stars, new suns, new
systems, and perhaps more magnificently adorned. But even there, the
vast dominions of our great Creator would not terminate; we should then
find, to our astonishment, that we had only arrived at the borders of
the works of God. It is but little that we can know of his works, but
that little should teach us to be humble, and to admire the divine power
and goodness. How great must that Being be who produced these immense
globes out of nothing, who regulates their courses, and whose mighty
hand directs and supports them all. What is the clod of earth which we
inhabit, with all the magnificent scenes it presents to us, in
comparison of those innumerable worlds? Were this earth annihilated, its
absence would no more be observed than that of a grain of sand from the
sea shore. What then are provinces and kingdoms when compared with those
worlds? They are but atoms dancing in the air, which are discovered to
us by the sunbeams. What then am I, when reckoned among the infinite
number of God’s creatures? I am lost in mine own nothingness! But little
as I appear in this respect, I find myself great in others. There is
great beauty in this starry firmament which God has chosen for his
throne! How admirable are those celestial bodies! I am dazzled with
their splendour, and enchanted with their beauty! But notwithstanding
this, however beautiful, and however richly adorned, yet this sky is
void of intelligence. It is a stranger to its own beauty, while I, who
am mere clay, moulded by a divine hand, am endowed with sense and
reason. I can contemplate the beauty of these shining worlds; nay, more,
I am already, to a certain degree, acquainted with their sublime Author;
and by faith I see some small rays of his divine glory. O may I be more
and more acquainted with his works, and make the study of them my
employ, till by a glorious change I rise to dwell with him above the
starry regions.—_Christopher Christian Sturm’s “Reflections,”
1750-1786._
_Verse 3.—“Work of God’s fingers.”_ That is most elaborate and accurate:
a metaphor from embroiderers, or from them that make tapestry.—_John
Trapp._
_Verse 3.—“When I consider thy heavens,”_ etc. It is truly a most
Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from the works and
the appearances of nature. It has the authority of the sacred writers
upon its side, and even our Saviour himself gives it the weight and the
solemnity of his example. “Behold the lilies of the field; they toil
not, neither do they spin, yet your heavenly Father careth for them.” He
expatiates on the beauty of a single flower, and draws from it the
delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste
may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may be occupied with
all that is serious in the contemplations of religion, and be at the
same time alive to the charms and the loveliness of nature. The Psalmist
takes a still loftier flight. He leaves the world, and lifts his
imagination to that mighty expanse which spreads above it and around it.
He wings his way through space, and wanders in thought over its
immeasurable regions. Instead of a dark and unpeopled solitude, he sees
it crowded with splendour, and filled with the energy of the divine
presence. Creation rises in its immensity before him, and the world,
with all which it inherits, shrinks into littleness at a contemplation
so vast and so overpowering. He wonders that he is not overlooked amid
the grandeur and the variety which are on every side of him; and,
passing upward from the majesty of nature to the majesty of nature’s
Architect, he exclaims, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or
the son of man that thou shouldest deign to visit him?” It is not for us
to say whether inspiration revealed to the psalmist the wonders of the
modern astronomy. But, even though the mind be a perfect stranger to the
science of these enlightened times, the heavens present a great and an
elevating spectacle, an immense concave reposing upon the circular
boundary of the world, and the innumerable lights which are suspended
from on high, moving with solemn regularity along its surface. It seems
to have been at night that the piety of the Psalmist was awakened by
this contemplation; when the moon and the stars were visible, and not
when the sun had risen in his strength and thrown a splendour around
him, which bore down and eclipsed all the lesser glories of the
firmament.—_Thomas Chalmers, D.D., 1817._
_Verse 3.—“Thy heavens:”_—