Psalm 8: Small and Significant
1 O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, who have set your glory above the heavens!
2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants, you have ordained strength, because of your enemies, that you may silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained,
4 What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?
5 For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen— even the beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the air, and the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth!
Psalm 8
If we’re using the framework of orientation, disorientation, and new orientation, this is a Psalm of orientation. Notice the bookends of the poem, the repeating sentences in vs. 1 and vs. 8, and you’ll get the sense that David just feels lucky to be alive. He sees the glories of creation. He sees how beautiful it is and how perfect it was meant to be and he simply feels excited to be part of it. When do you feel this way - that you’re just lucky to be alive?
The Bible word for this feeling is “Blessed.” It was the feeling we were made to be lost in all of the time. Because of the fall, we must wait until the last day to feel blessed fully and continually. But even in this age, we can sense glimpses of it when, like David, we embrace who we truly are.
you Are Small
Verse 2 seems to stick out, doesn’t it? It seems as if the whole poem would flow better without vs. 2. However, it’s the appropriate follow-up to vs. 1, even if it seems abrupt.
How majestic is God’s name throughout all of the earth? It’s so majestic that he needs no help in receiving his glory before his enemies. Even toddlers, who can barely form words, can sing about God and it’s enough to prove his goodness amid his foes. He doesn’t need the strength of kings and armies to prove he’s legit.
This, of course, is proven when Jesus was in the temple right before his crucifixion, and children were crying “Hosanna!” While the most powerful men in Jerusalem are plotting his death. Today, billions of people across the globe are clear that Jesus is Hosanna in the Highest, just like those kids said. They don’t need the powerful men of the temple to prove it.
When we declare Jesus, he is glorified, and others may believe us. But it’s not because we’re big and compelling, as if Jesus needed our help in the PR department. It’s because we’ve embraced how small we are. That’s when his bigness can be clearly seen.
And if you look around you’ll figure out that you are indeed small.
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
Psalm 8:3-4
Do you hear David's heart in this line of the poem? It’s like he’s looking up at the night sky in ancient times where there were no street lights or skyscrapers filled with fluorescents, and you could see the galaxies in full bloom. And he says, “When I look up at the stars I don’t just feel small, I realize I am small.
The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years in diameter and contains an estimated 100 billion stars. They’re so far away that light from the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, takes over 4 years to reach Earth. Yet they’re massive enough that we can see them. Stars like Betelgeuse, a red supergiant, have diameters that can be up to 1,000 times larger than the Sun. And that’s just our one galaxy. The estimate is that there are a trillion or more galaxies, apparently going on to infinity
When we think about the vast universe above us, we are perplexed. Like, with all of that going on, why does God choose to spend his time with us? Why does God desire a relationship with us? Why would he become one of us? David is marveling at that question. This brings him to humility which is where a sense of blessedness begins. It’s through embracing our smallness we begin to feel just lucky to be alive.
Notice, though, that David isn’t humbled to the point of despair in this Psalm. He is brought low, but not cast out. In fact, in his lowness, he feels brought near. He says God is mindful of us. God is with us.
You Are Significant
David feels small, but he doesn’t say “ I don’t even matter.” He doesn’t fear being abandoned or forgotten. He embraces his smallness, but he also embraces his significance. Verse 4 questions why God would visit man. In the very next verse, we see that God doesn’t just visit man, he exalts him.
“For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; You have put all things under his feet.”
Psalm 8:5-6
As human beings, we have been made a little lower than the supernatural realm. We are not as big and as powerful as the angels are. Yet it’s we who have been given souls. God personally formed man with his own hands out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Psalm 139 and Jeremiah 1 say that he personally formed us in our mother’s wombs as well.
We are born in the likeness of God. We are his image. We were chosen to mirror his majesty. He’s the father and we’re his children. He’s the king and we’re princes. He reigns and we reign with him.
One of the best definitions of what it means to be an image bearer of God and to have the privileged position of humanity comes from a theologian named Carmen Joy Imes who says we were created to “be partners with Yahweh.” It’s a significant thing to be the partner of God.
It’s a significant thing to be a son of Adam who was placed in the Garden of Ed “to dress it and keep it.”
It’s as if God set Adam in his divine living room and said, “Put the couch where it would be best, pick art for the walls, and organize the bookshelf. Since we’re going to live here forever, we’ll share the space, and decorate it together.”
God says, “I’ll create the animals, but you’re my partner so you name the animals. We’ll do it together.”
You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen—Even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, And the fish of the sea that pass through the paths of the seas.
Psalm 8:6-8
You are small. You’re not the creator. You’re the created. But you ARE significant, you’ve been given a significant position in that creation, to partner with God in cultivating it. He has given us dominion and set all things under our feet
Even though we sin and lose control of our dominion, and even find sin taking dominion over us, he still confirms our significance.
Hebrews 2 reflects on Psalm 8 and says this:
But one testified in a certain place, saying: “What is man that You are mindful of him, Or the son of man that You take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, And set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him…
Hebrews 2:6-8
So truly God has given us everything and called us to rule with him in all of creation, Then why do we have so many worries? Why do we have so many problems? Why do we feel such a lack of dominion?
Sin has broken everything — even our relationship with the world around us. Genesis 3 tells us that, for now, the grounds produce thorns, and there is pain in childbearing, and people, as significant as they are, die. It’s here YOU may start to question if you are going to be forgotten or abandoned because you don’t see your special position being so…special. Hebrews acknowledges this at the end of vs. 8.
“…But now we do not yet see all things put under him.”
Hebrews 2:8
Humanity is facing problems. We don’t see humanity ruling alongside God in perfection. Have we lost our significance?
No.
It’s been proven to us even further. Hebrews 2:8 says that we don’t see all things put under our feet. Verse. 9 says…
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.
Hebrews 2:9
There is no doubt that you matter to God. There’s no question as to whether or not you are on his mind. Jesus has proven your significance by visiting his world and dying on the cross for you so that your death may be destroyed. After your death, like him, you will rise again. And just as he has been exalted to his proper place at the right hand of the Father, one day you will be exalted again to your proper place as his partner in perfection.
David, and whoever wrote Hebrews, both acknowledge their glorious position in the created order. It’s not pride, it’s not arrogance, it’s simply our Biblical identity. When we put away all of our self-loathing and self-hatred and embrace the fact that God has given us significance, we step into that feeling of blessedness.
Where we feel so thankful, so lucky to be alive, our mantra once again becomes what it should have been since Genesis 1…
