Psalm 8
I concur with the OPC/URC proposal to use “Amsterdam” with Psalm 8.
For a fantastic treatment of this Psalm from Doug Green, see his essay “Psalm 8: What Is Israel’s King that You Remember Him?”
I have some sympathy with the idea behind the paraphrase used with “Evening Praise” — namely, they recognize the “refrain” in verses 1 and 9, and so they try using a refrain after each stanza. The execution of the paraphrase, however, is unfortunate, and the expansions to the text do not convey well the point of the Psalm. Particularly, it omits the reference to how God made man “a little lower than the heavenly beings” (v5 ESV). I would only be in favor of using this text if someone reworked it.
I generally like the C.M. text (adapted from Sing Psalms) used with “Clinton” — a familiar tune from the 1959 Psalter Hymnal (although not used in the Trinity Hymnals). My chief quibble is that it follows the Septuagint in translating “elohim” as “angels” or “heavenly beings” in verse 5 (see below on “translation notes”).
Text: 7.6.7.6.7.7.7.6. (Book of Psalms for Singing, 1973; MCPC, 2011)
1 LORD, our Lord, in all the earth how excellent your name!
You above the heav’ns have set the glory of your fame.
2 From the mouths of infants young you the power of praise compose
in the face of enemies to stop avenging foes.
3 When I view the skies above which your own fingers made,
when I see the moon and stars with you in order laid,
4 what is man so frail and weak that you should remember him?
What can be the son of man that you should care for him?
5 You have made him next to God, with honor, glory crowned.
6 Him you placed above your works; beneath him all is found:
7 oxen, sheep, and all wild beasts, 8 birds, and fish the oceans claim
9 LORD, our Lord, in all the earth how excellent your name!
Tune: Amsterdam (James Nares, Foundery Collection, 1742)
Commentary
Psalm 8 is titled, “To the Choirmaster: According to the Gittith. A Psalm of David.”
You might think that Psalm 8 is talking about creation. That is true-but it is not talking about Genesis 1-2. But, you might say, verse 3 speaks of looking at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars, which you have set in place.” True-and verse 6 speaks of God giving man dominion over the works of his hands, putting all things under his feet-all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea. But still, I cannot say that he is talking about the creation in Genesis. He is using the language of Genesis to talk about a different creation-the new creation. After all, verse 2 speaks of how God has ordained strength out of the mouth of infants, “because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.” If Psalm 8 is talking about the first creation, then verse 2 makes no sense.
But Psalm 8 does speak of man in the glorious language of Genesis 1-2: “You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [elohim, God/gods] and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over all the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” The reason that Psalm 8 can speak in this way is because Psalm 8 is speaking of the new creation.
In Psalm 8, David rejoices because he sees by faith that the kingdom of God is being restored. He sees the son of man sitting on the throne in the midst of the Promised Land, and sees the fulfillment of what God had promised to Adam. “O Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
All through Israel’s history, they were to look to the Son of David as the second Adam, the Son of God-the Anointed One. And yet, Israel could not help but see the failures of his kings. They could not but earnestly desire to see the day when what they sang in Psalm 8 was as true in reality as it was in faith.
And that day has now come. Hebrews 2 understood that Psalm 8 was not talking about Genesis 1-2. Hebrews 2 understood that Psalm 8 was talking about the Davidic king (Hebrews 2:5-8). But in Jesus Christ, what was spoken of in faith in Psalm 8 has begun to come about. Hebrews 2:8 admits that “at present, we do not yet see everything subject to him-but we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” He who was higher than the angels-indeed, he who Hebrews 1:1-3 tells us was the one “through whom God created the world,” this Jesus was made lower than the angels for a time. “What is man, that you are mindful of him? What is the son of man, that you care for him?” What is man? I’ll tell you who man is. Man is no longer Adam. Man is no longer the rebel and the cursed one. Man is now Jesus Christ. Man is now the obedient and the glorious one. Jesus has been made perfect through suffering. Jesus has been crowned with glory and honor as the Second-indeed, as the Last Adam, the one who restores humanity to the fellowship of God and the dominion over creation.
Only God can save. That is why it was only the eternal Son of God who could redeem us from our sins. But only man could correct man’s fault. The king must be one of your brethren (as we hear from Deuteronomy). “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things.” Why? Because, there was no way for God to bring salvation, unless one who was true man “might through death, destroy the one who has the power of death.” As the Nicene Creed puts it, “who, for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit by the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”
Structure:
The Book of Psalms for Singing text does an excellent job of fitting Psalm 8 into three stanzas.
1) Verses 1-2 open the Psalm with the exaltation of the name of the LORD and the contrast between the heavenly glory of God and how that glory is proclaimed through the weak and the lowly (the infants) of verse 2.
2) Verses 3-4 then further the contrast by pointing out that when I consider the marvelous heavenly bodies — the moon and stars — I cannot but wonder “what is man?”
3) Verses 5-9 then conclude by speaking of the dominion of man over the creatures. The challenge, of course, is that the third stanza has to pack 5 verses in — where the first two stanzas each have two.
Translation Notes:
There is some discussion over the translation of the last sentence in verse 1. The ESV says, “You have set your glory above the heavens,” but others translate it, “I will sing of your glory to the heavens.” The reason for this is that the Hebrew is unclear as to who is doing the “setting.” If it is the Psalmist, then it should be translated, “I will set your glory above the heavens.” If it is the LORD, then it should be translated, “you have set your glory above the heavens.” One could try to split the difference and translate it, “O LORD our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth – which sets your glory above the heavens.”
The big debate, of course, is over verse 5. “You have made him a little lower than the elohim.” A very wooden translation would render this, “You have caused him to lack little from God/the gods” [the piel of “chaser” has the causative force]. In other words, however you translate “elohim” the point here is that man is differs only a little bit from the divine beings.
We’ll often come back to this term “elohim” in the Psalms, because at various times the NT will see this as “angels” (Hebrews 2 on Psalm 8), rulers (John 10 on Psalm 82), and God himself. But for our purposes here, the main question is whether Hebrews 2 is definitive for the translation of Psalm 8. Hebrews 2 simply follows the Septuagint in translating elohim as aggelos. This fits well with the point of Hebrews 2 in showing the supremacy of the Son to angels. But given the differences in angelology from the time of David to the time of the New Testament, I am inclined to suspect that David was not thinking about “angels” in the common sense of the term. The “elohim” of Psalms 58 or 82, for instance, seem to be something like what Paul talks about as the “so-called gods” of the nations (1 Cor 8:5), namely, the beings that go by the names “Baal” or “Marduk” or “Zeus” among the nations.
But in Psalm 8, it is not obvious that David is thinking of these beings. In fact, the creation/new creation language in this Psalm leads me to think that the Psalmist’s point is to see the Son of David — the New Man — as God’s vice-gerent, one who rules over God’s creation on behalf of God himself. In this context, the point is not that the Man of Psalm 8 is made a little lower than angels — the point is that he is made a little lower than God himself. After all, the next thing he says is, “You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” (v6)
Of course, this raises a question for Hebrews 2. If the Septuagint mistranslated Psalm 8, then how does this affect Hebrews 2? I do not believe that the Septuagint was an inspired translation. But I do believe that the God who providentially superintends and governs all things also providentially governed the translation of the Septuagint (and all other translations that have ever been made! After all, the Septuagint technically only refers to the translation of the Pentateuch. There were lots of other translators who were involved in translating various passages from Hebrew to Greek). The point in Hebrews 2 is that Psalm 8 shows how the eternal Son was humbled — how the one who was above the angels was made “for a little while lower than the angels.”
There is nothing in the Hebrew that suggests a temporal reference. But that’s because David is thinking of the status of the Davidic king, whereas Hebrews is thinking of the incarnation of Christ. And the Septuagint brilliantly sets up this Messianic interpretation of Psalm 8.
So the question is: should we follow the Hebrew or the Septuagint in our singing of Psalm 8? The RPCNA has said, “follow the Hebrew.” The Free Church has said, “follow the Septuagint.” I am sympathetic to the Hebrew rendering, but I don’t at all object to including both. I would only object to a course of action that would seek to hide the difficulty from our congregations. We do no service to the Word of God by pretending that everything has a simple answer — because God himself chose to give us all these complexities. If we hide them from our congregations, then we are lying about the scriptures and bearing false witness about God. And that never ends well!
Tune Notes:
One comment that reached the OPC composition subcommittee went something like this: “If they do not have Psalm 8 to Amsterdam, then forget the whole project.” It is safe to say that Amsterdam is incredibly popular in churches that have used the Book of Psalms for Singing (or the BPW, or the Trinity Psalter).
Of course, it also helps that Amsterdam is extremely well suited for this text! One musicologist said that it had “excellent affective congruity” — and I would only add that it is absolutely essential to the text that Amsterdam uses almost identical musical lines in its opening and closing, since the “refrain” must appear in the opening of the first stanza and the closing of the last stanza.
I do not know “Clinton” — the tune used by the Psalter Hymnal (1959) — so I will not try to comment on it. I will only say that since the text proposed by the URC is satisfactory, I will not object if they wish to include a popular tune.
Conclusion
Psalm 8 is important enough that I could live with two or three versions. I think that having two different translations that go opposite directions with “elohim” in verse 5 could be useful in helping congregations think through the challenges of Bible translation!
You can listen to a choir singing Psalm 8 to Amsterdam.
A manuscript of my sermon on Psalm 8 can be found here.
— Peter J. Wallace
