Psalm 8 (NRSV)
Read Psalm 8 on biblegateway.com
Verse 1O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.
Verse 2Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
Verse 3When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;
Verse 4what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
Verse 5Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.
Verse 6You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,
Verse 7all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
Verse 8the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
Verse 9O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
Devotion
“What are human beings that you are mindful of them?” (Psalm 8:4) Psalm 8 extols the high place humans have been assigned in the scheme of things. Yet, it begins and ends with an exclamation of divine majesty: “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1)
I often lament the lack of a sense of church ownership among members. Yet, I’ve come to more seriously lament those occasional persons who have assumed too much ownership! Might the same be said of the whole world, upon which we humans often tread with such heavy steps?
A Chaim Potok novel, The Chosen, features a rabbi who habitually addresses God as “Master of the universe!” This address, like that of our psalm, shows a deference that is missing in much of our familiar God-language. It instills mystery in the imagination, even as it instills modesty in the ego.
Prayer
As we seek to be fruitful stewards of creation, may we begin and end our days in deference to the source of life, “O Lord, our Sovereign” or “Master of the universe!” Amen.