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
Did you know that Psalm 8 is on the moon? The Apollo 11 moon mission in 1969 delivered messages from the heads of state engraved on a silicon disk about the size of a fifty-cent piece. As the political head of the Vatican, Pope Paul VI sent along the text of Psalm 8 which says in verse 3: "When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?"
These verses in particular remind us that Psalm 8 is a stargazer psalm. Gazing at the night sky has a way of raising all the big questions: "Who am I? Who is God? What can I do with the few years I have to live on this earth?" I like the way Leslie F. Brandt paraphrases these verses in Psalms Now: "When I gaze into star-studded skies and attempt to comprehend the vast distances, contemplate in utter amazement my Creator’s concern for me, I am dumbfounded that You should care personally about me."
Prayer
Thank you, O God, for this wondrous creation of Yours that both fills me with awe and reminds me of your comforting care. Amen.