Psalm 8

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established.” (Psalm 8:3)

Psalm 8 immediately follows the pledge of Psalm 7:17 to sing praise to “the name of the Lord Most High” (7:17). Now the psalmist does that in majestic words that honor the majesty of the Name. As in the creation narrative of Genesis 1, the psalmist employs an economy of words that stylistically reveals the Creator’s orderly manner and design. In content, the majesty of the Name is manifested in the works of the Lord’s creative hands and the delegation of their care to humankind, whose regal crown is studded with the jewels of creation. Verbally this crown is woven from the poetic and prosaic language of the Pentateuch, which Delitzsch says contains all the vocabulary of the psalm, except the noun “children” and the verb “to crown.”1 Outline/Structure The content of the poem falls easily into strophes, with the refrain of 8:1a and 9 forming an inclusio, suggesting that the thrust of the psalm is the praise of God’s majestic name.

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