To the Chief Musician. On the instrument of Gath
1O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
David opens this Psalm declaring the Lord as his lord…..O LORD, our Lord. This is saying Yahweh is our Lord, Master, King, Sovereign and governor. Calling Yahweh Lord is to say he holds the highest office and highest position in his life. He is first on a list of one. David declares Him to be at the very center of life, among his people and in his land.
'Your name' here is speaking of reputation, fame and glory. David said the reputation that God's name carries is excellent. The word used for 'excellent' is Addea. It means great, magnificent, majestic. It implies nobility or something famous. Likewise, the name of Yahweh God brings us a sense of the high and holy. The name alone commands our respect. He is famous among the most famous. His excellence ranks above all. His name is magnificent and majestic. And that name isn't revered just in a certain locale. David knew that Jehovah wasn't just a God of the Jews. His name would be known across the whole earth, in every land.
1 O LORD, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth,
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!
The earth isn't enough to contain the glory of God and he set His glory also in the heavens above. Every time I read of God's glory in the heavens I think of those incredible pictures from the Hubble telescope. You can go to Nasa.gov and see the pictures of these magnificent nebulae; or two black holes merging; and they have a recent picture of a star cluster that has 100,000 stars in it. You can look at these and get a sense of the vastness of God's glory. In our own galaxythere are between 100-300 billion stars in the Milky Way. Only about 8,479 of them are visible from Earth. Roughly 2,500 starsare available to the unaided eye in ideal conditions from a single spot at a given time. Of the 100 to 300 billion stars only 2500 are visible from a given spot. Astronomers think there might be hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.
But King David didn't have a telescope or Hubble pictures. He knew a night sky not polluted with manmade light and he saw the glory of God in the heavens.
2Out 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.
The God who created and commands the entire universe can work through babes and nursing infants. God silences his enemies by his strength displayed through humble means and weak vessels…..like you and I. We might be even more mindful of this in the Christmas season. We might think of this baby that was born in a manger that came and set the whole world on its ear and continues to do so.
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.
David didn't just sea the heavens as something abstract created by God. He sees them as the direct creation and handiwork ordained by Him, created by His fingers. Among all this, considering the vastness of the heavens, the moon and stars, and just the enormity of it all, God is mindful of man. The Hebrew word for man is enoshe, singular man or person. What is one person that God would be mindful of him? And the 'son of man' in this passage, the second use of the word 'man' is 'Adam'. This speaks more of mankind, those descended from the Adam. What is a single man that God would even notice him? What is mankind that You would visit us?
God's not only mindful of each of us but He has personal contact with us. It says He 'visits' us. This word also means he cares for us and takes care of us, he looks after us. We are His people and He is our God.
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!
God gave us dominion over all the earth; over all the works of His hands. But sin rules over the world for a time. We lost our full dominion by Adam and Eve in the garden. Satan is the prince of the power of the air. He rules in this world for a time.
But when Jesus Christ died on the cross, the debt was paid. Sin no longer had power, death was put on notice and Satan's days were numbered. Jesus Christ is coming back soon. Those who put their eternal hope in Him will be with him. We will become co heirs and that dominion that was originally given to man will once again be exercised.
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