Psalm 8: Observations

English Standard Version (Psalm 8)

TO THE CHOIRMASTER: ACCORDING TO THE GITTITH. A PSALM OF DAVID.

1 O LORD, our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth!You have set your glory above the heavens.2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,you have established strength because of your foes,to still the enemy and the avenger.3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,4 what is man that you are mindful of him,and the son of man that you care for him?5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;you have put all things under his feet,7 all sheep and oxen,and also the beasts of the field,8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,whatever passes along the paths of the seas.9 O LORD, our Lord,how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Gittith)

Gittith. Obscure Hebrew term in the superscriptions of Psalms 8; 81, and 84; perhaps a musical instrument or a musical cue, signaling a mood, to which the psalms were to be performed.

Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Music and Musical Instruments)

Music and Musical Instruments.

A natural expression of man which probably began with speech-singing and developed into songs, which were then accompanied by instruments. Music as we know it has become quite complex, a luxury and entertainment; music in antiquity, however, was a functional expression of daily life, work, and worship.The phrase “sing to the Lord,” common to the OT (Ex 15:21; 1 Chr 16:9; Pss 68:32; 96:1, 2; Is 42:10; Jer 20:13) was not unique to the Jewish nation. All religions draw on the natural human impulse to sing. The injunction “Sing to the Lord” was a signal for the people to pour out their praise in song.The Bible, however, is limited in its treatment of music in ancient Israel. Since there was no written musical notation, the primary record of songs sung by the Hebrews is the collection of texts, particularly the psalms, and a few enigmatic musical instructions. The biblical writers were not writing a history of their culture, but of their relationship with God; hence, their comments about music are not critical. Also, the biblical documents cover a long span of history and are grouped according to category rather than in chronological order, thus making it difficult to order the development of musical style with precision. Finally, there is the problem of understanding the biblical descriptions of music and its performance. Only in this century have scholars been able to interpret the information provided in the Bible in terms of oriental music systems.

A Compendium of Christian Theology The Nature of Man

THE NATURE OF MAN

The Divine record represents to us our first father, Adam, as the end and consummation of all creating acts, and gives his twofold nature a peculiar relation to both the spiritual and the material worlds. In the unity of body and soul, the one taken from the earth and the V 1, p 422 other breathed into him by his Maker, he is the link between these two great spheres.

1. The bringing of man into the world is in Genesis the result of a special design. And God said, Let Us make man: (Gen. 1:26) the first intimation in Scripture of the Divine counsel preceding the act. Of the other creatures it is said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.… (Gen. 1:20) Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind; (Gen. 1:24) but every word touching the origin of the human race indicates the issue of all former purposes: the creation of A NEW THING. Hence the emphatic double account of man’s production: generally in Genesis 1 the introduction of the race with its pre-eminent dignity into the system of things, and, particularly, in Genesis 2 the physical details of his origin with specific intervention for the formation of the Mother of all living. Hence also the clause in the second account which returns to the creating act to show that the body of the first man was immediately fashioned out of the dust, and that the origin of his life was the breathing into him of a living soul. (Gen. 2:7) The same Divine act produced both body and soul, without any interval. This is said of no other creature; though the real distinction between man and the lower creation is not in the words of this verse, but in the first note of man’s origin: Let Us make man in Our image. (Gen. 1:26)

2. This gives breath of lives (Job 32:8) a higher meaning: there is a spirit in man, as well as an animal life. And the high distinction of human nature is that in its constitution it is a union of the two worlds of spirit and matter, a reflection of spiritual intelligences in the material creation. The immaterial principle is the soul or ψυχή as connected with matter through the body, and the spirit or πνεῦμα as connected with the higher world. There is in the original record a clear statement as to the two elements of human nature. Man derives his name from the red earth, one of the constituents of which his body was formed: אָדָם connected with אַדֳמָה earth. But this was not as yet, though it afterwards became, a name of humiliation, for the inbreathing of life or lives gave him his essential dignity; this Adam, or Man, the person V 1, p 423 and the nature he represented, became a living soul, (Gen. 2:7) נֶבֶּשׁ חַיָה. Though the same word is used concerning other creatures, which have the abortive rudiments of intellectual life, it is here used with a special emphasis. His name is Man, from the earth; his nature is that he is a living soul, which is also an immortal spirit. But it must be remembered that the two substances are distinct. The Bible confirms the instinctive belief in the difference between mind and matter: the unsearchable mystery of the nature of the union between soul and body, and the secret of the action of the one on the other, or rather of their mutual action, are left unsolved. Whether the term soul or the term spirit be used, there is throughout Scripture the most emphatic testimony to the unity and dignity of the higher element of human nature. This Dichotomy is quite consistent with a certain measure of truth in the theory of Trichotomy which separates between soul and spirit. It will hereafter be seen that St. Paul adopts that distinction for practical purposes: when he does so, the soul and spirit are distinguished as one the immaterial principle in relation to the world of sense and the other in relation to a world of spiritual realities; just as the flesh as the material and the body as the organisation are distinguished when occasion demands.