Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 1 · Psalm 8
The Eighth Psalme.
TO the chief Musitian upona. Gittith, A Psalm of David.
Paraphrase. The Eighth Psalm was composed by David for the magnifying of Gods wonderfull goodnesse, as more general in the fabrick of the world, and his dignations to mankind, in making him Lord of that great work of his, so more particular to himself, in using him as his instrument, to discomfit Goliah of Gath, the proud boasting Gyant, the Champion of the Philistims; and in the Prophetical mystical sense, his more admirable mercy to men, in exalting our humane nature above all the creatures in the world; which was eminently completed in our Saviours assumption of our flesh, and ascending to, and reigning in heaven in it. This Psalm he committed to the Prefect of his Musick to be sung or plaid.
1. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth? who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
O thou Lord, Creator and sole Governour of heaven and earth, which hast pleased to be known to us men in a peculiar relation of care and special kindness, to‖foreign instruct, and reveal the knowledge of thy will to us, How art thou to be admired, and praised, and magnified by men and Angels,Our master or teacher, say the Chaldee. and by all both in heaven and earth? whose superlative greatness and supereminent Majesty is infinitely exalted above all the most glorious creatures. This is most true of thee in thy divine invisible nature, true also in thy strange vouchsafements to me at this time; but above all is most admirable matter of observation and acknowledgment to us vile sinners, if considered in the great mystery of our redemption, the descension first, and then exaltation of our Saviour (to which this Psalm is distinctly applied, Mat. xxi. 16. 1 Cor. xv. 27. and Heb. ii. 6, 7, 8.)
2. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightst still the enemy and the avenger.
It is thy blessed and gratious will to give strength to me, a child, as it were, to subdue this proud giant, and in him to discomfit the host of the Philistims. As in the oeconomy of the world, thou wert pleased to choose us men, which are poor mean impotent creatures, to be principal instruments of thy service and glory, to acknowledge thy power, and magnifie thee in all thy glorious attributes; and to that end to send thine eternal Son out of thine own bosome, to reduce us, when we were fallen, and call us to this dignity of thy servants; which mercy thou hast not vouchsafed to those which are much higher than we, the Angels, those glorious creatures, who when by pride they fell, were never restored by thee. And in like manner among us men, thou art pleased to make choice of the meanest and lowest, the most humble-spirited persons, and oft-times very children in age, to sing H…sannahs to the son of David, (See Mat. xxi. 16. and note d.) to acknowledge and promulgate thy majesty and might; when the great, and wise, being oft also the proudest men of the world (such were the Jewish rulers and Pharisees in Christs time) are not thus chosen, or honoured by thee. And this hast thou done on most wise and glorious designes, that they whose pride makes them resist and despise thee, and thy precepts, may be thus visibly punisht, finding themselves despised, and rejected by thee: and above all, the Devil, that proud and rebellious enemy of God and goodnesse, is by this means subdued, and brought down; first cast out of a great part of his kingdome in mens hearts, (none but the proud obdurate sinner being left to him) and at last utterly confounded and destroyed. 1 Cor. xv. 27.
3. b.When I consider the heavens the work of thy singers, the Moon and the Stars which thou hast ordained;
When I look up and behold those glorious creatures, the Heavens, and the innumerable hosts of Angels, which behold thy face, and attend thee there, the first fruits of thy creation, and in the outworks, the visible parts of those heavens, observe those radiant beauties, the Sun, Moon, and Stars, all much more excellent creatures than are any here below, set each of them in their sphere by thine eternal decree, on purpose to wait on, and minister to us;
4. What is‖miserable or mortal man, foreign man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of†Adam, or earthly man, foreign man, that thou visitest him?
It is in my thoughts a miracle of superabundant mercy to poor miserable mankind, that was at first formed out of the vilest materials, the dust of the earth, and is still of a very frail, infirm, mortal condition, that thou shouldest thus vouchsafe to advance, and dignifie, and take care of it, above thy whole creation. And for me particularly at this time, a youth of a mean parentage, and the most despicable of all my brethren, 'tis admirable thou shouldst inable me to doe so great a service for thy people. But above all, this is eminently applyable to Christ, that mean despicable son of man, scorn'd, and scourg'd, and crucified, yet not forsaken by God, or left in the grave, but exalted by a glorious resurrection. (Heb. ii. 6.9.)
5. For thou hast made him†or a little while: See Annot. on Heb. 4. c. a little lower than the Angels, and crowned him with glory and honour.
Thou hast at first created man in a lower condition, than that of the Angels; yet hast abundantly recompensed that lowlinesse of his present state: whilst he lives here, those glorious spirits minister to him, and at length he is assumed to participation of their glory. Nay, our humane nature, by being assumed by Christ, is thereby extolled above all Angels. And for me at this time, thou hast advanced me to the imployment of an Angel, by thy chastising, and subduing this vaunting champion by my hands. And in the diviner sense, Christ the son of God, being for a while humbled to our flesh, and for the space of three and thirty years submitted to a lower condition than that of Angels, is yet by this diminution exalted, by suffering in our flesh on earth, advanced to the greatest dignities in heaven, made supreme ruler and Judge of men and Angels. (Heb. ii. 7.)
6. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
7. All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field:
8. The fouls of the aire and fish of the sea, and†The Chaldee read foreign Leviathan that passeth whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
This vile clod of earth, man, thou didst at first invest with a sovereign power over all inferiour, sublunary creatures, Gen. 1.26.28. all beasts, and souls, and fishes, and plants, to be commanded, and injoyed by him. And in the like manner thou hast given me power over the chief of these, over the Lion and the Bear. i. Sam. xvii. 36. and over this gyantly Philistim. And, in the mystery, thou hast given to Christ, a man on earth, a power over all these inferiour creatures, for them all to be absolutely subject to all his commands, to still the sea, remove mountains, &c. and so likewise the victory over all his enemies, over men, and devils, and over death it selfe; and in thy time this victory shall be so completed, that there shall be nothing left of opposition to his Kingdome, and absolute sovereignty, which shall not be wholly subdued unto him. See Heb. ii. 8. and i. Cor. xv. 27.
9. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth?
O thou omnipotent Lord, and our most gratious Master, how glorious is thy Majesty in all that thou hast and shalt doe among us? The whole world shall never cease to glorifie thee for these things.
Annotations on Psal. VIII.
Tit. Gittith.] The Titles of the Psalms are known to have great difficulty in them, and accordingly the explications must be very uncertain. Many of them referr to the names of instruments, and divers of those may well be unknown to us. Besides, the names and titles of such kinde of composures, as they are very various in all languages, so are they inexplicable to all those that are not acquainted familiarly with the Poetry and Musick of each Nation. The several sorts of matter give several names to Poesyes; as Panegyrick, Elegy, Hymne, and Anthem, &c. The particular matters do so in like manner; as on Cush the Benjamite, or when he fled from Absalom &c. So again the occasions or seasons for which they were provided to be sung.
Next, the measure of the verse is considerable, from whence it is an Ode, an Epode, &c. So the Moode, either Dorick, or Ionick, &c. among the Graecians; a Pavin, or Almain &c. among us: So the key, a song in Gammut, in D Sol Re, and the like: And lastly the tune, of which there be innumerable names taken from the first known Ditty, that was set to each. This shews us in general how difficult, or rather impossible it must be, for those that are not acquainted with the Hebrew Poetry or Musick (of which we have now small remainders) to pass any certain judgment on those things wch wholly depend on this. Accordingly so it is in the particular now before us, what is the meaning of foreign foreignhere, and in some other places: The Chaldee on one side, and the LXXII. and those that follow them on the other side, have pitcht on very distant rendrings of it. The Hebrew foreign and foreign signifies a wine press, and from thence the LXXII. and Latine and Aethiopick have their version, foreign pro torcularibus, for the winepresses; as if this Psalm of thanksgiving were appointed to be used peculiarly in the vintage, as a time wherein Gods mercy to man in the fruits of the earth were to be acknowledged, and from thence, by way of ascent of the soul, his other sublimer mercies, which with the eye of faith and prophecy David saw afar off, under the times of the Gospel. But the same foreign Gath is also the name of a City of the Philistims, and foreign Gittite, a man of that City, and from thence the Chaldee deduceth the word, and renders it foreign. This is ordinarily rendred cithara quam attulit de Gath, a Musical instrument which he brought from Gath. But of any such we finde no mention elsewhere in Scripture, nor the least ground of suspicion among their writings, that Gittith should be the name of an Instrument. Kimchi, that recites the names of them, hath another notion of this. It will therefore be the more pardonable boldnesse to propose a slight conjecture on this paraphrase of the Chaldee; viz. that the word foreign may have been by the Transcriber lightly varied from foreign a strong man, or gyant. Thus we have in the Targum ii Sam. xxi. 20. foreign a gyant of Gath. And then why should not the whole Paraphrase of the Chaldee foreign be rendered, the gyant (i. e. Goliah) which was of Gath, or from Gath? However thus much we have gained from their Paraphrase, that foreign may signifie that or him, foreign that was from Gath; and then sure we way thus safely interpret foreign, viz. that this Psalm was made on Goliah the Philistim of Gath, or Goliah the Gittite, ii Sam. xxi. 19. and i. Chron. xx. 5. set here without name, only he that was from Gath] (though composed some time after Davids incounter with him, and victory over him) that mighty gyant that proudly and scornfully defied all the host of Israel. And to this the Psalm at least in some part seems to belong, being a meditation of Gods power and wisdome, in subduing the proud by weak despised instruments, children and sucklings, as it were; and this enlarged, and farther considered and observed both in Gods dealing toward mankind in general, and toward particular men, toward young David at this time, and toward Christ in his state of exinanition. Against this conjecture twill be obvious to object, 1. that two other Psalms, Lxxxi. and Lxxxiv. are also intitled foreign upon Gittith, and yet are not either of them applyable to this matter of Goliah the Gittite; and 2. that there also the Chaldee Paraphrase is the same; and 3. that as there we read foreign cithara, so 'tis ordinarily resolved by Lexicographers, that Gittith was a Musical instrument, and that so called from foreign a winepress, because it was used to be played on in the time of vintage, which was a festival time. To all this I have but one thing to say, viz. that the learned Hebrews, that set down the Musick of the antients, doe not set down Gittith for an instrument, but much otherwise. Witness Kimchi, before named, on the third Psalm; where having once for all, set down the instruments of the Jewish Musick, that were used in the house of the sanctuary, Cymbals, Cornets, Trumpets &c. he addes, that these Musical instruments were divided into melodies, which were known among them, i. e. there were several tunes well known among the Jews, that were skilfull in that art, (to which they plaid on these instruments) and Gittith was one of them. Here now is evidently a great difference betwixt these instruments themselves, and the several melodies or tunes that they plaid upon them; and Gittith is with him expressly the name of a tune, and not, as was supposed from the Chaldee, an instrument brought from Gath. Now of tunes it is well enough known, that they take their names from the songs which were first composed to that tune, sometimes from the matter of the song, and sometimes also from the first words, or else from some principal words in it. And if so, then why may not this eighth Psalm be the first which was made to this tune; and from the matter of it be here inscribed foreign upon the Gittite, or Philistime of Gath; and then all other Psalms, afterward set to that tune, called after the name of the first, and so the Lxxxi. and Lxxxiv. be inscribed foreign to signifie them to be set to the same tune with this, which was made on Goliah the Gittite? If there be small probability in this, it remains that we return to that which was first said, that the difficulties of this kinde are inexplicable. And this may stop, though not satisfie, our curiosities.
V. 3. When I consider] foreign foreignin this place is by the Chaldee rendred foreign because or for, and by the Lxxii. foreign, because, and so in the rest of the Antient Interpreters, this being the most frequent use of it. Yet 'tis certain the Hebrew particle hath soure significations; and in one of them denotes a condition (and is best rendred If) and also time, and is fully rendred, when. So Gen. iv. 12. foreign the Chaldee read foreign if, or, when thou tillest the ground; and so ii Sam. vii.i. It came to passe foreign when the King sat in his house, for which i. Chron. xvii. 1. they read foreign, and we render, as, i. e. when he sate. And thus the context inclines it here, When I consider— What is man— i. e. I have then by that consideration all reason to cry out by way of admiration, What is man— And thus the Jewish Arabick translation renders it, When I see the heavens &c. I say, What is man—