Episode Details

Psalm 8: A Little Lower Than the Angels

The movement of this psalm is dizzying. It begins with the heavens — that vast, unthinkable expanse of glory — and then, without warning, it swoops down to a nursery. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings comes a strength that silences the enemy. It is as though God's power were so excessive, so beyond all accounting, that it overflows into the weakest and smallest vessels and still has enough left over to defeat the avenger. And then the great question, which is less a question than a gasp: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him?" Anyone who has stood under a clear night sky and felt their own smallness knows this feeling. But the answer the psalmist gives is not what we expect. We are not told we are insignificant. We are told we are crowned — with glory and honour, no less — and given dominion over the works of God's hands. The psalm ends where it began, with the excellence of God's name in all the earth, but we who stand between those two bookends have been forever changed by what was said in the middle.

00:00 How Excellent Is Thy Name
00:15 Out of the Mouth of Babes
00:28 When I Consider Thy Heavens
00:40 What Is Man
00:52 Crowned with Glory and Honour