Bible Commentaries

Psalm 8:4).

"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels" [R.V. "God"], "and hast crowned him with glory and honour." ( Psalm 8:5)

Man is the second name on the register; God signs first, and, passing the pen to Psalm 8:6).

Now the Psalmist puts the right view of the case. Everything is under the foot of man. "Thou madest him to have dominion." "Dominion" is a far-reaching word; we have not yet thrown our measuring-line upon it and realised all its suggestion and inspiration. Is there not a stirring sometimes in the heart, which means: I was meant to be king; I was meant to be master; I was meant to exercise dominion—dominion over the enticements of matter; it was intended that I should be able to say to the most fascinating spectacles that could appeal to me—Stand back! Man was meant to have dominion over the satisfactions of sense. Say, is it not quite heroic, in some small way at least, that a man shall be able to say to a habit: I have done with thee; you do not leave this day fortnight—you leave now! That is what God means man to be and to do in regard to everything that is not of the nature of God himself. It is useless, and worse than useless, even pitiful and weak, for a man to say that some habit has got such a hold of him that he cannot shake it oft. That doctrine must never be allowed. Such a man must go to his friends?, and say: I cannot do it alone, but you must help me: lock me up; build walls seven feet thick all round me, and help me, for the devil is hard upon me. A man who is so habit-ridden must not trust the case to himself or to his own handling; he must say: I have uncrowned myself, I have lost the charter by which I hold my manhood and my life: take pity upon me, take care of me; do not consider that I have any will in this matter—oh, save me! And to others a word of caution should be spoken to this effect: Before the habit gets such hold upon you, be sure that you secure the upper hand over the habit. Man was made to have "dominion," in the largest sense. It is well to put our very habits through a process of discipline, supposing the habit to be not altogether wicked. It is well for every man to say to it: I am going to have nothing to do with you for one whole month; stand back until I call you. Habits take liberties. They are weaving webs around the life when the life is not suspecting the operation. It is well for a man to say about his eating and drinking and sleeping: I am going to alter all of you; a new bill of directions shall guide my life for a month; every hour shall be changed, and every habit shall be driven out until I ask it to resume its place. Thus the man is exercising his right; he is realising the domination which God meant him to exercise over all things—"all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas" ( Psalm 8:7-8). Is it worth while that we should be able to hold all these things in dominion if we cannot hold ourselves in check? The great aim of every life should be self-control. A man should say: I will not speak today, nor eat, nor go abroad; I will keep myself in subjection, lest after having preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. Bitter word, humbling word! A "castaway"—something thrown off, without the thrower heeding where it goes; it may have been here or there, or over the brink into the great abyss; the man who threw it knows not, cares not, where it is: the thing thrown is a "castaway."

Is there not in all this musical reasoning of the Psalmist a suggestion of man's immortality? Do we not feel, after reading such a contemplation and taking part in it, that the man who could do all this could do more? Is there not something within us which says: This cannot be the end of a man who can consider God's heavens, the moon and the stars; this cannot be the end of a creature a little lower than God, crowned with glory and honour? God does not make such crowns to throw them away; he does not bestow such honours to follow them with contempt Immortality is here by implication. The very greatness of the man is a proof that he was not meant for extinction. An awful irony it would be that God should create such a being, and, after all his poetry and reasoning and prayer, should allow that same being to fall away into nothingness! This cannot be. The high religiousness of this psalm is no loss to man in any aspect. Religiousness does not disqualify for business. A man is not a whit the less keen in mental penetration because he has been lost in religious awe and meditation and worship. He will come back from the altar a stronger Psalm 55:19, Psalm 57:3, Habakkuk 3:3, Habakkuk 3:9, where it is in the middle, though at the end of a clause. All the Psalm in which it occurs, except eleven ( Habakkuk 3:19); and in these exceptions we find the words ‏םִזְםֹד‎ mizmôr (A.V. "Psalm"), Shiggaion, or Maschil, which sufficiently indicate that they were intended for music. Besides these, in the titles of the Psalm in which Selah occurs, we meet with the musical terms Alamoth ( Habakkuk 3:19), and Shushan-eduth (60); and on this association alone might be formed a strong presumption that, like these, Selah itself is a term which had a meaning in the musical nomenclature of the Hebrews. What that meaning may have been is now a matter of pure conjecture.

A few opinions may be noticed as belonging to the history of the subject. Michaelis, in despair at being unable to assign any meaning to the word, regarded it as an abbreviation, formed by taking the first or other letters of three other words (Suppl. ad Lex. Hebr.), though he declines to conjecture what these may have been, and rejects at once the guess of Meibomius, who extracts the meaning da capo from the three words which he suggests. For other conjectures of this kind, see Eichhorn's Bibliothek, v545. Mattheson was of opinion that the passages where Selah occurred were repeated either by the instruments or by another choir: hence he took it as equal to ritornello. Herder regarded it as marking a change of key; while Paulus Burgensis and Schindler assigned to it no meaning, but looked upon it as an enclitic word used to fill up the verse. Buxtorf (Lex. Hebr.) derived it from ‏םָלָה‎ sâlâh, to spread, lay low: hence used as a sign to lower the voice, like piano. Augusti (Pract. Einl. in d. Ps. p125) thought it was an exclamation, like hallelujah! and the same view was taken by the late Prof. Lee (Heb. Gr. §243 , 2) who classes it among the interjections, and renders it praise! "For my own part," he says, "I believe it to be descended from the root "he blessed," etc, and used not unlike the word amen, or the doxology, among ourselves."—Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.

Prayer

This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven! Thou dost surprise us by thy presence, even though we know the whole earth is thine, thou Father of all. We appear to come suddenly upon thee, and to find thy throne where we did not expect it. Thou art able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. Even in thine house thou canst be greater than our imagination: it is not only our Father's house, but it is our Father's command that the best robe be brought forth and a ring of heaven, and that the feast of love be spread. We cannot follow thee in all the way of thy love. Thou art always doing more than our imagination led us to expect. We are always in the presence of thy great care and tender mercy; yet now and again it surprises us by some new beauty, some deeper pathos, some profounder assurance of fatherly regard. We are glad to be in thy house, for it is as a chamber of banqueting. Thy banner over us is Love: thine invitation is, Eat and drink abundantly O beloved: at thy feast there is more at the end than there was at the beginning. This is a miracle of love, a marvel—not to be comprehended—of compassion and bounteousness. Thou hast always been patient with us: thou mightest have crushed our infirmity; thou mightest have carried us away as with a flood; in the nighttime thou mightest have caused our little life to disappear, so that in the morning it could no more be found: but like as a father pitieth his children so thou hast pitied us in our feebleness and in our low estate; thou hast counted nothing belonging to us unworthy of thy notice—the very hairs of our head are all numbered. As for thy patience, thy longsuffering, thy watching at the door of the heart, and thine attendance upon us—what words can express our conception of these? We are lost in wonder, love, and praise! We cannot keep pace with God. Behold, there is no number that can set forth his mercy; neither is there any reckoning that can represent his compassion; the sand upon the seashore and all the stars in the brightest nighttime are as nothing compared with the infinite loving-kindness of God. We think of the Cross, and remember thy love: by the Cross we are saved; by the Cross we find pardon, peace, and a sure expectation of heaven. The blood of Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin. We pray for one another. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. May every righteous man pray not only for himself, but for all the household of God and all the household of humanity. Give grace unto them who specially need some ministry from heaven, because of manifold temptation, or great perplexity, or intolerable sorrow. Grant unto those who need direction in the wilderness a voice that shall say to them, This is the way; walk in it, and be assured of the presence of God; his rod and his staff will comfort you. To those who have been bereaved or are in circumstances of special distress, send angels from heaven, who shall speak of thy care, love, and wisdom, and the meaning of all the chastening providences of life. Be with those who have left us for a season to go afar, that they may renew their friendships, or pursue their business, or inquire into interests covered by their love. Be with all who are in peril on the sea: make the sea as solid land, and the great winds do thou calm into healthful and peaceful breezes, and bring all travellers to their desired haven. Accept the thanksgiving of those who remember thy care with love and praise this day; thou hast raised up some from the bed of affliction; thou hast re-kindled the lamp of hope in some houses; thou hast given joy to some lives that were fast despairing,—these are thy gifts, Parent of good, Father of all spirits. We take them as from God; we bless the hand that gives them, and we ask to show our gratitude by renewed and ever-enlarging service. Let thy peace be upon us. Hover over us, O Spirit of purity, Spirit of peace. Take all fear away; make us glad in the sanctuary of God, and give us to feel that here is the shining of the bright and morning Star, here is the fruit of the tree of life, here we find God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, in all the plentitude of grace. Amen.