Psalms 7-8
Dear RTB’ers,
No doubt the authors of Search the Scriptures spent thousands of hours poring over the books and chapters and verses of the Bible as they plotted a three-year journey through these Scriptures. Still, one wonders at their choice of putting Psalms 7-8 together on the same day, especially after two days of stand-alone Psalms 5-6. These two Psalms, 7 and 8, could hardly be more different.
Psalm 7 seems to be in the same genre as Psalm 6, something like a lament, but not fully so, with a lot of verses concerning David’s pursuers / enemies (Ps. 7:1-2, 4-6) and the wicked (Ps. 7:9a, 14-16), set apart by verses of praise, confidence and thanksgiving (Ps. 7:3, 7-8, 17).
Psalm 8, by contrast, is one of my favorites, especially (for me) those few words, What is man that You are mindful of him…? (Ps. 8:4a). David has begun and ended this Psalm by ascribing glory and majesty to his (and our) Lord (Ps. 8:1-2, 9). In between he reviews the magnitude of the heavens and sees mankind as such a small bit of God’s creation. But God looks down on this small bit of His creation, each and every one of His created human beings and has …crowned him with glory and honor… (Ps. 8:5b) and set him above everything else in all creation. It is such a humbling thought, that of all the glory that is God’s creation, that God looks down on mankind in a special way.
And if all that is not awesome in itself, because of His love for all of humanity and to rescue His human creation from the depths of their sin, He sent Jesus to die for us and His Holy Spirit to live in each and every one of us – each and every one of us, personally! …what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Awesome!!
Blessings!