Psalms
Chapter 8
This psalm praises God's name as great over all the earth. The writer looks up at the night sky, sees the moon and stars, and wonders why God pays any attention to people at all. Yet God has given people honor and put the animals, birds, and fish in their care. The psalm ends with the same line it started with.
Plain reading written for preteens. Clear and complete, at about a fifth grade reading level.
O LORD, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
1LORD, our Master, how great your name is everywhere on earth! You have placed your splendor high above the sky.
The KJV prints two different words here. "LORD" in capitals stands for God's personal name, and "our Lord" means "our Master." "Excellent" in 1611 English meant great or majestic, not merely very good.
2Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
2You have taken praise from the mouths of little children and nursing babies to be your strength against those who fight you. With it you silence the enemy who wants revenge.
3When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
3When I look at your sky, which your own fingers made, and at the moon and the stars you set in place,
4What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
4I wonder: what is a human being, that you think about him? What is any person, that you take care of him?
"Son of man" is an old Hebrew way of saying "a human being" or "anyone born of people." "Visitest" here means to come to someone and care for them, not simply to drop by.
5For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
5You made him just a little lower than the angels, and you gave him glory and honor like a crown.
6Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
6You put him in charge of everything your hands have made. You placed all of it under his feet:
7All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
7all the sheep and cattle, and the wild animals too,
8The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
8the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims along the ocean paths.
9O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
9LORD, our Master, how great your name is everywhere on earth!
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