Psalms 8

To the chief Musician upon Gittith, A Psalm of David.

This psalm is one of a class (see Psalms 19, 29, 104) which contemplates the phenomena of nature religiously, as cause of praise to the Creator. It celebrates the greatness of God, and the greatness of man in the image of God, and has been called the “lyric echo” of the first chapter of Genesis. The Messianic notices of it in the New Testament are not considered to be directly, but by way of accommodation illustratively, applied to Christ. Still, man, who is here contemplated abstractly, according to the original purpose of God, is to attain the dignity of his birthright only through the God-man, who took on him our nature. (See the notes.) No occasion of writing is recorded of this beautiful lyric, but the second verse intimates a somewhat mature acquaintance with the bitter enemies of true religion, and with God’s methods of confounding them; and the whole bears too much the stamp of a religious philosopheme to allow us to assign it to the early life of David, who was unquestionably its author.

TITLE:

Upon Gittith Taken as a Gentile name, the word means Gathite, and Furst thinks it is a name proper of a musical body of Levites who had their chief seat in the Levitical city Gath-Rimmon. Others take it as the name of an instrument for lively airs, as if it were an επιληνιος , ( epilenios,) or joyful air, used at the vintage, as the radical word גת , ( gath,) winepress, would indicate. The other psalms bearing this inscription are also of a joyful character. See Psalms 81, 84.