Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 8:1

"O Jehovah, our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the earth, Who hast set thy glory upon the heavens!" — Psalms 8:1 (ASV)

O Lord our Lord. — Jehovah our Lord. For the first time in the Book of Psalms the personal feeling is consciously lost sight of in a larger, a national, or possibly human feeling. The poet recognizes God’s relation to the whole of mankind as to the whole material creation. Thus the hymn appropriately lent itself to the use of the congregation in public worship, though it does not follow that this was the object of its composition.

Excellent. —The Septuagint and Vulgate, “wonderful.” Better, great or exalted.

Who have set ... —The translation of this clause is uncertain. It must be determined by the parallelism, and by the fact that the poet, in Psalms 8:4, merely expands the thought he had before expressed. There is plainly some error in the text since it is ungrammatical. The proposed emendations vary considerably. The ancient versions also disagree.

The Authorized Version may be retained, since it meets all the requirements of the context, and is etymologically correct; though, grammatically, Ewald’s correction, which also agrees with the Vulgate, is preferable, “You whose splendor is raised above the heavens.” The precise thought in the poet’s mind has also been the subject of contention.

Some take the clause to refer to the praises raised in Jehovah’s honor higher than the heavens, a thought parallel to the preceding clause; others, to the visible glory spread over the sky. Others see an antithesis. God’s glory is displayed on earth in His name, His real glory is above the heavens. Probably only a general sense of the majesty of Him that is higher than the highest (Ecclesiastes 5:8), and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain (1 Kings 8:27), occupied the poet’s mind.