Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 8:2

"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established strength, Because of thine adversaries, That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." — Psalms 8:2 (ASV)

Babes and sucklings. — Better, young children and sucklings. This is a regular phrase to describe children from one to three years old (1 Samuel 15:3; 1 Samuel 22:19). The yonek, or suckling, denotes an earlier stage of the nursing period (which, with Hebrew mothers, sometimes extended over three years (2 Maccabees 7:27), and according to Talmudic authority could not be less than two years) than the ôlel, which is applied to children able to play on the streets (Jeremiah 9:21; Lamentations 4:4). (See Dr. Ginsburg on Eastern Manners and Customs: Bible Educator, vol. 1, p. 29.)

Ordained strength... — At first glance, the Septuagint translation, as quoted in Matthew 21:16 (see Note, New Testament Commentary), “Thou hast perfected praise,” seems correct, from a comparison with Psalm 29:1, where strength translates the same Hebrew word and plainly means homage. This undoubtedly expresses part of the poet's thought: that in a child’s simple and innocent wonder lies the truest worship, and that God accomplishes the greatest things and reveals His glory by means of the weakest instruments—a thought seized upon by our Lord to condemn the lack of spirituality in the scribes and Pharisees.

But the context, speaking the language of war, seems to demand the primitive meaning: stronghold or defense.

The truth that the Bible proclaims about the innate divinity of man, his essential likeness to God, is the principal subject of the poet. In the princely heart of innocence of an unspoiled child, he sees its confirmation, just as Wordsworth saw.

“Trailing clouds of glory do we come,
From God who is our home.”

Such a proof is strong even against the noisy clamor of apostate men, who rebel against the Divine government and lay the blame on God for their aberration from His order. “His merry babbling mouth provides a defense of the Creator against all the calumnies of the foe” (Ewald).

Others think rather of the faculty of speech, and its wonder and glory.

The avenger. — Properly, him who avenges himself.