Ps. 8 (pt. 1): Majesty

O Yhwh / our master   how majestic / your name / is / in all / the earth  I / will worship / your majesty / above / the heavens.  One cannot help but be reminded of these opening words of another famous prayer, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” They are remarkably similar (and, different in very important ways as well): they both recognize that Yhwh/Father is in heaven; they are an initiation of praise; and they both focus on the name. To limit ourselves to our psalm, however: “O Yhwh, our Master”—we will see how this designation of Yhwh as ‘master’ is a crucial preparing for what follows. It establishes, at the outset, the sense of utter obedience. One thing we have not explicitly pointed out before is how Yhwh’s designation in the psalms is entirely appropriate to the thematic content of the psalm (Ps. 2: “Enthroned One”; Ps. 3: a “shield”; Ps. 4: God “of my righteousness”; etc…). Here, Yhwh as “Master” (or, governor) initiates us for the following--“majesty of your name”. We do not find here that Yhwh’s name simply pervades “all the earth”. Rather, the name is bathed in ‘majesty’. To know Yhwh’s name is to know his majesty; one cannot (at least here) separate the two. It is important to note that it is not merely ‘beautiful’ but ‘majestic’. In English the term ‘majesty’ connotes royal dignity and beauty (a rather dry definition that seems to actually obscure more than it reveals). There is an element here of power, authority and sovereign control. Majesty has a paradoxical quality in this regard: it is utterly beautiful and therefore one desires to look at it, and, at the same time, it is so overpowering that one is intensely aware that one is entirely unworthy in its presence and it would be dangerous to make ‘eye-contact’. To look upon majesty (to ‘raise one’s eyes’) is and could be seen as an act of hubris and rebellion; one never looks a king in the eye until he gives permission. Moses certainly experienced this at the burning bush. The prophets after him too: they almost uniformly were overwhelmed (to the point of death) by the vision of Yhwh. In the Apocalypse, Jesus has “eyes of flame”. It is an astonishing thing: majesty both draws the viewer into its presence and, simultaneously, establishes a total distance between itself and those in its presence. It both attracts and repels. One senses oneself to smaller than nothing in its presence; it is not an uncommon experience to ‘seek cover’ and to ‘hide one’s face’ in the presence of majesty. One does not want to be looked upon by the majestic because its eyes seem to penetrate. And, is this not what the ‘name’ does? “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be”. The ‘revealing of the name’ to Moses was an astonishing act of self-gift to the Israelites. And yet, contained within that ‘giving’ was this sense of utter authority: no matter how much Yhwh gives himself to Israel he will remain “who he will be”. Although this could be fruitfully pursued, we must return to our psalm and recognize this: to see Yhwh’s name “in all the earth” is not to simply see the ‘beauty’ of the name in the earth; it is to see the ‘majesty’ of the name. ‘Beauty’ can often connote a type of equality between the viewer and the object; beauty can be ‘safe’ in this regard. Within the experience of “majesty” one would never cross that boundary: the object is and will always demand utter obedience. “I will worship your majesty above the heavens”—the psalmist is here enveloping the entirely of the created order (earth and haven) in the majesty of Yhwh. As we have already seen in other psalms, Yhwh being ‘on high’ or ‘above’ connotes his authority; we might also describe it as the fact that reality flows ‘from on high’. Yhwh is the ‘source’ of all that is, as Creator. The heavens, as Genesis makes clear, is not where Yhwh dwelt before creation: the heavens were, in fact, part of creation. This psalm will later make this explicit in the wonderful description of the heavens being created by Yhwh’s “fingers” (Yhwh is so utterly superior to the grandest created design that they are not even created by his ‘hands’). This is why his majesty will be “praised above the heavens”. We may miss something rather shocking in all of this—the psalmist has the ability to comprehend this majesty. In some sense, his awareness of Yhwh’s majesty has endowed him with a perception of that which is the creator of both heavens and earth. This is not some dry recognition of Yhwh’s ‘transcendance’—it is a recognition of Yhwh’s ‘majesty’. Is it not a shocking thing that man is endowed with the ability to perceive/praise this? In some manner man has the capability of perceiving/praising what is ‘above the heavens’, and yet this perception is always one of ‘majesty’ (hence, this perception is praise).  As we will see, these few lines have encapsulated the entire psalm.