Psalm 8: The glory of the Lord in creation

Psalm 8 is an uplifting psalm reflecting on the glory of the Lord’s creation, and the role of humanity in the broader scheme of things. In verse 4, the speaker even asks the Lord,

“What is man, that thou art mindful of him?”

The Lord created us in such a way that we are balanced between the natural and the spiritual world, distinct from all other forms of life, since we can consider God and heaven (see Swedenborg’s work, Doctrine of Life 69 [2]).

The psalm begins grandly: “O Lord, our Lord.” This statement encompasses all of us as children of God, individually and collectively. Then the Lord’s name is exalted as “excellent in all the earth.” Spiritually, the Lord’s name signifies all the qualities of the Lord, shown in everything we see around us and also within us. Verse 1 ends by saying that the Lord’s glory is above heaven and earth (see Divine Providence 230 [2]).

The imagery of infants giving praise to the Lord describes our need for innocence and trust in the Lord for guidance. The Lord strengthens and sustains us so that we can overcome harmful states such as pride and self-love (see Arcana Caelestia 3183).

Verses 3 through 8 convey a sense of humble gratitude for all the Lord’s blessings. When compared with the grandeur of the heavens - the very vastness of God’s creation - our place in the world seems inconsequential. We are made “a little lower than the angels”, but even so, “crowned with glory and honor.” Man in this world is an angel in potential, and every angel is one who has had a natural lifetime in which to regenerate. Yet humanity is the great purpose of divine creation: we are born to come into a relationship with the Lord, and to know His love and truth (see Swedenborg’s work, Heaven and Hell 311).

The final section of the psalm speaks of the Lord granting us dominion over all other living creatures. This is not in any sense a domination or even a superiority, but an acknowledgement that we, unlike other living things, have been created with a spiritual consciousness that allows us to embrace the Lord’s kingdom forever.

The psalm, having gone through momentous realizations, ends with the refrain of the towering opening line, "O Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is thy name in the whole earth!"

230. The profanation of what is holy is referred to in the second of the Ten Commandments in the words, "You shall not profane the name of your God" [Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11]; and the Lord's prayer is telling us that we must not profane what is holy when it says, "Hallowed be your name" [Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2]. Hardly anyone in all Christendom knows what "the name of God" means. This is because people do not know that people in the spiritual world do not have names the way we do in this physical world. Rather, each individual is named for her or his own love and wisdom. As soon as we enter a community or a gathering of people, we are immediately given a name that expresses our nature. We are named in a spiritual language that is essentially able to give a distinctive name to every individual thing, because every letter in its alphabet means something definite; and when many letters are combined into a single word, as happens with an individual's name, they include the whole state of that object. This is just one of the marvels of the spiritual world.

[2] We can see from this that in the Word, "the name of God" means both God and everything divine that is in him and that emanates from him. Since the Word is a divine emanation, it is a name of God; and since all the divine gifts that we refer to as the spiritual gifts of the church come from the Word, they too are a name of God.

This enables us to see what "You shall not profane the name of your God" means in the second of the Ten Commandments, and what "Hallowed be your name" means in the Lord's Prayer.

"The name of God" and "the name of the Lord" mean much the same in many passages in the Word in both Testaments. See, for example, Matthew 7:22; Matthew 10:22; Matthew 18:5, 20; Matthew 19:29; Matthew 21:9; Matthew 24:9-10; John 1:12; John 2:23; John 3:17-18; John 12:13, 28; John 14:14-15, 16; John 16:23-24, 26-27; John 17:6; and John 20:31, among others, as well as a great many in the Old Testament.

[3] If you know the meaning of this "name," then you can know the meaning of the Lord's words, "Whoever accepts a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward. Whoever receives a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive a righteous person's reward; and whoever gives one of these little ones something cold to drink in the name of a disciple will not lose the reward" (Matthew 10:21 [Matthew 10:41-42]). If you understand the name of a prophet or a righteous person or a disciple to mean nothing but the prophet or the righteous person or the disciple, then the only meaning you get will be a literal one. You will not know, either, what is meant by the reward of the prophet or the reward of the righteous person or the reward for the cold drink given on behalf of the disciple. Yet the name and the reward of the prophet mean the blessed state of people who enjoy divine gifts of truth, and the name and the reward of the righteous person mean the blessed state of people who enjoy divine gifts of what is good, while the disciple means the state of people who have some of the spiritual gifts of the church, and the cold drink is any element of truth.

[4] We can also tell that the name means the nature of the state of love and wisdom, or of what is good and true, from these words of the Lord: "The one who comes in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The doorkeeper opens to him and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out" (Matthew 10:2, 3 [John 10:2-3]). "Calling sheep by name" is teaching and leading every individual whose deeds are prompted by caring, and doing so in keeping with that individual's state of love and wisdom. "The door" means the Lord, as we can tell from verse 9: "I am the door. Anyone who enters in by me will be saved." This shows that we need to turn to the Lord himself if we are to be saved, and that the one who does turn to him is a shepherd of his sheep. Anyone who does not turn to him is a thief and a robber, as it says in the first verse of the same chapter.