Deliverance of the persecuted remnant by the exaltation of the Lord to all authority as Son of Man, set over God's works in the world to come, and making Jehovah's name excellent in all the earth,

To the chief musician upon Gittith. A psalm of David.

Jehovah our Lord! how excellent is Thy name in all the earth:who hast set Thy glory above the heavens!

2. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou founded strength, because of all Thine oppressors, to still the enemy and the revengeful.

3. When I behold the heavens, the work of Thy ringers, the moon and stars which Thou hast established;

4. What is frail man, that Thou rememberest him, or the son of Man, that Thou visitest him?

5. Yea, Thou makest him a little lower than the angels, and crownest him with glory and majesty.

6. Thou makest him rule over the works of Thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet;

7. Sheep and oxen, all of them; yea, also the beasts of the field;

8. Fowl of heaven, and fish of the sea:whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas!

9. Jehovah our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!

Text.-"Gittith," (?) "The Wine-vats:" which the LXX favors. The common opinion is that it is a musical instrument; according to Talmud, "A cithern from Gath." According to the subject, the reference might seem rather to the symbolic meaning of wine, as what "makes glad the heart of man."

(1, 8) "Our Lord," Adonim, a plural form, like Elohim.

(2) "Founded strength:" LXX, "perfected praise," quoted thus, Matthew 20:16 ; but the sanction here given does not show the reading of the Septuagint to be literally exact, but sufficiently so for the practical application which our Lord makes of the passage. "Thine, oppressors:" from tzarar, "straiten, distress." As used here of the Lord's enemies, does it not seem akin to Acts 9:4, 5- "Why persecutest thou Me?"

(4) There are three words for "man" commonly used in Hebrew; "Adam," generic for the race; enosh, which here as elsewhere may be translated "frailman," from anash, "to be sick or weak," and often used in contrast with Ish, implying his nobility.

(5) "A little lower than," literally, " wanting a little of." "Than the angels" has been rendered by some "than God," but the quotation in Hebrews 2:decides in favor of the rendering in the text, which is that of the LXX. Literally, it is "than the gods," and applied to the angels as sons of God, and representing Him to man; see Exodus 7:1.