Thoughts on the Psalms: Psalm 8 and Chiasms
In the midst of working on several other projects, I came across something that needed a little more study. It’s perfectly demonstrated in the 8th Psalm, and since it’s time to cover that one anyway, I figured we might as well go over it while we’re at it.
The new thing I’m learning about is called a chiasm, a prominent Hebrew literary mechanism used throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. Paul, being the Hebrew of Hebrews that he was, utilized the chiastic structure quite a lot in his writings. Psalm 8 is a perfect example of a chiasm. It’s a beautiful Psalm anyway, but with the added layer of the chiasm, it just gets even more beautiful!
Psalm 8 also corresponds quite nicely to the Last Great Day, that eighth day of the feast. In fact, out of the Psalms we have covered, this one probably lines up even more than the others do with their corresponding Holy Day, so take note of that as we go along. To start out, we’ll read through the Psalm, then, once we have a pretty good idea of what it says, we’ll look into the hidden aspects of it.
Psalm 8:1 NASB95 - For the choir director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David. O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens!
Psalm 8:2 NASB95 - From the mouth of infants and nursing babes You have established strength Because of Your adversaries, To make the enemy and the revengeful cease.
Psalm 8:3 NASB95 - When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
Psalm 8:4 NASB95 - What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him?
Psalm 8:5 NASB95 - Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!
Psalm 8:6 NASB95 - You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,
Psalm 8:7 NASB95 - All sheep and oxen, And also the beasts of the field,
Psalm 8:8 NASB95 - The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea, Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
Psalm 8:9 NASB95 - O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth!
A beautiful Psalm of praise to our Creator indeed!
What is a chiasm?
As I said earlier, a chiasm is a Hebrew literary structure, a form of parallelism. Chiasms form an upside-down triangle, with the main point being the point on which the triangle is balanced. The two sides mirror each other to emphasize what is being said, and then the midpoint, the bottom of our triangle, is the main message the writer is trying to convey.
Psalm 8 is a perfect example of this, which works out quite nicely. The table below demonstrates this, albeit without the triangle formation. The left side mirrors the right, and the very bottom is the central idea that is being conveyed.
If you were to write it out, it would form a pattern like this one below, where X is the main point that the author is trying to get across.
A A’
B B’
C C’
D D’
X
In Psalm 8, that happens to be verse 5, which should send chills up your back because that is what connects this particular Psalm to the Last Great Day!
Psalm 8:5 NKJV - For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
Verse 5 is the main point that God, through David, is trying to get across. We have been made a little lower than the Elohim for a time, and we will be crowned with glory and honor at our resurrection.
Everything before verse 5 is in praise of God, His wondrous creation, and in disbelief that He would even take notice of little ants like us.
Verse 5 is the answer to the question, the big picture of what God is doing and what His plan for us is.
Everything after verse 5 is in recognition of the authority God gave to man, that everything on Earth has been put under his hand, and then it works its way back to the beginning with a declaration of how excellent the name of God is in all the earth!
The way this matches up with the theme of the eighth day is simply astounding and so beautiful! God, for a time, has created us to be a little lower than the angels, and even now He has set our dominion over everything on Earth, but there is a time coming when all that will change, the Earth will be made new, and we will rule at God’s side forever!
Psalm 8:1 NKJV - To the Chief Musician. On the instrument of Gath. A Psalm of David. O LORD, our Lord, How excellent [is] Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens!
How excellent is God’s name! There tends to be a lot of argument about how we should pronounce His name, and everyone thinks they have the correct pronunciation (myself included, haha), but really, the pronunciation is not the point of His name. The point of everything is the Being behind the Name (Hashem in Hebrew). Arguing about the pronunciation, which variation we should use, whether there should be a “J” sound or not, and even if we should use transliterated forms of His Name (Yahowah) misses the point entirely!
His name is excellent, His glory is set above the heavens, and He allows us, mere humans, the work of His hands, to call upon Him in whatever feeble attempts at doing so we might put forward, and they are all feeble!
He allows every nation, tongue, and creed to call upon Him in their own tongue, and so what do we do?
We argue about which pronunciation we should use to do so, even to the point of dividing, separating from brethren, and looking down on each other because they aren’t using the “correct” version!
Wow!
It’s really pretty stupid when you think about it!
Mere ants like us are arguing about what we should call the one who made us, when in our own human tongue, we probably aren’t even capable of its true pronunciation. We take ourselves so seriously, it’s laughable!
It's like a baby trying to speak the language of its parents!
Yet the point David is making here is how excellent His name is in all the Earth! Not just the Hebrew-speaking parts!
אַדִּיר
Majestic
The word for excellent is “adir,” which means majestic. God's name is majestic, regardless of whether it is or is not in Hebrew. His name tells us who He is, and we don't have to pronounce it perfectly in order to know who He is! He is the eternal one, which is what His name means. The reputation of His name is the majesty that goes with the work of His hands, the great things he has done for us.
Psalm 8:2 NKJV — Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.
David then compares us to babes and nursing infants, and says that out of the mouths of infants God has ordained strength, and the word for ordain is יָסַד, which means establish, found, fix, as in to fix in place. God has established strength in the mouth of those who are infants in comparison to Him.
For what purpose?
To silence the enemy, specifically, the enemies of God.
We find this theme repeated as a bookend at the end of the Psalm, a classic mark of a chiasm, where David again says:
Psalm 8:9 NKJV — O LORD, our Lord, How excellent [is] Your name in all the earth!
Alright, moving on.
Psalm 8:3 NKJV — When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
Psalm 8:7 NKJV — All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field,
Psalm 8:8 NKJV — The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas.
God has created some pretty amazing things in this world, things that are simply astounding. Even the simple flight capabilities of an eagle are astounding, not to mention the heavenly bodies! All of this contrasts with what David says next.
Psalm 8:4 NKJV — What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him?
When we look at the incredible things God has created, what is man in comparison? We're bags of flesh, not particularly astounding from our point of view, and God pays us attention? He is mindful of us?
How awesome is that?!
We come to the center nugget of this Psalm, the point David has been leading up to all along, and it hardly seems believable.
Psalm 8:5 NKJV — For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor.
We have been created a little lower than the angels for a time, yet God still visits us! He created us as lower than the angels, but our potential is so much more than that. If I am reading my Hebrew correctly, the phrase “have crowned” is in the future tense, which means it would be better translated as you will crown him with glory and honor. That is what happens on the eighth day of the feast, actually. All of humanity that still exists will be crowned with glory and honor, and we will be like Him. Now, it can also have a double meaning in that we were created in the image of God, and the angels and animals weren't. Just something to keep in mind.
Psalm 8:6 NKJV — You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all [things] under his feet,
We find this to be the case right at the start of time when God gave man dominion over all the Earth, He gave all the works of His hands into ours to care for and tend to in our time here.
Psalm 8:7 NKJV — All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field,
Psalm 8:8 NKJV — The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas.
Psalm 8:9 NKJV — O LORD, our Lord, How excellent [is] Your name in all the earth!
We find ourselves moving away from the central point in the Psalm, and once again, we end up back at the bookend, declaring how awesome God is in His majesty.
It's a beautiful Psalm, and quite humbling to realize the place God has given us in His plan and in His creation. We are mere babes, but He has given us an opportunity to grow and mature into full sons in His house.
It's truly incredible!
A Final Word About Chiasms
Chiasms do have some rules, so to help you spot them on your own (or write your own), I thought I'd mention them here to finish up.
Symmetry is required. Look for bookends, that is, phrases on either end that say almost the same thing or convey the same idea. Then, within the chiasm, each idea on one side of the triangle must be reflected in the other side. The reflection can either be a parallel idea or a contrasting idea, but the reflection must be there.
The center is the key. Whatever is at the center of the chiasm is the main idea that is being conveyed.
The other aspects of Hebrew poetry that we have talked about in the past apply to chiasms as well. Synthetic, synonymous, and antithetic elements all appear in chiasms, and more than the words, it is the ideas that create the rhymes.
If the structure feels forced, it's probably not a chiasm. If you feel like you are having to finagle the chiasm into the text, then it's probably not one in the first place. Chiasms are intentional.
Chiasms are contained in a single unit of thought. They don't hop around, and they have a clear beginning and a clear ending. A natural break in the text is almost always the end of the chiasm
Nested chiasms do exist. A chiasm can be inside another chiasm. Psalm 103 is a great example of this.
Chiasms build from small to great in general, so that is another thing to help you spot them. The theological center of the passage is usually the theological center of the chiasm as well.
Chiasms force your mind to work poetically rather than literally, and they reveal a great deal about what the writer was trying to convey to us. You have to take the writers thought for thought rather than word for word. So, to spot chiasms, look for keywords across verses and bookends, and look for the pivot point where the flow changes and reverses. Those two things alone will help you spot the vast majority of them!
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