Bible Science Forum

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When I Consider Thy Heavens

The verses from Psalms 8:1,3 emphasize God’s glory above the heavens and the significance of humanity’s role as caretakers of Earth.

John Gideon Hartnett
3–5 minutes
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m31_bers_960
Figure 1: M31: The Andromeda Galaxy.  Image Credit & Copyright: Jacob Bers (Bersonic)

O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.  … 3. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;  Psalms 8:1,3

These verses really struck me as significant as I read them this morning. Let’s look at these two verses carefully.

1 O YHWH [יְהוֹוָה Yhovah] our Lord [אָדוֹן ‘adown, meaning ‘sovereign’] who [meaning God Himself] has set Your ]singular] glory above the heavens. 

Psalms 8:1

God has set his own glory above that of the created heavens. And those heavens are a wonder to behold. Just look at some of the beautiful pictures of the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day. Here I illustrate this (Fig. 1) with their July 30, 2014 picture of the Andromeda galaxy.

Our own galaxy would look very similar to this one. With modern large telescopes we see a universe full of maybe 100 billion galaxies, many of which look like this one. But God’s glory is way above all of this.

3 When I consider You [singular] heavens, the work of Your fingers [אֶצבַּע ‘etsba, meaning ‘something to seize with’ but God does not have nor need real fingers, so it is figurative], the moon and the stars [and the latter must include the sun, which was not known by Earth astronomers to be a star until millennia later], which You [singular] have ordained [כּוּן kuwn, meaning to ‘be erect’, stand perpendicular hence causatively to ‘set up’, literally to ‘establish’ or figuratively to ‘appoint’]; 

Psalms 8:3

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory Celebrates 15th Anniversary
Figure 2: Cosmic Crab Nebula. Image Credit: NASA, Chandra X-ray Observatory, SAO, DSS

Figure 2 shows, in a combined image from X-rays and optical light, the night sky around  the Crab Nebular, in our galaxy, formed from the explosion of a star, which left behind a neutron star.  Stars have exploded and this does not represent “death” in any biblical sense but is part of the natural world God made. In these events, as well as star forming (star “birth”; Fig. 3), do we see the hand of the Creator? Yes, I believe so. We are looking back into Creation and seeing the fingers of God creating and shaping the heavens.

16b He made the stars also.

Genesis1:16

s106_canarias_900
Figure 3: Material streaming out from this newborn star has formed the nebula dubbed Sharpless 2-106 Nebula (S106). Image Credit: GRANTECAN and IAC

The psalmist under inspiration goes on to write:

4 What is man [meaning mankind], that You are mindful of him? and the son of man [meaning offspring of Adam; God cares about us and He sent Christ as the ‘Kinsman-Redeemer’ (Isaiah 59:20), who only can redeem the sons of Adam (Hebrews 2:14)], that You visit him?

5. For You have made him a little lower than the angels, and have crowned him with glory and honour.  6. You made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet:

Psalms 8:4-6

LIFE-GENDER

God put man on Earth to take care of it. He gave us this responsibility, not the other way round. It is man first, creation second. The wicked world kills human babies, making abortion—actually infanticide—legal, but clubbing baby seals or killing whales is considered so abhorrent that no civilized person could contemplate it.

7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;  8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas.

Psalms 8:7-8

God set man as a gardener over all His Creation, in the sea, in the air and on land. The Creation is not the purpose of man nor is man subject to the Creation, as the left-wing environmentalists would have you believe. God was placed on earth to take care of the Creation on Earth, while God Himself takes care of the Creation in the cosmos, for His own glory.

9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth! 

Psalms 8:9

Additional Reading

  1. THE HEAVENS DECLARE
  2. THE HEAVENS DECLARE A DIFFERENT STORY!
  3. YHWH THE CREATOR GOD
  4. THE GREAT I AM BORN IN A MANGER

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