Psalms 8:1

Psalm 8 ¹ 

For the music director, according to the gittith style; ²  a psalm of David.

8:1 O Lord, our Lord, ³ 

how magnificent ⁴  is your reputation ⁵  throughout the earth!

You reveal your majesty in the heavens above! ⁶ 

Psalms 27:8

27:8 My heart tells me to pray to you, ⁷ 

and I do pray to you, O Lord. ⁸ 

Psalms 31:14

31:14 But I trust in you, O Lord!

I declare, “You are my God!”

Psalms 89:26

89:26 He will call out to me,

‘You are my father, ⁹  my God, and the protector who delivers me.’ ¹⁰ 

Psalms 91:2

91:2 I say this about the Lord, my shelter and my stronghold,

my God in whom I trust –

Isaiah 26:13

26:13 O Lord, our God,

masters other than you have ruled us,

but we praise your name alone.

Isaiah 44:5

44:5 One will say, ‘I belong to the Lord,’

and another will use ¹¹  the name ‘Jacob.’

One will write on his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’

and use the name ‘Israel.’” ¹² 

Zechariah 13:9

13:9 Then I will bring the remaining third into the fire;

I will refine them like silver is refined

and will test them like gold is tested.

They will call on my name and I will answer;

I will say, ‘These are my people,’

and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’” ¹³ 

John 20:28

20:28 Thomas replied to him, ¹⁴  “My Lord and my God!” ¹⁵ 

[8:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 8. In this hymn to the sovereign creator, the psalmist praises God’s majesty and marvels that God has given mankind dominion over the created order.

[8:1]  ² tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew term הגתית is uncertain; it probably refers to a musical style or type of instrument.

[8:1]  ³ tn The plural form of the title emphasizes the Lord’s absolute sovereignty.

[8:1]  ⁴ tn Or “awesome”; or “majestic.”

[8:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “name,” which here stands metonymically for God’s reputation.

[8:1]  ⁶ tc Heb “which, give, your majesty on the heavens.” The verb form תְּנָה (tÿnah; an imperative?) is corrupt. The form should be emended to a second masculine singular perfect (נָתַתָּה, natatah) or imperfect (תִתֵן, titen) form. The introductory אֲשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) can be taken as a relative pronoun (“you who”) or as a causal conjunction (“because”). One may literally translate, “you who [or “because you”] place your majesty upon the heavens.” For other uses of the phrase “place majesty upon” see Num 27:20 and 1 Chr 29:25.

[27:8]  ⁷ tc Heb “concerning you my heart says, ‘Seek my face.’” The verb form “seek” is plural, but this makes no sense here, for the psalmist is addressed. The verb should be emended to a singular form. The first person pronominal suffix on “face” also makes little sense, unless it is the voice of the Lord he hears. His “heart” is viewed as speaking, however, so it is better to emend the form to פָּנָיו (panayv, “his face”).

[27:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “your face, O Lord, I seek.” To “seek the Lord’s face” means to seek his favor through prayer (see 2 Sam 21:1; Pss 24:6; 105:4).

[89:26]  ⁹ sn You are my father. The Davidic king was viewed as God’s “son” (see 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 2:7). The idiom reflects ancient Near Eastern adoption language associated with covenants of grant, by which a lord would reward a faithful subject by elevating him to special status, referred to as “sonship.” Like a son, the faithful subject received an “inheritance,” viewed as an unconditional, eternal gift. Such gifts usually took the form of land and/or an enduring dynasty. See M. Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” JAOS 90 (1970): 184-203, for general discussion and some striking extra-biblical parallels.

[89:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the rocky summit of my deliverance.”

[44:5]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew text has a Qal verb form, “and another will call by the name of Jacob.” With support from Symmachus (an ancient Greek textual witness), some read the Niphal, “and another will be called by the name of Jacob.”

[44:5]  ¹² tn Heb “and by the name of Israel he will title.” Some, with support from several ancient versions, prefer to change the Piel (active) verb form to a Pual (passive), “and he will be titled by the name of Israel.”

[13:9]  ¹³ sn The expression I will say ‘It is my people,’ and they will say ‘the Lord is my God’ is reminiscent of the restoration of Israel predicted by Hosea, who said that those who had been rejected as God’s people would be reclaimed and once more become his sons and daughters (Hos 2:23).

[20:28]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “answered and said to him.”

[20:28]  ¹⁵ sn Should Thomas’ exclamation be understood as two subjects with the rest of the sentence omitted (“My Lord and my God has truly risen from the dead”), as predicate nominatives (“You are my Lord and my God”), or as vocatives (“My Lord and my God!”)? Probably the most likely is something between the second and third alternatives. It seems that the second is slightly more likely here, because the context appears confessional. Thomas’ statement, while it may have been an exclamation, does in fact confess the faith which he had previously lacked, and Jesus responds to Thomas’ statement in the following verse as if it were a confession. With the proclamation by Thomas here, it is difficult to see how any more profound analysis of Jesus’ person could be given. It echoes 1:1 and 1:14 together: The Word was God, and the Word became flesh (Jesus of Nazareth). The Fourth Gospel opened with many other titles for Jesus: the Lamb of God (1:29, 36); the Son of God (1:34, 49); Rabbi (1:38); Messiah (1:41); the King of Israel (1:49); the Son of Man (1:51). Now the climax is reached with the proclamation by Thomas, “My Lord and my God,” and the reader has come full circle from 1:1, where the author had introduced him to who Jesus was, to 20:28, where the last of the disciples has come to the full realization of who Jesus was. What Jesus had predicted in John 8:28 had come to pass: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he” (Grk “I am”). By being lifted up in crucifixion (which led in turn to his death, resurrection, and exaltation with the Father) Jesus has revealed his true identity as both Lord (κύριος [kurios], used by the LXX to translate Yahweh) and God (θεός [qeos], used by the LXX to translate Elohim).