O Jehovah, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth; You have set Your glory above the heavens! Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, You have ordained strength, because of the ones distressing You, to cause the enemy and the avenger to cease. When I look upon Your heavens, the work of Your fingers: the moon and the stars which You have fixed; what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man, that You visit him? For You have made him lack a little from God; and have crowned him with glory and honour. You made him rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all under his feet: all flocks and oxen, and also the animals of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, all that pass through the sea. O Jehovah, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8:1-9)
….the style of the Word is the Divine style itself, with which no other style, however sublime and excellent it may seem, can be compared, for any other style is as thick darkness compared with light. The style of the Word is such that there is holiness in every sentence, and in every word; indeed, in some places, in the very letters; and consequently the Word conjoins man with the Lord, and opens heaven. There are two things which proceed from the Lord, Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, or what is the same, Divine Good and Divine Truth; for Divine Good is of His Divine Love, and Divine Truth is of His Divine Wisdom. The Word in its essence is both of these; and since it conjoins man with the Lord and opens heaven, as has just been said, therefore the Word fills the man who reads it from the Lord, and not from himself alone, with the good of love and the truths of wisdom-his will with the good of love and his understanding with the truths of wisdom; thus man has life through the Word. (Doctrine of Sacred Scripture 3)
The truths in the Word’s literal sense are in part not naked truths, but appearances of truth, and are seemingly images and metaphors taken from the kinds of things found in nature, thus which have been accommodated and suited to the comprehension of simple folk, and even to that of little children. However, because they are correspondent terms, they are the receptacles and abodes of genuine truth. They are like vessels enclosing such truths and containing them, like a crystal goblet filled with vintage wine, or like a silver dish containing tasty foodstuffs. Or they are like garments clothing them, as swaddling cloths clothe a baby, or a pretty dress a maiden. They are also like the facts known by the natural self, which embrace within them the perceptions of and affections for truth belonging to the spiritual self. The naked truths themselves which are enclosed, contained, clothed and embraced are those found in the Word’s spiritual sense, and the naked goods are those found in its celestial sense. (Doctrine of Sacred Scripture 40)
That in the Word a “sucking child” signifies innocence, is also evident from other passages; as in David: Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou founded strength (Ps. 8:2; Matt. 21:16); where “babes” denote celestial love, and “sucklings,” innocence. (Arcana Coelestia 3183{3})
Psalm 8 is a joyous Psalm of exultation and praise. It expresses the joy that comes in life when we hold things in a spiritual perspective. For when the Lord is given His rightful place in us as the very centre and focus for our life, then a wonderful reordering of the mind can begin. The joy that accompanies the Lord’s love is able to find its place, from the inmost part of our minds right out into it lowest or most external reaches.
This involves having our external natural mind brought into subjection or obedience to the spiritual and celestial things that make up the internal spiritual mind. Hell, the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity teach, is when external things rule over internal things and heaven, is when internal things of love and wisdom rule over external things. We know this in the practicalities of our own experience. When we become overly concerned about external things, we invite states of worry and anxiety and move from trusting in the Lord to trusting in ourselves. The native proprium has all sorts of mental tricks to keep us from admitting our state of disconnection from the Lord but at the end of the day, the joy of heaven can only be experienced by working in a genuine spiritual practice of self examaination and repentance. This is what spiritual work is and it never ends. It is something we need to do on a daily basis: of making a conscious effort to bring the things of heaven into our lives.
So can we with all sincerity say with the Psalmist…
O Jehovah, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth…
This statement of praise is a recognition that the Divine presence as goodness or love is supreme and should rule in all the things of our life. The two great commandmanets, the heavenly loves, are love to the Lord and to love to the neighbour. From the perspective of Spiritual Christianity these loves have a very practical application, for to love the Lord is to live from Word, to take its truths and apply them in our life. And to love our neighbour is to seek to promote what is good and true in our interactions with others, these goods and truths being the very presence of the Lord in our life. This is why the two great commandments are really one, for when we are looking to support the development of what is good and true in our interactions with others, then we are loving the Lord and the neighbour simultaneously. But our ability to do that effectively will be directly related to our practice of working with the Word in our life. For it is fom the Word that we gain the ability to be sensitive to what is heavenly and what is not; the truths of the Word shine a light on our states. And so we have a responsibility to be working with the Word so that that light might shine within our mind and allow us to examine the life of our thoughts and affections, and to call out those things that are not in keeping with what we understand to be of a higher spiritual quality.
The phrase, O Jehovah, our Lord…is an expression of the spiritual truth that Divine Love is our Lord. In this statement the word Jehovah refers to the Divine love and Lord is Adoni which means master or ruler, and refers to the Divine truth. In this simple statement we see the universal truth that love is one with wisdom; that the Divine Being makes itself known to human consciousness by means of truth which descends to the very external reaches of those who make love to the Lord and love to the neighbour the primary pursuit of their lives. Because love, in order to be real must become expressed and the means it does this is through truth. It is precisely because truth gives expression to love that makes it true. Something that is claimed to be true yet does not bring us or others into closer contact with love, is not really true at all.
The way in which love becomes real is through its expression and our ability to see what is loving and true is a matter of perception. The Divine love and the Divine wisdom is fully present, but our ability to see it has to do with the structure of our minds. And the structure of our minds has to do with the quality of the truths that we have worked into our life. The things that we focus on, the beliefs we hold, and the values that we live from, all form the ground or the basis from which we can see. And so if we are building our minds with truths from the Word through their application to life, then we open up the possibility for new perceptions of love to be received. We can begin to see that love is indeed all around us. That we are, in wonderful and remarkable ways, held by it. As we come to see this truth, so we find ourselves held in more secure states of mind in which the difficulties we inevitably have to face in living our lives in the natural world, no longer appear to be as troublesome as they once did. Because being secure in the Lord’s love, enables these once difficult states to be manifest in our lives and seen more clearly for what they are.
When we are in a conscious state of being held in the Lord’s love and care then we find that life can become something transforming. We see that we are never left alone; far from it. We find that the Lord is very real and makes His presence felt as we draw back from states of anxiety and worry that the cares of the natural life seek to be fulfilled. To draw back from negative states of life so that we can have a separation from them, is what it means to move to a more internal state of mind. But in order to do that, we need the help and support that the Lord as the Word gives us in the form of the goods and truths that are found there. These are designed to to hold the Lord’s presence and so create a new level of life and mind within us that we can draw from when the natural mind seeks to dominate what is spiritual.
This ability to draw from what is of the Lord, what is of the Word, is open to all if they are willing to work with the Word as the basis for their life. No one need be overwhelmed by anxiety or worry. No one need be overwhelmed by negative forms of emotion to the point of hopeless despair. There is hope. The last thing the Lord wants is for anyone is to feel abandoned. Divine Love desires for everyone to be able to say with the Psalmist,
How majestic is your name in all the earth.
The natural mind will read earth here as applying primarily to the natural creation or the earth as we behold it with our natural eyes. And yes of course we experience scenes of majestic beauty in the natural world that can take our breath away. And these certainly can provide us with a sense of the Lord’s presence, beauty and power to, as it were, lift us out of ourselves into what is other for a moment in time. But really, such experiences point to a deeper reality, to something we can have in the earth of our external mind into which what is higher from the Lord, seeks to find its expression.
When we see the power of truths to bring about changes in our external patterns of feeling and thinking, we are in the experience of the transformative power that the Lord’s name has on those who seek to live from the Word – for His name becomes a majestic thing! But the transformative power of the name of the Lord has nothing to do with mouthing His name like a mantra or magic incantation. For the name of the Lord is everything that gives expression to His love and wisdom in a form that human beings can connect with. And the most powerful expression of the Lord’s name is the Word itself. When the truths of the Word are taken into our minds and used to examine the life and activity of our thoughts and affections, and we respond to the challenges it makes upon us to think from what It teaches and not from how we feel – then we see the Lord manifesting in our external conscious awareness. This is truly a remarkable thing and it is in this experience of the power of the Word to change the earth or ground of our external mind, that gives rise to this expression of praise…
How majestic is your name in all the earth.
Can we say this with sincerity? How majestic is your name in all the earth? Do we know the power of the Lord in the most external reaches of our life? Do we know the power of His name, the Word?
The next part of the verse is an acknowledgement that the power to transform our sense of self, through lifting it out of lower states of selfish and worldly concerns, is sourced in the Divine who is above the heavens …
You have set your glory above the heavens…
The name of the Lord in the earth is the Word for this is the Divine love and wisdom in its most external form; it is the Lord in His Divine Human, the Lord incarnate. The truths of the Word are taken into the mind through reading it and hearing it and in this way the name of the Lord becomes present in the earth of the natural mind. It becomes majestic in all the earth when we obey it and so live from it. The Word is not of a worldly origin, it is not a human invention despite how it appears on its surface. It is the Lord in the fullness of His power to save us. Worldly wisdom, or the ‘wisdom’ of the natural mind cannot see this. It looks on the Word and sees something simple, unrefined, unsophisticated, and full of contradictions.
But this very simplicity of its presentation in its external form is the height of Divine wisdom. In taking the form it does, it keeps the way of salvation open to those who are able to receive spiritual things due to their willingness to live from them and yet closes the way to those who come to it in the pride of their own intelligence and reasoning. To those who come to the Word in humility, heaven is opened and the glory of the Lord is seen within it. To those who place their strength in their own powers of reasoning, the way is closed because they look at the Word and see nothing in it of any value. This is expressed in the next verse where it states…
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, You have ordained strength, because of the ones distressing You, to cause the enemy and the avenger to cease.
Again, as with the word earth, the natural mind thinks naturally and literally in terms of the phrase out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. But all expressions of the Word are spiritual and are to be understood in relation to heavenly realities. Babes and sucklings or infants refer to the highest of heavenly influences, and speak of what is of a celestial quality. The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity on numerous occasions illustrate this in that angels of the highest heavens appear as young children from a distance to represent the innocence that they are in. This innocence is the innocence of a profound wisdom which arises from their willingness to be led by the Lord alone. It is this quality of a willingness to be led by the Lord alone that is meant by loving the Lord. And in the spiritual heavens that sit below the celestial heavens this celestial quality flows down and becomes embodied in qualities of spiritual life that are described in the Word as love to the neighbour.
The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity teach that the whole of the Word is nothing else but the doctrine of charity, in other words it teaches nothing other than how to love the Lord and love the neighbour. This fact is captured in the expression…
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, You have ordained strength, because of the ones distressing You, to cause the enemy and avenger to cease.
The term mouth in Scripture, being that from which truths are voiced, means spiritual teaching and the terms babes and sucklings mean celestial love and innocence. Therefore, the spiritual meaning of this verse is that it is by means of teachings to do with loving the Lord and loving our neighbour that the Lord ordains the strength or the power to resist what opposes the heavenly life becoming more fully expressed in our life. From this we can see that the phrase the mouth of babes and sucklings is referring to nothing other than the Word itself which on its surface has a child like quality that is easily dismissed when we fail to appreciate its origin being sourced in the Divine Itself. Within this innocent child-like appearance is the Divine Love and Wisdom in all its fullness and glory. Here indeed is the Lord!
O Jehovah, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!