Psalm 8

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Example of the history of the impact of Psalm 8: Verse 1 mounted on a landscape picture

The 8th psalm is a psalm of David and belongs to the series of hymns .

structure

The Old Testament scholar Nicolaas Herman Ridderbos structured the psalm as follows:

  • Verses 2-4: Singing about the glory of God.
  • Verses 5–10: God lets the vain man rule over the works of his hand.

interpretation

The psalm played an important role in early Christianity because it was used to interpret the Christ event.

The letter to the Hebrews ( Hebr 2,6–8  EU ) refers to verses 5f. The sixth verse of the Psalm speaks of Elohim ( אלהים), to which humans are not entirely dissimilar. It is not entirely clear whether Elohim (literally “the mighty”) means “the deity” and is identical with YHWH , as is often the case in the Bible (where despite the plural form a verb in the singular is involved) , or whether it is here as separate from YHWH himself - as an angel (according to the LXX ) or as a heavenly court. The alternative would be that it is simply an indication of the unsurpassable position of sovereignty that was given to man by YHWH. As in Gen 1.27  EU , the determination of man as an image is followed by a reference to the resulting power (cf. verse 7).

Verse 3 is quoted by Jesus after Mt 21,16  EU when children praise him in the temple.

literature

  • Ute Neumann-Gorsolke: Ruling within the limits of creation: a contribution to Old Testament anthropology using the example of Psalm 8, Genesis 1 and related texts (=  scientific monographs on the Old and New Testament . Volume 101 ). Neukirchener Verlag, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2004, ISBN 3-7887-1998-2 .
  • Helmut Schnieringer: Psalm 8: Text - Shape - Meaning (=  Egypt and Old Testament . Volume 59 ). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-447-05046-2 .
  • Esther Brünenberg: Man in God's glory: Psalm 8 and its reception in the New Testament (=  research on the Bible . Volume 119 ). Echter-Verlag, Würzburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-429-03073-5 .

Web links

Commons : Psalm 8  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Nicolaas Herman Ridderbos: The Psalms. Stylistic procedures and structure with special consideration of Ps 1-41 . 1972, p. 138 .
  2. Hans Klein : On the history of the impact of Psalm 8 . In: Rüdiger Bartelemus, Thomas Krüger, Helmut Utzschneider (eds.): Consistent history of tradition. Festschrift for Klaus Baltzer on his 65th birthday . 1993, p. 183-198 .
  3. The latter represent, for example, Hermann Gunkel : Die Psalmen . 6th edition. 1986, p. 28 .
  4. So z. B. Annette Schellenberg: Man, the image of God? On the idea of ​​a special position of humans in the Old Testament and in other ancient oriental sources . Zurich 2011, p. 167 .