Strength of a Baby

My wife had an interesting insight today as she read Psalm 8 in her quiet time so I asked if I could explore it and share. It’s about babies (sort of), and I’m sure this has nothing to do with adoption of a baby being on our minds 🙂

 

“Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.” -Psa 8:2

Has anyone ever thought of this verse as a Messianic prophecy? Consider: Who is the author referring to as babies and infants? Oftentimes, we think of passages such as this to refer to words of children which can have the capacity to strike our hearts and reveal truth to us in a way we wouldn’t have otherwise considered. While that is certainly true, consider the rest of the Psalm which discusses God’s foes. So let’s ask the question: Who are the foes of GOD? Who are GOD’s enemies? Doesn’t Sha’ul (Paul) tell us who the enemies are?

 

“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” –Eph 6:11-12

 

How does a baby still GOD’s enemy? What if the “babies” referred to here are not necessarily literal infants but rather the psalmist is speaking figuratively of human beings in general? After all, consider the familiarity, knowledge, memory and understanding of all the heavenly beings which GOD created before He created man. How much of GOD and the spiritual realm have they seen and experienced? How much do they realize on a daily basis about the spiritual realm and the existing cosmic battle which our eyes are largely blinded to? Might they view us as “babies”, infantile in our understanding of all that is existing outside of our natural realm? And if the babies of this Psalm are in reference to humans, who has come out of humankind which GOD has established “in strength, because of His foes, to still the enemy”? Could it be the “son of man” written about two verses later?

 

“Psa. 8:3-6, “   When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet,”

 

Could the author of the book of Hebrews have this in mind when he quotes this Psalm in reference to Yeshua?

 

Heb. 2:5-10, “For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Yeshua, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”