2 Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.
2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you; toddlers shout the songs That drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.
2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger.
2 You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you.
20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
20 For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
20 They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain!
20 all the men and women who belittle you, God, infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
20 For they speak against You wickedly; Your enemies take Your name in vain.
20 They blaspheme you; your enemies misuse your name.
(Read Psalm 139:17-24)
God's counsels concerning us and our welfare are deep, such as cannot be known. We cannot think how many mercies we have received from him. It would help to keep us in the fear of the Lord all the day long, if, when we wake in the morning, our first thoughts were of him: and how shall we admire and bless our God for his precious salvation, when we awake in the world of glory! Surely we ought not to use our members and senses, which are so curiously fashioned, as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. But our immortal and rational souls are a still more noble work and gift of God. Yet if it were not for his precious thoughts of love to us, our reason and our living for ever would, through our sins, prove the occasion of our eternal misery. How should we then delight to meditate on God's love to sinners in Jesus Christ, the sum of which exceeds all reckoning! Sin is hated, and sinners lamented, by all who fear the Lord. Yet while we shun them we should pray for them; with God their conversion and salvation are possible. As the Lord knows us thoroughly, and we are strangers to ourselves, we should earnestly desire and pray to be searched and proved by his word and Spirit. if there be any wicked way in me, let me see it; and do thou root it out of me. The way of godliness is pleasing to God, and profitable to us; and will end in everlasting life. It is the good old way. All the saints desire to be kept and led in this way, that they may not miss it, turn out of it, or tire in it.
19 It is said, 'God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.' Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!
19 God layeth up his iniquity
19 You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their children.' Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
19 You might say, 'God is saving up the punishment for their children.' I say, 'Give it to them right now so they'll know what they've done!'
19 They say, 'God lays up one's iniquity for his children'; Let Him recompense him, that he may know it.
19 "'Well,' you say, 'at least God will punish their children!' But I say he should punish the ones who sin, so that they understand his judgment.
(Read Job 21:17-26)
Job had described the prosperity of wicked people; in these verses he opposes this to what his friends had maintained about their certain ruin in this life. He reconciles this to the holiness and justice of God. Even while they prosper thus, they are light and worthless, of no account with God, or with wise men. In the height of their pomp and power, there is but a step between them and ruin. Job refers the difference Providence makes between one wicked man and another, into the wisdom of God. He is Judge of all the earth, and he will do right. So vast is the disproportion between time and eternity, that if hell be the lot of every sinner at last, it makes little difference if one goes singing thither, and another sighing. If one wicked man die in a palace, and another in a dungeon, the worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched, will be the same to them. Thus differences in this world are not worth perplexing ourselves about.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 8:2
Commentary on Psalm 8:1-2
(Read Psalm 8:1-2)
The psalmist seeks to give unto God the glory due to his name. How bright this glory shines even in this lower world! He is ours, for he made us, protects us, and takes special care of us. The birth, life, preaching, miracles, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus are known through the world. No name is so universal, no power and influence so generally felt, as those of the Saviour of mankind. But how much brighter it shines in the upper world! We, on this earth, only hear God's excellent name, and praise that; the angels and blessed spirits above, see his glory, and praise that; yet he is exalted far above even their blessing and praise. Sometimes the grace of God appears wonderfully in young children. Sometimes the power of God brings to pass great things in his church, by very weak and unlikely instruments, that the excellency of the power might the more evidently appear to be of God, and not of man. This he does, because of his enemies, that he may put them to silence.