Psalm 8 has nine verses. Verse 1 and verses 6-9 are somewhat easy to understand. Verses 2-5, however, are very puzzling and not easy to understand. Why did the psalmist, after talking about the earth with the excellency of Jehovah's name and the heavens with the glory, turn to the babes and sucklings? We need to see that verses 2-5 show us how the babes and sucklings are produced.
In Psalms 3—7 David thought the earth was messy and full of problems, but in the Lord's view, His name is excellent on this earth. Furthermore, the Lord has set His splendor, His glory, above the heavens. The earth is excellent, and the heavens are glorious, but the Lord has three categories of opposers. The first is the adversaries, the second is the enemy, and the third is the avenger. On the earth, there is no problem; in the heavens, there is no problem; but what about in the air? In the air there are the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger. How does God deal with them?
Psalm 8 is all-inclusive. It talks about the earth, the heavens, man, and the coming kingdom. But in addition to the earth, the heavens, man, and the coming kingdom, there are the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger. Verse 2 says that because of the Lord's adversaries, He has established strength, or perfected praise. The Lord has established strength or perfected praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings for the purpose of stopping His adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger. In this way God kills "three birds with one stone." Because of the adversaries, the enemy, and the avenger, God makes the babes and sucklings to praise Him in a complete way.
Now we need to consider who the babes and sucklings are. The sucklings are even younger than the babes, the infants, because they are still feeding on their mother's milk. They are the youngest. The little babes and sucklings do not do anything. But after growing up, they do many things. To stop a person from doing things is nearly impossible, because all human beings are doers. The whole earth is filled with man's doings. Who can stop this? Only the Lord can. No unregenerated man is a babe or a suckling. We become babes and sucklings by regeneration.
Before I was regenerated, I was very active. One day when I was nineteen years old, I was saved. That made me a quiet person. Regeneration reduced my natural activity. I began to hate my doings, my speaking, and my thinking. I was remade, re-created, by the Lord's regeneration. Every believer who has been genuinely regenerated has experienced the same thing. When a person becomes regenerated, he becomes quiet, not wanting to act or speak in himself. When I was regenerated, I just wanted to read the Bible, to kneel down to pray, to muse on God, and to consider the things of the Lord. I became a real babe and a real suckling. The Lord made me such through regeneration. We natural beings are always busy, doing a lot of work. The proper, genuine salvation stops our human doing and makes us the babes and sucklings to praise the Lord.
We also have to realize that for the Lord to regenerate us, He had to undergo a number of procedures, or processes. He had to become a man, to live on this earth, to die, to enter into Hades for three days and three nights, and He had to rise up to become the life-giving Spirit. As the Spirit, He comes into us to regenerate us. Thus, regeneration comes out of all the procedures of the Lord.
This is why right after speaking about the babes and sucklings, the psalmist continues by saying, "When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers,/The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,/What is man....?" (vv. 3-4a). In this verse Your heavens, the works, and the moon and the stars are all in apposition. Strictly speaking, the writing here in verses 3-4a is not grammatically complete. From the word When to the word ordained is a long subordinate clause, but where is the main clause? In this sentence, there is no main clause. There should be a main clause following the subordinate clause. Instead, after the subordinate clause, David asks, "What is man?" This writing is incomplete. David said in a poetic way, "When I see Your heavens, the works of Your fingers,/The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,/What is man?" This is not a complete sentence.