“How Majestic Is Your Name”
This Sunday, our key text begins with words that are burned into my memory from a song I grew up with. I may be dating myself here, but I can’t read Psalm 8:1 without singing the melody of Sandi Patty’s rendition of “How Majestic Is Your Name”!
Psalm 8:1
“O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.”
There’s no shortage of songs—both traditional and contemporary—about the name of God. But what’s the big deal about God’s “name”?
To help us understand, I want to look at two of the most well-known verses about God’s name:
- Exodus 20:7 – “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.”
- Matthew 6:9 – “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.”
When I was younger, I thought the Exodus verse simply meant, “Don’t use God’s name as a curse word,” and the only time I had ever heard the word hallowed was in sports documentaries describing famous football fields.
But there’s a deeper connection here—one that goes beyond just the words we use.
The IVP Bible Background Commentary on the Old Testament says this about Exodus 20:7:
“It also continues the concerns of the second commandment in that someone’s name was believed to be intimately connected to that person’s being and essence.”1
The IVP Bible Background Commentary on the New Testament says this about Matthew 6:9:
“The first God-oriented petition is that the sacredness of God’s name be magnified in every area of life. In the ancient world, a person’s name bespoke the very essence of the person, so God’s name tells who He is at the core of His being. Since holiness is at the heart of the divine character, that must be made evident in everything the disciple does.”2
The Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament – Matthew affirms this, saying:
“In the present, God’s people could hallow His name by living rightly; if they lived wrongly, they would ‘profane’ His name, or bring it into disrepute among the nations.”3
When we put these truths together, we see that God’s name is tied to His essence. His followers either hallow or profane (dishonor) His name among the nations by how they live.
The Easton Bible Dictionary defines hallow as “to render sacred, to consecrate… and properly means ‘to make holy.’ The name of God is ‘hallowed,’ i.e., reverenced as holy.”4
The Zondervan Exegetical Commentary even interprets “Hallowed be Your name” as “May Your name be kept sacred.”
So when we sing, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!” we’re not just singing a peppy melody or simply declaring that God is greater than us. We’re exalting His name—His very essence—above every other name and essence.
Philippians 2:9-11 says:
“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
We are not only declaring that God is highly exalted with our mouths, but as followers of Christ, we are walking advertisements for the essence of God. Do our actions reflect the sacredness of God in every area of our lives?
In other words, when people observe the way we live, what conclusions will they draw about God? Do our actions reflect the world, or do they reflect the essence of His being—holy, perfect, and loving beyond measure?
As we sing these words on Sunday:
“O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is Your name in all the earth!”
May they remind us that God’s is —unlike any other—and therefore worthy of our worship and service. And may they motivate us to represent His name well as children in the family of God.
Adam
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (IVP Academic, 2000), Kindle edition. ↩︎
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (IVP Academic, 2014), Kindle edition.. ↩︎
- Grant R. Osborne, Matthew, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Zondervan Academic, 2010), Kindle edition. ↩︎
- Easton, M. G. 1893. In Illustrated Bible Dictionary and Treasury of Biblical History, Biography, Geography, Doctrine, and Literature, 306–7. New York: Harper & Brothers. ↩︎