Rabbi Roodyn

(י) ה’ אֲדֹנֵינוּ מָה אַדִּיר שִׁמְךָ בְּכָל הָאָרֶץ:

Hashem our Master, how mighty is Your name in all the earth!

After a long journey we reach the final pasuk of this chapter  the classical commentaries are surprisingly silent. The Radak says that this pasuk encapsulates the theme of the chapter. After having finished expressing all the chessed that Hashem does for man, and that He has elevated him over all the animals  and made him seem small in comparison to the heavenly spheres, we praise Hashem for all that He has done.

Perhaps it is this act of praise that in fact raises man not just above all other earthly creatures, but also above the heavenly spheres. The universe is awesome in both its intricacy and its size and man alone can use his intellect and free will to choose to praise the Creator. It is this sense of awareness that is the goal of all of creation.

The Malbim simply ends off the chapter by saying that this statement expressing Hashem’s greatness that we have explained in so much detail is the ultimate refutation for those who try to philosophise and diminish the importance of our very selves.

Rav Hirsch says that this psalm sees only the Jewish tribe of the family of man as accepting G-d as the ‘L-rd and Master’ of life. Eventually, however, G-d, Whose existence is reaffirmed by the Divine writing on the starry skies will be given praise over all the earth. When man will worship G-d as the Master of all his life –  an existence dedicated to the service of G-d, he will come to see his own powers and limitations each in their own perspective.

This new understanding on his part will result in the disappearance from the earth of that selfishness, which is the root of all social evils and knows and protects only the interests of his own ego. This will be the beginning of the era where brotherly love  and a way of life in the service of G-d shall come to prevail on earth – a goal which, as indicated in the first verse, will be attained only after many fateful periods of trial, of ‘wine pressings’ (that the chapter started with) shall have been overcome.