The meaning of this difficult verse is given by implication in Matt. xxi. 16. And again, that verse, like all the other great teachings of Christ, is open to a terrific misinterpretation;—namely, the popular evangelical one, that children should be teachers and preachers,—(“cheering mother, cheering father, from the Bible true”). The lovely meaning of the words of Christ, which this vile error hides, is that children, remaining children, and uttering, out of their own hearts, such things as their Maker puts there, are pure in sight, and perfect in praise. [33] Verse 4.—The moon and the stars which thou hast founded—‘fundasti’—ἐθεμελίωσας. It is much more than ‘ordained’: the idea of stable placing in space being the main one in David’s mind. And it remains to this day the wonder of wonders in all wise men’s minds. The earth swings round the sun,—yes, but what holds the sun? The sun swings round something else. Be it so,—then, what else? Sidney:— “When I upon the heavens do look, Which all from thee their essence took, When moon and stars my thought beholdeth, Whose life no life but of thee holdeth.” Verse 5.—That thou lookest on him; ἐπισκέπτῃ αυτον, ‘art a bishop to him.’ The Greek word is the same in the verse “I was sick and ye visited me.” Verse 6.—Thou hast lessened him;—perhaps better, thou hast made him but by a little, less, than the angels: ἠλάττωσας αὐτὸν βραχύ τι. The inferiority is not of present position merely, but of scale in being. Verse 7.—Sheep, and all oxen, and the flocks of the plain: κτήνη τοῦ πεδίον. Beasts for service in the plain, traversing great spaces,—camel and horse. ‘Pecora,’ in Vulgate, includes all ‘pecunia,’ or property in animals. Verse 8.—In the Greek, “that walk the paths of the seas” is only an added description of fish, but the meaning of it is without doubt to give an expanded sense—a generalization of fish, so as to include the whale, seal, tortoise, and their like. Neither whales nor seals, however, from what I hear of modern fishing, are likely to walk the paths of the sea much longer; and Sidney’s verse becomes mere satire:— “The bird, free burgesse of the aire, The fish, of sea the native heire, And what things els of waters traceth The unworn pathes, his rule embraceth. Oh Lord, that rul’st our mortal lyne, How through the world thy name doth shine!”