What does it mean that "out of the mouth of babes You have perfected praise" (Matthew 21:16)?

Having driven out these evil men, Jesus dispensed mercy to the very people they would have kept outside. The blind and lame were forbidden to approach in Leviticus 21:18, and 2 Samuel 5:6-8 records David's sentence against them: he said, they "shall not come into the house." The great Son of David had now arrived in Zion, and He reverses David's action. The kind of folk that were "hated of David's soul" were loved and blessed that day. The sordid money-changers had misrepresented the God whose house it was, and caused men to blaspheme His name: in healing the needy, Jesus rightly represented the very heart of God, and in result there was praise. Even the children were found crying, "Hosanna to the Son of David!" They had caught up the cry from the older folk.

The religious leaders themselves witnessed His wonderful works of power and grace, and to their sore displeasure they heard the children's cry. Jesus vindicated them in their simplicity, quoting the verse from Psalm 8 as finding a fulfilment in them. The Psalm says, "ordained strength," whereas He gave an application of it in saying, "perfected praise;" but in either case the thought is that God accomplishes what He desires, and receives the praise He looks for, through small and weak things. Thus it is made manifest that the strength and the praise is of and from Himself. Thus it was here. When the leaders were not only silent but opposed, God took care to have suitable praise through the lips of the babes.

His works of grace are so striking as to move even children in the temple (not only on the road into the city) to cry out, "Hosanna to the Son of David." The word hosanna means, "O, save," thus giving honor to Him as the 0ne able to save the nation Israel. This offends the chief priests and scribes, but their protest to Him is moved by nothing but envy. They apparently want Him to silence the children. But they themselves are silenced; for He does not assume any defensive attitude, but quotes the positive words of scripture, "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings host Thou perfected praise." Though the leaders of Israel refused to give their true Messiah the praises of which He is worthy, God would see to it that even babes would do so. God Himself was rebuking the pride of these self-centered rulers by means of babes and sucklings! He returned outside the to Bethany (the house of affliction) to lodge for the night. Though announced with great enthusiasm in entering Jerusalem, there was really no more room for Him there then there had been at the inn of Bethiehem. Affliction remained His portion until death.

On the one hand, there are the voices of the children crying, "Hosanna," etc. — the ascription of praise to Him as King, the Son of David; on the other, there is the Lord acting as King, and doing that which the Jews well knew had been prophesied of their King. He was there the confessed King; yet not by the chief priests and scribes, who took umbrage, wilfully and knowingly rejecting Him — "We will not have this man to reign over us." Naturally, therefore, they seek to stop the mouths of the children, and ask Jesus to rebuke them: "Hearest Thou what these say?" But the Lord sanctions their praises: "Have ye never heard, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise" (ver. 16). The power of Jehovah was there, and there was a mouth to own it, though only in babes and sucklings. So "He left them" — a significant and solemn act. They rejected Him, and He abandons them, turning His back upon the beloved city.

297 There the crowd used the verse which announced the recognition of the Son of David by the remnant of the people Israel: "Hosannah!" (a Hebrew word meaning "Save now!" which becomes a kind of formula for asking the Lord's help when the true Christ or Messiah is recognised), "Hosannah to the Son of David: blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; hosannah in the highest." Now this cry recognised Jesus as the Son of David, the Messiah. Such was the will of God; that His Son should not be left without this testimony, without being honoured in this manner. Now He acts in Jerusalem according to this position.

All the city was moved, asking who this could be; and the crowds said that He, Jesus of Nazareth, was the prophet who was to come. Jesus enters the temple, and purifies it with the actual authority of Jehovah, driving out those who profaned it. He judges the nation and its rulers, saying, "It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves." But if He is Jehovah present in the temple, He is always Jehovah present in grace for all the needs of His people: He heals the blind and the lame. But no testimony is sufficient to penetrate the hard covering of unbelief which envelopes the hearts of the chief of the people, when they see the miracles. Hearing the children crying "Hosannah!" they become indignant. The Lord teaches here that the time for convincing them is past, and appeals to the testimony of Psalm 8 as to this. God had foreseen and foretold these things: "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained praise." If the people refused Him, God took care that He should have the praise which became Him.

But a more refreshing scene follows. The temple is cleansed. The noise and confusion is at an end. Nothing is said of the return of these evil occupants. But instead of them, there came the blind and the lame to Him in the temple and He healed them. The vacancy was filled by the crowd of poor, stricken, suffering ones, who were delivered of their pains and diseases. Blessed and glorious foreshadowing of what will be when He comes again and when by His life-giving, healing touch, He will cure "all diseases" and make perfectly whole. And still another thing happens. "And when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders which He wrought, and the children crying in the temple and saying 'Hosanna to the Son of David' they were indignant, and said to Him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus says to them, Yes; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?" (Verses 15, 16.) The children sang their Hosanna to Him, the Son of David, and our Lord refers the murmuring, accusing chief priests and scribes to the eighth Psalm. The meaning of that Psalm is clearly established by the second chapter of Hebrews. It is Jesus, the Son of Man, who is here seen in His dominion over the earth. When at last He has all things under His feet, there will be a silencing of the enemy by perfect praise. The praise of the children foreshadows the praise He will receive when He comes again.

Beautifully Edersheim in his excellent work describes this scene. "It was truly spring time in that temple, and the boys had gathered about their fathers and looked from their faces of wrapt wonderment and enthusiasm to the Godlike face of the Christ, and then on those healed sufferers, took up the echoes of the welcome at His entrance into Jerusalem -- in their simplicity and understanding applying them better, as they burst into, Hosanna to the Son of David! It rang through the courts and porches of the temple, this children's Hosanna. They heard it, whom the wonders He had spoken and done, had only filled with indignation. Once more in their impotent anger, they sought, as the Pharisees had done, by a hypocritical appeal to His reverence for God, not only to mislead, and so to use His very love of the truth against the truth, but to betray Him into silencing those children's voices."

Verse 2. We have now a lovely and most significant expression of the Divine secret of all true creature happiness and blessing. Strength is founded, praise is perfected, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Grace, producing in Divine power its new-born vessel of mercy, prepares pure strains of perfect praise, wherein the Lord alone is exalted, in the low abasement of all that would exalt itself. This is the truth which is yet to be taught to Israel's blinded heart for blessing in His time. It was opened once by night to Nicodemus (John 3), when Jesus, speaking things hard to know, though spoken to a master in Israel, shed beforehand upon his darkened heart a ray of that pure Sun of righteousness which will presently arise upon the blinded nation with healing in His wings (Mal. 4:2; Rom. 11:7, 25, 26). It is this truth which, being ministered through the Gospel by the quickening Spirit of God, creates the living Church of Christ. From the lips of His believing people, one of whose characteristic descriptions is that they are "new-born babes," the fruit of perfect praise is now offered acceptably unto God (1 Peter 2:2; Heb. 13:15). The Church gives thanks, through Jesus Christ, to God, who gives us the victory in Him (1 Cor. 15:57). The enemy and the avenger are stilled effectually to the faith of those who joy in God through Jesus Christ, and know their present seat to be in heavenly places in Him.* The Christian stands, by the grace of God, in living union with Him who, in His first manifestation, and by means of death, destroyed both the devil and his works (Heb. 2:14; 1 John 3:5); and who, by His victory, has abolished death, and brought life and incorruptibility to light through the Gospel (2 Tim. 1:10). Already, therefore, can the small and feeble things of this world — things base, and things despised of men (1 Cor. 1:27-28), yet called of God, and precious in the eyes of Him who has redeemed them — give utterance to this praise in ascribing salvation to the Lamb, and strength and wisdom to the God of the Rock of their salvation.

Its deliverance has come, therefore, from the oppressor: it is not merely that the voice of calumny has been stopped, as interpreters have taken this verse to mean, but the enemy has passed away. In a fuller sense than could be said of Solomon's peaceful reign, there is neither adversary nor evil occurrent." So then it is by more than the praise of babes and sucklings that the enemy is silenced, and the Lord's quotation of the passage with reference to the hosannas of the children does not at all entail such a consequence as this. It is He Himself who will "smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips destroy the wicked." But yet for this He will establish praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings; that is, I doubt not, of new-converted souls, humbled and brought down to such conscious littleness and weakness as this implies. We have again from His lips such a comparison in the well-known words, "Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." Thus we see clearly why He must produce such praise in order that the kingdom may come: the heirs of it must be made ready.

The little children in the temple foreshadowed such praise as this, and in this way the language could be suitably used with reference to them. The actual fulfillment will be in those future days to which, as we have seen, these psalms look on.

Psalm 8 is the celebration of Jehovah's millennial dominion and the glory of the Son of man in connection with, and in the mouth of, the Jewish people. But the psalm gives us a most interesting insight into the glory of Christ, and, as far as is possible in the Old Testament, our association with Him. It views man, set as the image of the invisible God, ruler over creation. It does not, and could not in direct revelation, go beyond man's place in this world, for the mystery was not revealed in the Old Testament; but Adam was the image of Him that was to come, Jehovah is the Lord of Israel. What is man? Christ is the answer. But He is Jehovah, and His glory set above the heavens, the earth put under His feet. Even in the days of His humiliation, the enemy and avenger was stilled by babes and sucklings uttering His praise; for the Father took care that, if for His sake the Lord was despised and rejected of men, there should be the testimony to His glory; and so it was, as Son of God, Son of David (as to which these words are quoted), and Son of man. (See John 11 and 12.) But in that day His name will be excellent in all the earth, Meanwhile He is crowned with glory and honour, even while all things are not put under Him. As a mere creature, man is small and feeble. But the Man of God's counsel, the last Adam, is over all. See Proverbs 8, where, before the creation, Christ is seen as the wisdom of God, Jehovah's delight, and His delight in the sons of men. So, when He was born, the angels celebrate God's delight in (not "goodwill towards") men. What is man? is asked by Job, irritated. Why could God not let him alone? (Job 7:17.) And in Psalm 144, why should God so patiently spare the wicked? But here it is Man in the counsels of God, the last Adam, the second Man, Christ, the glory of Jehovah, set as Man above the heavens, and the earth subject under His feet, yea, all things, which as yet we see not, only the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ crowned with glory and honour, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.

(vv. 1-2) The remnant anticipate the praise that will flow to their anointed King when He enters upon His wider glories as Son of Man. The praise commences with the despised remnant, figured by babes and sucklings. God takes up the praises of the weak and despised to still all opposition to Christ, whether coming from adversaries within the land, the enemy without, or from the malice of Satan-the-Avenger (JND).

Psalm 8 looks forward to the world-wide rule of the Son of Man, when as the Psalm puts it the outburst of the redeemed creation from the beginning to the end will be "O Lord our Lord, how excellent is Thy Name in all the earth!" At present His Name is sadly maligned and pushed into obscurity. Nevertheless His Glory is securely set above the heavens and hence is not affected by the explosions of man's day. Meanwhile out of the mouth of babes He has ordained strength. That refers to the simplicity of faith which takes God at His word and in spite of the adverse circumstances around enables the individual to participate in the gladness of heaven. The Son of Man through death has laid the basis whereby all the purpose of God will be effected in perfect consonance with His Glory.