Taking a Closer Look at Psalm 8

Read the Passage

Let’s take a closer look at Psalm 8:

To the choirmaster: according to The Gittith. A Psalm of David.
O LORD, our Lord,
     how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
     Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
     to still the enemy and the avenger.

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
     the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
     and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
     and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
​​     you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
     and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
     whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O LORD, our Lord,
     how majestic is your name in all the earth!

God’s Majesty

What I want us to pay attention to as we look at this passage is first the framing of it, how we begin and end with the same words, “Oh LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” This is ultimately, first and foremost, a psalm of praise for the majesty of God. Within that, however, we’re going to find sets of contrasts and possibly even a story that moves along. When we look at the first stanza, and indeed the second and the third, what we’re going to want to see is the ways in which contrasts are used to show God’s glory and his kindness to us. In the first we find the high and the low, the great and the small. His glory is above the heavens. We are brought into the realm of all of the cosmos, the stars in the sky, and his strength is in the mouth of babies and infants. The grand stars of the heavens and the smallest infant, both together show the glory of God.

Then we continue on this set of contrasts. Again, looking up at God’s great works and creation. When I look at the heavens, the moon and the stars, these things that are grand and high above us are made to seem, in one sense, small compared to God because they’re the work of his fingers—his fine detailed craftsmanship. But then those things, these things that are big to us and small to God, are contrasted with us ourselves. “What is man that you’re mindful of him, the son of man, that you care for him?” We see the grandness of the cosmos, and we are tempted to wonder why God would care for us. This set of contrasts establishes, yes, God’s greatness but also our smallness, our littleness. And it’s precisely in that that we’re reminded that God is not only far and high, but he is, in fact, near. He is mindful of us. He cares for us. Even as we see our own smallness, we find in that the comfort that God cares for us here and there. And beyond that, he not only cares but has exalted us.

The next set of contrasts is between mankind and the angels, the heavenly beings, and then between mankind and the rest of creation. So, although we are lower than the heavenly beings, God has crowned us with glory and honor. He has given us dominion over the works of his own hands. And then he goes through a list of the types of animals he makes in the creation account in Genesis, just in backwards order—sheep and oxen, beast of the field, birds of the heavens, fish of the sea, to give a sense of everything. Although we are low, although we are small, although we’re lower than the angels, God has given us dominion over all these things, and that should lead us to the conclusion of the psalm: God’s greatness. “Oh LORD, our Lord. How majestic is your name in all the earth!”

What I now want to ask is how does this psalm comes across in the New Testament? And beyond that, how does this psalm have anything to do with Jesus? It seems like it’s entirely rooted in creation, not yet in redemption. And for this, the New Testament can help us. And indeed, we’re going to look to the book of Hebrews to see.

In Hebrews 2, the author is also involved in a set of contrasts. He begins by contrasting Jesus with the angels, but by the time he gets to chapter two, the contrast now is between us and the angels—those that God helps through the redemption of Jesus and those who aren’t in the same way affected. So if you were to look at Hebrews 2:5, we find, “For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It’s been testified somewhere”—here comes the citation of Psalm 8—“‘What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You’ve made him for a little while lower than the angels. You’ve crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.’ Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.”

Stop there for a moment. We’re going to continue on, but see what Hebrews is doing. Hebrews is picking up the story of humanity that comes in Psalm 8, that although we are small, God cares for us, and although we are lower than the angels, he has crowned us, and he sees a problem. If you look at the world around you, it doesn’t seem like everything is subjected to mankind.

There is suffering, there is death, there are natural disasters. Things don’t go the way that we want them to. While Psalm 8 tells us, in a sense, we should be in control of the world that God made as his co-regents, we’re not; things go wrong. And Hebrews presses into this, saying that the psalm must be true.

Even as we see our own smallness, we find in that the comfort that God cares for us.

So, what’s going on? How can God have subjected all things to us, ground us with glory and honor, but we find ourselves in the position that we are? We don’t see everything in subjection to him, to humanity, Hebrews says. But Hebrews 2:9 says, “we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone.” Hebrews reads the set of statements in the psalms as a sequence: man is made, lowered, and then crowned.

While this was true in creation, it’s true in redemption. One of the themes throughout the book of Hebrews, and in many ways throughout the entire New Testament, is that Jesus is our forerunner. Where he goes, we will be, and what happens to him will happen to us. And while we don’t yet see everything in subjection to mankind, what we do see is everything in subjection to Jesus, who is seated on the throne. Because of that, we can be assured that in the redemption that he brings, we will enjoy that too. What Psalm 8 says about mankind and about our relation to creation will be true because it is true for Jesus. There is redemption not just in the forgiveness of sins, as great as that is, but in the restoration of what it means to be human and what it means to be human in God’s world.

Having seen the psalm and having seen Hebrews, what happens when we go back to the psalm now? Is there anything new that we see? The chief thing that we find is that although this psalm begins and ends in the same place—“Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth”—we find that those same words come to us in different keys, as it were. At the beginning of the psalm, this is clearly God’s glory in creation. He has set his glory above the heavens. He is great, and he has made all things. But as we read through the psalm and we see in it not only the human story but the story of redeemed humanity in Christ, we can know that this last statement—“Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name and on the earth”—isn’t simply for making mankind above these things in the natural order, but for restoring us in Christ, for putting us back to where we ought to be and indeed higher than where we were in the garden. He seats us with Christ over all things because he is over all things.

And then as we go from there to the center of the psalm, this question that echoes through our minds—“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man, that you care for him?”—we see a greater sense that God cares for us, a greater sense that he’s mindful of us. He’s made us in his image and seated us in an exalted place. He has redeemed us, joined us to Christ, and gives us all that he has. That should lead us to see his wonderful care for us, and it should lead us to ask why he would grant us such things out of his merciful grace. And finally, it should lead us to declare, “Oh LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Daniel Stevens is the author of Songs of the Son: Reading the Psalms with the Author of Hebrews.

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