Psalm 8. “At this juncture in the Psalter," says the Zondervan NIV Study Bible in its note on Psalm 8, "this psalm surprises. After five psalms [3-7] (and 64 Hebrew poetic lines—following the introduction to the Psalter...Psalms 1-2) in which the psalmists have called on Yahweh to deal with human perversity, this psalm's praise of Yahweh for his astounding endowment of the human race with royal 'glory and honor' (v. 5) serves as a striking and unexpected counterpoint. Its placement here highlights the glory (God's gift) and disgrace (humanity's own doing) that characterize human beings and the corresponding range of difference in God's dealings with them. And after five more psalms [9-13] (and 64 poetic lines), this psalm in turn receives a counterpoint...[in Psalm 14]."

Where the NKJV superscription of Psalm 8 has "On the instrument of Gath," the KJV has "upon Gittith" and the NIV has "According to gittith." "The Hebrew word perhaps refers to either a winepress ('song of the winepress') or the Philistine city of Gath ('Gittite lyre or music'; see 2 Samuel 15:18)" (note on Psalm 8).

David opens and closes the psalm praising the excellence of God's name (verses 1, 9)—representing God's power, His character and His purpose. The name here is the Hebrew YHWH—the Tetragrammaton (i.e., four letters)—often transliterated into English as Yahweh, as above. The name means "He Is Who He Is" (the Eternal One). David declares God's name excellent "in all the earth." Wherever one looks on earth—and up from earth to the heavens above—the glory of God is revealed. God introduced Himself to Moses by the first person form of the Tetragrammaton, saying, "I AM WHO I AM" (Exodus 3:14). "The One who spoke to Moses declared Himself to be the Eternal One—uncaused and independent. Only the Creator of all things can call Himself the I AM in the absolute sense; all other creatures are in debt to Him for their existence" (Nelson Study Bible, note on Exodus 3:14).

David observes that "from the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies" (verse 2, NIV). While the word for "praise" could also be rendered "strength," as in the KJV and NKJV, "praise" seems the better translation since Jesus quoted the verse this way when the common people (figuratively children) praised Him while the "mature" religious leaders who opposed Him wanted to squelch them but could not (Matthew 21:16). Perhaps David simply meant that despite the scorn of the wicked, there were always new generations of children to gaze in wonder at God's creation and express awe. Yet God who inspired the psalm also had the more specific prophetic fulfillment in mind.

David's reflections on the grandeur of the heavens (verse 3) gives rise to the question, "What is man?" (verse 4). "The Heb[rew] word here [for man] is 'enos, which emphasizes man's mortality and weakness. David is stunned that the all-powerful Creator should exalt in such puny beings by caring for us and by giving us dominion over His earth" (Bible Reader's Companion, note on Psalm 8). Who are we in comparison to the Creator? Why would He even think of us? Why would He care for us or have anything to do with us? (verse 4). The word for "visit" here in the NKJV has the sense of "see to" or "deal with," which can have either a positive or negative sense. Here the meaning is positive.

In verses 5-8, David muses further about man's place in the scheme of things—that he is the pinnacle of God's earthly creation.

In verse 5, the word translated "angels" is elohim, the word used throughout the Old Testament for God. The Moffatt Translation says, "Thou hast made him little less than divine." Yet it does not seem reasonable to say that man is only a little lower than God. After all, David himself was thinking about how man was basically nothing next to God's majesty as revealed in the sky above. And God Himself tells human beings, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9). Perhaps it was because of this that the Targums (ancient Jewish paraphrases of Scripture) and the Septuagint (the Jewish rendering of the Old Testament in Greek) translated the word elohim here as meaning "angels." Yet human beings seem rather far below the amazing power and abilities of angels too.

It should be noted that the words "little less" or "little lower" could also be rendered "for a little while lower." The literal meaning would then be that man has been created for a little while lower than God, implying that man after that little while will ultimately share God's plane of existence. This is in fact man's destiny—to be part of Elohim, the family of God (see also Psalm 82:6 and our free booklet, Who Is God?). Yet such a rendering would no doubt have made early Jewish translators even more uncomfortable. So we can see why they would prefer the word "angels" over "God" in Psalm 8:5 in any case. Of course, it is certainly true that for the time being man has been made lower than the angels as well as God, so the writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews (probably the apostle Paul) had no problem using the translation the Jews were familiar with, giving the Greek word for angels rather than God (see Hebrews 2:7).

Psalm 8:6 speaks of God giving man dominion over His creation. This is quoted in Hebrews 2:8. Yet where David goes on in Psalm 8:7-8 to focus on man's dominion over the animals of the earth, recalling Genesis 1-2, the book of Hebrews ends its quotation with Psalm 8:6, emphasizing the "all things" committed to man's rule in this verse—meaning, in its fullest sense, the entire universe and spirit realm. Man, Hebrews 2 explains, has not yet received this ultimate dominion with God—except for Christ, who is our forerunner.