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.

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!”

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