This a hymn of praise enabling the Lord’s people to celebrate their privileged place in the created order, a place that speaks of the glorious Creator. As C. S. Lewis observed, “In its literal sense this short, exquisite lyric is simplicity itself—an expression of wonder at man and man’s place in Nature . . . and therefore at God who appointed it.”103

Genesis 1–2 lies behind the words here, especially as it presents humankind as the pinnacle of the creation week, as the rulers over the animal world, and as the object of God’s special attention. At the same time, the mention of “foes,” “enemy,” and “avenger” (v. 2), as well as the covenantal name “Lord” (vv. 1, 9), show that readers cannot ignore Genesis 3 and God’s plan for fallen humankind. Although the psalm is covenantal, and thus specifically for Israelite voices to sing, it nevertheless speaks of “man” in general terms, including all humanity. Israel’s calling was to be the firstfruits of restored humanity; thus the Israelite worshiper could embrace his dignity and seek to live worthily of it.

Two interpretive questions arise from this psalm. First, what is the relationship of the “dominion” described here to the “image of God” (Gen. 1:26–27)? Second, what does the author of Hebrews find in Psalm 8:4–6 that leads him to apply it to Jesus (Heb. 2:6–8)? The Response section below will discuss these.

The structure is straightforward: verse 9 repeats the first part of verse 1, providing an envelope that guides us in seeing the meaning. In other words, the entire psalm is explaining one way in which God’s “name” is “majestic” in all the earth: through the dignified role God gave to man at creation.

  I.  God’s Majestic Name (8:1–2)

  II.  Man’s Place in the Created Order (8:3–8)

  III.  God’s Majestic Name (8:9)

When God’s people sing this psalm together, they celebrate the central purpose of the redemptive covenants, namely, to restore human nature, damaged by the fall, to its proper functioning. In the creation story, humans made in God’s image were to form communities in which the members might imitate God’s character and rule his world in wisdom and benevolence; the disobedience of Genesis 3 damaged that image in all humans after Adam and Eve. In Israel God has made a fresh start: Abraham is to be “blessed” and the vehicle of blessing to all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:2–3; 26:3–4; cf. God’s “blessing” in 1:28).

As the singers celebrate God’s great name, they recognize that his intention was to reveal his great name through the dignified position he has given human beings. The song enables its singers to give thanks for God’s plan to restore his image in his people, to like the plan, and to yearn for the character to carry out this human calling genuinely.

Many of the worshiping congregations that first sang this psalm were made up primarily of farmers living at subsistence level; for them it must have been hard to recall at all times that their exercise of “dominion,” particularly over their stock animals and the wild creatures in their environment, was intended to reflect the wisdom and benevolence of our first parents! What modern Westerners call “kindness to animals” is, as C. S. Lewis observed, “a virtue most easily practised by those who have never, tired and hungry, had to work with animals for a bare living.”115 For the people of Israel, and many around the world today, this song provides the needed perspective of faith.

God makes the majesty of his name known through the steadfast faith and faithfulness of “babies and infants”: those whom the rest of the world might count as weak and foolish nevertheless will silence the great and strong. It is still this way for Christians (cf. 1 Cor. 1:27). This psalm reinforces such an outlook of faith.

Because of the echoes of Genesis 1:26–28, the high position of humankind likely bears some connection to the “image of God”—a term mentioned several times in Genesis but never defined there, so that the astute reader must infer its meaning. Very briefly, interpretations of the “image” have mostly fit into one of three categories: (1) resemblance (something about human capacities resembles those capacities in God), (2) representation (humans rule the creation as God’s representatives), or (3) relationality (humans as relational beings display God’s own relational nature).116 Some have pointed to Psalm 8 as tipping the balance in favor of the representative view,117 but this does not do justice to the psalm’s function of taking part of what we find in Genesis and making it the subject of song. It is better to say that in the ideal community the distinctive capacities by which humans resemble God (such as reason, creativity, language, morality) enable them to rule the world well and to relate to God, one another, and the created world with faithfulness, goodness, and love—that is, to imitate God.118 Our problem is not that we do not rule but that we do it badly because we use our capacities badly, so that the world and human communities suffer; we need healing, the retuning of our capacities. When Christians say that the image of God is being progressively “renewed” in them (Col. 3:9–10; 2 Cor. 3:18), this is what they should mean; they confess that God delights in human flourishing in every aspect of their lives.

The author of Hebrews applies this psalm to Jesus:

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere,

   “What is man, that you are mindful of him,

    or the son of man, that you care for him?

    You made him for a little while lower than the angels;

    you have 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. But 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. (Heb. 2:5–9)

This has led some to suppose that the author “found Jesus” in the psalm, either because he took the psalm as inherently messianic119 or because he found a previously hidden meaning, whether by inspiration or by “creative” exegesis.120

But this misses the point of the Hebrews passage. The author makes in verse 8 what must be the obvious reply to the psalm, and the pronouns are quite clear: “Now in putting everything in subjection to him [to man], he left nothing outside his [man’s] control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him [to man].” We do not see human beings carrying out this dignified role, and we must seek an answer, or supply one if the psalm does not offer it. The answer is surely the sad condition of humankind, to which Psalm 8 alludes in verse 2, and the incompleteness of God’s program of restoring humanity. Nevertheless, as Hebrews 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.” Jesus, according to Hebrews, is the long-awaited heir of David; the role of the Davidic king is to be the ideal Israelite, whose calling is to be the ideal human being. Jesus, now glorified after his suffering, exhibits the full flowering of humanity, and thus his character becomes the target toward which Christians give themselves to be shaped (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:4).

The apostle Paul combines the idea of everything being put under Christ’s feet (Psalm 8:6) with similar phrases from the explicitly messianic Psalm 110:1 (1 Cor. 15:25–27; Eph. 1:22, both referring to the risen and glorified humanity of Jesus). Christ as Messiah, and therefore as perfect man, exercises the image of God to its full, especially as his resurrection and ascension constitute his enthronement as the reigning heir of David.121Psalm 8

Psalm 9