Psalm 8; What Is Man?

PastorRodney’s Weblog

2025 05/18 Psalm 8; What Is Man? Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20250518_psalm-8.mp3

Psalm 8 begins and ends with ‘O YHWH our Master, how majestic is your name in all the earth’. Psalm 8 is a hymn of praise to God. It looks up and out at all creation, and it looks down and in at ourselves, and marvels at our place in it all.

Psalm 8

To the Choirmaster according to the Gittith; A Psalm of David

1 O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,

you have established strength because of your foes,

to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Created For Worship

Psalm 8 is the answer to Psalm 7, which concludes with these words:

Psalm 7:17 I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness,

and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.

David does what he said he would do in Psalm 7 and sings praise to the name of YHWH the Most High.

A ‘name’ in Scripture refers to the reputation, the character, the distinctive attributes and authority of the person who bears the name. YHWH our Lord has a reputation, and we as his people have a responsibility to uphold and bring praise to his good name. God’s majesty, his grandeur, his beauty and glory is above all, and we were created to enjoy him in all his awesome fullness.

This is the first Psalm that is intended to be an expression of praise sung by the gathered community. ‘O YHWH our Lord;’ the other Psalms so far deal more in ‘I’ and ‘you’ and ‘they’. They are more individual, more personal in nature, but this Psalm is intended to be sung, an expression of worship to our magnificent Creator.

Human Weakness Displays God’s Strength

Verse 2 introduces ‘foes, the enemy and the avenger,’ but they are not new on the scene of the Psalms. Psalm 1 begins by drawing contrast between the righteous who delight in the LORD and the wicked. Psalm 2 introduces YHWH’s Anointed, against whom the nations rage and the peoples plot in rebellion. Psalm 3 through 7 are cries to the Lord for rescue from foes, enemies, the wicked, evildoers, liars, bloodthirsty, the deceitful, slanderers. These enemies, the adversaries, the haters, use their power to oppress God’s people. But here in Psalm 8, God holds up the weakest things and sets them up as a fortress against the seemingly powerful enemies. The babblings of newborns and toddlers triumph over the plots of the powerful and strong.

As we see in 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 1:27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

The Lord uses the foolish, the weak, the low, the despised, the non-existent to display that he doesn’t even need raw materials to display his glory. We were created to bring him glory; the antithesis to that is boasting in his presence as if I were something, as if I were enough without him. The Lord delights in impossible odds to put on display that he alone is mighty to save. In Judges 7,

Judges 7:2 The LORD said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’

The Lord cut down Gideon’s army from 32,000 to 10,000 and again down to 300, armed only with trumpets and empty jars with torches to go against an innumerable multitude like locust, like the sand on the shore (Jdg.7:12,16).

As Jesus said to Paul:

2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Paul’s response?

2 Corinthians 12:9 …Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 …For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Do you feel like you can’t do it, like you’re not enough? You’re right! You can’t. But human weakness is the necessary prerequisite for God to display his strength.

What Is Man? Insignificant yet Cared For

Psalm 8:2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,

you have established strength because of your foes,

to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

The heavens, the moon and the stars; mere detail work requiring no great effort as of thigh or arm to heave into place; mere finger work. Take time to look; look up at the sky on a clear day, watch the clouds roll in, thunder and lightning; or on a clear night take advantage of our dark skies and ponder the sheer magnitude of stars and galaxies, and feel your own smallness. What is man? Minuscule, insignificant, a breath. Yet God is mindful of you. He remembers you. And to remember in Biblical language is not just a mental exercise; it is a commitment to act. God cares. What is man, and yet you care for me!

Man The Pinnacle of Creation

Psalm 8:5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.

A little lower than Elohim; there is some ambiguity as to how to translate it here. Most often it is used for God himself, sometimes for heavenly beings, angels. Man is a speck in God’s expansive creation, and yet God crowned him with glory and honor. God made him a little lower than God. In spite of our smallness, there is a weightiness to mankind. We have been crowned, given royal authority.

The Image of God; Dominion

Psalm 8:6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

Created in the image of God, we were given authority to rule over the rest of creation, to lead, to feed, to guard and to guide. All things; domestic animals, wild animals, birds, fish, great sea creatures; many of them larger and more powerful than man, yet all of them entrusted by our Creator into our care, placed under our authority. What is man, yet you appoint us as kings, ruling over your creation under you.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

What Is Man? Treasonous Usurpers

Here’s the irony; the foes and enemies as well as the weak and powerless are all part of broken fallen humanity. Because of our rebellion and abuse of God given authority, mankind is now divided into foes and friends of God, rebels and the righteous; and none is righteous, no not one (Rom.3:10). What is man? Treasonous usurpers. Glory stealers. What is man? All we see is distortions, perversions of what mankind was intended to be.

What is Man? Jesus the Ideal Man

What is man? The only way for us to know mankind as we were meant to be, exercising dominion rightly, is for an ideal man to come, one not tainted by our sin, one who truly reflects the character of God and rightly upholds his reputation. We need Jesus, God who became man, the image of the invisible God, firstborn over all creation.

But when Jesus came, those with power and authority;

Matthew 21:15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,

“‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?” (Ps.8:2).

Jesus did not come flexing his strength to his own advantage; He came in humility:

Matthew 20:28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

He humbled himself:

Philippians 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

What is man? After Jesus was mocked and abused by the soldiers,

John 19:5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”

Jesus used his weakness and humility to win the greatest victory over the most powerful foe. He defeated death and hell by dying. He took my place, paid my price, so my sin could be done away with, so I could become who I was meant to be, begin to image the glory of God and give him the praise he is due.

Only Jesus shows us what mankind is truly meant to be; look to Jesus!

Jesus in Psalm 8 (Hebrews 2)

The author of Hebrews clearly connects this Psalm to Jesus:

Hebrews 2:6 It has been testified somewhere,

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

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

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

you have crowned him with glory and honor,

8 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.

Even today not everything is subjected to mankind. This points to a future subjection.

Hebrews 2:9 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.

Hebrews sees this Psalm as pointing to the future. Mankind has never exercised God’s delegated dominion the way it was meant to be. If you lack purpose and want inward transformation; look to Jesus! Worship, sing his praises, for he is worthy!

Psalm 8

1 O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,

you have established strength because of your foes,

to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?

5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;

you have put all things under his feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,

and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD, our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org