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Psalm 8:5 says, “You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.”
Psalm 8 is a prayer of David. It begins with these words of praise, directed to God: “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:1). So, the “you” of verse 5 is the Lord.
As David praises the glory of the Lord, He considers some of the awe-inspiring things God has made. He mentions the heavens, the moon, and the stars in verse 3. Given the unfathomable splendors of the heavens, mankind seems very small, indeed: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:4). So, the “them” of verse 5 is humanity.
God has displayed His glory in the heavens, but He has also given humans another type of glory on earth. Mankind’s position under the grand and glorious heavenlies has a dignity of its own:
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas. (Psalm 8:5–8)
How has God crowned us with glory and honor? By giving us dominion over the earth: animals wild and domestic, animals on the land, in the sky, and in the sea are all under the rule of mankind. This was God’s intention from the very beginning. He created mankind in His own image (Genesis 1:27), and then He “blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground’” (Genesis 1:28). Psalm 8 is an echo of God’s blessing and the task He gave mankind.and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas. (Psalm 8:5–8)
Humans are created “a little lower than the angels,” according to Psalm 8:5. Interestingly, the Hebrew word translated “angels” in the NIV is elohim, a plural word that literally means “gods.” Elohim is often a reference to God Himself. Other translations say that humans are made “a little lower than God” (NASB, NLT) or “a little lower than the heavenly beings” (ESV, NET).
We are not God; there is no divinity in us. Any glory and honor we have is due to how God created us and the role He placed us in. It is a glorious, honorable thing to have dominion over the earth. It is a privilege to serve God, and we take our task seriously, even as we gaze in wonder at the majesty of God’s creation in the skies above us.
David ends his psalm the same way he began it: “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (Psalm 8:9).
