Psalms 8:1-9
1 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordaineda strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
5 For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:
7 All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.
9 O LORD our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!
VIII. A Nature Psalm.
Psalms 8:1 f. The majesty of God. In Matthew 2 defies the rudiments of Heb. grammar and all attempt at translation. Of many emendations the following is the most ingenious and does least violence to the text, Let me sing, I pray thee, of thy glory above the heavens, [though] with the mouth of babes and sucklings. Thou hast founded a stronghold because of thine enemies, to still the foe and the avenger. The reference may be to the chaotic power of darkness dispelled by the God of light, whom the Hebrews identified with Yahweh.
Psalms 8:3 f. The insignificance of man. [Observe that son of man is equivalent to man. It has not the special significance it bears in the apocalyptic literature and the NT. Probably it bears the same significance in the quotation in Heb. as in the Ps. The author of Hebrews 2:6 * gives a temporal sense to Psalms 8:5 a, referring it to man's temporary inferiority (a little while lower) to the angels, and turns Psalms 8:5 b into a contrast rather than a parallel with Psalms 8:5 a, expressing man's lordship of the world to come, not as yet realised, it is true, but guaranteed to us by the fact that Jesus is already crowned. A. S. P.]
Psalms 8:5. Man's greatness as God's vicegerent. Elohim is translated angels in AV and God in RV. It includes the angels, who were originally gods, and were, under the influence of monotheism, degraded to the rank of Yahweh's servants.