Our Common Prayerbook: Psalm 8-3

Creation is immense and God made it all, and the psalmist leads anyone listening to the majestic distance of God — and yet, yet, yet, even though immense and majestic, God both notices and pays attention to humans. The immensity contrasts with seeming insignificance — until one pays attention to the task of humans.

The psalmist says these things about the task of humans:

1. They are just shy of God (8:5). Yes, that is exactly what the psalmist says.

2. They are crowned — surely here the psalmist is thinking back to Genesis 1-2 — with “glory” and “honor” (8:5). That is, humans — Eikons of God — are kings.

3. They are assigned the task of ruling over all things in creation: sheep and oxen, birds and water creatures.

4. The Fall did not undo this task.

5. Any NT reading shows that Jesus did precisely this: as Lord (1 Cor 15:27; Heb 2:6-8).

This is the task of humans in creation: to rule on behalf of God as God’s gloried and honored Eikons. This is not the task of exploitation but the task of governing God’s good world on God’s behalf.

Psalm 8 closes with a reminder that the Eikon needs: God is the one to be praised. And it all ties together: the immense and majestic God who out of grace creates Eikons, who seem to be insignificant, and yet God gives to them the most noteworthy of all tasks on earth — ruling on God’s behalf. But that’s not the end: Eikons are not in the end the ones to be praised. God is.

8:1 O Lord, our Lord,

how magnificent is your reputation throughout the earth!

You reveal your majesty in the heavens above!

8:2 From the mouths of children and nursing babies

you have ordained praise on account of your adversaries,

so that you might put an end to the vindictive enemy.

8:3 When I look up at the heavens, which your fingers made,

and see the moon and the stars, which you set in place,

8:4 Of what importance is the human race, that you should notice them?

Of what importance is mankind, that you should pay attention to them,

8:5 and make them a little less than the heavenly beings?

You grant mankind honor and majesty;