Chapter 8
A recounting of the majesty of God, above all the heavens, and all that HE created.
2025 - A very nice song starts with the words of this verse:
1 For the choir director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David. O LORD, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth, Who have displayed Your splendor above the heavens! [Psa 8:1 NASB95].
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, [Psa 8:5-6 ESV]
This is a place beyond Genesis where the Bible says man has dominion over the earth God created. It goes on several more verses with specifics.
This Psalm opens and closes with the same words, like bookends:
9 O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! [Psa 8:9 ESV]
2021 - Except...this seems to be a Messianic Psalm, and the one created lower than the angels is Jesus, and it is into HIS hands, not mankind 's in general, that all things are given. This probably does not tie to the dominion of man over the earth in Genesis.
2024 - MSB applies it mostly to created man..but does mention an application to Christ. But it is man created a little lower, it is man that is given dominion over all the rest of creation. Domesticated, wild, birds, and fish, all under man. And it all starts with David's question: What is man that you should delegate so much to him?
2025 - Here is vs 5 in the NASB:
5 Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty! [Psa 8:1, 5 NASB95]. This really bothered me. I don't think it can be applied to Christ at all if translated this way. Many translations put it "lower than the angels". The Hebrew word though, is a form of "elohim". Here are the BLB possibilities:
(plural) rulers, judges, divine ones, angels, gods
(plural intensive - singular meaning) god, goddess, godlike one, works or special possessions of God, the (true) God, God
So it seems that there are two considerations when translating this word. The first is whether it is a simple plural or a plural intensive. A simple plural can only mean "angels" or some such but never the One God. Since NASB is interpreting it as God, they judge that the word is not a simple plural but a plural intensive, and of the possible interpretations there, God is the only one that really fits. So, since there is no way to tell, other than talking to David, whether the writer and the Spirit meant this to be plural or plural intensive, translators depend on context. And NASB judged the context to mean the Hebrew word is a plural intensive while many others kept it a simple plural. RSV and ASV both use "God" while ESV uses "heavenly beings". In my experience, it is unusual for these to differ.
2025 - One last point on translation: as the chapter goes on the things over which the one "a little lower than the angels" has dominion don't include wild beasts. We see in Job that God surely has everything to do with those. And so does Christ. Absolutely everything is ruled by Christ, and God. Therefore, using God to translate this verse is, IMO, incorrect.