Week 2 Psalm 8
The psalm is a rough & ready three-item guide describing Who Fits Where? It’s pretty straightforward:
First there’s God. At the top. His glory is higher than the heavens. His name fills the earth.
Second there’s us. People. We’re rated as being only a little lower than God (and from the footnote we’re a bit lower than angels too). But even though we’re ranked below the Lord he still crowned us with glory and honor.
Finally there are all other living things in creation – birds & animals & fish. The Lord put us in charge of everything (he) made. (Last week I read where the Lord created Adam & Eve and then he said they will be masters over all life. So that’s reconfirmed here.)
(I know that not everyone necessarily likes this framework. For instance a few weeks ago I read where an environmental guy said that the life of a worm was worth more than the life of a person. So he would want to rejig the structure of psalm 8 so that it looked something more like this: God > Animals > People. The bible does make a point of contact between me & worms – both of us were made by the Lord. But while we’re similar in being creatures we’re also different because we’ve been assigned a different rank.)
So anyway this psalm’s order – God > People > Animals – is a brief and handy reminder of the basic Anatomy of Things.
Note: quotes from Psalm 8:1 5 6 Genesis 1:26 (NLT)