Job 7:17(v4)What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him,
Psalms 144:3(v4)Yahweh, what is man, that you care for him? Or the son of man, that you think of him?
Hebrews 2:6-9(v4)But one has somewhere testified, saying, “What is man, that you think of him? Or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him a…
Hebrews 2:7(v5)You made him a little lower than the angels. You crowned him with glory and honor.
Hebrews 2:9(v5)But we see him who has been made a little lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor,…
Show all 41 cross-references
Genesis 1:28(v6)God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the…
Genesis 1:26(v6)God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky,…
Psalms 146:3(v4)Don’t put your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no help.
Matthew 28:18(v6)Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
Hebrews 2:8(v6)You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in that he subjected all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to…
Genesis 1:26-27(v5)God said, “Let’s make man in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky,…
Luke 1:68(v4)“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people;
Ephesians 1:22(v6)He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things for the assembly,
Genesis 21:1(v4)Yahweh visited Sarah as he had said, and Yahweh did to Sarah as he had spoken.
2 Chronicles 6:18(v4)“But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens can’t contain you; how much less this house…
Job 25:6(v4)How much less man, who is a worm, the son of man, who is a worm!”
Psalms 80:17(v4)Let your hand be on the man of your right hand, on the son of man whom you made strong for yourself.
Psalms 106:4(v4)Remember me, Yahweh, with the favor that you show to your people. Visit me with your salvation,
Isaiah 51:12(v4)“I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who will be made as grass?
Matthew 8:20(v4)Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Genesis 9:2(v6)The fear of you and the dread of you will be on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the sky. Everything that moves along the…
Exodus 4:31(v4)The people believed, and when they heard that Yahweh had visited the children of Israel, and that he had seen their affliction, then they…
Psalms 4:2(v4)You sons of men, how long shall my glory be turned into dishonor? Will you love vanity and seek after falsehood?
Philippians 2:7-11(v5)but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself,…
Hebrews 2:16(v5)For most certainly, he doesn’t give help to angels, but he gives help to the offspring of Abraham.
Psalms 110:1(v6)Yahweh says to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool for your feet.”
Luke 19:44(v4)and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn’t know the…
Psalms 21:3-5(v5)For you meet him with the blessings of goodness. You set a crown of fine gold on his head. He asked life of you and you gave it to him,…
Psalms 103:4(v5)who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies,
Isaiah 40:17(v4)All the nations are like nothing before him. They are regarded by him as less than nothing, and vanity.
Ephesians 1:21(v5)far above all rule, authority, power, dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.
1 Peter 3:22(v6)who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being made subject to him.
1 Corinthians 15:24-27(v6)Then the end comes, when he will deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, when he will have abolished all rule and all authority and…
Genesis 2:7(v5)Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Hebrews 1:2(v6)has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.
1 Peter 1:20-21(v5)who was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in this last age for your sake, who through him are believers…
Ezekiel 8:15(v4)Then he said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? You will again see yet greater abominations than these.”
1 Peter 2:12(v4)having good behavior among the nations, so in that of which they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they…
Psalms 45:1-3(v5)My heart overflows with a noble theme. I recite my verses for the king. My tongue is like the pen of a skillful writer. You are the most…
Psalms 103:20(v5)Praise Yahweh, you angels of his, who are mighty in strength, who fulfill his word, obeying the voice of his word.
John 13:31-32(v5)When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv5–65. Thou hast made him little lower. The Hebrew…
5. Thou hast made him little lower. The Hebrew copulative כי, ki, I have no doubt, ought to be translated into the causal particle for, seeing the Psalmist confirms what he has just now said concerning the infinite goodness of God towards men, in showing himself near to them, and mindful of them. In the first place, he represents them as adorned with so many honors as to render their condition not far inferior to divine and celestial glory. In the second place, he mentions the external dominion and power which they possess over all creatures, from which it appears how high the degree of dignity is to which God hath exalted them. I have, indeed, no doubt but he intends, by the first, “Qu’il n’entende par la premier.” — Fr.
Certainly the fact that Paul uses the word angels instead of God, does not prove the inaccuracy of Calvin’s rendering. As the Septuagint version was in general use among the Jews in the time of Paul, he very naturally quotes from it just as we do from our English version. And this was sufficient for his purpose. His object was, to answer an objection which the Jews brought against the Christian dispensation, as being inferior to the Mosaic, inasmuch as angels were mediators of the latter, while the mediator or head of the former was in their estimation but a man. This objection he answers from their own Scriptures, and quotes this psalm to show, that Christ, in his human nature, was little inferior to the angels, and that he is exalted far above them in respect of the glory and dominion with which he is crowned. If the apostle had quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures, and used אלהים, Elohim, God, meaning the Most High, his argument in support of the dignity of Christ in human nature would have been still stronger. - See Stuart’s Commentary on the Hebrews, vol. 2, pp. 68-71.
Read full note →
There is another question which it is more difficult to solve. While the Psalmist here discourses concerning the excellency of men, and describes them, in respect of this, as coming near to God, the apostle applies the passage to the humiliation of Christ. In the first place, we must consider the propriety of applying to the person of Christ what is here spoken concerning all mankind; and, secondly, how we may explain it as referring to Christ’s being humbled in his death, when he lay without form or beauty, and as it were disfigured under the reproach and curse of the cross. What some say, that what is true of the members may be properly and suitably transferred to the head, might be a sufficient answer to the first question; but I go a step farther, for Christ is not only the first begotten of every creature, but also the restorer of mankind. What David here relates belongs properly to the beginning of the creation, when man’s nature was perfect. “Lorsque la nature de l’humain n’estoit point encore corrompue.” — Fr. “When the nature of man was not yet corrupted.”
What the apostle therefore says in that passage concerning the abasement of Christ for a short time, is not intended by him as an explanation of this text; but for the purpose of enriching and illustrating the subject on which he is discoursing, he introduces and accommodates to it what had been spoken in a different sense. The same apostle did not hesitate, in Romans 10:6, in the same manner to enrich and to employ, in a sense different from their original one, the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 30:12:
“Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?”
etc. The apostle, therefore, in quoting this psalm, had not so much an eye to what David meant; but making an allusion to these words, Thou hast made him a little lower; and again, Thou hast crowned him with honor, he applies this diminution to the death of Christ, and the glory and honor to his resurrection. “Tu l’as fait un peu moindre; puis Tu l’as couronne d’honneur, il approprie ceste diminution a la mort de Christ, et la gloire et bonneur a la resurrection.” — Fr.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv4–5It had been sufficient, for him to have set…
It had been sufficient, for him to have set forth his glory by the heavens, though he had not come so low as to man, which is but dust.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv4–6Psa 8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful…
Psa 8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Ver. 4. What is man, that thou art mindful of him?] Sorry, sickly man, a mass of mortalities, a map of miseries, a mixture or compound of dirt and sin? And yet God is mindful of him; he not only takes care of him in an ordinary way, as he doth other creatures, but singularly attendeth and affecteth him, as a father doth his dearest child. He is Divini irigenii cura, saith one; he is the end of all in a semi-circle, saith another philosopher; meaning, that all things in the world were made for man, and man made for God; neither is there so much of the glory of God in all his works of wonder as in one gracious performance of a godly person. But if we understand the text (as the apostle doth, Heb 2:6) of tbe man Christ Jesus, Hic homo et filius hominis qualis et quantus est, Deus bone! saith Junius.
Read full note →
And the son of man] Heb. of earthly men; for what is the greatest potentate but πηλος κομφως πεφυραμενος, a piece of clay neatly made up? (Arrian in Epictet.)
That thou visitest him?] That thou mindest him more than other creatures, and makest him Lord of all? Thy visitation preserveth his spirit, Job 10:12.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv4–6What, i.e. how mean and inconsiderable a thing is…
What, i.e. how mean and inconsiderable a thing is man, if compared with thy glorious Majesty, who art so infinite in power and wisdom, as thou hast showed in the frame of the heavens, &c. Man, Heb. infirm or miserable man; by which it is apparent that he speaks of man, not according to the state of his creation, but as fallen into a state of sin, and misery, and mortality.
Art mindful of him, i.e. carest for him, and conferrest such high favours upon him.
Read full note →
The son of man, Heb. the son of Adam, that great apostate from and rebel against God, the sinful son of a sinful father, his son by likeness of disposition and manners, no less than by procreation; all which tends to magnify the following mercy.
That thou visitest him; not in anger, as that word is sometimes used, but with thy grace and mercy, as it is taken, Gen 21:1; Exo 4:31; Psa 65:9; 106:4; 144:3.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv4–6What is man, that thou art mindful of him?....…
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?.... That is, the psalmist, while he was considering the greatness and glory of the celestial bodies, thought this within himself, and so expressed it; which is to be understood, not of man in general, nor of Adam in a state of innocence; he could not be called "Enosh", the word here used, which signifies a frail, weak, sickly mortal man; nor could he with any propriety be said to be the son of man, as in the following clause: nor of fallen man, or of Adam's posterity, descending from him by ordinary generation; for all things are not put in subjection to them, as is hereafter said of man: but this is to be understood of the man Christ Jesus, as it is interpreted in Heb 2:6; or of that individual of human nature which Christ assumed. The name of Enosh well agrees with him, who was a man of no note and esteem among men, a worm and no man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs, encompassed with infirmities, and was subject to death, and did die. Now it was a marvellous thing that God should be mindful of that individual of human nature; that he should prepare it in his council and covenant; that among the vast numbers of individuals which it came up in his infinite mind to create, he should choose this, to exalt it, and appoint it to union with his own Son, and take that delight in it he did; that when it was formed by his Spirit, he should anoint it with the oil of gladness above his fellows; that he should take such providential care of it, and so often and so strongly express his affection for it; that he should regard it, and support it under sufferings; and when in the grave, did not leave it, nor suffer it to see corruption; but raised it from the dead, and gave it glory, and exalted it at his own right hand;
and the son of man, that thou visitest him? The name of "the son of man" is the name of the Messiah, in Psa 80:17; and is often given to Christ, and used by him of himself in the New Testament. And this visiting of him is not to be understood in a way of wrath, though he was so visited by God, when he bore the chastisements of his people; but in a way of favour, by bestowing upon him without measure the gifts and graces of his Spirit; by affording him his gracious presence, and tilling him with spiritual peace and joy.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv4–5What is man - How mean and inconsiderable a…
What is man - How mean and inconsiderable a thing is man, if compared with thy glorious majesty. Man - Hebrew. infirm, or miserable man. By which it is apparent that he speaks of man, not according to the state of his creation, but as fallen into a state of sin and misery, and mortality. Mindful - Carest for him, and conferest such high favours upon him. The son - Hebrew. the son of Adam, that great apostate from God, the sinful son of a sinful father, his son by likeness of disposition and manners, no less than by procreation. All which tends to magnify the following mercy. Visitest - Not in anger, as that word is sometimes used, but with thy grace and mercy.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv4–6Verse 4. What is man] מה אנוש mah enosh,…
Verse 4. What is man] מה אנוש mah enosh, what is wretched, miserable man; man in his fallen state, full of infirmity, ignorance, and sin?
That thou art mindful of him?] That thou settest thy heart upon him, keepest him continually in thy merciful view.
Read full note →
And the son of man] ובן אדם uben Adam, and the son of Adam, the first great rebel; the fallen child of a fallen parent. See the note on Job 7:17. Some think eminent men are here intended. What is man in common; what the most eminent men; that thou shouldst be mindful of them, or deign to visit them?
That thou visitest him?] By sending thy Holy Spirit to convince him of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It is by these visits that man is preserved in a salvable state. Were God to withhold them, there would be nothing in the soul of man but sin, darkness, hardness, corruption, and death.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn vv5–6Psa 8:5. Thou hast made him a little lower…
Psa 8:5. Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels — Such was man as he came out of the hands of his Maker, in his primeval state. He was lower than the angels, because, by his body, he was allied to the earth, and to the beasts that perish; but as by his soul, which was spiritual and immortal, he was near akin to the angels; he might be truly said to be but a little lower than they, and was in order next to them. And hast crowned him with glory and honour — Endued him with noble faculties and capacities. He that gave man his being, distinguished him from the inferior creatures, and qualified him for dominion over them, by making him wiser than the beasts of the earth and the fowls of the heaven, Job 35:1. Man’s reason is his crown of glory, and he should take care not to profane that crown by perverting the use of it, nor forfeit it by acting contrary to its dictates.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv4–6What is man - What claim has one so…
What is man - What claim has one so weak, and frail, and short-lived, to be remembered by time? What is there in man that entitles him to so much notice? Why has God conferred on him so signal honor? Why has he placed him over the works of his hands? Why has he made so many arrangements for his comfort? Why has he done so much to save him? He is so insignificant his life is so much like a vapor, he so soon disappears, he is so sinful and polluted, that the question may well be asked, why such honor has been conferred on him, and why such a dominion over the world has been given him. See these thoughts more fully expanded in the notes at Heb 2:6.
That thou art mindful of him - That thou dost remember him; that is, think of him, attend to him - that he does not pass away wholly from thy thoughts. Why should a God who is so vast and glorious, and who has all the starry worlds, so beautiful and grand, to claim his attention - why should he turn his thoughts on man? And especially why should he honor him as he has done by giving him dominion over the works of his hands?
Read full note →
And the son of man - Any descendant of man - any one of the race. What was man, as he was originally made, that such exalted honor should have been conferred on him; and what has any one of his descendants become, in virtue of his native faculties or acquired endowments, that he should be thus honored? The design is the same as in the former part of the verse, to express the idea that there was nothing in man, considered in any respect, that entitled him to this exalted honor. Nothing that man has done since the time when the question was asked by the psalmist has contributed to diminish the force of the inquiry.
That thou visitest him - As thou dost; that is, with the attention and care which thou dost bestow upon him; not forgetting him; not leaving him; not passing him by. The word used here - פקד pâqad - would properly express a visitation for any purpose - for inspection, for mercy; for friendship, for judgment, etc. Here it refers to the attention bestowed by God on man in conferring on him such marks of favor and honor as he had done - such attention that he never seemed to forget him, but was constantly coming to him with some new proof of favor. What God has done for man since the psalmist wrote this, has done nothing to weaken the force of this inquiry.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv4–5man--literally, "frail man," an allusion to his essential infirmity.
man--literally, "frail man," an allusion to his essential infirmity.
son of man--only varies the form of speech.
Read full note →
visitest--in favor (Psa 65:10). This favor is now more fully illustrated.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv4–64. What is man—This connects with the first hemistich…
4. What is man—This connects with the first hemistich of Psa_8:3, thus— As often as I see thy heavens, I ask with wonder, What is man? The Hebrew words for “man,” and “son of man,” according to their radical sense, contemplate man from the frail and perishable side of his nature, and in this view the comparison is against him. But this is momentary and in appearance only. Suddenly the poet rises to the comprehension of man’s true rank and greatness in creation.
Art mindful… visitest him—Two words denoting special thought and oversight.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv4–64. Then (so the ellipse may be filled up),…
4. Then (so the ellipse may be filled up), the thought is forced upon me
What is frail man that thou shouldest be mindful of him?
Read full note →
And the son of man, that thou shouldest visit him?
The words for man are chosen to emphasise his weakness in contrast to the vast and (apparently) unchanging structure of the heavens. Enosh denotes man in his frailty, impotence, mortality (Psa_103:15); hence it is used with special frequency in Job, where man is contrasted with God (e.g. Job_4:17, where A.V. renders mortal man). Ben-âdâm (son of man) denotes man according to his earthly origin. Cp. Job’s ‘man that is born of a woman’ (Psa_14:1).
God’s ‘visitation’ of man is His constant, loving, providential, regard (Job_10:12). It is to God’s present and continuous care that the verse refers. It is not until Psa_8:5 that the Psalmist looks back to man’s original creation.
There is an echo of these words in Psa_144:3, and Jer_15:15; and Job parodies them, when he asks in the bitterness of his soul how man can be of such importance to God that He should think it worth while to persecute him (Psa_7:17 ff.).
On the quotation of Psa_8:4-6 in Heb_2:6 ff., see above.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv4–6(4) Man . . . son of man .…
(4) Man . . . son of man . . .—The first, possibly, with suggestion of frailty; the second to his life derived from human ancestry. The answer to this question must always touch the two poles, of human frailty on the one hand, and the glory of human destiny on the other. “O the grandeur and the littleness, the excellence and the corruption, the majesty and the meanness, of man.”—Pascal.
The insignificance of man compared to the stars is a common theme of poetry; but how different the feeling of the Hebrew from that of the modern poet, who regrets the culture by which he had been
Read full note →
“Brought to understand
A sad astrology, the boundless plan
That makes you tyrants in your iron skies,
Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes,
Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand
His nothingness into man.”—TENNYSON: Maud.
And yet, again, how far removed from the other pole of modern feeling, which draws inanimate nature into close sympathy with human joy or sorrow, expressed in the following words:—“When I have gazed into these stars, have they not looked down upon me as if with pity from their serene spaces, like eyes glistening with heavenly tears over the little lot of man?”—Carlyle.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv4–6What is man, that thou art mindful of him?…
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? In comparison with the lofty heavens, the radiant moon, and the hosts of sparkling stars, man seems to the psalmist wholly unworthy of God"s attention. He is not, like Job, impatient of God"s constant observation, (Job_7:17-20) but simply filled with wonder at his marvellous condescension. (comp. Psa_144:3) And the son of man, that thou visitest him? The "son of man" here is a mere variant for "man" in the preceding hemistich. The clause merely emphasizes the general idea.
Man"s littleness and his greatness.
Read full note →
"What is man," etc.? The littleness and greatness of man are set before us here in powerful contrast. In view of this vast magnificent universe, he seems a speck, an atom, a vapour that appears and vanishes. (Jam_4:14) But the love, care, grace of his Maker lift him to a height where he sees the world at his feet; he is endowed with a life, heir to a glory, that shall endure when the earth and the heavens pass away.
I There is THE EARTHLY SIDE OF HUMAN LIFE. Its littleness, frailty, brevity. "What is man?
1. Compare the actual littleness and bodily weakness of man with the immensity of the material universe, the awful might of its never-wearying forces, the stability of its structure, the unswerving, undenying constancy of its laws. Illustrate from the discoveries of astronomy, geology, etc. Compare a long human life with that of an oak of a thousand years. But a thousand years are but a day a few minutes compared with the mighty past, the eternal future. (1Ch_29:15 Psa_90:3-6)
2. Consider the narrow limits of human life. Deduct from the effective force of even a well-spent life the time absorbed by infancy, sleep, sickness, trifles, outward hindrances, weakness, and decay. How great a proportion of the race is immersed in barbarism! How limited is man"s knowledge, even with the vast accessions of this century, compared with his illimitable ignorance! How powerless is he in the grasp of circumstances! If the Earth but stirs in her sleep, his cities fall. If the wind blows in its strength, his navies are wrecked. If the invisible seeds of pestilence crowd the air, he must breathe or die his science is baffled. If the clouds withhold rain or pour out too much, famine enters his home. If the earth refuses him gold, or yields it too rapidly and easily, his commerce is deranged. (Psa_39:5, Psa_39:6)
3. Consider, too, the perishing, vanishing nature of man"s greatest achievements, richest possessions, sweetest earthly joys and hopes. It is no wonder that, with those who meditate deeply on human life, and observe largely, seeing only its earthly side, philosophy should turn sour and curdle into "pessimism." "Is life worth living?
II THE DIVINE SIDE. "Thou art mindful of him; ... thou visitest him." The greatness and glory of man"s nature are seen:
1. In its origin. (Ver. 5) Man is the child of God. (Gen_1:26, 27 Act_17:28, Act_17:29)
2. In the care of Gods providence. In those unmeasured ages, before man arrived, which so oppress our imagination, God was preparing the earth for man. For other creatures also, it is true, but not as for him. To each lower creature he gave its own haunt, its own food; but they sow no harvests, plant no forests, quarry no hills, pasture no flocks, navigate no seas; know nothing of nature as a whole its beauty, mystery, wealth of enjoyment. For man was made the whole (vers. 6-8). It is God who has made the universe man"s storehouse, and "ministereth seed," etc. (2Co_9:10)
3. In what we may call spiritual providence; the grace and love which order the life of each one of God"s children, making sorrow and trouble a gracious discipline. (Heb_12:6, 7 13:5)
4. Above all, in Gods unspeakable Gift. (1Jn_5:11) In the incarnate Son of God our humanity is exalted to the supreme height of glory. (Php_2:9-11 Heb_2:6-9) To the image of his glory the humblest believer is to be raised. (Rom_8:29 1Jn_3:2)
LESSONS.
1. Humility.
2. Faith.
3. Adoration.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon1885 · Public DomainOn vv4–6Ver. 4. What is man that thou art mindful…
Ver. 4. What is man that thou art mindful of him? etc. My readers must be careful to mark the design of the psalmist, which is to enhance, by this comparison, the infinite goodness of God; for it is, indeed, a wonderful thing that the Creator of heaven, whose glory is so surpassingly great as to ravish us with the highest admiration, condescends so far as graciously to take upon him the care of the human race. That the psalmist makes this contrast must be inferred from the Hebrew word (fwna) enosh, which we have rendered man, and which expresses the frailty of man rather than any strength or power which he possesses ... Almost all interpreters render (dqp), pakad, the last word of this verse, to visit; and I am unwilling to differ from them, since t and as we will often find in the Psalms the repetition of the same thought in different words, it may here be very properly translated to remember; as if David had said, "This is a marvelous thing, that God thinks upon men, and remembers them continually." John Calvin, 1509-1564.
Ver. 4. What is man? But, O God, what a little lord hast thou made over this great world! The least corn of sand is not so small to the whole earth, as man is to the heaven. When I see the heavens, the sun, the moon, and stars, O God, what is man? Who would think that thou shouldest make all these creatures for one, and that one well-near the least of all? Yet none but he can see what thou hast done; none but he can admire and adore thee in what he seeth: how had he need to do nothing but this, since he alone must do it! Certainly the price and value of things consist not in the quantity; one diamond is worth more than many quarries of stone; one lodestone hath more virtue than mountains of earth. It is lawful for us to praise thee in ourselves. All thy creation hath not more wonder in it than one of us: other creatures thou madest by a simple command; MAN, not without a divine consultation: others at once; man thou didst form, then inspire: others in several shapes, like to none but themselves; man, after thine own image: others with qualities fit for service; man, for dominion. Man had his name from thee; they had their names from man. How should we be consecrated to thee above all others, since thou hast bestowed more cost on us than other! Joseph Hall, D.D., Bishop of Norwich, 1574-1656.
Read full note →
Ver. 4. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou shouldst visit him? And (Job 7:17-18) "What is man, that thou shouldst magnify him? and that thou shouldst set thy heart upon him? and that thou shouldst visit him every morning?" Man, in the pride of his heart, seeth no such great matter in it; but a humble soul is filled with astonishment. "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Isa 57:15. Oh, saith the humble soul, will the Lord have respect unto such a vile worm as I am? Will the Lord acquaint himself with such a sinful wretch as I am? Will the Lord open his arms, his bosom, his heart to me? Shall such a loathsome creature as I find favour in his eyes? In Eze 16:1-5, we have a relation of the wonderful condescension of God to man, who is there resembled to a wretched infant cast out in the day of its birth, in its blood and filthiness, no eye pitying it; such loathsome creatures are we before God; and yet when he passed by, and saw us polluted in our blood, he said unto us, "Live." It is doubled because of the strength of its nature; it was "the time of love" (Eze 16:8). This was love indeed, that God should take a filthy, wretched thing, and spread his skirts over it, and cover its nakedness and swear unto it, and enter into a covenant with it, and make it his: that is, that he should espouse this loathsome thing to himself, that he would be a husband to it; this is love unfathomable, love inconceivable, self-principle love; this is the love of God to man, for God is love. Oh, the depth of the riches of the bounty and goodness of God! How is his love wonderful, and his grace past finding out! How do you find and feel your hearts affected upon the report of these things? Do you not see matter of admiration and cause of wonder? Are you not as it were launched forth into an ocean of goodness, where you can see no shore, nor feel no bottom? Ye may make a judgment of yourselves by the motions and affections that ye feel in yourselves at the mention of this. For thus Christ judged of the faith of the centurion that said unto him, "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof. When Jesus heard this, he marvelled, and said to them that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." Mt 8:8-10. If, then, you feel not your souls mightily affected with this condescension of God, say thus unto your souls, What aileth thee, O my soul, that thou art no more affected with the goodness of God? Art thou dead, that thou canst not feel? Or art thou blind, that thou canst not see thyself compassed about with astonishing goodness? Behold the King of glory descending from the habitation of his majesty, and coming to visit thee! Hearest not thou his voice, saying, "Open to me, my sister: behold, I stand at the door and knock. Lift up yourselves, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in"? Behold, O my soul, how he waits still, while thou hast refused to open to him! Oh, the wonder of his goodness! Oh, the condescension of his love, to visit me, to sue unto me, to wait upon me, to be acquianted with me! Thus work up your souls into an astonishment at the condescension of God. James Janeway, 1674.
Ver. 4. Man in Hebrewinfirm or miserable manby which it is apparent that he speaks of man not according to the state of his creation, but as fallen into a state of sin, and misery, and mortality. Art mindful of him, i.e., carest for him, and conferrest such high favours upon him. The son of man, Hebrew, the son of Adam, that great apostate from and rebel against God; the sinful son of a sinlful fatherhis son by likeness of disposition and manners, no less than by procreation; all which tends to magnify the divine mercy. That thou visitest, himnot in anger, as that word is sometimes used, but with thy grace and mercy, as it is taken in Ge 21:1; Ex 4:31; Ps 65:9; 106:4; 144:3.
Ver. 4. What is man? The Scripture gives many answers to this question. Ask the prophet Isaiah, "What is man?" and he answers (Isa 40:6), man is "grass""All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." Ask David, "What is man?" He answers (Ps 62:9), man is "a lie," not a liar only, or a deceiver, but "a lie," and a deceit. All the answers the Holy Ghost gives concerning man, are to humble man: man is ready to flatter himself, and one man to flatter another, but God tells us plainly what we are ... It is a wonder that God should vouchsafe a gracious look upon such a creature as man; it is wonderful, considering the distance between God and man, as man is a creature and God the creator. "What is man," that God should take notice of him? Is he not a clod of earth, a piece of clay? But consider him as a sinful and an unclean creature, and we may wonder to amazement: what is an unclean creature that God should magnify him? Will the Lord indeed put value on filthiness, and fix his approving eye upon an impure thing? One step further; what is rebellious man, man an enemy to God, that God should magnify him! what admiration can answer this question? Will God prefer his enemies, and magnify those who would cast him down? Will a prince exalt a traitor, or give him honour who attempts to take away his life? The sinful nature of man is an enemy to the nature of God, and would pull God out of heaven; yet God even at that time is raising man to heaven: sin would lessen the great God, and yet God greatens sinful man. Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 4. What is man? Oh, the granduer and littleness, the excellence and the corruption, the majesty and meanness of man! Pascal, 1623-1662.
Ver. 4. Thou visitest him. To visit is, first, to afflict, to chasten, yea, to punish; the highest judgments in Scripture come under the notions of visitations. "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" (Ex 34:7), that is, punishing them ... And it is a common speech with us when a house hath the plague, which is one of the highest strokes of temporal affliction, we used to say, "Such a house is visited." Observe then, afflictions are visitations ... Secondly, to visit, in a good sense, signifies to show mercy, and to refresh, to deliver and to bless; "Naomi heard how the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread." Ru 1:6. "The Lord visited Sarah," etc. Ge 21:1-2. That greatest mercy and deliverance that ever the children of men had, is thus expressed, "The Lord hath visited and redeemed his people." Lu 1:68. Mercies are visitations; when God comes in kindness and love to do us good, he visiteth us. And these mercies are called visitations in two respects: 1. Because God comes near to us when he doth us good; mercy is a drawing near to a soul, a drawing near to a place. As when God sends a judgment, or afflicts, he is said to depart and go away from that place; so when he doth us good, he comes near, and as it were applies himself in favour to our persons and habitations. 2. They are called a visitation because of the freeness of them. A visit is one of the freest things in the world; there is no obligation but that of love to make a visit; because such a man is my friend and I love him, therefore I visit him. Hence that greatest act of free grace in redeeming the world is called a visitation, because it was as freely done as ever any friend made a visit to see his friend, and with infinite more freedom. There was no obligation on man's side at all, many unkindnesses and neglects there were; God in love came to redeem man. Thirdly, to visit imports an act of care and inspection, of tutorage and direction. The pastor's office over the flock is expressed by this act (Zec 10:3; Ac 15:36); and the care we ought to have of the fatherless and widows is expressed by visiting them. "Pure religion," saith the apostle James, "Is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction" (Ac 1:27); and in Mt 25:34, Christ pronounceth the blessing on them who, when he was in prison, visited him, which was not a bare seeing, or asking `how do you,' but it was care of Christ in his imprisonment, and helpfulness and provision for him in his afflicted members. That sense also agrees well with this place, Job 7:17-18, "What is man, that thou shouldst visit him?" Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 4. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visiteth him?
Lord, what is man that thou So mindful art of him? Or what's the son Of man, that thou the highest heaven didst bow, And to his aide didst runne?
Man's but a piece of clay That's animated by thy heavenly breath, And when that breath thou tak'st away,
Hee's clay again by death.
He is not worthy of the least
Of all Thy mercies at the best.
Baser than clay is he, For sin hath made him like the beasts that perish, Though next the angels he was in degree;
Yet this beast thou dost cherish.
Hee is not worthy of the least,
Of all thy mercies, hee's a beast.
Worse than a beast is man, Who after thine own image made at first, Became the divel's sonne by sin. And can
A thing be more accurst?
Yet thou thy greatest mercy hast
On this accursed creature cast.
Thou didst thyself abase, And put off all thy robes of majesty, Taking his nature to give him thy grace, To save his life didst dye. He is not worthy of the least Of all thy mercies; one's a feast.
Lo! man is made now even With the blest angels, yea, superiour farre, Since Christ sat down at God's right hand in heaven,
And God and man one are. Thus all thy mercies man inherits, Though not the least of them he merits.
Thomas Washbourne, D.D., 1654.
Ver. 4. What is man?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man! How passing wonder HE who made him such! Who centred in our make such strange extremes! From different natures marvelously mix'd, Connexion exquisite of distant worlds! Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity! A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb'd, Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine! Dim miniature of greatness absolute! An heir of glory! a frail child of dust! Helpless immortal! insect infinite! A worm! a god! I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost.
Edward Young, 1681-1775.
(Ver. 4-8)What is man, etc.:
-Man is ev'ry thing, And more: he is a tree, yet bears no fruit; A beast, yet is, or should be more: Reason and speech we onely bring. Parrats may thank us, if they are not mute,
They go upon the score.
Man is all symmetrie, Full of proportions, one limbe to another,
And all to all the world besides:
Each part may call the farthest, brother. For head with foot hath private amitie,
And both with moons and tides.
Nothing hath got so farre, But man hath caught and kept it, as his prey. His eyes dismount the highest starre: He is in little all the sphere. Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Finde their acquaintance there.
For us the windes do blow; The earth doth rest, heav'n move, and fountains flow. Nothing we see, but means our good, As our delight, or as our treasure: The whole is, either our cupboard of food, Or cabinet of pleasure.
The starres have us to bed: Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws:
Musick and light attend our head.
All things unto our flesh are kinde In their descent and being; to our minde
In their ascent and cause.
Each thing is full of dutie: Waters united are our navigation; Distinguished, our habitation; Below, our drink; above, our meat: Both are our cleanlinesse. Hath one such beautie?
Then how are all things neat!
More servants wait on man, Than he'l take notice of: in ev'ry path
He treads down that which doth befriend him,
When sicknesse makes him pale and wan, Oh, mightie love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.
George Herbert, 1593.
Ver. 4. Man's insignificance. God's mindfulness of man. Divine visits. The question, "What is man?" Each of these themes may suffice for a discourse, or they may be handled in one sermon.
Ver. 5-8. These verses may set forth man's position among the creatures before he fell; but as they are, by the apostle Paul, appropriated to man as represented by the Lord Jesus, it is best to give most weight to that meaning. In order of dignity, man stood next to the angels, and a little lower than they; in the Lord Jesus this was accomplished, for he was made a little lower than the angels by the suffering of death. Man in Eden had the full command of all creatures, and they came before him to receive their names as an act of homage to him as the viceregent of God to them. Jesus in his glory, is now Lord, not only of all living, but of all created things, and, with the exception of him who put all things under him, Jesus is Lord of all, and his elect, in him, are raised to a dominion wider than that of the first Adam, as shall be more clearly seen at his coming. Well might the Psalmist wonder at the singular exaltation of man in the scale of being, when he marked his utter nothingness in comparison with the starry universe.
Thou madest him a little lower than the angelsa little lower in nature, since they are immortal, and but a little, because time is short; and when that is over, saints are no longer lower than the angels. The margin reads it, "A little while inferior to."
Thou crownest him. The dominion that God has bestowed on man is a great glory and honour to him; for all dominion is honour, and the highest is that which wears the crown. A full list is given of the subjugated creatures, to show that all the dominion lost by sin is restored in Christ Jesus. Let none of us permit the possession of any earthly creature to be a snare to us, but let us remember that we are to reign over them, and not to allow them to reign over us. Under our feet we must keep the world, and we must shun that base spirit which is content to let worldly cares and pleasures sway the empire of the immortal soul.
(Ver. 4-8.)What is man, etc.:
-Man is ev'ry thing, And more: he is a tree, yet bears no fruit; A beast, yet is, or should be more: Reason and speech we onely bring. Parrats may thank us, if they are not mute,
They go upon the score.
Man is all symmetrie, Full of proportions, one limbe to another,
And all to all the world besides:
Each part may call the farthest, brother. For head with foot hath private amitie,
And both with moons and tides.
Nothing hath got so farre, But man hath caught and kept it, as his prey. His eyes dismount the highest starre: He is in little all the sphere. Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Finde their acquaintance there.
For us the windes do blow; The earth doth rest, heav'n move, and fountains flow. Nothing we see,
but means of good, As our delight or as our treasure: The whole is, either our cupboard of food,
Or cabinet of pleasure.
The starres have us to bed: Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws:
Musick and light attend our head.
All things unto our flesh are kinde In their descent and being; to our minde
In their ascent and cause.
Each thing is full of dutie: Waters united are our navigation; Distinguished, our habitation; Below, our drink; above, our meat: Both are our cleanlinesse. Hath one such beautie?
Then how are all things neat!
More servants wait on man, Than he'l take notice of: in ev'ry path
He treads down that which doth befriend him,
When sicknesse makes him pale and wan, Oh, mightie love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.
George Herbert, 1593.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn vv5–6For Thou hast made him a little lower than…
Psa_8:5
For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.
Read full note →
Man a little lower than the angels
While the Psalmist refers primarily to man, we learn from St. Paul that the text has a further reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I. The text, as spoken of men. Perhaps it was not so much in nature as in position that man, as first formed, was inferior to the angels. Nothing higher could be affirmed of the angels than that they were made in the image of God. If, then, they had originally superiority over man, it must have been in the degree of resemblance. The angel was made immortal, intellectual, holy, powerful, glorious, and in these properties lay their likeness to the Creator. But were not these properties also given to man? Whatever originally the relative position of the angel and the man, we cannot question that since the fall man has been fearfully inferior to the angels. The effect of transgression has been to debase all his powers; but, however degraded and sunken, he still retains the capacities, of his original formation, and they many be so purged and enlarged as to produce, if we may not say to restore, the equality. Take the intellect of man; there is no limit to its progress. Use the like reasoning in regard to power, or holiness, or dignity. The Bible teems with notices, that so far from being by their nature higher than men, angels even now possess not an importance which belongs to our race. It is a mysterious thing, and one to which we scarcely dare allude, that there has arisen a Redeemer of fallen men, but not of fallen angels. And angels are represented as ministering sprints. Believers, as the children of God, are attended and waited on by angels. Then, while human nature is still walled off from every other in its special properties, risen spirits may stand on a par with the very noblest-created intelligence, glowing with the same holiness, arrayed in the same panoply, and gathering in from all the works of God the same immenseness of knowledge and the same material of ecstasy.
II. The text, as spoken of our Lord Jesus Christ. His being made a little lower than the angels is represented as with a view to the glory which was to be the recompense for His sufferings. This is a very important representation, and from it may be drawn a strong and clear argument for the divinity of Christ. We could never see how it could be humility in any creature, whatever the dignity of his condition, to assume the office of a Mediator, and to work out our reconciliation, if an unmeasured exaltation was to be the Mediators reward. A being who knew that he should be immeasurably elevated if he did a certain thing, can hardly be commended for the greatness of his humility in doing that thing. He must be the king already, ere his entering the state of slavery can furnish an example of humility. And yet in consenting to be made a little lower than the angels our blessed Redeemer actually humbled Himself. Who, then, can this man have been before becoming man? We cannot suppose that the attributes or properties of Godhead were capable of being laid aside or suspended. Shrouded and hidden, but not laid aside, was the divinity of Christ. If He could not lay aside the perfections, He could lay aside the glories of Deity. Every outward mark of majesty and greatness might be laid aside. He passes from the form of God to the likeness of men. It is not in the power of language to describe either the humility or the compassion thus displayed. It was literally the emptying Himself, the making Himself poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. (Henry Melvill, B. D.)
Man and angel
I. Man lower than the angels.
1. By creation the angel is the elder brother of the two, for he was created first. Angels songs always bear some reference to man; something pertaining to man invariably forms part of their theme. Not only in time is man lower than the angels, he is so--
2. In the substance from which he is formed. Angels are pure spirits, but one part of man is formed out of the clay.
3. In his habitation. God gave heaven for an abode unto the angels, but the earth hath He given to the children of men.
4. In his powers. Angels excel in strength. Man that is a worm, and the son of man that is a worm.
5. In his character. Man was not made as he is, but he has made himself so, by his sin.
II. Man equal to the angels.
1. Although not in the same workroom, they are in the same service. The kings livery is worn by the humblest guard of the mail, as well as by the highest officers of the household. The angel said to John in Patmos, I am thy fellow servant.
2. They are equal in rights and privileges. The godly man is as sure of heaven as any of the angels who are now there: only as yet he is not made meet for it.
3. In kindred, for man, too, is a child of God.
4. In duration of existence. Every man is to exist forever. Neither can they die any more.
III. Man higher than the angels. That is, in his glorified state.
1. He shall have a better feast. There will be dishes on mans table that angels can never taste.
2. Better apparel. Mans garments will be the workmanship of grace. They are more expensive. Angels garments cost only a word; but blood was essential to wash the robes of the saints and to make them white.
3. A better song. Saints have themes the angels cannot think upon, and strains which they can never reach.
4. A better position, and superior privileges. Angels shall approach very near the throne; but they shall never sit upon it. (David Roberts, D. D.)
Gods idea of man
What is the little which marks mans inferiority? It is mainly that the spirit, which is Gods image, is confined in and limited by flesh, and subject to death. The distance from the apex of creation to the Creator must ever be infinite; but man is so far above the non-sentient, though mighty, stars and the creatures that share earth with him, by reason of his being made in the Divine image--i.e., having consciousness, will, and reason--that the distance is foreshortened. The gulf between man and matter is greater than that between man and God. The moral separation caused by sin is not in the Psalmists mind. Thus man is invested with some reflection of Gods glory, and wears this as a crown. He is king on earth . . . Such then is man, as God meant him to be. Such a being is a more glorious revelation of the Name than all stars and systems. Looked at in regard to his duration, his years are a hand breadth before these shining ancients of days that have seen his generations fret their little hour and sink into silence; looked at in contrast with their magnitude and numbers, numberless, he is but an atom, and his dwelling place a speck. Science increases the knowledge of his insignificance, but perhaps not the impression of it made on a quiet heart by the simple sight of the heavens. But besides the merely scientific view, and the merely poetic, and the grimly agnostic, there is the other, the religious, and it is as valid today as ever. To it the heavens are the work of Gods linger, and their glories are His, set there by Him. That being so, mans littleness magnifies the Name, because it enhances the condescending love of God, which has greatened the littleness by such nearness of care, and such gifts of dignity. The reflection of His glory which blazes in the heavens is less bright than that which gleams in the crown of glory and honour on mans lowly yet lofty head. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The dignity of man--his restlessness
But little lower than God (R.V.). It seems as though man were born with the rudiments of omniscience, and was therefore bound to be made impatient by the discovered presence of anything that declined to be known; and born, likewise, with the rudiments of omnipresence, and therefore bound to be disquieted by the sight of any frontier not yet transcended. That is one of the startling proofs of the impatient in our nature. Put a man in a room, and, no matter how large the room, he wants the window up; every place crowds and we want to move out. From the time when Abraham crossed the Euphrates and Joshua went over the Jordan, mankind has been wanting to get out and over the river. We do not know all the lakes in Africa yet, but some of us are a good deal more interested over the imagined discovery of canals in the planet Mars than we are over the seas and waterways of the distant parts of our own globe. No pasture is so large but we want to get over the fence and crop the grass on the other side. Not only are we irritated by limitations of place, and try to be ubiquitous, but are similarly annoyed by limitations of time, and attempt to explore and map the centuries that preface recorded history, and even the ages that are the threshold of the present history of the earth and heavens. We are so accustomed to this habitual intrusion into untraversed domains that it can easily escape us what a certain irrepressibleness moving within us all this betokens; and this sailing out among the stars and then coming home, for a little while, to make a book of what we have seen there, what the stars are made of, how large they are, how much they weigh, whether they are young or old, infant, middle-aged, grey haired, or imbecile, and this groping back into the old years of our universe, towards the primeval days, tracking the progress of events, or trying to decipher the wheel marks made in the old strata or on the cosmic star mist by the giant car of onward movement when creations springtide was yet on, and then coming quietly back to today, and in an easy chair by the fire complacently penciling diary notes of the worlds babyhood, and with no feeling at all but that it is the thing for a man to do, that the universe is to be known, and that man is here to know it--well, there is a Titanic audacity about it all that is to me superbly uplifting. Man may bare failed in a good deal that he attempts, a good many diary memoranda he may have entered under the wrong day of the month or even under the wrong month, but there is a hugeness in the very venture that betrays Titanic fibre. There are certain heights of audacity that the fool may essay to scale, but there are cloud-piercing pinnacles of audacity that there is not room in a fools mind to even conceive or tension to adventure. But not only can man stand up in the face of nature and cross question it and compel it to testify too, but he can exercise upon nature a volitional as well as an intellectual mastery, and can harness it to his own purposes. We are not afraid of the World any more, in the old way in which men used to be, partly because we know her way. We know how to take her. We have a presentiment of what she is plotting before she does it, and so not likely, as once, to be caught napping. The forces that used to play about us with all the untrained friskiness of wild horses prancing and cantering over the plain we have caught, some of them, and have put a collar about their necks and bits in their mouths, and, by means of a good deal of draft tackle that we have rather ingeniously devised, have set them drawing our loads, turning our wheels, working our machinery, and running all our errands. And, now, what we call Civilisation is, a good deal of it, simply a matter of the success with which we make nature do our work. We are not, of course, claiming for man that he has completely subjected the worlds wide energy. Storm and steam have still to be dealt with warily--a thunderbolt is still hot if handled carelessly; but the entire attitude of man towards all these things is changed. A lion is stronger than a man, and if the two meet on brute ground the lion will always be a good deal more than a match for him; but man is a good deal smarter than the lion, and if the two meet on an intelligent ground, the lion will be driven to the wall. So in regard to the raw energies of the material world, if man undertakes to wrestle with nature on material ground, man will invariably be whipped, and the bit of lightning would be just as demoralising to a Socrates as to a mule or pony, providing the encounter take place on territory that is distinctively the lightnings own. But let a man take that same bit of lightning on to ground that is distinctively his own, and he will file its teeth and put a muzzle over its nose, and tie a string around its neck and attach a letter to that string and send the little amphibious streak either under the water to London or overland to San Francisco, and all over so quickly that you see his muzzle on the return trip almost before you had time to know that he was fully off. That is the sort of thing that man is when he steps off from the ground of materiality or of brutality and gathers himself together on the imperial platform of his own God-imitating personality; and there is where he wants to keep himself in all this matter of trying to appreciate his true and genuine denotement. Damaging and discouraging suspicions of diminutiveness are never going to insinuate themselves and get the better of us till we have been allowing our measure to be calculated on some other basis than that of what we distinctly are as personal beings. That is why David in the earlier part of this very Psalm was oppressed by thoughts of mans littleness; he undertook to compute human greatness with an astronomical tape line; he was distressed by the small figure he made as seen against the vastness of the stellar sky taken as a background. But the mere arithmetic immensity of the heavens has properly nothing to do with it; yardsticks are utterly foreign to the account. It was a far greater thing to be David contemplating the heavens than it was to be the heavens making eyes at David. It is a greater thing to be able to think the heavens than it is to be the heavens. (Charles H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
Mans glory--its loss and recovery
In the apse of St. Sophias, Constantinople, the guide points out a place where there is a hidden face of Christ portrayed by some early Christian artist. When the Mohammedan conqueror possessed himself of that noble Christian temple he ordered all Christian symbols to be effaced. This beautiful head of Christ was covered over with canvas. When the Christian conqueror again enters the gates of Constantinople the canvas will doubtless be torn away and this bit of early Christian art be brought to light and restored; and let but the gates of the city of mans soul be opened to the conquering King, and his Lord shall strip away the sins that hide Gods glory in these fleshly temples, and the resplendent image of God shall be seen in men once more.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield1917 · Public DomainOn v5For thou hast made him a little lower than…
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels
In Psalms 2. Christ was presented as Jehovah’s Son and King, rejected and crucified but yet to reign in Zion. In Psalms 8, while His deity is fully recognized (Psa 8:1), Psalms 110 with Mat 22:41-46 He is seen as Son of man Psa 8:4-6 who, "made for a little while lower than the angels, " is to have dominion over the redeemed creation Heb 2:6-11. The authority here is racial and Adamic, rather than purely divine as in Psalms 2, or Davidic as in Psalms 89. That which the first man lost, the second man and "last Adam" more than regained. Heb 2:6-11 in connection with Psalms 8, and Rom 8:17-21 show that the "many sons" whom He is bringing to glory, are joint heirs with Him in both the royal right of Psalms 2. and the human right of Hebrews 2. See Psalms 16, next in order of the Messianic Psalms.
Read full note →
angel (See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On v6You make him to rule over the works ...…
You make him to rule over the works ... you have put all things under his feet
These two clauses express similar meanings. (See: Parallelism)
Read full note →
You make him ... under his feet
"you make them ... under their feet." The words "him" and "his" here refer to people.
the works of your hands
The hands represent what God has done. AT: "the things that you made" (See: Metonymy)
you have put all things under his feet
Having authority to rule others or control things is spoken of as having them under one's feet. This means God gave people authority over all that he created. AT: "you have given him authority over all things" (See: Metaphor)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv4–68:4 human beings (literally son of Adam): The Hebrew…
8:4 human beings (literally son of Adam): The Hebrew idiom son of man (or son of Adam) means a human being. Through the influence of Dan 7:13-14, it became a title with divine overtones in the New Testament. See Heb 2:6-8, where this passage is quoted.
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv5–6 5. Thou hast made him little lower. The Hebrew…
5. Thou hast made him little lower. The Hebrew copulative כי, ki, I have no doubt, ought to be translated into the causal particle for, seeing the Psalmist confirms what he has just now said concerning the infinite goodness of God towards men, in showing himself near to them, and mindful of them. In the first place, he represents them as adorned with so many honors as to render their condition not far inferior to divine and celestial glory. In the second place, he mentions the external dominion and power which they possess over all creatures, from which it appears how high the degree of dignity is to which God hath exalted them. I have, indeed, no doubt but he intends, by the first, “Qu’il n’entende par la premier.” — Fr.
Certainly the fact that Paul uses the word angels instead of God, does not prove the inaccuracy of Calvin’s rendering. As the Septuagint version was in general use among the Jews in the time of Paul, he very naturally quotes from it just as we do from our English version. And this was sufficient for his purpose. His object was, to answer an objection which the Jews brought against the Christian dispensation, as being inferior to the Mosaic, inasmuch as angels were mediators of the latter, while the mediator or head of the former was in their estimation but a man. This objection he answers from their own Scriptures, and quotes this psalm to show, that Christ, in his human nature, was little inferior to the angels, and that he is exalted far above them in respect of the glory and dominion with which he is crowned. If the apostle had quoted from the Hebrew Scriptures, and used אלהים, Elohim, God, meaning the Most High, his argument in support of the dignity of Christ in human nature would have been still stronger. - See Stuart’s Commentary on the Hebrews, vol. 2, pp. 68-71.
Read full note →
There is another question which it is more difficult to solve. While the Psalmist here discourses concerning the excellency of men, and describes them, in respect of this, as coming near to God, the apostle applies the passage to the humiliation of Christ. In the first place, we must consider the propriety of applying to the person of Christ what is here spoken concerning all mankind; and, secondly, how we may explain it as referring to Christ’s being humbled in his death, when he lay without form or beauty, and as it were disfigured under the reproach and curse of the cross. What some say, that what is true of the members may be properly and suitably transferred to the head, might be a sufficient answer to the first question; but I go a step farther, for Christ is not only the first begotten of every creature, but also the restorer of mankind. What David here relates belongs properly to the beginning of the creation, when man’s nature was perfect. “Lorsque la nature de l’humain n’estoit point encore corrompue.” — Fr. “When the nature of man was not yet corrupted.”
What the apostle therefore says in that passage concerning the abasement of Christ for a short time, is not intended by him as an explanation of this text; but for the purpose of enriching and illustrating the subject on which he is discoursing, he introduces and accommodates to it what had been spoken in a different sense. The same apostle did not hesitate, in Romans 10:6, in the same manner to enrich and to employ, in a sense different from their original one, the words of Moses in Deuteronomy 30:12:
“Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?”
etc. The apostle, therefore, in quoting this psalm, had not so much an eye to what David meant; but making an allusion to these words, Thou hast made him a little lower; and again, Thou hast crowned him with honor, he applies this diminution to the death of Christ, and the glory and honor to his resurrection. “Tu l’as fait un peu moindre; puis Tu l’as couronne d’honneur, il approprie ceste diminution a la mort de Christ, et la gloire et bonneur a la resurrection.” — Fr.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv4–5 It had been sufficient, for him to have set…
It had been sufficient, for him to have set forth his glory by the heavens, though he had not come so low as to man, which is but dust.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv4–6 Psa 8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful…
Psa 8:4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
Ver. 4. What is man, that thou art mindful of him?] Sorry, sickly man, a mass of mortalities, a map of miseries, a mixture or compound of dirt and sin? And yet God is mindful of him; he not only takes care of him in an ordinary way, as he doth other creatures, but singularly attendeth and affecteth him, as a father doth his dearest child. He is Divini irigenii cura, saith one; he is the end of all in a semi-circle, saith another philosopher; meaning, that all things in the world were made for man, and man made for God; neither is there so much of the glory of God in all his works of wonder as in one gracious performance of a godly person. But if we understand the text (as the apostle doth, Heb 2:6) of tbe man Christ Jesus, Hic homo et filius hominis qualis et quantus est, Deus bone! saith Junius.
Read full note →
And the son of man] Heb. of earthly men; for what is the greatest potentate but πηλος κομφως πεφυραμενος, a piece of clay neatly made up? (Arrian in Epictet.)
That thou visitest him?] That thou mindest him more than other creatures, and makest him Lord of all? Thy visitation preserveth his spirit, Job 10:12.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv4–6 What, i.e. how mean and inconsiderable a thing is…
What, i.e. how mean and inconsiderable a thing is man, if compared with thy glorious Majesty, who art so infinite in power and wisdom, as thou hast showed in the frame of the heavens, &c. Man, Heb. infirm or miserable man; by which it is apparent that he speaks of man, not according to the state of his creation, but as fallen into a state of sin, and misery, and mortality.
Art mindful of him, i.e. carest for him, and conferrest such high favours upon him.
Read full note →
The son of man, Heb. the son of Adam, that great apostate from and rebel against God, the sinful son of a sinful father, his son by likeness of disposition and manners, no less than by procreation; all which tends to magnify the following mercy.
That thou visitest him; not in anger, as that word is sometimes used, but with thy grace and mercy, as it is taken, Gen 21:1; Exo 4:31; Psa 65:9; 106:4; 144:3.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv4–6 What is man, that thou art mindful of him?....…
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?.... That is, the psalmist, while he was considering the greatness and glory of the celestial bodies, thought this within himself, and so expressed it; which is to be understood, not of man in general, nor of Adam in a state of innocence; he could not be called "Enosh", the word here used, which signifies a frail, weak, sickly mortal man; nor could he with any propriety be said to be the son of man, as in the following clause: nor of fallen man, or of Adam's posterity, descending from him by ordinary generation; for all things are not put in subjection to them, as is hereafter said of man: but this is to be understood of the man Christ Jesus, as it is interpreted in Heb 2:6; or of that individual of human nature which Christ assumed. The name of Enosh well agrees with him, who was a man of no note and esteem among men, a worm and no man, a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs, encompassed with infirmities, and was subject to death, and did die. Now it was a marvellous thing that God should be mindful of that individual of human nature; that he should prepare it in his council and covenant; that among the vast numbers of individuals which it came up in his infinite mind to create, he should choose this, to exalt it, and appoint it to union with his own Son, and take that delight in it he did; that when it was formed by his Spirit, he should anoint it with the oil of gladness above his fellows; that he should take such providential care of it, and so often and so strongly express his affection for it; that he should regard it, and support it under sufferings; and when in the grave, did not leave it, nor suffer it to see corruption; but raised it from the dead, and gave it glory, and exalted it at his own right hand;
and the son of man, that thou visitest him? The name of "the son of man" is the name of the Messiah, in Psa 80:17; and is often given to Christ, and used by him of himself in the New Testament. And this visiting of him is not to be understood in a way of wrath, though he was so visited by God, when he bore the chastisements of his people; but in a way of favour, by bestowing upon him without measure the gifts and graces of his Spirit; by affording him his gracious presence, and tilling him with spiritual peace and joy.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv4–5 What is man - How mean and inconsiderable a…
What is man - How mean and inconsiderable a thing is man, if compared with thy glorious majesty. Man - Hebrew. infirm, or miserable man. By which it is apparent that he speaks of man, not according to the state of his creation, but as fallen into a state of sin and misery, and mortality. Mindful - Carest for him, and conferest such high favours upon him. The son - Hebrew. the son of Adam, that great apostate from God, the sinful son of a sinful father, his son by likeness of disposition and manners, no less than by procreation. All which tends to magnify the following mercy. Visitest - Not in anger, as that word is sometimes used, but with thy grace and mercy.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv4–6 Verse 4. What is man] מה אנוש mah enosh,…
Verse 4. What is man] מה אנוש mah enosh, what is wretched, miserable man; man in his fallen state, full of infirmity, ignorance, and sin?
That thou art mindful of him?] That thou settest thy heart upon him, keepest him continually in thy merciful view.
Read full note →
And the son of man] ובן אדם uben Adam, and the son of Adam, the first great rebel; the fallen child of a fallen parent. See the note on Job 7:17. Some think eminent men are here intended. What is man in common; what the most eminent men; that thou shouldst be mindful of them, or deign to visit them?
That thou visitest him?] By sending thy Holy Spirit to convince him of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It is by these visits that man is preserved in a salvable state. Were God to withhold them, there would be nothing in the soul of man but sin, darkness, hardness, corruption, and death.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv5–6 Psa 8:5. Thou hast made him a little lower…
Psa 8:5. Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels — Such was man as he came out of the hands of his Maker, in his primeval state. He was lower than the angels, because, by his body, he was allied to the earth, and to the beasts that perish; but as by his soul, which was spiritual and immortal, he was near akin to the angels; he might be truly said to be but a little lower than they, and was in order next to them. And hast crowned him with glory and honour — Endued him with noble faculties and capacities. He that gave man his being, distinguished him from the inferior creatures, and qualified him for dominion over them, by making him wiser than the beasts of the earth and the fowls of the heaven, Job 35:1. Man’s reason is his crown of glory, and he should take care not to profane that crown by perverting the use of it, nor forfeit it by acting contrary to its dictates.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv4–6 What is man - What claim has one so…
What is man - What claim has one so weak, and frail, and short-lived, to be remembered by time? What is there in man that entitles him to so much notice? Why has God conferred on him so signal honor? Why has he placed him over the works of his hands? Why has he made so many arrangements for his comfort? Why has he done so much to save him? He is so insignificant his life is so much like a vapor, he so soon disappears, he is so sinful and polluted, that the question may well be asked, why such honor has been conferred on him, and why such a dominion over the world has been given him. See these thoughts more fully expanded in the notes at Heb 2:6.
That thou art mindful of him - That thou dost remember him; that is, think of him, attend to him - that he does not pass away wholly from thy thoughts. Why should a God who is so vast and glorious, and who has all the starry worlds, so beautiful and grand, to claim his attention - why should he turn his thoughts on man? And especially why should he honor him as he has done by giving him dominion over the works of his hands?
Read full note →
And the son of man - Any descendant of man - any one of the race. What was man, as he was originally made, that such exalted honor should have been conferred on him; and what has any one of his descendants become, in virtue of his native faculties or acquired endowments, that he should be thus honored? The design is the same as in the former part of the verse, to express the idea that there was nothing in man, considered in any respect, that entitled him to this exalted honor. Nothing that man has done since the time when the question was asked by the psalmist has contributed to diminish the force of the inquiry.
That thou visitest him - As thou dost; that is, with the attention and care which thou dost bestow upon him; not forgetting him; not leaving him; not passing him by. The word used here - פקד pâqad - would properly express a visitation for any purpose - for inspection, for mercy; for friendship, for judgment, etc. Here it refers to the attention bestowed by God on man in conferring on him such marks of favor and honor as he had done - such attention that he never seemed to forget him, but was constantly coming to him with some new proof of favor. What God has done for man since the psalmist wrote this, has done nothing to weaken the force of this inquiry.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv4–5 man--literally, "frail man," an allusion to his essential infirmity.
man--literally, "frail man," an allusion to his essential infirmity.
son of man--only varies the form of speech.
Read full note →
visitest--in favor (Psa 65:10). This favor is now more fully illustrated.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv4–6 4. What is man—This connects with the first hemistich…
4. What is man—This connects with the first hemistich of Psa_8:3, thus— As often as I see thy heavens, I ask with wonder, What is man? The Hebrew words for “man,” and “son of man,” according to their radical sense, contemplate man from the frail and perishable side of his nature, and in this view the comparison is against him. But this is momentary and in appearance only. Suddenly the poet rises to the comprehension of man’s true rank and greatness in creation.
Art mindful… visitest him—Two words denoting special thought and oversight.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv4–6 4. Then (so the ellipse may be filled up),…
4. Then (so the ellipse may be filled up), the thought is forced upon me
What is frail man that thou shouldest be mindful of him?
Read full note →
And the son of man, that thou shouldest visit him?
The words for man are chosen to emphasise his weakness in contrast to the vast and (apparently) unchanging structure of the heavens. Enosh denotes man in his frailty, impotence, mortality (Psa_103:15); hence it is used with special frequency in Job, where man is contrasted with God (e.g. Job_4:17, where A.V. renders mortal man). Ben-âdâm (son of man) denotes man according to his earthly origin. Cp. Job’s ‘man that is born of a woman’ (Psa_14:1).
God’s ‘visitation’ of man is His constant, loving, providential, regard (Job_10:12). It is to God’s present and continuous care that the verse refers. It is not until Psa_8:5 that the Psalmist looks back to man’s original creation.
There is an echo of these words in Psa_144:3, and Jer_15:15; and Job parodies them, when he asks in the bitterness of his soul how man can be of such importance to God that He should think it worth while to persecute him (Psa_7:17 ff.).
On the quotation of Psa_8:4-6 in Heb_2:6 ff., see above.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv4–6 (4) Man . . . son of man .…
(4) Man . . . son of man . . .—The first, possibly, with suggestion of frailty; the second to his life derived from human ancestry. The answer to this question must always touch the two poles, of human frailty on the one hand, and the glory of human destiny on the other. “O the grandeur and the littleness, the excellence and the corruption, the majesty and the meanness, of man.”—Pascal.
The insignificance of man compared to the stars is a common theme of poetry; but how different the feeling of the Hebrew from that of the modern poet, who regrets the culture by which he had been
Read full note →
“Brought to understand
A sad astrology, the boundless plan
That makes you tyrants in your iron skies,
Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes,
Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand
His nothingness into man.”—TENNYSON: Maud.
And yet, again, how far removed from the other pole of modern feeling, which draws inanimate nature into close sympathy with human joy or sorrow, expressed in the following words:—“When I have gazed into these stars, have they not looked down upon me as if with pity from their serene spaces, like eyes glistening with heavenly tears over the little lot of man?”—Carlyle.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv4–6 What is man, that thou art mindful of him?…
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? In comparison with the lofty heavens, the radiant moon, and the hosts of sparkling stars, man seems to the psalmist wholly unworthy of God"s attention. He is not, like Job, impatient of God"s constant observation, (Job_7:17-20) but simply filled with wonder at his marvellous condescension. (comp. Psa_144:3) And the son of man, that thou visitest him? The "son of man" here is a mere variant for "man" in the preceding hemistich. The clause merely emphasizes the general idea.
Man"s littleness and his greatness.
Read full note →
"What is man," etc.? The littleness and greatness of man are set before us here in powerful contrast. In view of this vast magnificent universe, he seems a speck, an atom, a vapour that appears and vanishes. (Jam_4:14) But the love, care, grace of his Maker lift him to a height where he sees the world at his feet; he is endowed with a life, heir to a glory, that shall endure when the earth and the heavens pass away.
I There is THE EARTHLY SIDE OF HUMAN LIFE. Its littleness, frailty, brevity. "What is man?
1. Compare the actual littleness and bodily weakness of man with the immensity of the material universe, the awful might of its never-wearying forces, the stability of its structure, the unswerving, undenying constancy of its laws. Illustrate from the discoveries of astronomy, geology, etc. Compare a long human life with that of an oak of a thousand years. But a thousand years are but a day a few minutes compared with the mighty past, the eternal future. (1Ch_29:15 Psa_90:3-6)
2. Consider the narrow limits of human life. Deduct from the effective force of even a well-spent life the time absorbed by infancy, sleep, sickness, trifles, outward hindrances, weakness, and decay. How great a proportion of the race is immersed in barbarism! How limited is man"s knowledge, even with the vast accessions of this century, compared with his illimitable ignorance! How powerless is he in the grasp of circumstances! If the Earth but stirs in her sleep, his cities fall. If the wind blows in its strength, his navies are wrecked. If the invisible seeds of pestilence crowd the air, he must breathe or die his science is baffled. If the clouds withhold rain or pour out too much, famine enters his home. If the earth refuses him gold, or yields it too rapidly and easily, his commerce is deranged. (Psa_39:5, Psa_39:6)
3. Consider, too, the perishing, vanishing nature of man"s greatest achievements, richest possessions, sweetest earthly joys and hopes. It is no wonder that, with those who meditate deeply on human life, and observe largely, seeing only its earthly side, philosophy should turn sour and curdle into "pessimism." "Is life worth living?
II THE DIVINE SIDE. "Thou art mindful of him; ... thou visitest him." The greatness and glory of man"s nature are seen:
1. In its origin. (Ver. 5) Man is the child of God. (Gen_1:26, 27 Act_17:28, Act_17:29)
2. In the care of Gods providence. In those unmeasured ages, before man arrived, which so oppress our imagination, God was preparing the earth for man. For other creatures also, it is true, but not as for him. To each lower creature he gave its own haunt, its own food; but they sow no harvests, plant no forests, quarry no hills, pasture no flocks, navigate no seas; know nothing of nature as a whole its beauty, mystery, wealth of enjoyment. For man was made the whole (vers. 6-8). It is God who has made the universe man"s storehouse, and "ministereth seed," etc. (2Co_9:10)
3. In what we may call spiritual providence; the grace and love which order the life of each one of God"s children, making sorrow and trouble a gracious discipline. (Heb_12:6, 7 13:5)
4. Above all, in Gods unspeakable Gift. (1Jn_5:11) In the incarnate Son of God our humanity is exalted to the supreme height of glory. (Php_2:9-11 Heb_2:6-9) To the image of his glory the humblest believer is to be raised. (Rom_8:29 1Jn_3:2)
LESSONS.
1. Humility.
2. Faith.
3. Adoration.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv4–6 Ver. 4. What is man that thou art mindful…
Ver. 4. What is man that thou art mindful of him? etc. My readers must be careful to mark the design of the psalmist, which is to enhance, by this comparison, the infinite goodness of God; for it is, indeed, a wonderful thing that the Creator of heaven, whose glory is so surpassingly great as to ravish us with the highest admiration, condescends so far as graciously to take upon him the care of the human race. That the psalmist makes this contrast must be inferred from the Hebrew word (fwna) enosh, which we have rendered man, and which expresses the frailty of man rather than any strength or power which he possesses ... Almost all interpreters render (dqp), pakad, the last word of this verse, to visit; and I am unwilling to differ from them, since t and as we will often find in the Psalms the repetition of the same thought in different words, it may here be very properly translated to remember; as if David had said, "This is a marvelous thing, that God thinks upon men, and remembers them continually." John Calvin, 1509-1564.
Ver. 4. What is man? But, O God, what a little lord hast thou made over this great world! The least corn of sand is not so small to the whole earth, as man is to the heaven. When I see the heavens, the sun, the moon, and stars, O God, what is man? Who would think that thou shouldest make all these creatures for one, and that one well-near the least of all? Yet none but he can see what thou hast done; none but he can admire and adore thee in what he seeth: how had he need to do nothing but this, since he alone must do it! Certainly the price and value of things consist not in the quantity; one diamond is worth more than many quarries of stone; one lodestone hath more virtue than mountains of earth. It is lawful for us to praise thee in ourselves. All thy creation hath not more wonder in it than one of us: other creatures thou madest by a simple command; MAN, not without a divine consultation: others at once; man thou didst form, then inspire: others in several shapes, like to none but themselves; man, after thine own image: others with qualities fit for service; man, for dominion. Man had his name from thee; they had their names from man. How should we be consecrated to thee above all others, since thou hast bestowed more cost on us than other! Joseph Hall, D.D., Bishop of Norwich, 1574-1656.
Read full note →
Ver. 4. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou shouldst visit him? And (Job 7:17-18) "What is man, that thou shouldst magnify him? and that thou shouldst set thy heart upon him? and that thou shouldst visit him every morning?" Man, in the pride of his heart, seeth no such great matter in it; but a humble soul is filled with astonishment. "Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Isa 57:15. Oh, saith the humble soul, will the Lord have respect unto such a vile worm as I am? Will the Lord acquaint himself with such a sinful wretch as I am? Will the Lord open his arms, his bosom, his heart to me? Shall such a loathsome creature as I find favour in his eyes? In Eze 16:1-5, we have a relation of the wonderful condescension of God to man, who is there resembled to a wretched infant cast out in the day of its birth, in its blood and filthiness, no eye pitying it; such loathsome creatures are we before God; and yet when he passed by, and saw us polluted in our blood, he said unto us, "Live." It is doubled because of the strength of its nature; it was "the time of love" (Eze 16:8). This was love indeed, that God should take a filthy, wretched thing, and spread his skirts over it, and cover its nakedness and swear unto it, and enter into a covenant with it, and make it his: that is, that he should espouse this loathsome thing to himself, that he would be a husband to it; this is love unfathomable, love inconceivable, self-principle love; this is the love of God to man, for God is love. Oh, the depth of the riches of the bounty and goodness of God! How is his love wonderful, and his grace past finding out! How do you find and feel your hearts affected upon the report of these things? Do you not see matter of admiration and cause of wonder? Are you not as it were launched forth into an ocean of goodness, where you can see no shore, nor feel no bottom? Ye may make a judgment of yourselves by the motions and affections that ye feel in yourselves at the mention of this. For thus Christ judged of the faith of the centurion that said unto him, "Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof. When Jesus heard this, he marvelled, and said to them that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." Mt 8:8-10. If, then, you feel not your souls mightily affected with this condescension of God, say thus unto your souls, What aileth thee, O my soul, that thou art no more affected with the goodness of God? Art thou dead, that thou canst not feel? Or art thou blind, that thou canst not see thyself compassed about with astonishing goodness? Behold the King of glory descending from the habitation of his majesty, and coming to visit thee! Hearest not thou his voice, saying, "Open to me, my sister: behold, I stand at the door and knock. Lift up yourselves, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, that the King of glory may come in"? Behold, O my soul, how he waits still, while thou hast refused to open to him! Oh, the wonder of his goodness! Oh, the condescension of his love, to visit me, to sue unto me, to wait upon me, to be acquianted with me! Thus work up your souls into an astonishment at the condescension of God. James Janeway, 1674.
Ver. 4. Man in Hebrewinfirm or miserable manby which it is apparent that he speaks of man not according to the state of his creation, but as fallen into a state of sin, and misery, and mortality. Art mindful of him, i.e., carest for him, and conferrest such high favours upon him. The son of man, Hebrew, the son of Adam, that great apostate from and rebel against God; the sinful son of a sinlful fatherhis son by likeness of disposition and manners, no less than by procreation; all which tends to magnify the divine mercy. That thou visitest, himnot in anger, as that word is sometimes used, but with thy grace and mercy, as it is taken in Ge 21:1; Ex 4:31; Ps 65:9; 106:4; 144:3.
Ver. 4. What is man? The Scripture gives many answers to this question. Ask the prophet Isaiah, "What is man?" and he answers (Isa 40:6), man is "grass""All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." Ask David, "What is man?" He answers (Ps 62:9), man is "a lie," not a liar only, or a deceiver, but "a lie," and a deceit. All the answers the Holy Ghost gives concerning man, are to humble man: man is ready to flatter himself, and one man to flatter another, but God tells us plainly what we are ... It is a wonder that God should vouchsafe a gracious look upon such a creature as man; it is wonderful, considering the distance between God and man, as man is a creature and God the creator. "What is man," that God should take notice of him? Is he not a clod of earth, a piece of clay? But consider him as a sinful and an unclean creature, and we may wonder to amazement: what is an unclean creature that God should magnify him? Will the Lord indeed put value on filthiness, and fix his approving eye upon an impure thing? One step further; what is rebellious man, man an enemy to God, that God should magnify him! what admiration can answer this question? Will God prefer his enemies, and magnify those who would cast him down? Will a prince exalt a traitor, or give him honour who attempts to take away his life? The sinful nature of man is an enemy to the nature of God, and would pull God out of heaven; yet God even at that time is raising man to heaven: sin would lessen the great God, and yet God greatens sinful man. Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 4. What is man? Oh, the granduer and littleness, the excellence and the corruption, the majesty and meanness of man! Pascal, 1623-1662.
Ver. 4. Thou visitest him. To visit is, first, to afflict, to chasten, yea, to punish; the highest judgments in Scripture come under the notions of visitations. "Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" (Ex 34:7), that is, punishing them ... And it is a common speech with us when a house hath the plague, which is one of the highest strokes of temporal affliction, we used to say, "Such a house is visited." Observe then, afflictions are visitations ... Secondly, to visit, in a good sense, signifies to show mercy, and to refresh, to deliver and to bless; "Naomi heard how the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread." Ru 1:6. "The Lord visited Sarah," etc. Ge 21:1-2. That greatest mercy and deliverance that ever the children of men had, is thus expressed, "The Lord hath visited and redeemed his people." Lu 1:68. Mercies are visitations; when God comes in kindness and love to do us good, he visiteth us. And these mercies are called visitations in two respects: 1. Because God comes near to us when he doth us good; mercy is a drawing near to a soul, a drawing near to a place. As when God sends a judgment, or afflicts, he is said to depart and go away from that place; so when he doth us good, he comes near, and as it were applies himself in favour to our persons and habitations. 2. They are called a visitation because of the freeness of them. A visit is one of the freest things in the world; there is no obligation but that of love to make a visit; because such a man is my friend and I love him, therefore I visit him. Hence that greatest act of free grace in redeeming the world is called a visitation, because it was as freely done as ever any friend made a visit to see his friend, and with infinite more freedom. There was no obligation on man's side at all, many unkindnesses and neglects there were; God in love came to redeem man. Thirdly, to visit imports an act of care and inspection, of tutorage and direction. The pastor's office over the flock is expressed by this act (Zec 10:3; Ac 15:36); and the care we ought to have of the fatherless and widows is expressed by visiting them. "Pure religion," saith the apostle James, "Is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction" (Ac 1:27); and in Mt 25:34, Christ pronounceth the blessing on them who, when he was in prison, visited him, which was not a bare seeing, or asking `how do you,' but it was care of Christ in his imprisonment, and helpfulness and provision for him in his afflicted members. That sense also agrees well with this place, Job 7:17-18, "What is man, that thou shouldst visit him?" Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 4. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visiteth him?
Lord, what is man that thou So mindful art of him? Or what's the son Of man, that thou the highest heaven didst bow, And to his aide didst runne?
Man's but a piece of clay That's animated by thy heavenly breath, And when that breath thou tak'st away,
Hee's clay again by death.
He is not worthy of the least
Of all Thy mercies at the best.
Baser than clay is he, For sin hath made him like the beasts that perish, Though next the angels he was in degree;
Yet this beast thou dost cherish.
Hee is not worthy of the least,
Of all thy mercies, hee's a beast.
Worse than a beast is man, Who after thine own image made at first, Became the divel's sonne by sin. And can
A thing be more accurst?
Yet thou thy greatest mercy hast
On this accursed creature cast.
Thou didst thyself abase, And put off all thy robes of majesty, Taking his nature to give him thy grace, To save his life didst dye. He is not worthy of the least Of all thy mercies; one's a feast.
Lo! man is made now even With the blest angels, yea, superiour farre, Since Christ sat down at God's right hand in heaven,
And God and man one are. Thus all thy mercies man inherits, Though not the least of them he merits.
Thomas Washbourne, D.D., 1654.
Ver. 4. What is man?
How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, How complicate, how wonderful is man! How passing wonder HE who made him such! Who centred in our make such strange extremes! From different natures marvelously mix'd, Connexion exquisite of distant worlds! Distinguish'd link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity! A beam ethereal, sullied and absorb'd, Though sullied and dishonour'd, still divine! Dim miniature of greatness absolute! An heir of glory! a frail child of dust! Helpless immortal! insect infinite! A worm! a god! I tremble at myself, And in myself am lost.
Edward Young, 1681-1775.
(Ver. 4-8)What is man, etc.:
-Man is ev'ry thing, And more: he is a tree, yet bears no fruit; A beast, yet is, or should be more: Reason and speech we onely bring. Parrats may thank us, if they are not mute,
They go upon the score.
Man is all symmetrie, Full of proportions, one limbe to another,
And all to all the world besides:
Each part may call the farthest, brother. For head with foot hath private amitie,
And both with moons and tides.
Nothing hath got so farre, But man hath caught and kept it, as his prey. His eyes dismount the highest starre: He is in little all the sphere. Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Finde their acquaintance there.
For us the windes do blow; The earth doth rest, heav'n move, and fountains flow. Nothing we see, but means our good, As our delight, or as our treasure: The whole is, either our cupboard of food, Or cabinet of pleasure.
The starres have us to bed: Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws:
Musick and light attend our head.
All things unto our flesh are kinde In their descent and being; to our minde
In their ascent and cause.
Each thing is full of dutie: Waters united are our navigation; Distinguished, our habitation; Below, our drink; above, our meat: Both are our cleanlinesse. Hath one such beautie?
Then how are all things neat!
More servants wait on man, Than he'l take notice of: in ev'ry path
He treads down that which doth befriend him,
When sicknesse makes him pale and wan, Oh, mightie love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.
George Herbert, 1593.
Ver. 4. Man's insignificance. God's mindfulness of man. Divine visits. The question, "What is man?" Each of these themes may suffice for a discourse, or they may be handled in one sermon.
Ver. 5-8. These verses may set forth man's position among the creatures before he fell; but as they are, by the apostle Paul, appropriated to man as represented by the Lord Jesus, it is best to give most weight to that meaning. In order of dignity, man stood next to the angels, and a little lower than they; in the Lord Jesus this was accomplished, for he was made a little lower than the angels by the suffering of death. Man in Eden had the full command of all creatures, and they came before him to receive their names as an act of homage to him as the viceregent of God to them. Jesus in his glory, is now Lord, not only of all living, but of all created things, and, with the exception of him who put all things under him, Jesus is Lord of all, and his elect, in him, are raised to a dominion wider than that of the first Adam, as shall be more clearly seen at his coming. Well might the Psalmist wonder at the singular exaltation of man in the scale of being, when he marked his utter nothingness in comparison with the starry universe.
Thou madest him a little lower than the angelsa little lower in nature, since they are immortal, and but a little, because time is short; and when that is over, saints are no longer lower than the angels. The margin reads it, "A little while inferior to."
Thou crownest him. The dominion that God has bestowed on man is a great glory and honour to him; for all dominion is honour, and the highest is that which wears the crown. A full list is given of the subjugated creatures, to show that all the dominion lost by sin is restored in Christ Jesus. Let none of us permit the possession of any earthly creature to be a snare to us, but let us remember that we are to reign over them, and not to allow them to reign over us. Under our feet we must keep the world, and we must shun that base spirit which is content to let worldly cares and pleasures sway the empire of the immortal soul.
(Ver. 4-8.)What is man, etc.:
-Man is ev'ry thing, And more: he is a tree, yet bears no fruit; A beast, yet is, or should be more: Reason and speech we onely bring. Parrats may thank us, if they are not mute,
They go upon the score.
Man is all symmetrie, Full of proportions, one limbe to another,
And all to all the world besides:
Each part may call the farthest, brother. For head with foot hath private amitie,
And both with moons and tides.
Nothing hath got so farre, But man hath caught and kept it, as his prey. His eyes dismount the highest starre: He is in little all the sphere. Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Finde their acquaintance there.
For us the windes do blow; The earth doth rest, heav'n move, and fountains flow. Nothing we see,
but means of good, As our delight or as our treasure: The whole is, either our cupboard of food,
Or cabinet of pleasure.
The starres have us to bed: Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws:
Musick and light attend our head.
All things unto our flesh are kinde In their descent and being; to our minde
In their ascent and cause.
Each thing is full of dutie: Waters united are our navigation; Distinguished, our habitation; Below, our drink; above, our meat: Both are our cleanlinesse. Hath one such beautie?
Then how are all things neat!
More servants wait on man, Than he'l take notice of: in ev'ry path
He treads down that which doth befriend him,
When sicknesse makes him pale and wan, Oh, mightie love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.
George Herbert, 1593.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv5–6 For Thou hast made him a little lower than…
Psa_8:5
For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels.
Read full note →
Man a little lower than the angels
While the Psalmist refers primarily to man, we learn from St. Paul that the text has a further reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.
I. The text, as spoken of men. Perhaps it was not so much in nature as in position that man, as first formed, was inferior to the angels. Nothing higher could be affirmed of the angels than that they were made in the image of God. If, then, they had originally superiority over man, it must have been in the degree of resemblance. The angel was made immortal, intellectual, holy, powerful, glorious, and in these properties lay their likeness to the Creator. But were not these properties also given to man? Whatever originally the relative position of the angel and the man, we cannot question that since the fall man has been fearfully inferior to the angels. The effect of transgression has been to debase all his powers; but, however degraded and sunken, he still retains the capacities, of his original formation, and they many be so purged and enlarged as to produce, if we may not say to restore, the equality. Take the intellect of man; there is no limit to its progress. Use the like reasoning in regard to power, or holiness, or dignity. The Bible teems with notices, that so far from being by their nature higher than men, angels even now possess not an importance which belongs to our race. It is a mysterious thing, and one to which we scarcely dare allude, that there has arisen a Redeemer of fallen men, but not of fallen angels. And angels are represented as ministering sprints. Believers, as the children of God, are attended and waited on by angels. Then, while human nature is still walled off from every other in its special properties, risen spirits may stand on a par with the very noblest-created intelligence, glowing with the same holiness, arrayed in the same panoply, and gathering in from all the works of God the same immenseness of knowledge and the same material of ecstasy.
II. The text, as spoken of our Lord Jesus Christ. His being made a little lower than the angels is represented as with a view to the glory which was to be the recompense for His sufferings. This is a very important representation, and from it may be drawn a strong and clear argument for the divinity of Christ. We could never see how it could be humility in any creature, whatever the dignity of his condition, to assume the office of a Mediator, and to work out our reconciliation, if an unmeasured exaltation was to be the Mediators reward. A being who knew that he should be immeasurably elevated if he did a certain thing, can hardly be commended for the greatness of his humility in doing that thing. He must be the king already, ere his entering the state of slavery can furnish an example of humility. And yet in consenting to be made a little lower than the angels our blessed Redeemer actually humbled Himself. Who, then, can this man have been before becoming man? We cannot suppose that the attributes or properties of Godhead were capable of being laid aside or suspended. Shrouded and hidden, but not laid aside, was the divinity of Christ. If He could not lay aside the perfections, He could lay aside the glories of Deity. Every outward mark of majesty and greatness might be laid aside. He passes from the form of God to the likeness of men. It is not in the power of language to describe either the humility or the compassion thus displayed. It was literally the emptying Himself, the making Himself poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. (Henry Melvill, B. D.)
Man and angel
I. Man lower than the angels.
1. By creation the angel is the elder brother of the two, for he was created first. Angels songs always bear some reference to man; something pertaining to man invariably forms part of their theme. Not only in time is man lower than the angels, he is so--
2. In the substance from which he is formed. Angels are pure spirits, but one part of man is formed out of the clay.
3. In his habitation. God gave heaven for an abode unto the angels, but the earth hath He given to the children of men.
4. In his powers. Angels excel in strength. Man that is a worm, and the son of man that is a worm.
5. In his character. Man was not made as he is, but he has made himself so, by his sin.
II. Man equal to the angels.
1. Although not in the same workroom, they are in the same service. The kings livery is worn by the humblest guard of the mail, as well as by the highest officers of the household. The angel said to John in Patmos, I am thy fellow servant.
2. They are equal in rights and privileges. The godly man is as sure of heaven as any of the angels who are now there: only as yet he is not made meet for it.
3. In kindred, for man, too, is a child of God.
4. In duration of existence. Every man is to exist forever. Neither can they die any more.
III. Man higher than the angels. That is, in his glorified state.
1. He shall have a better feast. There will be dishes on mans table that angels can never taste.
2. Better apparel. Mans garments will be the workmanship of grace. They are more expensive. Angels garments cost only a word; but blood was essential to wash the robes of the saints and to make them white.
3. A better song. Saints have themes the angels cannot think upon, and strains which they can never reach.
4. A better position, and superior privileges. Angels shall approach very near the throne; but they shall never sit upon it. (David Roberts, D. D.)
Gods idea of man
What is the little which marks mans inferiority? It is mainly that the spirit, which is Gods image, is confined in and limited by flesh, and subject to death. The distance from the apex of creation to the Creator must ever be infinite; but man is so far above the non-sentient, though mighty, stars and the creatures that share earth with him, by reason of his being made in the Divine image--i.e., having consciousness, will, and reason--that the distance is foreshortened. The gulf between man and matter is greater than that between man and God. The moral separation caused by sin is not in the Psalmists mind. Thus man is invested with some reflection of Gods glory, and wears this as a crown. He is king on earth . . . Such then is man, as God meant him to be. Such a being is a more glorious revelation of the Name than all stars and systems. Looked at in regard to his duration, his years are a hand breadth before these shining ancients of days that have seen his generations fret their little hour and sink into silence; looked at in contrast with their magnitude and numbers, numberless, he is but an atom, and his dwelling place a speck. Science increases the knowledge of his insignificance, but perhaps not the impression of it made on a quiet heart by the simple sight of the heavens. But besides the merely scientific view, and the merely poetic, and the grimly agnostic, there is the other, the religious, and it is as valid today as ever. To it the heavens are the work of Gods linger, and their glories are His, set there by Him. That being so, mans littleness magnifies the Name, because it enhances the condescending love of God, which has greatened the littleness by such nearness of care, and such gifts of dignity. The reflection of His glory which blazes in the heavens is less bright than that which gleams in the crown of glory and honour on mans lowly yet lofty head. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The dignity of man--his restlessness
But little lower than God (R.V.). It seems as though man were born with the rudiments of omniscience, and was therefore bound to be made impatient by the discovered presence of anything that declined to be known; and born, likewise, with the rudiments of omnipresence, and therefore bound to be disquieted by the sight of any frontier not yet transcended. That is one of the startling proofs of the impatient in our nature. Put a man in a room, and, no matter how large the room, he wants the window up; every place crowds and we want to move out. From the time when Abraham crossed the Euphrates and Joshua went over the Jordan, mankind has been wanting to get out and over the river. We do not know all the lakes in Africa yet, but some of us are a good deal more interested over the imagined discovery of canals in the planet Mars than we are over the seas and waterways of the distant parts of our own globe. No pasture is so large but we want to get over the fence and crop the grass on the other side. Not only are we irritated by limitations of place, and try to be ubiquitous, but are similarly annoyed by limitations of time, and attempt to explore and map the centuries that preface recorded history, and even the ages that are the threshold of the present history of the earth and heavens. We are so accustomed to this habitual intrusion into untraversed domains that it can easily escape us what a certain irrepressibleness moving within us all this betokens; and this sailing out among the stars and then coming home, for a little while, to make a book of what we have seen there, what the stars are made of, how large they are, how much they weigh, whether they are young or old, infant, middle-aged, grey haired, or imbecile, and this groping back into the old years of our universe, towards the primeval days, tracking the progress of events, or trying to decipher the wheel marks made in the old strata or on the cosmic star mist by the giant car of onward movement when creations springtide was yet on, and then coming quietly back to today, and in an easy chair by the fire complacently penciling diary notes of the worlds babyhood, and with no feeling at all but that it is the thing for a man to do, that the universe is to be known, and that man is here to know it--well, there is a Titanic audacity about it all that is to me superbly uplifting. Man may bare failed in a good deal that he attempts, a good many diary memoranda he may have entered under the wrong day of the month or even under the wrong month, but there is a hugeness in the very venture that betrays Titanic fibre. There are certain heights of audacity that the fool may essay to scale, but there are cloud-piercing pinnacles of audacity that there is not room in a fools mind to even conceive or tension to adventure. But not only can man stand up in the face of nature and cross question it and compel it to testify too, but he can exercise upon nature a volitional as well as an intellectual mastery, and can harness it to his own purposes. We are not afraid of the World any more, in the old way in which men used to be, partly because we know her way. We know how to take her. We have a presentiment of what she is plotting before she does it, and so not likely, as once, to be caught napping. The forces that used to play about us with all the untrained friskiness of wild horses prancing and cantering over the plain we have caught, some of them, and have put a collar about their necks and bits in their mouths, and, by means of a good deal of draft tackle that we have rather ingeniously devised, have set them drawing our loads, turning our wheels, working our machinery, and running all our errands. And, now, what we call Civilisation is, a good deal of it, simply a matter of the success with which we make nature do our work. We are not, of course, claiming for man that he has completely subjected the worlds wide energy. Storm and steam have still to be dealt with warily--a thunderbolt is still hot if handled carelessly; but the entire attitude of man towards all these things is changed. A lion is stronger than a man, and if the two meet on brute ground the lion will always be a good deal more than a match for him; but man is a good deal smarter than the lion, and if the two meet on an intelligent ground, the lion will be driven to the wall. So in regard to the raw energies of the material world, if man undertakes to wrestle with nature on material ground, man will invariably be whipped, and the bit of lightning would be just as demoralising to a Socrates as to a mule or pony, providing the encounter take place on territory that is distinctively the lightnings own. But let a man take that same bit of lightning on to ground that is distinctively his own, and he will file its teeth and put a muzzle over its nose, and tie a string around its neck and attach a letter to that string and send the little amphibious streak either under the water to London or overland to San Francisco, and all over so quickly that you see his muzzle on the return trip almost before you had time to know that he was fully off. That is the sort of thing that man is when he steps off from the ground of materiality or of brutality and gathers himself together on the imperial platform of his own God-imitating personality; and there is where he wants to keep himself in all this matter of trying to appreciate his true and genuine denotement. Damaging and discouraging suspicions of diminutiveness are never going to insinuate themselves and get the better of us till we have been allowing our measure to be calculated on some other basis than that of what we distinctly are as personal beings. That is why David in the earlier part of this very Psalm was oppressed by thoughts of mans littleness; he undertook to compute human greatness with an astronomical tape line; he was distressed by the small figure he made as seen against the vastness of the stellar sky taken as a background. But the mere arithmetic immensity of the heavens has properly nothing to do with it; yardsticks are utterly foreign to the account. It was a far greater thing to be David contemplating the heavens than it was to be the heavens making eyes at David. It is a greater thing to be able to think the heavens than it is to be the heavens. (Charles H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
Mans glory--its loss and recovery
In the apse of St. Sophias, Constantinople, the guide points out a place where there is a hidden face of Christ portrayed by some early Christian artist. When the Mohammedan conqueror possessed himself of that noble Christian temple he ordered all Christian symbols to be effaced. This beautiful head of Christ was covered over with canvas. When the Christian conqueror again enters the gates of Constantinople the canvas will doubtless be torn away and this bit of early Christian art be brought to light and restored; and let but the gates of the city of mans soul be opened to the conquering King, and his Lord shall strip away the sins that hide Gods glory in these fleshly temples, and the resplendent image of God shall be seen in men once more.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v5 For thou hast made him a little lower than…
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels
In Psalms 2. Christ was presented as Jehovah’s Son and King, rejected and crucified but yet to reign in Zion. In Psalms 8, while His deity is fully recognized (Psa 8:1), Psalms 110 with Mat 22:41-46 He is seen as Son of man Psa 8:4-6 who, "made for a little while lower than the angels, " is to have dominion over the redeemed creation Heb 2:6-11. The authority here is racial and Adamic, rather than purely divine as in Psalms 2, or Davidic as in Psalms 89. That which the first man lost, the second man and "last Adam" more than regained. Heb 2:6-11 in connection with Psalms 8, and Rom 8:17-21 show that the "many sons" whom He is bringing to glory, are joint heirs with Him in both the royal right of Psalms 2. and the human right of Hebrews 2. See Psalms 16, next in order of the Messianic Psalms.
Read full note →
angel (See Scofield "Heb 1:4").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v6 You make him to rule over the works ...…
You make him to rule over the works ... you have put all things under his feet
These two clauses express similar meanings. (See: Parallelism)
Read full note →
You make him ... under his feet
"you make them ... under their feet." The words "him" and "his" here refer to people.
the works of your hands
The hands represent what God has done. AT: "the things that you made" (See: Metonymy)
you have put all things under his feet
Having authority to rule others or control things is spoken of as having them under one's feet. This means God gave people authority over all that he created. AT: "you have given him authority over all things" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
works
hand
ewe
cow
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv4–6 8:4 human beings (literally son of Adam): The Hebrew…
8:4 human beings (literally son of Adam): The Hebrew idiom son of man (or son of Adam) means a human being. Through the influence of Dan 7:13-14, it became a title with divine overtones in the New Testament. See Heb 2:6-8, where this passage is quoted.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.