Psalm 8

“O Lord, our Lord
How excellent is Your name in all the earth
Who have set Your glory above the heavens!

Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants
You have ordained strength
Because of Your enemies
That You may silence the enemy and the avenger

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers
The Moon and the stars, which you have ordained
What is man that Thou art mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than the angels
And You have crowned him with glory and honor

You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands
You have put all things under his feet
All sheep and oxen
Even the beasts of the field
The birds of the air
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas

O Lord, our Lord
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!”

—

Here the psalmist is taken up with the “handiwork” of the Lord: the seas, the Moon, and the stars; observing the great framing wisdom of the Lord of Creation. The earth is the Lord’s as he says, but it is entrusted to the hand of man to prudently manage.

Made a little lower than the angels, but vested with a special right of dominion; it goes on. I know of some social philosophies that regards man as almost a parasite in the earth, or that the management of the affairs of the earth by men will be forever corrupt and the ideal would be to have a government-less society.

The spiritual prerogative by the psalmist above would seem to disagree with such social theories propounded in modern times. Man is not some sophisticated animal that occupies the earth, but he is a special regent that takes his charge and works with it well in accordance to a Divine Design.