Psalms

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Psalm 8

1 For the music director, according to the gittith style; a psalm of David. O Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your reputation throughout the earth! You reveal your majesty in the heavens above.⁠ 2 From the mouths of children and nursing babies you have ordained praise on account of your adversaries, so that you might put an end to the vindictive enemy.⁠ 3 When I look up at the heavens, which your fingers made, and see the moon and the stars, which you set in place, 4 Of what importance is the human race, that you should notice them?⁠ Of what importance is mankind, that you should pay attention to them?⁠ 5 You made them a little less than the heavenly beings. You crowned mankind with honor and majesty.⁠ 6 you appoint them to rule over your creation; you have placed everything under their authority,⁠ 7 including all the sheep and cattle, as well as the wild animals,⁠ 8 the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that moves through the currents of the seas. 9 O Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your reputation throughout the earth!

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalm 8:4 and Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:23

Hebrew Bible · Rabbinic

Summary

In Psalm 8, the psalmist asks why God would take notice of the human race at all. Rabbinic tradition in Ecclesiastes Rabbah has the ministering angels quote this, who use it to object when God announces he intends to create Adam.

Passages

Psalm 8:4

Hebrew Bible

3 When I look up at the heavens, which your fingers made, and see the moon and the stars, which you set in place, 4 Of what importance is the human race, that you should notice them? Of what importance is mankind, that you should pay attention to them? 5 You made them a little less than the heavenly beings. You crowned mankind with honor and majesty. 6 you appoint them to rule over your creation; you have placed everything under their authority,

600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:23

Rabbinic · Aggadah

“He was wiser than any man [ha’adam]” (I Kings 5:11) – than Adam the first man. What was the wisdom of Adam the first man? You find that when the Holy One blessed be He sought to create Adam the first man, He consulted with the ministering angels, and He said to them: “Let us make man” (Genesis 1:26). They said to him: ‘Master of the universe, “what is man that You remember him?”’ (Psalms 8:5). He said to them: ‘The man I seek to create, his wisdom is greater than yours.’ What did He do? He gathered all the animals, beasts, and birds, and stood them before them [the angels], and said to them: ‘Give them names.’ They remained [silent] and did not know [what to say].

700–950 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ecclesiastes Rabbah

References

“... Solomon’s surpassing wisdom as attested through a series of comparisons is the theme of this midrashic passage, in which the pattern of question–answers and the arrangement of the biblical verses in a dialectical style give the impression of a vivid dialogue. [...] Ecclesiastes 7:23 comprises the conclusion in a series of maxims that reflect Qoheleth’s pessimistic view of man’s incapability of knowing his scope in life. The Rabbis eliminate the negative sense of the base verse and laud Solomon’s wisdom by advocating Solomon’s intellectual superiority. The Rabbis placed Solomon on a higher level of intellectual capacity and summoned up Ps 8:5 to support their teaching of man’s superiority compared to the angels. The Rabbis through an ongoing “textual dialogue” build up the degree of Adam’s wisdom only to quash it when they compare it to Solomon’s. After they secure interpretatively the importance of Adam’s wisdom through Ps 8:5, the Rabbis have at hand a conceptually neat passage that reinforces the extent of Solomon’s wisdom. ...”

Michail Kitsos, “Examples of Intertextuality in Ecclesiastes Rabbah: An Examination of the Book of Psalms in Ecclesiastes Rabbah with Methodological Nuances,” in Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually, ed. Katharine Dell and Will Kynes (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 270–271.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Psalms150 psalms

Compare Psalm 8:4 and Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:23

Summary

Passages

Psalm 8:4

Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:23

References

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