Psalm 8:5
A Little Lower Than the Angels
Heavenly hostQuoted by the apostles in Hebrews 2:7, in the older Greek wording
Your KJV says angels. The Hebrew says elohim. The apostle settled what it meant.
Side by Side
The Older Text
Septuagint, translated before Messiah
Thou madest him a little less than angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour.
The Later Text
Masoretic, finished about 1,000 years after the cross
For thou hast made him a little lower than elohim, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. (Elohim is the word usually rendered “God.”)
Quoted in Hebrews 2:7
The apostle’s Old Testament
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands.
Your KJV reads: “angels” in both places, following the Greek and Hebrews 2:7, even though the Hebrew word in the Psalm is elohim.
See what changed and why ↓What Your Bible Says
For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.
Psalm 8:5 KJV
Here the King James follows the Greek. The man of Psalm 8 is made a little lower than the angels, then crowned. Hebrews 2:7 quotes it the same way.
What the Hebrew Says
The Hebrew word under “angels” is elohim. Many modern Bibles, following the Masoretic text closely, print “a little lower than God” or “than heavenly beings.” A reader comparing versions finds the man of Psalm 8 set just below God instead of just below the angels.
What Changed
The Hebrew letters did not change. The difference is what elohim means here. The word means mighty ones. It is used of Yahuah, of angels, of false gods, and even of human judges. Where the King James says “his master shall bring him unto the judges” (Exodus 21:6), the Hebrew word is elohim.
The Greek translators, before Messiah, understood elohim in this verse as the angels. The apostle took it the same way.
Who Was Made Lower?
But we see Yahushua, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour.
Hebrews 2:9 KJV
Hebrews applies the Psalm to Yahushua. He was made lower than the angels so that He could die. Yahuah cannot be made lower than His own servants, and Yahuah does not die. A man can. That is the point: Messiah was a real man, “made like unto his brethren” (Hebrews 2:17).
Which One Is Right?
The Greek Bible reads angels.
Hebrews 2:7 and 2:9 read angels.
The Masoretic text keeps the Hebrew word elohim, which can carry that meaning.
Purpose of the Change
Nothing was cut here; the Greek is a translation of the same word. The effect of reading elohim as “God” in this verse is that the apostle’s plain point, a real man made lower than the angels for the suffering of death, gets blurred.
The Bottom Line
The Hebrew says elohim. The apostle read it as angels. Either way, the one made lower is a real man.
The man made lower is now crowned, and He sits where His Father placed Him: “even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Revelation 3:21).
Dig Deeper The evidence, for anyone who wants it
The Word Elohim
Elohim is a title, not a name. It means mighty ones, those with rule. Psalm 82:6 calls Israel’s judges by it: “I have said, Ye are gods.” Yahushua quoted that verse and said, “If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). The title can sit on men and angels without making them Yahuah.
The Son of Man
The verse before asks, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” (Psalm 8:4). The Psalm is about a son of man. Hebrews reads it as the Son of Man who suffered and was crowned.
One Mediator, a Man
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Messiah Yahushua” (1 Timothy 2:5). Hebrews says He “took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16). A man below the angels for a little while, then raised above them by the One who crowned Him.
An Honest Note
This page is not a charge of tampering. The Masoretic letters say elohim, and that is what the Psalm always said. The Greek translators chose “angels,” and Hebrews followed them. The difference is one of meaning, not of text. It belongs in this section because the apostle quoted the older reading and built his teaching on it.