Psalm 97:7
Worship Him, All Ye His Angels
Heavenly hostQuoted by the apostles in Hebrews 1:6, in the older Greek wording
Your Psalm tells the gods to bow. The Greek tells the angels. They may be the same crowd.
Side by Side
The Older Text
Septuagint, translated before Messiah
Let all that worship graven images be ashamed, who boast of their idols; worship him, all ye his angels.
The Later Text
Masoretic, finished about 1,000 years after the cross
Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him, all ye gods.
Quoted in Hebrews 1:6
The apostle’s Old Testament
And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
Your KJV reads: “all ye gods” in the Psalm with the Masoretic, then “all the angels of God” in Hebrews.
See what changed and why ↓What Your Bible Says
And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
Hebrews 1:6 KJV
Hebrews says Scripture calls the angels to bow when the Father brings His firstborn into the world. A reader looking for that call in the Psalms finds Psalm 97:7, but the King James there says “gods,” not angels.
What the Jewish Bible Says
Confounded be all they that serve graven images, that boast themselves of idols: worship him, all ye gods.
Psalm 97:7 KJV
The Psalm shames the idol worshipers, then commands the “gods” to bow to Yahuah. The reader is left wondering who these gods are.
What Changed
Nothing in the Hebrew letters. The word is elohim, mighty ones. The Greek translators, before Messiah, understood it here as Yahuah’s angels and wrote “all ye his angels.” The King James wrote “gods.”
Two verses later the same Psalm says Yahuah is “exalted far above all gods” (Psalm 97:9). The mighty ones of heaven are real, and they are under Him.
Which One Is Right?
The Greek Bible reads his angels.
Hebrews 1:6 calls the angels to bow, in words that match the Greek of the Old Testament.
The Masoretic text reads elohim, which can carry that meaning.
Both are honest renderings of the same Hebrew. The Greek tells the reader who the Psalm meant.
Worship Means Bow
Some teachers use Hebrews 1:6 to argue the Son must be Yahuah, since angels worship Him. The word means to bow down, and Scripture uses it for bowing to men: Israel “worshipped Yahuah, and the king” (1 Chronicles 29:20). In Hebrews 1:6 the Father gives the order. Honor at the Father’s command shows the Son’s place under Him.
Purpose of the Change
Nothing was cut here; the Greek translated the same word as angels. The pair matters because it shows how the apostles read elohim in these verses: as Yahuah’s heavenly servants, not rival gods.
The Bottom Line
The Hebrew calls them elohim. The Greek calls them angels. Same beings, same command: bow.
Revelation shows them obeying: “And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God” (Revelation 7:11).
Dig Deeper The evidence, for anyone who wants it
Which Verse Does Hebrews Quote?
Hebrews 1:6 matches, almost word for word, a line in the Greek of Deuteronomy 32:43: “let all the angels of God worship him.” That line is missing from the later Hebrew, though a Hebrew scroll from Qumran has a form of it. Psalm 97:7 carries the same call in the Greek, “worship him, all ye his angels.” The apostle may have had both in mind. Either way, both places in the older text say angels.
The Same Word for Judges
Elohim is a title of rank, not a name. Where the King James says a servant is brought “unto the judges” (Exodus 21:6), the Hebrew word is elohim. Context decides who is meant. In a Psalm about heaven’s rule, the Greek translators read heaven’s servants.
The Angel Who Refused
John once fell down before an angel. The angel stopped him: “See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God” (Revelation 22:9). Angels bow to Yahuah. They do not take His place.
An Honest Note
This is not a case of the Masoretic scribes changing a word. The Hebrew has always read elohim here. The difference is translation, and the Greek reading agrees with how Hebrews speaks of the angels. It belongs in this section because the apostles read these verses the way the Greek did.