Catholic Commentary
The Scope of Human Dominion Over Creation
7All sheep and cattle, yes, and the animals of the field,8the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, and whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
Psalms 8:7–8 describes humanity's God-given dominion over all living creatures across the three domains of creation: domesticated animals and beasts on land, birds in the sky, and fish and creatures in the seas. The passage emphasizes the totality and scope of human stewardship, extending even to the mysterious and unknowable depths of the ocean, establishing that human authority encompasses the entire created order both visible and unseen.
Dominion over creation is not a licence to exploit—it is an astonished trust, a gift that exposes our smallness, not our power.
Psalms 8:7 — "All sheep and cattle" The Hebrew uses two distinct terms: ṣōn (flocks: sheep and goats) and bāqār (herds: cattle, oxen). These are the domesticated animals most intimately bound to human civilisation in the ancient Near East — the animals of labour, sacrifice, sustenance, and wealth. The word kol ("all") is emphatic and deliberate; not merely some flocks but every flock, not a few herds but all herds. The totality signals that this is not a pragmatic arrangement but a theological one. God has structured the created order so that these creatures are, by design, oriented toward human stewardship.
The second half of verse 7 in many manuscripts and the Septuagint adds "and also the beasts of the field," broadening the scope even before the verse turns to sky and sea. This inclusion of wild animals alongside domestic ones reinforces that the dominion described here is not merely agricultural or economic but cosmological — it encompasses every creature that walks the earth, tame or wild.
Psalms 8:8 — "The birds of the sky, the fish of the sea" The movement from land (v. 7) to sky and sea in verse 8 is architecturally precise: it mirrors the three-part structure of the ancient cosmological world — earth, heavens, and waters — familiar from Genesis 1. By naming creatures from each domain, the psalm makes a totalising claim: human dominion extends to every inhabited sphere of the created world. Nothing in the living creation is excluded.
The phrase "fish of the sea" is followed in the Hebrew by a remarkable appendage — "and whatever passes through the paths of the seas" (ʾōrĕḥōt yammîm). This haunting phrase reaches into the mysterious depths and currents of the ocean, those creatures and forces unseen and unnameable — perhaps sea creatures, ocean currents, or migratory marine paths. The psalmist deliberately gestures toward what cannot be fully catalogued. Human dominion is real even over the unknown, over what lies beyond the edge of human perception.
Typological and Spiritual Senses The Church Fathers, beginning with Origen and developed powerfully by Augustine (Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 8), read this catalogue not merely as a description of Adamic dominion but as a prophecy of the dominion of the New Adam, Jesus Christ. The Letter to the Hebrews (2:6–9) quotes Psalm 8 explicitly and applies it to Christ: "We do not yet see everything subject to him, but we do see Jesus… crowned with glory and honour." The animals catalogued in these verses thus become, in the typological sense, a figure for all creation — seen and unseen, human and angelic — being gathered under the Lordship of the Risen Christ.
In the moral or tropological sense, the domesticated animals of verse 7 invite reflection on ordered stewardship: humanity's governance of creation is meant to image God's own providential care, not to exploit or destroy. The wild creatures and the mysterious depths of verse 8 remind the soul that dominion is not mastery born of pride but a gift held in trust — dominion within limits that only God fully knows.
Catholic tradition brings a uniquely integrated reading to these verses by holding together three truths that secular interpretations tend to separate: human dignity, creational responsibility, and Christological fulfilment.
First, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§2415–2418) teaches that the dominion granted to humanity over the animal world is not unlimited: "Animals are God's creatures. He surrounds them with his providential care… Their use of the mineral, vegetable, and animal resources of the universe cannot be divorced from respect for moral imperatives." The "all" of verse 7 does not license exploitation; it amplifies responsibility. The breadth of human dominion is proportional to the breadth of human accountability before God.
Second, St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I, Q. 96, a. 1) teaches that Adam's original dominion over animals was exercised not by coercion but by a natural order of obedience rooted in reason illuminated by grace. The loss of that effortless harmony is a consequence of the Fall, not part of God's original design. These verses of Psalm 8 thus preserve the memory of an Edenic vocation that human beings are called to recover.
Third, Pope Francis in Laudato Si' (§67, §83) draws explicitly on this tradition to argue against a "tyrannical anthropocentrism" and in favour of a "responsible stewardship" rooted in the image of God (imago Dei). The psalm's tone — not triumphalism but wonder — is itself a theological corrective. We exercise dominion not as sovereign consumers but as priests of creation, offering the world back to its Creator.
Finally, in the Christological fulfilment seen in Hebrews 2, these verses become eschatological: the full ordering of creation under humanity awaits the recapitulation of all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:10). Every sheep, bird, and fish points forward to that final consummation.
Contemporary Catholic readers live inside an ecological crisis that makes these two verses feel urgent rather than archaic. The temptation is to read "all sheep and cattle, the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea" as a licence — proof-text for the exploitation of nature. The psalm resists this violently: it frames dominion inside a hymn of humility, sandwiched between the smallness of humanity (vv. 4–5) and the glory of God (v. 9). To take dominion seriously, in the Catholic sense, is to take responsibility seriously.
Practically, this means several things. A Catholic who farms, fishes, or works in any industry touching animal life is called to examine whether their practices reflect stewardship or extraction. A Catholic consumer is called to ask whether their choices contribute to the suffering or flourishing of the creatures God placed under human care. A Catholic parent can use these verses to teach children that care for animals — even the family pet — is not sentimental but theological: it is a small, daily exercise of the imago Dei.
More broadly, these verses invite Catholics to resist two opposite errors: the secular environmentalism that abolishes any meaningful distinction between humans and animals, and the careless anthropocentrism that treats creation as mere raw material. The psalm holds both truths: humans are uniquely dignified, and that dignity is expressed through wonder and care, not domination.
Commentary