Verse 5.—That thou lookest on him; ἐπισκέπτῃ αυτον, ‘art a bishop to him.’ The Greek word is the same in the verse “I was sick and ye visited me.”
Verse 6.—Thou hast lessened him;—perhaps better, thou hast made him but by a little, less, than the angels: ἠλάττωσας αὐτὸν βραχύ τι. The inferiority is not of present position merely, but of scale in being.
Verse 7.—Sheep, and all oxen, and the flocks of the plain: κτήνη τοῦ πεδίον. Beasts for service in the plain, traversing great spaces,—camel and horse. ‘Pecora,’ in Vulgate, includes all ‘pecunia,’ or property in animals.
Verse 8.—In the Greek, “that walk the paths of the seas” is only an added description of fish, but the meaning of it is without doubt to give an expanded sense—a generalization of fish, so as to include the whale, seal, tortoise, and their like. Neither whales nor seals, however, from what I hear of modern fishing, are [[131]]likely to walk the paths of the sea much longer; and Sidney’s verse becomes mere satire:—
“The bird, free burgesse of the aire,
The fish, of sea the native heire,
And what things els of waters traceth
The unworn pathes, his rule embraceth.
Oh Lord, that rul’st our mortal lyne,
How through the world thy name doth shine!”