Rabbi Roodyn

With Rav Hirsch’s introduction we can now return to verse 6

ו) וַתְּחַסְּרֵהוּ מְּעַט מֵאֱלֹהִים וְכָבוֹד וְהָדָר תְּעַטְּרֵהוּ:

And You have withheld from him but little of the Divine, and You desire to crown him with honour and dignity.

Rav Hirsch explains the pasuk as exclaiming the awesome heights, unique in all creation that man can attain due to the fact that G-d has made him conscious that he is an ‘Adam’.

This status of ‘Adam,’ however does not set him apart from the other creatures that must also serve G-d, he has merely been placed at their head as the first servant of G-d. Although this may seem strange at first, Rav Hirsch explains what he means.

Man is the only creature called upon to consciously do his duty, morally free; the only being so endowed beside G-d, that One and absolute free Force. How much higher, then, is the pure man than the stars, since he is a free thinking servant at G-d’s throne.

He has been raised almost to Divine heights as a morally free person, aware of himself and he has been crowned with ‘honour and dignity’, (which can be attributed only to a moral person).

Unlike the classic commentaries that we saw previously at said the  אלהים refers to the angels, Rav Hirsh (based on Koheles 4:8) goes a step further and translates the pasuk as ‘You have withheld from him but little of the Divine.’ Few are the Divine attributes that You have not imparted to him.