Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 8:7

"All sheep and oxen, Yea, and the beasts of the field," — Psalms 8:7 (ASV)

All sheep and oxen - Flocks and herds. (Genesis 1:26), over the cattle. Nothing is more manifest than the control that man exercises over flocks and herds—making them subservient to his use and obedient to his will.

And the beasts of the field - Those not included in the general phrase “sheep and oxen.” The word translated “field,” שׂדה śâdeh - or the poetic form, as here - שׂדי śâday — properly means a plain, a level tract of country; then, a field or a tilled farm (Genesis 23:17; Genesis 47:20–21); and then the fields, the open country, as opposed to a city, a village, or a camp (Genesis 25:27). Hence, in this place, the expression means the beasts that roam at large—wild beasts (Genesis 2:20; Genesis 3:14).

Here the allusion is to the power that man has to subdue the wild beasts: of capturing them and making them subservient to his purposes, of preventing their increase and their depredations, and of taming them so that they will obey his will and become his servants.

Nothing is more remarkable than this, and nothing furnishes a better illustration of Scripture than the conformity of this with the declaration in Genesis 9:2: And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, etc. Compare the notes at James 3:7.

It is to be remembered that no small number of what are now domestic animals were originally wild, and that they have been subdued and tamed by the power and skill of man.

No animal has shown itself superior to this power and skill.