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The Courtroom of Psalm 82

The assembly in the dock: scene, indictment, address, sentence, verdict.

Primary passage:Psalm 82:1

Psalm 82 walks as a ledger: the scene (v.1, "he judgeth among the gods"), the indictment of unjust rule (vv.2–4), the address ("I said, Ye are gods", v.6, the line Jesus cites at John 10:34–35 with the aside "the scripture cannot be broken"), the sentence ("ye shall die like men", v.7), and the verdict sought ("Arise, O God, judge the earth; for thou shalt inherit all the nations", v.8, the psalm's own answer to Deuteronomy 32:8–9's allotment).

Who the elohim are, heavenly beings (the divine-council reading, most fully argued academically by Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm, 2015), or earthly rulers (the rulers school; Kline's dynastic-rulers argument, WTJ 24, 1962, cite-only), both stand here at full strength.

Matthew Henry read v.6 from inside the rulers school: not an elevation of the elohim but their unmasking:

"You are called gods, but you have no patent for immortality; you shall die like men, like common men; and like one of them, you, O princes! shall fall." — Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Psalms 82:6

Sources: ASV text (PD); MannaFest's research index.

Commentary

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