Psalm 82
8 verses · KJVPsalms book hub →
Key verse
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
The chapter
Chapter summary
God standeth in the congregation of God; he judgeth among the gods: 'How long will ye judge unjustly?' Judge the poor and fatherless; rescue them out of the hand of the wicked. They walk in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. 'I said, Ye are gods… nevertheless ye shall die like men', the verse Jesus takes up in John 10:34. The psalm ends in the only sufficient prayer: 'Arise, O God, judge the earth; for thou shalt inherit all the nations.'
Context
Poetry · David, Asaph, Sons of Korah, others · Psalms overview
Where the chapter sits
Psalms 82 falls in Book III: Asaph and covenant crisis (chapters 73–89). Asaph cluster (73–83); Korahite cluster (84–85, 87–88); Ethan's Ps 89 closes the book with Davidic-covenant crisis: ''how long, LORD?'' Doxology at 89:52.
Before it: Book II: Davidic + Korahite, chapters 42–72. After it: Book IV: YHWH reigns, chapters 90–106.
The whole shape of Psalms→The world behind this chapter
Psalms 82The history
The scene is a court. God stands in the assembly and passes judgment in the middle of beings the psalm calls gods. Two readings of that word are ancient and both are held today. MannaFest reads it, as the wording most naturally carries, of real spiritual rulers, members of a heavenly council set over the nations, the same world Daniel opens a window on when he names the princes of Persia and Greece, now put on trial for letting injustice run in the territories assigned to them. The other long-standing reading takes the gods as Israel's human judges, who bore God's own authority when they sat in court. The charges are the same either way.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
And the charges are all courtroom charges: accepting the persons of the wicked, failing to defend the poor and the fatherless, failing to deliver the needy out of the hand of the wicked. In Israel the fatherless and the widow had no man to speak for them at the gate, so a dishonest judge was not an inconvenience to them, he was the end of them.
The sentence is the shock. Ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Whatever these rulers are, mortality is being imposed on them as a punishment, which only makes sense as a sentence if it was not already their condition.
The Mishnah records this as the psalm the Levites sang in the temple on the third day of every week. Israel put a trial of the powers into its ordinary Tuesday service.
What it meant to them
To people at the bottom of somebody else's system, this said the crooked power over them is neither permanent nor independent. It is on trial, and the verdict has already been read.
The last line is the congregation's own petition: arise, O God, judge the earth, for thou shalt inherit all nations. They are asking the Judge to take direct possession.
Sources cited
- Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm
- The Mishnah , tractate Tamid 7:4 (Danby translation)
A. Verses 1 to 8
1. (vv. 1-2)
a.God standeth in the congregation of the mighty: The Hebrew word elohim stands twice in this opening verse under two renderings, the mighty and the gods, and the courtroom scene pictures God presiding over a company he holds to account rather than a company of equals. How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked names the specific failure, partiality in judgment, favoring the wicked party in a dispute rather than the poor one. Selah pauses on the charge before the case against them is laid out in full.
Psalms 82:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Psalms 82:1
“God standeth in the congregation of the mighty,.... The Syriac version renders it, "in the congregation of angels"; they are mighty, and excel in strength, and there is a large company of them, even an innumerable one, and who surround the throne of the Majesty on high. Christ, who is God over all, was among those on Mount Sinai, and when he ascended to heaven; and with these he will descend when he comes a second time, Psa 68:”
Psalms 82:1
“The power and honour of magistrates; they are the mighty. They are so in authority, for the public good (it is a great power that they are entrusted with), and they ought to be so in wisdom and courage. They are, in the Hebrew dialect, called gods; the same word is used for these subordinate governors that is used for the sovereign ruler of the world.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Psalms 82:2, 1 voice
Psalms 82:2-5
“What the sin is they are here charged with; they judge unjustly, contrary to the rules of equity and the dictates of their consciences, giving judgment against those who have right on their side, out of malice and ill-will, or for those who have an unrighteous cause, out of favour and partial affection.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 3-4)
a.Defend the poor and fatherless: Four commands in two verses spell out what just judgment looks like in practice, defend the poor and fatherless, do justice to the afflicted and needy, deliver the poor and needy, rid them out of the hand of the wicked. The list names exactly the parties ancient law most often failed, those without a patron or a father to plead for them, and the psalm makes their defense the entire content of right judgment. Henry reads this as the standing job description of every judge under God, whoever the gods of verse 1 turn out to be.
Psalms 82:4, 1 voice
Psalms 82:4
“Deliver the poor and needy,.... From his adversary and oppressor, who is mightier than he, and draws him to the judgment seat; when it is not in his power to defend himself against him, and get out of his hands, unless a righteous judge will show a regard to him and his cause; and sometimes even an unjust judge, through importunity, will do this, as everyone ought, and every righteous one will: rid them out of the hand of the wicked; this was what the poor widow importuned the unjust judge for, and obtained, Luk 18:3.”
3. (v. 5)
a.They know not, neither will they understand: The charge escalates from unjust verdicts to a diagnosis, they know not, neither will they understand, walking in darkness they themselves have chosen. All the foundations of the earth are out of course reads the failure of justice as reaching past the local case, as though corrupt judgment shakes the world's own footing and not only the parties before the bench. Barnes reads the line as the poem's own overstatement, proving how seriously the charge is meant rather than describing literal geology.
Psalms 82:5, 2 voices
Psalms 82:5
“They knew not,.... The Targum adds, to do well.”
Psalms 82:5
“Walk on - They persist: it is their constant course. In darkness - In their sinful courses. The foundations - This corruption of the supreme rulers, flows from them to their inferior officers and members.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
4. (vv. 6-7)
a.I have said, Ye are gods: , and all of you are children of the most High is quoted by the Lord himself at John 10:34, arguing from the lesser to the greater against the charge of blasphemy: if the psalm calls them gods, unto whom the word of God came, the charge against him for calling himself the Son of God does not hold. The verse carries two readings without a verdict between them: Calvin reads elohim here as human judges and magistrates, addressed as gods because they carry God's own delegated authority to judge in his name, while the older council reading, carried into modern scholarship by Michael Heiser, reads a court of spiritual beings set as rulers over the nations and now sentenced for the injustice named above. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes turns the title into a sentence either way, gods who fail to judge justly will not escape judgment themselves.
Psalms 82:6, 3 voices
Psalms 82:6
“I said: you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. Let Eunomius hear, let Arius hear, who say that the Son of God is a son in the same way as we are. That we are gods, we are so not by nature, but by grace. 'For as many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God.' Therefore I made man, that out of men gods might be made. I said: you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.”
Jerome· written before 420· Homily 14, on Psalm 81patristic
Psalms 82:6
“I have said, ye are gods. The greatest honour was thus put upon them; they were delegated gods, clothed for a while with a little of that authority by which the Lord judges among the sons of men. And all of you are children of the Most High. This was their ex-officio character, not their moral or spiritual relationship.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Psalms 82:6
"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. " Note, Kings and princes, all the judges of the earth, though they are gods to us, are men to God, and shall die like men, and all their honour shall be laid in the dust.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Psalms 82:6
- Quoted inJohn 10:34“Jesus replied, “Is it not written in your Law: ‘I have said you are gods’?”
'I said, Ye are gods' ('is it not written in your law')
Psalms 82:7, 2 voices
Psalms 82:7
“But you shall die like men. You see, then, that he who is a man dies. For God does not die. And Adam, as long as he kept the commandment and was a god, did not die. But after he tasted of the forbidden tree, immediately he died. Finally God says to him: 'On whatever day you taste, you shall die the death.' It has it better in the Hebrew: 'But you shall die like Adam.' Just as he was cast out of paradise, so we too have been cast out. And you shall fall like one of the princes.”
Jerome· written before 420· Homily 14, on Psalm 81patristic
Psalms 82:7
“But ye shall die like men. What sarcasm it seems! Great as the office made the men, they were still but men, and must die. To every judge this verse is a memento mori! He must leave the bench to stand at the bar, and on the way must put off the ermine to put on the shroud. And fall like one of the princes. Who were usually the first to die: for battle, sedition, and luxury, made greater havoc among the great than among any others.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
5. (v. 8)
a.Arise, O God, judge the earth: The psalm closes with the prayer its whole argument has been building toward, addressed to the true God after the failed gods have been sentenced, arise, O God, judge the earth, take back the bench that lesser judges have corrupted. For thou shalt inherit all nations turns judgment into possession, not one nation among many but the earth's rightful ruler stepping in where deputies had failed. The single-verse prayer closes the divine council scene by asking heaven's highest court to convene at last.
Psalms 82:8, 3 voices
Psalms 82:8
“Up to this point God has spoken to men, and again the prophet speaks. Arise, O God, judge the earth. Arise, because our boat is battered by the waves. Arise, O God, judge the earth: since the bad judges do not judge, but overturn your law, and tear your flocks. Do you arise, who are the true judge. Because, then, the bad judges have died like Adam, and have fallen like one of the princes: therefore do you arise, do you judge, do you save your creature.”
Jerome· written before 420· Homily 14, on Psalm 81patristic
Psalms 82:8
“Arise, O God, and judge the earth. Come thou Judge of all mankind, put the bad judges to thy bar and end their corruption and baseness. Here is the world's true hope of rescue from the fangs of tyranny. For thou shalt inherit all nations. The time will come when all races of men shall own their God, and accept him as their king. There is one who is "King by right divine, "and he is even now on his way. The last days shall see him enthroned, and all unrighteous potentates broken like potter's vessels by his potent sceptre.”
Charles Spurgeon· The Treasury of David, Vol. 4 (1874)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Psalms 82:8
“To the kingdom of the Messiah. It is a prayer for the hastening of that, that Christ would come, who is to judge the earth, and that promise is pleaded, that God shall give him the heathen for his inheritance.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Psalms 82. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 9 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Psalms; Charles Spurgeon; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms; Jerome, Homily 14, on Psalm 81; John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765); Matthew Henry and Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm.