Psalms 82:7
in Psalms 82But like mortals you will die, and like rulers you will fall.”
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.
KJV
But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
⋯
This verse in Psalms 82
Commentary
10 notes on this verseBut 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.
This site's exposition
You are gods
on Psalms 82:6-7
Jesus quotes this verse at John 10:34, I have said you are gods. Calvin reads the gods as human judges who judge in God's name, and Michael Heiser reads a council of spiritual rulers set over the nations. Either way they die like mortals and fall like rulers.
This site's exposition
like mortals you will die
Adam Clarke and Jerome both read like mortals as like Adam, who fell from his high place when he sinned. Charles Spurgeon saw the second clause in history. Rulers often died first and suddenly, cut down by battle, revolt and luxury.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
"I have said you are gods and all of you children of the most High, but you shall die like man." This he says to them that did not accept the gift of adoption but dishonor the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word …
But the kingdom of earthly happiness is pride, to oppose which came the lowliness of Christ, rebuking those whom He wished by lowliness to make the children of the Most High, and blaming them: "I said, You are gods, you are all the children of the Most High" [Psalm 82:6]. "But you shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes" [Psalm 82:7]. Whether to those He said this, "I said, You are gods," and to those particularly who are unpredestined to eternal life; and to the other, "But you shall die like men," etc., "and shall fall like one of the princes," in this way also distinguishing the gods; or whether He blames all together, in order to distinguish the obedient and those who received correction, "I said, You are gods, and you are all the children of the Most High:" that is, to all of you I promised celestial happiness, "but you," through the infirmity of your flesh, "shall die like men," and through haughtiness of soul, "like one of the princes," that is, the devil, shall not be exalted, but "shall fall." As if He said: Though the days of your life are so few, that you speedily die like men, this avails not to your correction: but like the devil, whose days are many in this world, because he dies not in the flesh, you are lifted up so that you fall. For by devilish pride it came to pass that the perverse and blind rulers of the Jews envied the glory of Christ: by this will it came to pass, and still does, that the lowliness of Christ crucified unto death is lightly esteemed in the eyes of them who love the excellence of this world.
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
But ye shall die like men,....
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
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.
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. Even as princes have often been cut off by sudden and violent deaths, so should the judges be who forget to do justice. Men usually respect the office of a judge, and do not conspire to slay him, as they do to kill princes and kings; but injustice withdraws this protection, and puts the unjust magistrate in personal danger. How quickly death unrobes the great. What a leveller he is. He is no advocate for liberty, but in promoting equality and fraternity he is a masterly democrat. Great men die as common men do. As their blood is the same, so the stroke which lets out their life produces the same pains and throes. No places are too high for death's arrows: he brings down his birds from the tallest trees. It is time that all men considered this.
2 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
But ye shall die like men - כאדם keadam, “ye shall die like Adam,” who fell from his high perfection and dignity as ye have done. Your high office cannot secure you an immortality. And fall like one of the princes - Justice shall pursue you, and judgment shall overtake you; and you shall be executed like public state criminals. You shall not, in the course of nature, fall into the grave; but your life shall be brought to an end by a legal sentence, or a particular judgment of God.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
But ye shall die like men - You are mortal, like other people. This fact you have forgotten. You have been lifted up with pride, as if you were in fact more exalted than other people; as if you were not subject to the law which consigns all people to the grave. An ancient monarch directed his servant to address him each morning in this language: “Remember, sire, that thou art mortal.” No more salutary truth can be impressed on the minds of the rich and the great than that they are, in this respect, like other people - like the poorest, the meanest of the race: that they will die under similar forms of disease; that they will experience the same pain; that all which is fearful in death will be their portion as well as that of the most obscure; and that in the grave, with whatever pomp and splendor they descend to it, or however magnificent the monument which may be reared over the spot where they lie, there will be the same offensive and repulsive process of decay which occurs in the most humble grave in the country churchyard. Why, then - oh, why - should man be proud? And fall like one of the princes - And die as one of the princes. The idea in the word fall may be, perhaps, that they would die by the hand of violence - or be cut down, as princes often are, e. g. in battle. The use of the word princes here denotes that they would die as other persons of exalted rank do; that is, that they were mortal as all people, high and low, are - as common people are, and as princes are. Though they had names - אל 'Êl, and אלהים 'Elohiym - that suggested the idea of divinity, yet such appellations did not make any real change in their condition as people, and as subject to the ordinary laws under which people live. Whatever name they bore. it did not afford any security against death.
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
You are angelic creatures Angels. When I gave you the Torah, I gave it to you on the condition that the Angel of Death should not rule over you.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 5 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| אָ֭כֵן | ʾakhen | nevertheless | H403 → | 18 times |
| כְּאָדָ֣ם | keadam | like humankind | H120 → | 551 times |
| תְּמוּת֑וּן | temutun | you will die ! | H4191 → | 839 times |
| וּכְאַחַ֖ד | ukheachad | and like one of | H259 → | 971 times |
| הַשָּׂרִ֣ים | hasarim | the princes | H8269 → | 421 times |
| תִּפֹּֽלוּ׃ | tipolu | you will fall | H5307 → | 435 times |
אָ֭כֵןnevertheless
ʾakhenH403 →18 times
כְּאָדָ֣םlike humankind
keadamH120 →551 times
תְּמוּת֑וּןyou will die !
temutunH4191 →839 times
וּכְאַחַ֖דand like one of
ukheachadH259 →971 times
הַשָּׂרִ֣יםthe princes
hasarimH8269 →421 times
תִּפֹּֽלוּ׃you will fall
tipoluH5307 →435 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Psalms 83:11Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, and all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
it leads to
- Judges 7:25
They also captured Oreb and Zeeb, the two princes of Midian; and they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. So they pursued the Midianites and brought…
- Judges 7:25
Through
Psalms 49:12But a man, despite his wealth, cannot endure; he is like the beasts that perish.
it leads to
- Ecclesiastes 3:18–21
I said to myself, “As for the sons of men, God tests them so that they may see for themselves that they are but beasts.”
- Psalms 49:20
A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish.
- Psalms 39:5
You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
- Ecclesiastes 9:12
For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.
- James 1:10–11
But the one who is rich should exult in his low position, because he will pass away like a flower of the field.
- Ecclesiastes 3:18–21
Through
Job 21:32He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.
it leads to
- Luke 16:22
One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried.
- Luke 16:22
Through
Ezekiel 31:14This happened so that no other trees by the waters would become great in height and set their tops among the clouds, and no other well-watered trees would reach them in height. For they…
it leads to
- Nehemiah 13:18
Did not your forefathers do the same things, so that our God brought all this disaster on us and on this city? And now you are rekindling His wrath against Israel by profaning the…
- Nehemiah 13:18
Where this verse is studied
About Psalms
This page draws on 11 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 82; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 4; Jerome, Homily 14, on Psalm 81; Jerome, Homilies on the Psalms; John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm and Theodoret of Cyrus, DIALOGUE 1.