Today’s Passage: Psalm 82
This short psalm of Asaph opens on a startling scene. God stands up in the middle of a great assembly and begins to render judgment, and the ones He judges are called gods, powers who were meant to rule justly and have not. He asks them how long they will side with the wicked, and He charges them to defend the weak. At the end the psalm cries out for God Himself to arise and judge the whole earth. Through all of it one thing holds steady: He is the one God, and He is not merely one voice among many.
As you read, hold this: God presides in the divine assembly.
Context The "gods" He addresses
Two readings have long sat side by side over the first verse. Some have heard human judges here, men entrusted with God’s own authority to rule justly on the earth. Others have heard a heavenly court, spiritual beings who still answer to Him. Both can be faithfully said, and neither one makes the LORD merely one god among the gods. Whichever the assembly is, He is the One who presides over it, and they are the ones who stand under His judgment.
Psalm 82:1-4 (BSB)
A Psalm of Asaph.
¹ God presides in the divine assembly; He renders judgment among the gods: ² “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah ³ Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; uphold the rights of the afflicted and oppressed. ⁴ Rescue the weak and needy; save them from the hand of the wicked.
Notice where the charge falls. God presides over the court, and His question to these rulers is simply how long they mean to go on judging unjustly. Their sin is partiality, a thumb laid on the scale for the wicked, and the ones left crushed underneath it are the weak, the fatherless, the afflicted and the oppressed. God’s command to them is plain: defend those people, uphold their cause, and rescue them from the hand that would harm them.
Psalm 82:5-7 (BSB)
⁵ They do not know or understand; they wander in the darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. ⁶ I have said, ‘You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High.’ ⁷ But like mortals you will die, and like rulers you will fall.”
These rulers do not know or understand; they wander on in the dark while the very foundations of the earth are shaken under their failure. And then the sentence falls. They may be called Elohim chayyim, pronounced eh-loh-HEEM khah-YEEM. Strong's H430, God, gods; here as 'the living God'. The same word names both the God who presides and the ones He stands to address here. It is a word that can stretch to cover others who hold delegated authority, yet it never divides the throne between them. He alone opens this court, and He alone holds the seat at the head of it: whatever these rulers are called, they were never given the one thing that belongs to Him alone. and sons of the Most High, yet they will die like the mortals they are and fall like any other ruler. The verdict itself refuses them any rival glory: whatever they were given, they were never the ones who could not die.
Study notes Jesus uses the psalm
Jesus quotes verse 6 when He is charged with blasphemy.
"Jesus replied, 'Is it not written in your Law: I have said you are gods? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, then what about the One whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world? How then can you accuse Me of blasphemy for stating that I am the Son of God?'" John 10:34-36 (BSB)
He reaches back to this psalm, and it is worth seeing exactly what He does with it. He is not lowering Himself to the level of those rulers, and He is not calling Himself a god in their sense. His argument runs the other way. If Scripture itself could address mere men, those to whom the word of God came, as gods, and Scripture cannot be broken, then how can they accuse the One whom the Father set apart and sent into the world of blaspheming for calling Himself the Son of God? The claim He is making is higher than theirs, not lower, and on that point the door is shut.
Psalm 82:8 (BSB)
⁸ Arise, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are Your inheritance.
So the psalm ends by looking past every court that has failed and every judge who has sold out the weak. It cries for God Himself to rise and judge the earth, and it rests on the reason that all the nations belong to Him as His own inheritance. The last word is the same as the first: God presides in the divine assembly.