A psalm of Asaph
82
📚God stands in the congregationof the mighty;
he judges among the gods 📖.
2 📚“How long 📖 will you judge
unjustly,
and show favouritism to
the wicked? Selah
3 📚Defend the poor
and fatherless.
Deal out justice to the afflicted
and needy.
4 📚Deliver the poor and needy.
Rescue them from the hand
of the wicked.
5 📚They 📖 do not know 📖,
they do not understand,
they walk on in darkness.
All the foundations of the earth
are shaken.
6 📚I said, ‘You are gods,
and all of you are
children of the Most High’.
82:6 The Lord Jesus quoted this verse in John 10:34. He defines who the “gods” of this psalm are as those “to whom the Word of God came”. The Word of God came to the leaders, rulers, and judges of Israel, all of whom at various times judged the people. They were God’s representatives. Their national relationship to God was as children to a father. Individually many of them may have been wicked men who did not know, trust, or serve God, and were not God’s spiritual children.⚜
7 📚But you will die like men,
and fall like one of the rulers”.
82:7 Though they had a very high position and were called “gods”, they would die like everyone else, and perhaps even be destroyed suddenly as indicated by the word “fall”.⚜
8 📚Arise, O God, judge the earth,
for you will inherit all nations.
82:8 These human judges had become so blind and corrupt that Asaph prays that God Himself will come and do the work of judging. This prayer God will yet answer (Ps 96:13; 98:9; John 5:22, 27; Acts 17:31; Rev 20:11-12).⚜