Psalms 82 KJV
God Judges the Judges
About This Psalm
God judges the 'gods' (rulers/judges) who fail to protect the weak. A divine courtroom scene.
1od standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
2 How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
4 Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
5 They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
8 Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.
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Did You Know?
Psalm 82 reworks the Canaanite divine council motif by placing Yahweh as sole judge over lesser elohim, subverting polytheistic hierarchy into a vehicle for monotheistic accountability.
Jesus' citation of verse 6 in John 10:34-35 leverages the psalm's language of delegated divinity to defend his own sonship claim, turning an Old Testament judgment oracle into a christological proof text.
The psalm equates unjust human rulers with dying gods by using identical Hebrew terminology (elohim) for both Yahweh and the condemned figures, underscoring the conditional nature of any shared divine status.
Its abrupt shift from heavenly courtroom to earth-wide plea in the final verse links the failure of the 'gods' directly to cosmic disorder, framing social injustice as a disruption of creation order itself.
Early Jewish and Christian interpreters sometimes read the 'gods' as patron angels assigned to nations, making the psalm a commentary on the origin of gentile idolatry and the need for Yahweh's direct intervention.