Passage

Psalms 82

Book: Psalms · NASB95

Key verses

NASB95 text pending. Anchor verses: Ps 82:1 ("God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers"), Ps 82:6-7 ("I said, 'You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High. Nevertheless you will die like men, and fall like any one of the princes'").

Psalm 82 is one of the most disputed passages in the Hebrew Bible. God (elohim) stands in the "divine council" (adat-el) and renders judgment on lesser elohim who have ruled unjustly, decreeing that despite their exalted status they will "die like men." The interpretive crux is the identity of the council members: are they (a) unjust human judges in Israel, addressed as "gods" honorifically because they wield delegated divine authority (the dominant traditional Jewish and older Christian reading), or (b) lesser spiritual beings, members of YHWH's heavenly court who were assigned oversight of the nations and have abused their stewardship (the Second Temple, intertestamental, and currently dominant scholarly reading, championed by Michael Heiser, Patrick Miller, and James White's "divine council worldview" treatments)? The apologetic stakes are high because Jesus quotes 82:6 in John 10.34 to defend his claim to deity ("If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?"). The psalm functions in the Hebrew Bible as a polemic against unjust governance, in Second Temple Judaism as a window into divine-council theology, and in Christian use as a Christological proof-text and a check on naive readings of "OT polytheism" objections.

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"1. ^{A Psalm of Asaph.} God standeth in the congregation of God; He judgeth among the gods. 2. How long will ye judge unjustly, And respect the persons of the wicked? Selah 3. Judge the poor and fatherless: Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. 4. Rescue the poor and needy: Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked. 5. They know not, neither do they understand; They walk to and fro in darkness: All the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6. I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High. 7. Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes. 8. Arise, O God, judge the earth; For thou shalt inherit all the nations." (Psalms 82:1-8, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"1. A Psalm by Asaph. God presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods. 2. “How long will you judge unjustly, and show partiality to the wicked?” Selah. 3. “Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. 4. Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.” 5. They don’t know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6. I said, “You are gods, all of you are sons of the Most High. 7. Nevertheless you shall die like men, and fall like one of the rulers.” 8. Arise, God, judge the earth, for you inherit all of the nations." (Psalms 82:1-8, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"1. A Psalm of Asaph. God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods. ^{of Asaph: or, for Asaph} 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. ^{Defend: Heb. Judge} 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. ^{out: Heb. moved} 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." (Psalms 82:1-8, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"1., A Psalm of Asaph. God hath stood in the company of God, In the midst God doth judge. 2. Till when do ye judge perversely? And the face of the wicked lift up? Selah. 3. Judge ye the weak and fatherless, The afflicted and the poor declare righteous. 4. Let the weak and needy escape, From the hand of the wicked deliver them. 5. They knew not, nor do they understand, In darkness they walk habitually, Moved are all the foundations of earth. 6. I, I have said, 'Gods ye [are], And sons of the Most High, all of you, 7. But as man ye die, and as one of the heads ye fall, 8. Rise, O God, judge the earth, For Thou hast inheritance among all the nations!" (Psalms 82:1-8, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Asaph (Levitical guild composer; superscription "A Psalm of Asaph"); within the psalm, YHWH speaks directly in vv. 2-7
Audience: Israel as worshiping community; rhetorically, the council members themselves are addressed in the second person
Location: Israelite liturgical use, possibly tied to temple worship; the heavenly council scene is imaginatively located in YHWH's throne room
Time period: uncertain composition date; Asaph's guild is active from David through the post-exilic period

Theological reading

The psalm opens with a striking scene: God (elohim) takes his stand in the adat-el ("congregation of God" or "divine council"), and in the midst of elohim he passes judgment. The double use of elohim in v. 1 is the lexical hinge. The same noun functions as both subject (the singular God) and object (the plural council members). The Hebrew elohim is a plural form whose referent is determined by context and verb agreement; in this verse the singular verb (nitsav, "he stands") demands a singular sense for the first occurrence, while the prepositional phrase "in the midst" implies plurality for the second.

The traditional Jewish reading (Targum, Rashi, much of medieval Christian exegesis) takes the council members as human judges in Israel addressed honorifically as "gods" because they exercise delegated divine authority over life-and-death matters. The cue is Exodus 21:6 and 22:8-9, where elohim appears in contexts of judicial decision (some translations render "before the judges"; the Hebrew has elohim). Read this way, Psalm 82 is a prophetic indictment of Israel's corrupt judiciary, and v. 7 ("you shall die like men") is a sentence of stripped-down mortality on those who abused their judicial office.

The Second Temple and currently scholarly-dominant reading takes the council members as lesser spiritual beings, drawing on the broader ancient Near Eastern background where the high god presides over a council of lesser deities. Michael Heiser's Unseen Realm programmatically develops this reading: at Babel (Genesis 11) and Deuteronomy 32:8-9 (Dead Sea Scrolls reading "sons of God" / bene elohim), YHWH allotted the nations to lesser elohim who were to administer justice; Psalm 82 is the judicial scene in which these allotted overseers are condemned for their failure and decreed to lose their immortal status. On this reading the psalm is a coherent piece of Israelite divine-council theology that distinguishes the one Creator-God YHWH from a created order of elohim-beings, and is therefore not polytheistic in the rival-deity sense. The "OT Polytheism Objection" defeater turns on this distinction: elohim is a category term denoting a class of beings of the spiritual realm, not a category that necessarily implies metaphysical equality with YHWH.

The crucial Christological use is Jesus's appeal in John 10:34-36. After Jesus claims, "I and the Father are one" (10:30), opponents pick up stones for blasphemy. Jesus responds with Psalm 82:6: if Scripture itself called covenant recipients "gods," then his self-identification as the Son of God whom the Father sanctified and sent is not blasphemous a fortiori. The argument works on either reading of Psalm 82: if even unjust judges/divine-council members can bear the title elohim, the unique Son sent from the Father certainly can. Jesus's deployment also assumes the inviolability of Scripture ("the Scripture cannot be broken"), making the verse load-bearing for inerrancy as well.

Apologetically, the psalm closes off two opposite errors at once: the modern skeptical charge of OT polytheism (since elohim in v. 1 and v. 6 names lesser beings, not co-equal rival deities, and v. 7's mortality decree subordinates them to YHWH), and the modern Mormon and certain LDS-adjacent claims of human deification, which over-read v. 6 outside its judicial context. See Michael Heiser for the contemporary scholarly defense of the divine-council reading, Two Powers in Heaven for the Second Temple precedents Jesus is drawing on, and OT Polytheism Objection Defeater for the explicit defeater.

Key words

H0430 - elohim, elohim (God, gods, divine beings). The lexical hinge of the psalm; same noun in vv. 1 and 6 denotes both YHWH and the lesser members of his council.
H4941 - mishpat, mishpat (judgment, justice). What the council members fail to administer and what YHWH renders against them.
H1121 - ben, ben (son). The "sons of the Most High" (v. 6) designation linking the council members to the bene elohim tradition (Job 1:6, Deut 32:8-9 DSS).

Theological themes

Divine council. YHWH presides over a court of elohim whose membership is either lesser spiritual beings (Heiser, Second Temple) or human judges exercising delegated divine authority (traditional).
Judicial accountability of the powerful. The lesser council members are judged for failing the weak, fatherless, poor, and oppressed; rank is no shield from divine reckoning.
Mortality decree. "You shall die like men" (v. 7) strips the council of their immortal status, subordinating any elohim category to YHWH the Creator.
Monotheism by hierarchy, not by exclusion. The psalm does not deny the existence of other elohim in the lesser sense; it asserts YHWH's unrivaled sovereignty over them. The OT-polytheism objection equivocates on the term.
Christological warrant. Jesus deploys v. 6 in John 10:34 to defend his self-identification as Son of God, making the psalm load-bearing for high Christology and Scripture's inviolability.

Cross-references

John 10.34, Jesus's direct quotation of Psalm 82:6 in defense of his deity claim.
Deuteronomy 32.8-9, the Dead Sea Scrolls "sons of God" reading of nations-allotment that underwrites the divine-council reading of Psalm 82.
Job 1.6, the bene elohim present themselves before YHWH; the canonical-court scene parallel.
1 Kings 22.19-23, Micaiah's vision of YHWH on his throne with the host of heaven, another council-of-heaven scene.
Isaiah 14.12-15, the fall of the helel ben shachar (day star) interpreted through divine-council categories.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.