That One Obscure Part
Psalm 82 is something else. Unlike most psalms, there might be more questions here than anything, at least at first glance.
What is this “divine council”? Who are these “gods”? Who is actually being judged? Who is the “they” in verse 5? Or the audience in verse 6? How does this psalm fit within the context of the other psalms of Asaph?
The answers are not straightforward, and I’ve resisted making Sunday a full-on Bible study hour. So for the sermon, instead of getting into some of the interpretive challenges, I plan to highlight three truths about God that Psalm 82 makes crystal clear.
As for the part with the challenging parts — the verses that are most obscure — well, here goes …
The Obscure Part
It comes in verse 6.
I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; (7) nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.”
This is God speaking, but to whom is he speaking? Is it the same angelic beings that make up the divine council in verse 1? That is the way a lot of interpreters read this. The “gods” in verse 6 are the same as the “gods” in verse 1.
But there’s a problem in that interpretation.
Jesus quotes Psalm 82 in John 10:34, and what he says doesn’t fit with that understanding.
Jesus in John 10
For context in John 10, Jesus has been talking with a Jewish crowd and he claimed to be God. He says, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
The Jewish crowd considers this blasphemy and they’re ready to hurl stones.
John 10:32–33,
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” (33) The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
Track with that, their charge. Jesus is
blaspheming, because
he is man, who
makes himself God.
Jesus replies with Psalm 82.
John 10:34–36,
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? (35) If he called them gods to whom the word of God came — and Scripture cannot be broken — (36) do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
As verse 35 states, the audience that God calls “gods” (in Psalm 82:6) is those “to whom the word of God came.” He is not talking about angelic beings, but the people of Israel. He is talking about the moment at Mount Sinai when God invited Israel to the mountain, to enjoy a special relationship with him. God giving Israel the law elevated them. He made them holy, holy enough that he could call them “gods.” They were, in a sense, invited into his council.
This would have been true for the Jewish crowd Jesus is speaking to, except that Israel forfeited this elevated place by their sin. Israel is fallen, far removed from their original calling. We see that in the Book of Exodus, and how much more for the people Jesus is talking to in John 10!
So his point is: if God can once call your ancestors “gods,” are you really going to say that God the Son is blaspheming when he calls himself God?
In other words: if God can call you(!) gods then the Son of God can call himself God.
The Genius of Jesus
Jesus’s response is another example of his genius. He is simultaneously shaming the Jewish crowd for their inherited rebellion against God (which they are manifesting), and he is also claiming, again, to be God.
This scene in John 10 shapes how I understand Psalm 82.
From his highest place amid the divine council (v. 1), God is judging Israel (vv. 2–7), like he will judge the whole earth (v. 8).
More of that on Sunday.
I was helped by the article, “I Said: You Are Gods”: Psalm 82:6 and John 10, by Jerome H. Neyrey (Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 108, No. 4 (Winter, 1989), pp. 647-663)
