Bible Reading: Psalm 82:1-8 KJV
- Psalm 82:1 KJV
Psalm 82:1 is a verse you likely never paid much attention to. If you have read the Bible from cover to cover, you likely just read it and moved on. If you paused and reread it, you likely just shrugged your shoulders and said, 'Must be one of those things we were not meant to understand.' But is it?
Psalm 82 played a pivotal role in the life of Michael S. Heiser when he was a graduate student working on a PhD in Hebrew studies. Before church one Sunday morning, a friend handed him a Hebrew bible opened to Psalm 82 and said, “Here, read that … look at it closely.”
What he saw in verse one was, "God [elohim] standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods [elohim]." The God of the Old Testament was part of an assembly —a pantheon— of other gods. He immediately set to work trying to find answers. Soon he discovered that this was a place where evangelicals had feared to tread.
The explanations he found from evangelical scholars were disturbingly weak, mostly maintaining that the gods (elohim) in the verse were just men —Jewish elders— or that the verse was about the Trinity. Neither of those could be correct. The Bible nowhere teaches that God appointed a council of Jewish elders to rule over foreign nations, and God certainly wouldn’t be attacking the rest of the Trinity (Jesus and the Holy Spirit), for being corrupt.
Clarity eventually prevailed. Psalm 82 became a focal point of his doctoral dissertation, which also examined the nature of Israelite monotheism and how the biblical writers really thought about the unseen spiritual realm. And eventually led to his book The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, Lexham Press, 2015.
The heavenly host was with God before creation. In fact, they witnessed it.
"4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" - Job 38:4-7
Sons of God (Hebrew: beney elohim) is a phrase used to identify divine beings with higher-level responsibilities or jurisdictions. The term angel (Hebrew: malʾak) describes an important but still lesser task: delivering messages.
The sons of God are divine, not human. The sons of God witnessed creation long before there were people. They are intelligent nonhuman beings.
"God [elohim] standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods [elohim]." - Psalm 82:1
As noted earlier the word elohim occurs twice in this verse. You also probably recognize elohim as one of God’s names, despite the fact that the form of the word is plural.
In Hebrew, plurals of masculine nouns end with -im. While the word elohim is plural in form, its meaning can be either plural or singular, such as sheep in the English language. The first elohim must be singular, since the Hebrew grammar has the word as the subject of a singular verbal form. The second elohim must be plural, since the preposition in front of it (“he judgeth among the”) requires more than one.
The meaning of the verse is inescapable: The singular elohim of Israel presides over an assembly of elohim. God has called this council meeting to judge the elohim for corrupt rule of the nations. The text is not clear whether all of the elohim are under judgment or just some. Verse 6 of the psalm declares that these elohim are sons of God.
"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." - Psalm 82:6
Psalm 82 played a pivotal role in the life of Michael S. Heiser when he was a graduate student working on a PhD in Hebrew studies. Before church one Sunday morning, a friend handed him a Hebrew bible opened to Psalm 82 and said, “Here, read that … look at it closely.”
What he saw in verse one was, "God [elohim] standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods [elohim]." The God of the Old Testament was part of an assembly —a pantheon— of other gods. He immediately set to work trying to find answers. Soon he discovered that this was a place where evangelicals had feared to tread.
The explanations he found from evangelical scholars were disturbingly weak, mostly maintaining that the gods (elohim) in the verse were just men —Jewish elders— or that the verse was about the Trinity. Neither of those could be correct. The Bible nowhere teaches that God appointed a council of Jewish elders to rule over foreign nations, and God certainly wouldn’t be attacking the rest of the Trinity (Jesus and the Holy Spirit), for being corrupt.
Clarity eventually prevailed. Psalm 82 became a focal point of his doctoral dissertation, which also examined the nature of Israelite monotheism and how the biblical writers really thought about the unseen spiritual realm. And eventually led to his book The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible, Lexham Press, 2015.
The heavenly host was with God before creation. In fact, they witnessed it.
"4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" - Job 38:4-7
Sons of God (Hebrew: beney elohim) is a phrase used to identify divine beings with higher-level responsibilities or jurisdictions. The term angel (Hebrew: malʾak) describes an important but still lesser task: delivering messages.
The sons of God are divine, not human. The sons of God witnessed creation long before there were people. They are intelligent nonhuman beings.
"God [elohim] standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods [elohim]." - Psalm 82:1
As noted earlier the word elohim occurs twice in this verse. You also probably recognize elohim as one of God’s names, despite the fact that the form of the word is plural.
In Hebrew, plurals of masculine nouns end with -im. While the word elohim is plural in form, its meaning can be either plural or singular, such as sheep in the English language. The first elohim must be singular, since the Hebrew grammar has the word as the subject of a singular verbal form. The second elohim must be plural, since the preposition in front of it (“he judgeth among the”) requires more than one.
The meaning of the verse is inescapable: The singular elohim of Israel presides over an assembly of elohim. God has called this council meeting to judge the elohim for corrupt rule of the nations. The text is not clear whether all of the elohim are under judgment or just some. Verse 6 of the psalm declares that these elohim are sons of God.
"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." - Psalm 82:6
In the next devotional we will explore who these sons of God are, and how some have tried to explain away these verses.
Sources:
- Portions of the above is from Michael S. Heiser' excellent book The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible
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