Psalm 82:6

I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) I have said.—Again the Divine voice breaks the silence with an emphatic I. “From me comes your office and your honoured title, gods; now from me hear your doom. Princes though ye be, ye will die as other men: yea, altogether will ye princes perish.” (For the rendering “altogether,” literally, like one man, see Ezra 2:64; Ezra 3:9, &c.)

It is interesting to notice that Psalm 82:1; Psalm 82:6 were quoted by Constantine at the opening of the council of Nicæa, to remind the bishops that their high office should raise them above jealousy and party feeling. (For the interest gained by the passage from our Lord’s use of it to rebut the charge of blasphemy brought against Him by the scribes, see Note, New Testament Commentary, John 10:34.)

Benson Commentary

Psalm 82:6-7. I have said, Ye are gods — I have given you my name and power to rule your people in my stead; and all of you — Not only the rulers of Israel, but of all other nations; (for the powers that be are ordained of God, Romans 13:1;) are children of the Most High — Representing my person, and bearing both my name and lively characters of my majesty and authority, as children bear the name and image of their parents. But ye shall die like men — Like ordinary men. As if he had said, Let not either your honourable title or exalted station make you insolent or secure, for though you are gods by name and office, yet still you are mortal men; you must die, and give up your account to me your supreme Lord and Governor; and you shall die by the hands of my justice if you persist in your ungodly courses. And fall like one of the princes — Like every, or any of the princes; that is, as other unrighteous or tyrannical rulers have done in all former ages, and still do, your eyes seeing it. Or, as the Hebrew may be rendered, and you, O ye princes, (or you that are princes, before termed gods,) shall fall like one, or like every, or any of them, that is of the ordinary men last mentioned. It is well observed by Dr. Hammond, that when our Lord cites these words, John 10:34, they are introduced thus: Is it not written in your law? From whence it is necessarily concluded that this book of Psalms was looked upon among the Jews as part of the divine law, that is, of God’s word, declaring his will to mankind as truly and authoritatively as the books of Moses themselves. In which light we are to view the writings of the prophets and of all who were inspired by God. They all reveal his will with authority from him.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

82:6-8 It is hard for men to have honour put upon them, and not to be proud of it. But all the rulers of the earth shall die, and all their honour shall be laid in the dust. God governs the world. There is a righteous God to whom we may go, and on whom we may depend. This also has respect to the kingdom of the Messiah. Considering the state of affairs in the world, we have need to pray that the Lord Jesus would speedily rule over all nations, in truth, righteousness, and peace.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I have said, Ye are gods - See the notes at Psalm 82:1. I have given you this title; I have conferred on you an appellation which indicates a greater nearness to God than any other which is bestowed on men - an appellation which implies that you are God's representatives on earth, and that your decision is, in an important sense, to be regarded as his.

And all of you are children of the Most High - Sons of God. That is, You occupy a rank which makes it proper that you should be regarded as his sons.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6, 7. Though God admitted their official dignity (Joh 10:34), He reminds them of their mortality.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I have said, Ye are gods; I have given you my name and power to rule your people in my stead.

All of you; not only the rulers of Israel, but of all other nations; for all powers are ordained by God, Romans 13:1.

Children of the Most High; representing my person, and bearing both my name and lively characters of my majesty and authority, as children bear the name and image of their parents.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I have said, ye are gods,.... In the law, Exodus 21:6 or they were so by his appointment and commission; he constituted them judges and magistrates, invested them with such an office, by which they came to have this title; see Romans 13:1, and so our Lord interprets these words, that they were gods "to whom" the word of God came, which gave them a commission and authority to exercise their office, John 10:35, or rather "against whom" it came, pronouncing the sentence of death on them, as in Psalm 82:7, to which the reference is; declaring, that though they were gods by office, yet were mortal men, and should die. The Targum is, "I said, as angels are ye accounted"; and so judges and civil magistrates had need to be as angels, and to have the wisdom of them; see 2 Samuel 14:20. Jarchi interprets it of angels, but magistrates are undoubtedly meant:

and all of you are children of the most High; the Targum here again renders it,

"the angels of the most High:''

and so Aben Ezra explains it of them who are called the sons of God, Job 38:7 but men in power are meant, who, because of their eminency and dignity, their high office, post, and place, are so called; see Genesis 6:2.

Geneva Study Bible

I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. I said, Te are gods,

And all of you sons of the Most High (R.V.).

I is emphatic. It is by God’s appointment that they have been invested with divine authority to execute judgement in His name. Cp. the language used of the king, Psalm 2:7; Psalm 89:27.

To the words of this verse our Lord appealed (John 10:34 ff.), when the Jews accused Him of blasphemy because He claimed to be one with God. In virtue of their call to a sacred office as representatives of God the judges of old time were called gods and sons of the Most High, and this in spite of their unworthiness. Was it then blasphemy, He asked, for one who had received a special consecration and commission as God’s representative, one whose life and work bore witness to that consecration, to call Himself the Son of God?

On the surface this may seem to be a verbal argument such as the Jews themselves would have used; but the real significance of the quotation lies deeper. The fact that it was possible for men so to represent God as to be called gods or divine was a foreshadowing of the Incarnation. “There lay already in the Law the germ of the truth which Christ announced, the union of God and man.” Bp Westcott.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - I have said, Ye are gods; i.e. "in my Law I have called you gods" - I have given you this lofty name (see Exodus 21:6; Exodus 22:8, 9), since ye judge on my behalf, "as my representatives" (Deuteronomy 1:17; 2 Chronicles 19:6; Romans 13:1, 2). And all of you are children of the Most High. Not therefore "gods" in the strictest sense, but possessing a derived, and so a qualified, divinity. Psalm 82:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

What now follows in Psalm 82:5 is not a parenthetical assertion of the inefficiency with which the divine correction rebounds from the judges and rulers. In connection with this way of taking Psalm 82:5, the manner in which the divine language is continued in Psalm 82:6 is harsh and unadjusted. God Himself speaks in Psalm 82:5 of the judges, but reluctantly alienated from them; and confident of the futility of all attempts to make them better, He tells them their sentence in Psalm 82:6. The verbs in Psalm 82:5 are designedly without any object: complaint of the widest compass is made over their want of reason and understanding; and ידעו takes the perfect form in like manner to ἐγνώκασι, noverunt, cf. Psalm 14:1; Isaiah 44:18. Thus, then, no result is to be expected from the divine admonition: they still go their ways in this state of mental darkness, and that, as the Hithpa. implies, stalking on in carnal security and self-complacency. The commands, however, which they transgress are the foundations (cf. Psalm 11:3), as it were the shafts and pillars (Psalm 75:4, cf. Proverbs 29:4), upon which rests the permanence of all earthly relationships with are appointed by creation and regulated by the Tτra. Their transgression makes the land, the earth, to totter physically and morally, and is the prelude of its overthrow. When the celestial Lord of the domain thinks upon this destruction which injustice and tyranny are bringing upon the earth, His wrath kindles, and He reminds the judges and rulers that it is His own free declaratory act which has clothed them with the god-like dignity which they bear. They are actually elohim, but not possessed of the right of self-government; there is a Most High (עליון) to whom they as sons are responsible. The idea that the appellation elohim, which they have given to themselves, is only sarcastically given back to them in Psalm 82:1 (Ewald, Olshausen), is refuted by Psalm 82:6, according to which they are really elohim by the grace of God. But if their practice is not an Amen to this name, then they shall be divested of the majesty which they have forfeited; they shall be divested of the prerogative of Israel, whose vocation and destiny they have belied. They shall die off כּאדם, like common men not rising in any degree above the mass (cf. בּני אדם, opp. בּני אישׁ, Psalm 4:3; Psalm 49:3); they shall fall like any one (Judges 16:7, Obadiah 1:11) of the princes who in the course of history have been cast down by the judgment of God (Hosea 7:7). Their divine office will not protect them. For although justitia civilis is far from being the righteousness that avails before God, yet injustitia civilis is in His sight the vilest abomination.