AN ALMIGHTY ASSEMBLY
Opening Prayer
As I read your Word today, Lord God, open my eyes and heart to see and embrace what you have for me. Change me; make me more and more like Jesus.
Read PSALM 82
Psalm 82
A psalm of Asaph.
1 God presides in the great assembly;
he renders judgment among the “gods”:
2 “How long will you[a] defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?[b]
3 Defend the weak and the fatherless;
uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
5 “The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing.
They walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
7 But you will die like mere mortals;
you will fall like every other ruler.”
8 Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
for all the nations are your inheritance.
Footnotes
- Psalm 82:2 The Hebrew is plural.
- Psalm 82:2 The Hebrew has Selah (a word of uncertain meaning) here.
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Meditate
‘The Son is the image of the invisible God … all things have been created through him and for him.’1
Think Further
Why is the first commandment, ‘You shall have no other gods before me’?2 Presumably because the Israelites were in danger of becoming attracted to other gods. Israel was a small nation surrounded by larger and more powerful cultures whose established religions were thoroughly polytheistic. The Hebrew prophets resist this worldview by asserting God’s role as Sovereign Creator and denouncing other gods as worthless idols.3
This psalm takes a different tack. The psalmist plays on the ancient Near Eastern idea of the gods meeting in assembly under the presidency of a supreme god, to decide what would happen on earth.4 Here, however, God himself is presiding, gathering the other gods around him to judge them for their complete failures in just leadership. They have acted in the interest of the ‘unjust’ and ‘wicked,’ instead of defending the ‘weak and the fatherless … the poor and the oppressed’ (vv. 2, 3). Consequently— in a shock departure from ancient Near Eastern mythologies—God effectively strips these gods of their divine status, decreeing that they will ‘die like mere mortals’ (v. 7). At the end, the psalmist calls on God himself to restore justice on earth, as its true and rightful ruler (v. 8).
Despite the psalm’s purported setting, we are right to hear God’s criticisms of the gods (vv. 2–4) as directed also at those who have leadership responsibilities on earth. In later Judaism the ‘gods’ were interpreted as referring to the Jewish people (as Jesus’ comments in John 10:34–36 indicate).5 Can we respond by reflecting on how we measure up to this moral commission today, as well as joining the psalmist in urging God to ‘rise up’ and bring justice to all the nations (v. 8)?
Apply
Reflect on these words from Micah 6:8: ‘… what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Closing prayer
Heavenly Father, it is your wisdom that I seek. Help me to relate to the world around me in ways that please you and bring honor to your name.
1 Col 1:15, 16 2 Exod 20:3 3 Eg Isa 44:6–20 4 Robert Davidson, The Vitality of Worship, Handsel, 1998, p271 5 Mays, Psalms, John Knox, 1994, p270
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