Psalms 82:2-8

2 "How long are you going to judge unfairly? How long are you going to side with wicked people?" Selah

3 Defend weak people and orphans. Protect the rights of the oppressed and the poor.

4 Rescue weak and needy people. Help them escape the power of wicked people.

5 Wicked people do not know or understand anything. As they walk around in the dark, all the foundations of the earth shake.

6 I said, "You are gods. You are all sons of the Most High.

7 You will certainly die like humans and fall like any prince."

8 Arise, O God! Judge the earth, because all the nations belong to you.

Psalms 82:2-8 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 82

\\<>\\. This psalm was written for the use of persons in power, for the instruction of kings and princes, judges and civil magistrates; according to Kimchi, it was written about the times of Jehoshaphat, who appointed new judges throughout the land; those that were before having been very corrupt, to whom he gave a charge agreeably to the purport of this psalm, 2Ch 19:5-7, but it seems rather to be written by Asaph, in the times of David, under a spirit of prophecy, and has respect to the times of Christ, when there was a great corruption among the judges and rulers of the Jews, both civil and ecclesiastic. The Syriac version calls it, "a reproof of the ungodly Jews"; our Lord cites a passage out of it in vindication of himself from their charge of blasphemy, Joh 10:34-36.