Psalms 82:3-8

3 You're here to defend the defenseless, to make sure that underdogs get a fair break;

4 Your job is to stand up for the powerless, and prosecute all those who exploit them."

5 Ignorant judges! Head-in-the-sand judges! They haven't a clue to what's going on. And now everything's falling apart, the world's coming unglued.

6 "I commissioned you judges, each one of you, deputies of the High God,

7 But you've betrayed your commission and now you're stripped of your rank, busted."

8 O God, give them their just deserts! You've got the whole world in your hands!

Psalms 82:3-8 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.