Psalm 82 Bible study: God judges among the gods

The title reads, "A Psalm by Asaph." (82:1). These notes don't say more about Asaph than the title does; Psalm 50, the first psalm whose title names him, sets out what Scripture says of an Asaph, and what it doesn't. Then the psalm's first line sets a scene: "God presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods" (82:1). Here is what almost everyone misses: in Hebrew God and the gods are one word, elohim (tap gods). Genesis 1's study of elohim points to this verse for that reason: the word that names the one God can also name gods. Presides is nitsav, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "take one's stand, stand" (tap presides); it is the word of "the LORD stood above it" (Genesis 28:13). And the great assembly is, in Hebrew, the assembly of El, the word the WEB gives as "The Mighty One" in Psalm 50:1 (tap great, assembly).

Psalms 82:6→leads toJohn 10:34-36

At the Feast of the Dedication (John 10:22), Jesus said, "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). John writes, "Therefore the Jews took up stones again to stone him" (John 10:31), and they told him it was "for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God" (John 10:33). Jesus answered them, "Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken), do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?" (John 10:34-36). The psalm says, "I said, “You are gods, all of you are sons of the Most High" (Psalm 82:6). In his own words, Jesus' question runs from "If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came" (John 10:35) to "him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world" (John 10:36). He gives only the first half of the verse, and the WEB prints it a little differently: You with a capital in the psalm, you in John. He doesn't say who the psalm's gods were, and he doesn't call anyone in John 10 the psalm's unjust judges; these notes don't either.

שָׁפַטshafatsay sha-FAT

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "judge, govern". Strong's: "to judge, i.e. pronounce sentence (for or against); by implication, to vindicate or punish". The psalm has it four times. God "judges among the gods" (82:1). "How long will you judge unjustly" (82:2): will you judge is tishpetu, the form of "Do you judge blamelessly" (Psalm 58:1). "Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless" (82:3): Defend is this verb, shiftu. And "Arise, God, judge the earth" (82:8). The Psalms have it 32 times in Hebrew.