The Judgment of the Gods

We ended last week’s post with a question: what does the Lord do with those sons of God who failed Him? Responding to the attempt to build the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9), God confused the languages of humanity, scattered people in clans, and turned over the governance of these linguistic groups to members of the divine council (Deuteronomy 32:8). It’s not only Moses who reports this. The Greek philosopher Plato mentions the subject, too.

Plato

Writing around around 400 BC, Plato espoused the virtues of government by the gods. In the Critias, 109b-c, he penned the following:

Once upon a time the gods took over the whole earth according to its regions. They didn’t fight with each other over this. The gods recognized their own rights so they didn’t try to get for themselves possessions that others had a better claim to. By fair allotments each one received his own group, and they settled their countries. Then they raised us, like herdsmen ^craise their flocks, to be their cattle and nurslings. But they didn’t constrain our bodies by force, like shepherds using a staff. Instead, they directed from the stern where the living creature is easiest to turn about. They laid hold of souls by persuasion, as by a rudder, according to their own disposition; and so, they drove and steered all the mortal kind. [my paraphrased and edited version]

Plato didn’t define the era in which this all took place. But it fits the period of the Babel incident. Disobeying the Most High God, the peoples of the world ended up under the jurisdiction of lesser gods.

The philosopher praised the work of these beings. In his Laws, 713b-e, he considered this to be a golden age:

There existed in the time of Cronos a most prosperous government, on which the best nations are modeled . . . ^cTradition tells us how blissful life was in that age, with everything in abundance and lots of spontaneous growth. And here’s why: Cronos knew no human being could have irresponsible control of all human affairs without becoming filled with pride and injustice. So he appointed as kings ^dand rulers for our cities, not men, but beings of a race that was nobler and more divine, namely, daemons. He acted just like we do with sheep and cattle. We don’t set oxen as rulers over oxen, or goats over goats, but we, who are of a nobler race, rule over them. In the same way (the) God, in his love for humanity, set over us at that time the nobler race of daemons. These beings, with much comfort to themselves and to us, took charge of us and gave us peace, ^emodesty, orderliness, and justice, thereby making the tribes of men happy and free from fighting. [my paraphrased and edited version]

The ancient Greeks used the word daemon (or daimon) to refer to any spiritual being, good or evil. In the New Testament, daimonion refers only to evil spirits, but that’s not who Plato had in mind. He thought the gods ruling over the nations were beneficent and produced wonderful results.

This might have been true at the beginning, but things changed. These angelic authorities came to enjoy the devotion of those under their care. Rather than directing people to God, they sought for themselves the worship of the Gentiles.

And to encourage the nations to bow down to them, these rebellious powers promoted immorality and injustice. This triple combination appealed to fallen humanity, which further alienated people from God and His standards. By this point, the human race was trapped.

Psalm 82

But the Lord would not allow this sorry state to continue. He will hold the angelic rulers accountable. We learn about this in Psalm 82, written by Asaph.

We’ll break up the psalm into sections and handle them one at a time. And it’ll take more than one blog post to cover everything, so be patient and enjoy the trip!

Context

“God has taken His place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods He holds judgment.” – Psalm 82:1

The first verse has a chiastic structure, which means it’s shaped like an X. We can also use the term ABBA to illustrate this form. Here’s the arrangement:

A: God has taken His place

B: in the divine council

B: in the midst of the gods

A: He holds judgment

This form allows the psalmist to repeat himself and so to stress key ideas. In this verse, point A refers to God acting as a judge. Point B identifies the personal situation of the proceedings.

The Hebrew word for God, elohim, occurs twice in this verse. The first time it refers to God who is the Judge. The second time it refers to those involved in the judgment, translated in the ESV as “gods.”

To make a noun plural, Hebrew adds an “-im” at the end of the word. But even though elohim has a plural form, it’s often singular in meaning. One way to decide whether the noun is singular or plural is to check the accompanying verb. In this case, “has” is singular, so the first elohim gets translated as “God,” not “gods.”

The first middle point describes a group. A council (`edah) is a “congregation or gathering,” denoting a collection of individuals. Therefore, the ESV went with “gods” for the second elohim.

The Lord has a role in the council. 46 times the Old Testament describes God as the Most High. He’s the supreme leader of the divine council!

Asaph further clarifies that it’s God’s council. He attaches the generic noun for God, el, to “council.” Here, it acts as a descriptor. So this is no ordinary council. It’s divine; it belongs to or is overseen by God Himself.

And one last tidbit. The verbs are in the imperfect tense. In Hebrew, this means the action hasn’t been completed yet. From Asaph’s perspective, God has started to judge, but He’s not finished.

What do we get out of the first verse? We see God holding court to engage in judgment. He’s surrounded by fellows, but we don’t know why they’re there. Are they members of the council or are they defendants?

Charges

“How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? ³Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. ⁴Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” – Psalm 82:2-4

In this passage, God lays out His charges against the accused. They’re still unidentified, but they appear to have authority. These individuals can judge, grant justice, rescue, and deliver. They can also abuse their position and grant favors to the powerful while disregarding the poor and weak.

In the ancient world, judgment, rulership, and military command were all combined. Today in constitutional republics, we diffuse these responsibilities to prevent a single person from amassing too much power. But in the days of the Old Testament, rulers governed as absolutes. Only to the extent that a king delegated his responsibilities did others take part in his authority.

Given that background, we can say that the Lord is addressing authority figures. They’re not living up to their God-given duty to provide justice. 

Christ

We’re going to pick on Psalm 82 next week, but for now, let’s remember that Jesus is the primary aim of Scripture. In fact, I’m going to end this post with a passage from Luke’s gospel. It describes Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s plan for the government of the nations. The gods have failed, but Jesus won’t.

And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as was His custom, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and He stood up to read. ¹⁷And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ²⁰And He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. ²¹And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” – Luke 4:16-21