"The Sons of God!" Mere mortals, literal sons or angels? (prophet, Baptist)

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by dtango
Yes, Eusebius, they were judges!

Daniel replied:

No, they absolutely weren't. I've shown that. You've not even begun to engage my argument.

Daniel, I'll step through the Psalm again. Plalm 82 will be in blue.


Psa 82:1-8 An Asaphic Psalm Elohim is stationed in the congregation of El;

The congretagion of El was Israel.

Now here God is setting straight the judges of Israel. God gave to humans of Israel the duty of judging His people. Isaiah brings this up too against the chiefs of Israel:

Isa_1:23 Your chiefs are stubborn, and partners of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe, and pursues payments. The orphan they are not judging. And the contention of the widow is not coming to them."

Nine times in Deuteronomy along God tells the people to take care of the orphan. He didn't tell the gods to take care of them. The chiefs were the elohim, the subjectors and placers of the people. And so The Psalmist wrote this, continuing with Psalm 82:


Among the elohim is He judging: (2) How long shall you judge with iniquity And lift up the faces of the wicked?

God was judging the chiefs of Israel in the passage above and the following passages.

Now this is what He tells those judges of Israel to do. Spirit beings were not charged with judging the people but humans were. Moses was trying to do it all by himself. His father in law told him to appoint people to judge matters of the people. Moses didn't appoint spirit beings.


Interlude

(3) Redress the poor and the orphan; To the humbled and destitute grant justice. (4) Deliver the poor and the needy; From the hand of the wicked, give rescue." (5) They do not know and are not understanding; In darkness are they walking about; All the foundations of the earth are slipping. (6) I Myself have said: you are elohim, And sons of the Supreme are all of you."

Even though God called those humans elohim and sons of the Supreme they were acting anything but His sons. And so God is going to adversatively judge those humans. Even though those chiefs had very high estates among the people and they thought that they would die glorious deaths and be entombed gloriously God said to them they were going to die deaths just like the common people. They would fall like any other of the chiefs. What chiefs? The human chiefs as Isaiah said. Verse seven does not intimate that those chiefs had some sort of immortality and that they would lose their immortality. Those chiefs could not be spirit beings because spirit beings don't die and certainly don't die like common humanity.

Jesus even quoted verse 6 of Psalm 82 to the chiefs of Israel. He surely didn't quote it to spirit beings. And Daniel you can't say Jesus didn't know what that verse meant. You can't say in Jesus' day the Israelites thought humands could be elohim but that before their time they couldn't be.


(7) Yet you shall die like common humanity, And like any other of the chiefs you shall fall."

It was given to humans of Israel to be a blessing to the nations. Abraham was to be a blessing to the nations. But Israel couldn't even take care of their own judicial matters. How could they have the allotment of the nations? They have proven that only God can have that allotment.


(8) Do arise, O Elohim; do judge the earth; For it is You Yourself Who shall have the allotment of all the nations."

[Eusebius]

I have to repost this for Daniel since Boxcar derailed the thought:

Quote:

Originally Posted by dtango
Yes, Eusebius, they were judges!

Daniel replied:

Quote:
No, they absolutely weren't. I've shown that. You've not even begun to engage my argument.

Daniel, I'll step through the Psalm again. Psalm 82 will be in blue.


Psa 82:1-8 An Asaphic Psalm Elohim is stationed in the congregation of El;

The congregation of El was Israel.

Israel was also known as the congregation of Yahweh:

Num 31:16 Behold, they, by the word of Balaam, came to be for the sons
of Israel the reason for a withdrawal from and an offense against Yahweh
in the matter of Peor, so that the stroke came to be in the congregation of
Yahweh.

Now here God is setting straight the judges of Israel. God gave to humans of Israel the duty of judging His people. Isaiah brings this up too against the chiefs of Israel:

Isa_1:23 Your chiefs are stubborn, and partners of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe, and pursues payments. The orphan they are not judging. And the contention of the widow is not coming to them."

Nine times in Deuteronomy along God tells the people to take care of the orphan. He didn't tell the gods to take care of them. The chiefs were the elohim, the subjectors and placers of the people. And so The Psalmist wrote this, continuing with Psalm 82:


Among the elohim is He judging: (2) How long shall you judge with iniquity And lift up the faces of the wicked?

God was judging the chiefs of Israel in the passage above and the following passages.

Now this is what He tells those judges of Israel to do. Spirit beings were not charged with judging the people but humans were. Moses was trying to do it all by himself. His father in law told him to appoint people to judge matters of the people. Moses didn't appoint spirit beings.


Interlude

(3) Redress the poor and the orphan; To the humbled and destitute grant justice. (4) Deliver the poor and the needy; From the hand of the wicked, give rescue." (5) They do not know and are not understanding; In darkness are they walking about; All the foundations of the earth are slipping. (6) I Myself have said: you are elohim, And sons of the Supreme are all of you."

Even though God called those humans elohim and sons of the Supreme they were acting anything but His sons. And so God is going to adversatively judge those humans. Even though those chiefs had very high estates among the people and they thought that they would die glorious deaths and be entombed gloriously God said to them they were going to die deaths just like the common people. They would fall like any other of the chiefs. What chiefs? The human chiefs as Isaiah said. Verse seven does not intimate that those chiefs had some sort of immortality and that they would lose their immortality. Those chiefs could not be spirit beings because spirit beings don't die and certainly don't die like common humanity.

Jesus even quoted verse 6 of Psalm 82 to the chiefs of Israel. He surely didn't quote it to spirit beings. And Daniel you can't say Jesus didn't know what that verse meant. You can't say in Jesus' day the Israelites thought humans could be elohim but that before their time they couldn't be.


(7) Yet you shall die like common humanity, And like any other of the chiefs you shall fall."

It was given to humans of Israel to be a blessing to the nations. Abraham was to be a blessing to the nations. But Israel couldn't even take care of their own judicial matters. How could they have the allotment of the nations? They have proven that only God can have that allotment.


(8) Do arise, O Elohim; do judge the earth; For it is You Yourself Who shall have the allotment of all the nations."

[Daniel O. McClellan]

Originally Posted by Eusebius

I have to repost this for Daniel since Boxcar derailed the thought:

Quote:
Daniel replied:
Daniel, I'll step through the Psalm again. Psalm 82 will be in blue.

Psa 82:1-8 An Asaphic Psalm Elohim is stationed in the congregation of El;

The congregation of El was Israel.

No, the congregation of El was not Israel. The congregation of Yhwh was Israel (Num 27:17), but that's a different vernacular and an entirely different context. The "congregation of El" (עדת*אל) is identical to the Ugaritic 'dt 'lm. The plural 'lm in the Ugaritic is actually the singular 'l with an enclitic mem. This is the exact same thing that we find in the Ugaritic bn 'lm and the Hebrew phrase בני*אלים (Ps 29:1; 89:7), and it is likely the original phrase in Ps 82:1 in light of the Septuagint's plural συναγωγη θεων. The fact that the parallel colon reads בקרב*אלהים makes it absolutely unquestionable that the divine council is the context. Other references to the divine council that make it equally unquestionable that a human context is out of the question include Deut 32:8–9; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; 1 Kgs 22:19–22. Some publications that discuss the specifics of the divine council vernacular are the following:

Kee, Min Suc. “The Heavenly Council and Its Type-Scene.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 31.3 (2007): 259–73.

Bokovoy, David. “שמעו והעידו בבית יעקב: Invoking the Council as Witnesses in Amos 3:13.” Journal of Biblical Literature 127.1 (2008): 37–51.

Zakovitch, Yair. “Psalm 82 and Biblical Exegesis.” Pages 213–28 in Sefer Moshe. The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism. Edited by Chaim Cohen, Avi Hurvitz, and Shalom M. Paul; Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2004.

Zenger, Erich. “Psalm 82 im Kontext der Asaf-Sammlung: Religionsgeschichtliche Implikationen.” Pages 272–92 in Religionsgeschichte Israels. Gütersloh; Gütersloh: Kaiser, 1999.

Tsevat, Matitiahu. “God and the Gods in Assembly, an Interpretation of Psalm 82.” Hebrew Union College Annual 40/41 (1969–70): 123–37.

Parker, Simon B. “The Beginning of the Reign of God—Psalm 82 as Myth and Liturgy.” Revue Biblique 102.4 (1995): 532–59.

Handy, Lowell K. “Sounds, Words and Meanings in Psalm 82.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 47.1 (1990): 47–56.

Frankel, David. “El as the Speaking Voice in Psalm 82:6–8.” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (2010): 2–24.

Ackerman, James S. “An Exegetical Study of Psalm 82.” Th.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1966.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Now here God is setting straight the judges of Israel. God gave to humans of Israel the duty of judging His people. Isaiah brings this up too against the chiefs of Israel:

Isa_1:23 Your chiefs are stubborn, and partners of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe, and pursues payments. The orphan they are not judging. And the contention of the widow is not coming to them."

"Chiefs" (שר) does not refer to judges, but to kings and other kinds of political rulers. Kings and gods were responsible for the widows and the orphans, which was just a stock phrase used to refer to general social justice. Gods were responsible first, but kings were considered stewards to whom the gods would entrust that responsibility. I discuss this in a bit more detail here.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Nine times in Deuteronomy along God tells the people to take care of the orphan. He didn't tell the gods to take care of them. The chiefs were the elohim,

No, the שרים were not elohim.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

the subjectors and placers of the people. And so The Psalmist wrote this, continuing with Psalm 82:

Among the elohim is He judging: (2) How long shall you judge with iniquity And lift up the faces of the wicked?

God was judging the chiefs of Israel in the passage above and the following passages.

Now this is what He tells those judges of Israel to do. Spirit beings were not charged with judging the people but humans were.

The word "judge" here does not refer specifically to formal juridical proceedings. It refers simply to overseership, which could refer to judges, kings, or gods. The verb שפט appears in reference to gods in Hebrew and in cognate languages.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Moses was trying to do it all by himself. His father in law told him to appoint people to judge matters of the people. Moses didn't appoint spirit beings.

So when the Bible refers to God judging, it's really just referring to humans, since Moses didn't appoint spirit beings? This is terribly myopic and dogmatic exegesis.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Interlude

I wonder why you think selah should be translated this way.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

(3) Redress the poor and the orphan; To the humbled and destitute grant justice. (4) Deliver the poor and the needy; From the hand of the wicked, give rescue." (5) They do not know and are not understanding; In darkness are they walking about; All the foundations of the earth are slipping. (6) I Myself have said: you are elohim, And sons of the Supreme are all of you."

Even though God called those humans elohim and sons of the Supreme they were acting anything but His sons. And so God is going to adversatively judge those humans. Even though those chiefs had very high estates among the people and they thought that they would die glorious deaths

There's nothing about "glorious deaths" anywhere. You're just making up a rationalization for the contrast of vv. 6 and 7.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

and be entombed gloriously God said to them they were going to die deaths just like the common people. They would fall like any other of the chiefs. What chiefs? The human chiefs as Isaiah said.

Here you undermine your own exegesis. The parallelism of death like any human and falling like any prince flatly undermines the notion that their deaths would be like "the common people" instead of a "glorious" death expected of a ruler. If they fall like a prince, they're not being robbed a "glorious death." Your exegesis undermines itself.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Verse seven does not intimate that those chiefs had some sort of immortality and that they would lose their immortality.

That's exactly what it indicates. There's no reason to contrast the condemnation to mortality with their nature as gods aside from the expectation that gods should be immortal. The idea of a "glorious death" is just ludicrous.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Those chiefs could not be spirit beings because spirit beings don't die and certainly don't die like common humanity.

As I've pointed out, gods in the ancient Near East do in fact die.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Jesus even quoted verse 6 of Psalm 82 to the chiefs of Israel. He surely didn't quote it to spirit beings. And Daniel you can't say Jesus didn't know what that verse meant.

I've already linked to my discussion of Jesus' use of the psalm. He was appealing to a common contemporary reading that understood the reference to be to the Israelites at Sinai. That reading did not exist prior to the turn of the era. Several good discussions of Jesus' use of the psalm are the following:

Ackerman, James S. “The Rabbinic Interpretation of Psalm 82 and the Gospel of John.” Harvard Theological Review 59.2 (1966): 186–91.

Emerton, James A. “The Interpretation of Ps lxxxii in John x.” Journal of Theological Studies 11 (1960): 329–32.

Hanson, Anthony. “John’s Citation of Psalm LXXXII Reconsidered.” New Testament Studies 13 (1966): 363–67.

Neyrey, Jerome H. “‘I Said: You Are Gods’: Psalm 82:6 and John 10.” Journal of Biblical Literature 108.4 (1989): 647–63.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

You can't say in Jesus' day the Israelites thought humans could be elohim but that before their time they couldn't be.

That's not at all what I'm saying. The early Christians certainly believed in divine humans, though.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

(7) Yet you shall die like common humanity, And like any other of the chiefs you shall fall."

It was given to humans of Israel to be a blessing to the nations. Abraham was to be a blessing to the nations. But Israel couldn't even take care of their own judicial matters. How could they have the allotment of the nations? They have proven that only God can have that allotment.

(8) Do arise, O Elohim; do judge the earth; For it is You Yourself Who shall have the allotment of all the nations."

But this last verse shows that God did not have that allotment prior to Psalm 82, but only received it after it was taken from the elohim. This flatly undermines your reading, since the judges in Israel never had rule over any nation (not even Israel). Nor does the failure of judges in Israel shake the very foundations of the earth.

Seriously, if you are really in any way responsible for a Bible translation and you are really this ignorant of the relevant scholarship and the relevant languages, your publication is doing a horrendous disservice to biblical translation and scholarship.

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by Daniel O. McClellan

Seriously, if you are really in any way responsible for a Bible translation and you are really this ignorant of the relevant scholarship and the relevant languages, your publication is doing a horrendous disservice to biblical translation and scholarship.

First of all, I am not responsible for any Bible translation.

Secondly, I'm not really ignorant. And if you were really any kind of a "scholar" you wouldn't treat people as 'a'holes who disagree with your views. Just because you can line your little duckies in a row proves nothing. By that I mean you keep saying if all these people believe like you that you must therefore be correct. Again that is appealing to the human and proves absolutely nothing. Here is what this commentary states:

Believer's Bible Commentary (from Thomas Nelson Publishers) states:

Psalm 82:6, 7 Though exalted to heaven in privilege, they shall be cast down in punishment. The fact that God calls them gods and children of the Most High does not grant them immunity from judgment. They will be subject to the same treatment as other men, and fall like one of the princes. Actually the degree of their punishment will be greater because of their greater privilege.
Our Lord quoted verse six in one of His confrontations with His foes (Joh_10:32-36 ). They had just accused Him of blaspheming because He claimed equality with God.
Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, "You are gods"'? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?"
To the western mind, the argument might not seem clear or convincing, but it obviously had compelling power on His hearers. They understood that Jesus was arguing from the lesser to the greater. The force of the argument is as follows:
In Psalm 82, rulers and judges are addressed by God as gods. Actually they are not divine, but because of their position as God's ministers, they are dignified with the name of gods. Their greatest distinction is that the word of God came to them, that is, they were officially ordained by God as higher powers concerned with government and justice (Rom_13:1 ).
If the name gods could thus be loosely applied to men like them, how much more fully and accurately can the name God be applied to the Lord Jesus. He had been sanctified and sent into the world by God the Father. This implies that He had lived with God the Father in heaven from all eternity. Then the Father had set Him apart to a mission on earth and had sent Him to be born in Bethlehem.
The Jews understood perfectly that He was claiming equality with God, and they sought to apprehend Him but He eluded them (Joh_10:39 ).
82:8 But now back to the last verse of the Psalm:
Arise, O God, judge the earth;

For You shall inherit all nations.

It is Asaph calling on the Lord to intervene in the affairs of men, bringing righteousness and justice to replace corruption and inequity. The prayer will be answered when the Lord Jesus returns to reign over the earth. At that time, as the prophets predicted, "justice shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field" (Isa_32:16 ). The earth will enjoy a time of social justice and freedom from graft and deceit.

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by Daniel O. McClellan

Seriously, if you are really in any way responsible for a Bible translation and you are really this ignorant of the relevant scholarship and the relevant languages, your publication is doing a horrendous disservice to biblical translation and scholarship.

Very excellent post, Daniel. Your above statement surely is true. Besides being biased, it has some of the worst translations I have ever seen. But that's what happens when you insert theological bias into a so-called "literal" translation.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Believer's Bible Commentary (from Thomas Nelson Publishers) states:

Of course you would pick a highly biased commentary. From the publisher's description:

MacDonald tackles the controversial issues head-on, taking a theologically conservative stand...

As long as it backs up your ideas, Eusebius, right? Nobody expects a "theologically conservative" commentary to be a non-biased approach to Scripture. And I'm not aware of anyone who wants an competent commentary who consults that one.

What about the Harper Collins Study Bible, with the Society of Biblical Literature?

82:1-8: The Psalm is a literary report of the action of the divine council or heavenly assembly similar to the prophetic reports recounted in I Kings 22:19-23; Isa 6:1-13; Jer 23:18-22. A common conception in the ancient Near East, the council of the gods was understood to be the place in which the government of the universe was carried out....

82:1-4: The God of Israel rises in the council of the gods to accuse the gods of the nations of not having maintained the right to justice of the weak and the poor, the primary criterion of a just order in ancient Israel.

82:5: Either blindly or intentionally the gods do not know the way of justice. As a consequence, the just order of the universe is undermined.

82:6-7: The God of Israel strips the heavenly powers of their divine character and condemns the immortal gods to mortality. V. 6a is quoted in Jn 10:34.

82:8: The psalmist, perhaps a priestly or prophetic voice, calls upon God to take over the rule of the nations from all the other gods.
(The Harper Collins Study Bible, Notes on Psalm 82)

Now - you see how you can get a better commentary when you don't choose one that parades itself as "theologically conservative"? If you stick with the latter, that's all you'll get: a "theologically conservative" commentary, which will be afraid to embrace anything new or interesting.

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by whoppers

Very excellent post, Daniel. Your above statement surely is true. Besides being biased, it has some of the worst translations I have ever seen. But that's what happens when you insert theological bias into a so-called "literal" translation.



Of course you would pick a highly biased commentary. From the publisher's description:

MacDonald tackles the controversial issues head-on, taking a theologically conservative stand...

As long as it backs up your ideas, Eusebius, right? Nobody expects a "theologically conservative" commentary to be a non-biased approach to Scripture. And I'm not aware of anyone who wants an competent commentary who consults that one.

What about the Harper Collins Study Bible, with the Society of Biblical Literature?

82:1-8: The Psalm is a literary report of the action of the divine council or heavenly assembly similar to the prophetic reports recounted in I Kings 22:19-23; Isa 6:1-13; Jer 23:18-22. A common conception in the ancient Near East, the council of the gods was understood to be the place in which the government of the universe was carried out....

82:1-4: The God of Israel rises in the council of the gods to accuse the gods of the nations of not having maintained the right to justice of the weak and the poor, the primary criterion of a just order in ancient Israel.

82:5: Either blindly or intentionally the gods do not know the way of justice. As a consequence, the just order of the universe is undermined.

82:6-7: The God of Israel strips the heavenly powers of their divine character and condemns the immortal gods to mortality. V. 6a is quoted in Jn 10:34.

82:8: The psalmist, perhaps a priestly or prophetic voice, calls upon God to take over the rule of the nations from all the other gods.
(The Harper Collins Study Bible, Notes on Psalm 82)

Now - you see how you can get a better commentary when you don't choose one that parades itself as "theologically conservative"? If you stick with the latter, that's all you'll get: a "theologically conservative" commentary, which will be afraid to embrace anything new or interesting.

So you and Daniel just cherry picked the people or commentaries that back up your position. Proves nothing. Spirit beings don't die, are not mortal. Next.

[Daniel O. McClellan]

Originally Posted by Eusebius

First of all, I am not responsible for any Bible translation.

You keep referring to a publication you're involved with, and despite my asking for clarification, you've not bothered to explain.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Secondly, I'm not really ignorant. And if you were really any kind of a "scholar" you wouldn't treat people as 'a'holes who disagree with your views.

I'm not being curt because you disagree with me. I'm being curt because you are just arbitrarily disagreeing with me and are speaking down to me despite the very clear fact that you simply are not that informed regarding this issue.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Just because you can line your little duckies in a row proves nothing.

Wow, who could argue with that?

Originally Posted by Eusebius

By that I mean you keep saying if all these people believe like you that you must therefore be correct. Again that is appealing to the human and proves absolutely nothing. Here is what this commentary states:

Believer's Bible Commentary (from Thomas Nelson Publishers) states:

Psalm 82:6, 7 Though exalted to heaven in privilege, they shall be cast down in punishment. The fact that God calls them gods and children of the Most High does not grant them immunity from judgment. They will be subject to the same treatment as other men, and fall like one of the princes. Actually the degree of their punishment will be greater because of their greater privilege.
Our Lord quoted verse six in one of His confrontations with His foes (Joh_10:32-36 ). They had just accused Him of blaspheming because He claimed equality with God.
Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, "You are gods"'? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You are blaspheming,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'?"
To the western mind, the argument might not seem clear or convincing, but it obviously had compelling power on His hearers. They understood that Jesus was arguing from the lesser to the greater. The force of the argument is as follows:
In Psalm 82, rulers and judges are addressed by God as gods. Actually they are not divine, but because of their position as God's ministers, they are dignified with the name of gods. Their greatest distinction is that the word of God came to them, that is, they were officially ordained by God as higher powers concerned with government and justice (Rom_13:1 ).
If the name gods could thus be loosely applied to men like them, how much more fully and accurately can the name God be applied to the Lord Jesus. He had been sanctified and sent into the world by God the Father. This implies that He had lived with God the Father in heaven from all eternity. Then the Father had set Him apart to a mission on earth and had sent Him to be born in Bethlehem.
The Jews understood perfectly that He was claiming equality with God, and they sought to apprehend Him but He eluded them (Joh_10:39 ).

This exegesis is equally as ignorant. Anyone who's actually looked at the first and second century literary context would know that the contemporary reading of Psalm 82, found in several places, held the reference to be to the Israelites at Sinai. According to this reading, upon the reception of the Law of Moses, the Israelites became immortal and were therefore divine. Upon sinning with the golden calf, however, their immortality was revoked. This was how Psalm 82 was understood, and this is the reading Jesus to which Jesus appeals. I already cited several publications that provide full discussions of the issue, and I linked to a paper I recently presented that discusses it as well. The above exegesis reveals absolutely no awareness whatsoever of that context. All it reveals is the same old ignorant apologetics misreadings that even conservative scholars have rejected for decades.

The notion that elohim refers to "rulers and judges" is a phenomenally outdated and phenomenally ignorant rationalization of a series of texts that make explicit and even favorable reference to other gods. Once textual discoveries (biblical and non-biblical) from the twentieth century made it unquestionably clear that Israelites and Jews acknowledged numerous other deities, that reading had to be reconsidered. Two articles from long ago that showed the numerous problems with that reading are Cyrus Gordon, “אלהים in its Reputed Meaning of Rulers, Judges,” Journal of Biblical Literature 54 (1935): 134-44; and A. E. Draffkorn, “Ilani/Elohim,” Journal of Biblical Literature 76 (1957): 216-24. Scholarship hasn't taken that reading seriously since then. I discuss those problems as well here.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

82:8 But now back to the last verse of the Psalm:
Arise, O God, judge the earth;

For You shall inherit all nations.

It is Asaph calling on the Lord to intervene in the affairs of men, bringing righteousness and justice to replace corruption and inequity. The prayer will be answered when the Lord Jesus returns to reign over the earth. At that time, as the prophets predicted, "justice shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field" (Isa_32:16 ). The earth will enjoy a time of social justice and freedom from graft and deceit.

That has nothing to do with what Ps 82:8 says. Psalm 82 directly alludes to Deut 32:8, which asserts Elyon set up the gods of the nations, with Yhwh receiving Israel. Psalm 82 deposes the gods over the other nations and has Yhwh take over. That his reign over all the nations is not a future event is made clear by Ps 83:18, which insists Yhwh is now Most High over all the nations of the earth. Your exegesis is post hoc, myopic, and uninformed. You can continue trying to justify your readings if you wish, but it's clear you're just groping for readings that agree with your dogmatism first and only with the text secondarily. The surest sign of this is the repeated appeal to explanations that must be read into the text from modernity.

[Daniel O. McClellan]

Originally Posted by Eusebius

So you and Daniel just cherry picked the people or commentaries that back up your position. Proves nothing. Spirit beings don't die, are not mortal. Next.

What text from the Bible leads you to believe that gods cannot ever die, and why do you have so much trouble calling gods "gods"?

[Daniel O. McClellan]

Originally Posted by Eusebius

So you and Daniel just cherry picked the people or commentaries that back up your position. Proves nothing. Spirit beings don't die, are not mortal. Next.

I'm not cherry picking anything (that Psalm 82 refers to gods is the overwhelming consensus), and I can take care of the argument myself.

[InsaneInDaMembrane]

Eusebius, I don't think you ever fully addressed this:

When the Most High [Elyon] gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated the sons of men,
he fixed the bounds of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
For the LORD's [YHWH] portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage. - Deuteronomy 32:8-9

Are there some distinctions made here? We have 3 entities here:

1. The Most High [Elyon]

2. The sons of God [elohim]

3. the LORD [YHWH]

How are these verses CORRECTLY interpreted?