to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
gods
אֱלֹהִ֣ים'E.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
children
וּבְנֵ֖יu.ve.Nei
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · conjunction + noun, common masculine plural construct
High
עֶלְי֣וֹןel.Yon
H5945
an elevation · adjective, masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
John 10:34-36 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
Psalms 82:1 God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
Exodus 22:28 Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people.
Exodus 22:9 For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challenget…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 82:6–end
We have here,
I. Earthly gods abased and brought down, Psa 82:6, Psa 82:7. The dignity of their character is acknowledged (Psa 82:6): I have said, You are gods. They have been honoured with the name and title of gods. God himself called them so in the statute against treasonable words Exo 22:28, Thou shalt not revile the gods. And, if they have this style from the fountain of honour, who can dispute it? But what is man, that he should be thus magnified? He called them gods because unto them the word of God came, so our Saviour expounds it (Joh 10:35); they had a commission from God, and were delegated and appointed by him to be the shields of the earth, the conservators of the public peace,…
I have said, ye are gods,.... In the law, Exodus 21:6 or they were so by his appointment and commission; he constituted them judges and magistrates, invested them with such an office, by which they came to have this title; see Romans 13:1, and so our Lord interprets these words, that they were gods "to whom" the word of God came, which gave them a commission and authority to exercise their office, John 10:35, or rather "against whom" it came, pronouncing the sentence of death on them, as in Psalm 82:7, to which the reference is; declaring, that though they were gods by office, yet were mortal men, and should die. The Targum is, "I said, as angels are ye accounted"; and so judges and civil ma…
Psalm 82:5-8
5. They know not, neither do they understand: they walk in darkness, although all the foundations of the earth are moved. 6. I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. 7. But ye shall die as a man; and ye shall fall, O princes: as one of the people. 8. Arise, O God! Judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.
5 They know not, neither do they understand. [425] After having reminded princes of their duty, the Psalmist complains that his admonition from their infatuation is ineffectual, and that they refuse to receive wholesome instruction; yea, that although the whole world is shaken to its foundations, they, notwithstanding, continue thoughtless an…
The Church Fathers
So then, it all depends upon the use. Why do I say, an angel? the man can become God, and a child of God. For we read, "I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High." And what is greater, the power to become both God and angel and child of God is put into his own hands. Yea, so it is, man can be the maker of an angel.
"I have said you are gods and all of you children of the most High, but you shall die like man." This he says to them that did not accept the gift of adoption but dishonor the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, deprive humankind of ascent to God and are ungrateful to the Word of God who for their sakes was made flesh. For this cause was the Word made human, that humanity receiving the Word and accepting the adoption should be made God's children.
I said: you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. Let Eunomius hear, let Arius hear, who say that the Son of God is a son in the same way as we are. That we are gods, we are so not by nature, but by grace. 'For as many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God.' Therefore I made man, that out of men gods might be made. I said: you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. See how great the dignity is: we are called both gods and sons. I made you gods, just as I made Moses a god of Pharaoh: that after you have been gods, you may be made worthy to be sons of God. Consider the divine Scripture. 'There is no respect of persons with God.' He did not say: I said: you are gods, the kings and the princes, but all: to whom equally I have given a body and a soul and a spirit, equally I have bestowed both deity and adoption. We are all born equally, both emperors and the poor: equally we also die. For our condition is equal.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Law — A rule of action. (1.) The Law of Nature is the will of God as to human conduct, founded on the moral difference of things, and discoverable by natural light (Rom. 1:20; 2:14, 15). This law binds all…
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
What now follows in Psa 82:5 is not a parenthetical assertion of the inefficiency with which the divine correction rebounds from the judges and rulers. In connection with this way of taking Psa 82:5, the manner in which the divine language is continued in Psa 82:6 is harsh and unadjusted. God Himself speaks in Psa 82:5 of the judges, but reluctantly alienated from them; and confident of the futility of all attempts to make them better, He tells them their sentence in Psa 82:6. The verbs in Psa 82:5 are designedly without any object: complaint of the widest compass is made over their want of reason and understanding; and ידעו takes the perfect form in like manner to ἐγνώκασι, noverunt, cf.…
The gods (see study notes on 29:1-2; 58:1), like mere mortals, cannot escape the judgment common to human rulers. Jesus quoted from this passage in John 10:34.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 82:6
I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
I have said, ye are gods. The greatest honour was thus put upon them; they were delegated gods, clothed for a while with a little of that authority by which the Lord judges among the sons of men. And all of you are children of the Most High. This was their ex-officio character, not their moral or spiritual relationship. There must be some government among men, and as angels are not sent to dispense it, God allows men to rule over men, and endorses their office, so far at least that the prostitution of it becomes an insult to his own prerogatives. Magistrates would have no right to condemn the guilty if God had not sanct…
