Psalm Reading: Psalm 82
For Sunday, August 18, 2013—Lectionary 20
When I first came across Psalm 82 as a kid, I was shocked and titillated. God walks in and takes His place in the divine counsel with all the other gods. A meeting of the gods? A divine council? I didn’t know there was a divine council and I thought there wasn’t supposed to be no other gods. I liked the idea.
I wasn’t really looking for other gods it just seemed so exotic and transgressive to talk about a council of gods right in the Bible just an inch worth of pages from Exodus 20 where I was pretty sure that was frowned upon.
Super Friends?
As a young evangelical I stayed away from Greek Mythology on the principle of that first commandment, but Psalm 82 gave me a sort of permission to think that it might be cool if there was a divine council with a bunch of different gods that all had different powers or were in charge of different things just like Mount Olympus or the Super Friends Justice League of America.
Of course this is not Mount Olympus or the Super Friends Justice League of America—and different things draw me in these days.
Asaph the Seer
This is a song for use in the worship of Elohim, the one God of Israel and it is full of prophetic and political intrigue. The Psalms are largely thought of as the work of the Poet-King David. And while the majority of the Psalms are attributed to him, ten other authors are credited.
This week’s text is a Psalm of Asaph the Seer. Asaph, is like, the first Minister of Music or Temple Music Director and David’s right hand.* He is David’s contemporary and collaborator. 2 Chronicles mentions that Asaph provided text for the music David composed for worship, in addition to rehearsing the band.
Biggest Hit?
There are a couple of psalms attributed to Asaph, but this is his biggest hit. It is a passionate condemnation of the corrupt justice system under David.
Asaph puts in God’s mouth the charges against those who sit in the council passing judgment on the people as if they were gods, handing out favorable rulings to those who buy them and ignoring the poor. It must have taken courage for Asaph to hand those lyrics over to David, who must have either been complicit in the corruption or guilty of not seeing what was going on under his nose.
Psalm 82 ends with a call for God to rise up and take the place of the unrighteous Judges, to bring justice, not only to the weak and needy, but also to the whole earth.
The Hardest Question
There is no record of how David reacted to this not so subtle indictment of the justice system under his rule, but it certainly struck a cord with the redactors of Psalms and to the tradition. It is one of the seven Psalms for the Day of the Week.
Every Tuesday it is prayed by Jews at the end of morning prayers, every Tuesday all over the world millions call on God to Rise up and bring justice to the earth. How long will that prayer go unanswered?
*For more on Asaph check out this audio recording first presented at the 2007 Calvin Symposium on Worship.
Russell Rathbun is a preacher at House of Mercy in St. Paul, Minnesota, the author of Midrash on the Juanitos (Cathedral Hill Press, 2010) and the curator of The Hardest Question. Russell's researching his next book and has decided to let us in on the process. Check out the latest at: http://russellrathbun.com/
