I gave two talks the last two weeks on two rather odd and bizarre Psalms: Psalm 82 & Psalm 89. These two prayers say things like this:

God has taken his place in the divine council, in the midst of the gods he holds judgement (82:1)

You are gods, children of the Most High… but you will die like mortals (82:6-7)

Who among the sons of gods is like the LORD? (89:6)

A God feared in the council of the holy ones… (89:7)

There’s a lot of material that seems, frankly, a bit odd. If Judaism and Christianity are monotheistic, how on earth do we make sense of these kinds of psalms?

Do we just ignore them and pray the bits we do like (such as ‘singing of God’s steadfast love’ in 89:1)?

If these are part of what's often known as the 'prayerbook of the Bible', how on earth do we pray these particular prayers? Do they suggest that maybe we should shift to thinking about God as one god among many?! But isn't that heresy?

So what are we to do?!

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The first thing to do is this: don’t panic!

There’s a lot of language in the Bible that’s strange and hard to understand. It’s not the Old Testament alone either—have you checked out Revelation 12 recently? Or any of the chapters past the letters to the churches?

What we need is a better lens. A better approach.

1.    Ancient Imagery is not Like Ours!

The Israelites were an ancient semitic people among various ancient semitic peoples. The Canaanites had ideas about the gods and their storm god Baal. Who fought various mythological foes like the Dragon (Lotan), the Sea (Yammu), and Death (Mot). The Babylonians had their own story called the Enuma Elish, that told of one god Marduk stepping up to the plate to defeat a vengeful Tiamat and her armies who were in opposition to the gods. He defeated her and fashioned creation from her corpse. At the end, the other gods enthroned him and lauded his name.

Israel was not immune from this language—and even found it useful! In some passages they use what's called the cosmic battle myth (i.e. a battle between G/god and chaos, e.g. Baal vs Dragon/Sea/Tiamat or Marduk vs Tiamat). They use that type of language to talk about God's victory in Creation (e.g. 89:9-11), as well as His victory in bringing his people out of slavery in Egypt (e.g. Ps 77:16-20).

What seems to be clear is this: Israel drew on this imagery but reinterpreted the other 'gods' (or ‘sons of gods’). Deuteronomy 32:7-8 and other passages talk about how God appointed these beings to be appointed powers over different people groups.[1] They weren’t God in the sense of a Creator God (Read though Isaiah 40-55 and this point is repeatedly made). No they were ‘gods’ in the sense of being some other kind of spiritual being.

God is still God. There’s still no one like him. He made the heavens and the earth (89:11). But there exists in the heavens other beings beyond God, angels and demons (and the Devil).

2.    So what do Psalm 82 and 89 do with the language?

Without going into it verse by verse, here’s what I am persuaded these two psalms are about:

Psalm 82 recognises that the ‘gods’ have some limited, delegated power. These heavenly beings have tasks given to them by God. But these heavenly beings are like subpar employees who are underperforming! Their job, as rulers over designated peoples and nations, was to execute justice and help those in need, but instead they had opted to lift up and exalt those who were taking advantage and trampling on the poor (vv.2-4). This is a big problem for the Psalmist: justice and righteousness is part of the fabric of creation. It’s part of who God is. In contrast, these other powers show their non-divinity by their unjust actions. So the Psalm concludes with a reiteration that these beings are actually created beings subject to death. And then the Psalmist cries out to God Most High for the justice and righting of wrongs he longs to see.

TL:DR? Psalm 82 exposes false gods as created spiritual beings and remembers that only God Most High is unfailingly good, true and just.

Psalm 89 goes in a slightly different direction. It begins with praise of God whose character is true. The Psalm uses God’s activity and status in the heavens (as well as his promises to David) as evidence of this. The language of the gods is used as a point of comparison: God is fearful to other heavenly beings themselves because He is God Most High. He made heaven and earth—Creation itself is testament to his unchanging, unwavering commitment and love. He is steadfast and faithful. (The unnerving thing here is that by the end of the Psalm, he’s using that praise and positivity to protest and lament to God that He seems to have abandoned the psalmist himself). The language of the gods (aka 'divine council' or 'heavenly beings') serves as a foil to declare that God is incomparable. None are like him. He's cut from a different cloth. There may be a vast array of heavenly powers, but none are God Most High.

TL:DR? Psalm 89 uses heavenly beings to exalt God as unique: he is unyieldingly steadfast and trustworthy (before the Psalmist later uses this to complain that his experience of life suggests something else and demands that God shows up and acts!).

3.    So what difference does it make?

A lot! Both psalms are written from a place of experience of or witness to suffering and wrongdoing. Unfair and immoral treatment of the vulnerable and those with no one to defend them.

• It helps to remember that when evil seems to abound it is not simply a human affair. There are powers, there are heavenly beings, that do not act justly. Who do not care. As Ephesians 6:12 talks about—our battle is not against flesh and blood. It's not an excuse for fatalism, but it does give us grounds to recgonise there is more going on than meets the eye.

• It also helps to remember that God is still God. The Bible bears witness to these powers, but also bears witness to the One who is God over all. God of all gods. There’s only so much we can do to change the world around us. It is God who will one day hold all such powers to account. And all human powers too.

• It helps us see more of what God has done in Christ. Ephesians 2-3 talks about how Christ through the Cross has defeated all such powers and is bringing about a new creation. Jew and Gentile. People who were allied to various different powers, from different nations and places, are in Christ part of a new humanity. That is our primary identity as part of a new covenant with God Most High. We, as the body of Christ in all our diversity, are witnesses of what God has done in Christ to the powers themselves (Eph 3:10). The whole ‘old order’ is passing away. We are in Christ, our citizenship in God’s kingdom, and this far outweighs any political, national or other affiliation. (In fact, to put those identities first is to go back to being under lesser heavenly powers and forsake God Most High. And why would we do that?!)

In my talks in Wycliffe Chapel, I suggested that we might need to ‘rewild’ our cosmology—reimagine our view of God and the spiritual realm. The world around us is vast. Ecosystems thrive on biodiversity (and so does your gut biome!). What if the same is true of the heavens? Maybe it’s wilder than ever imagined. Which makes God all the more awesome in his incomparability.

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[1] Full disclosure, there are various different takes on the 'gods'/'sons of gods' langauge in Deut 32:7-8 and elsewhere, but I'm persuaded that this language is mythological and that there is a clear sense of appointed heavenly powers.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash