Day 279: Psalms 82-84 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Welcome to the Bible Department podcast, powered by Arma. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebibledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. (upbeat music) Family, welcome to day 279 here at the Bible Department podcast. And we are diving into Psalms 82 to 84 today. Psalms 82, or Psalm 82 rather, it's a pretty famous Psalm, especially if you have followed the ministry of the late Dr. Michael Heiser. I know I'm a big Michael Heiser fan, was honestly sad at his passing, but all that to say, we're gonna dive into Psalm 82 today, which a lot of his just scholarly work centers around. And I'm gonna actually encourage people to go listen to a lot of that content. But if you have done the reading, everything that I'm gonna say is gonna make total sense, if you have not done the reading, this is a great chance, it's a great moment to stop the video, pause the audio and go get Psalm, Psalm 82, Psalm 83 and Psalm 84, read so that you can kind of keep up what we're talking about today. All right, like every day,

I'm gonna give context clues, then I'm gonna try to give as many nerdy nuggets as possible. I'm gonna try to give at least one per Psalm, and we're always gonna leave off with a timeless truth, 'cause we're not just learning history, we're not just here to learn the context of scripture, but for the content of the scriptures to transform our lives. So with no further ado, for everyone who's done the reading, let's dive into our context clues. All right, Psalm 82 and 83 are the final Psalms of ASAF, and then Psalm 84 is a Psalm of the sons of Kora. Now we have had some Psalms from the sons of Kora before, so this is a return to some Psalms of the sons of Kora who will provide three more Psalms in book three. Okay, three more Psalms in book three. So Psalm 85, Psalm 87 and Psalm 88 are also gonna be Psalms of the sons of Kora. Now I gave tons of context on the sons of Kora, back when we kinda looked at previous Psalms that were written by them. The cool gist or the gist of what I said, I don't know how many days or weeks ago that was, was that it's cool that the sons of Korah almost redeem their family's name. Because Korah is not a positive character in the Bible, that's for sure. We're talking about a character who's known for rebellion. So it's cool that the sons of Korah are like redeeming their great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, ancestors' legacy. I just think that's awesome. So all right, Psalm 82 and 83 are the final Psalms of Asaph. Psalm 84 is a Psalm of Korah, and we're going to get some more

Psalms from the sons of Korah as we continue to journey through the third book of the book of Psalms, okay? Psalm 82 has no context, but we get the divine council mentioned in Psalm 82, and that's kind of a big deal, like a really, really, really big deal. And so no context, but this is a really, really important Psalm. So we'll kind of dive into what the divine council is once we get down to our nerdy nuggets in the middle of the episode. Psalm 83, the context for Psalm 83 is 2 Chronicles chapter 20. Now, in 2 Chronicles chapter 20, we are going to have a king by the name of Jehoshaphat, and there's going to be a coalition of Edom, Ammon, and Moab that are going to ally themselves against Jehoshaphat. This story can be found in 2 Chronicles chapter 20. I want to read to you Psalm 83 verses 6 to 8, and Psalm 83, starting in verse 6, it says this, the tents of Edom, okay? So the Psalm is going to give us some people groups, okay? And the people groups match what we have for context in 2 Chronicles chapter 20. So Edom, the Ishmaelites of Moab, and the Hagrites, Biblos, Ammon, Amalek, Philistia, and the people of Tyre. Even Assyria has joined them to reinforce lots descendants. So Psalm 83 is going to begin to match context to 2 Chronicles chapter 20. really, really helpful for you because it provides the context for what's going on in Psalm 83, okay? 2nd Chronicles chapter 20 verse 1 starts like this. After this, the mobites, the Ammonites and some of the Neunites came to wage war against Jehoshaphat, okay? We're going to go to verse 13, okay? All of the men of Judah and their wives and children and little ones stood there before the Lord, okay? So they're on the battle lines and it says this, "Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jehoshasiel, son of Zechariah, the son of Baniya, the son of J.L., the son of Matabniah, a Levite in a descendant of Asaph. Asaph's back." Okay, so anyway, all right, sorry. I got so excited about Asaph just now, okay? A descendant of Asaph as he stood in the assembly, all right? So the Spirit of the Lord comes down on Jehoshasiel and this is what he says. He says, "Listen, King Jehoshaphat, in all who live in Judah and Jerusalem, this is what the Lord says to you, 'Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army, for the battle is not yours, but God's, okay? Tomorrow march down against them. They'll be climbing up by the pass of Ziz and you will find them at the end of the gorge and the desert of Jairiel. Jairiel, Jairiel, you will not have to fight this battle. Take up your position, stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you. Judah and Jerusalem, do not be afraid to not be discouraged. Go out and

face them tomorrow and the Lord will be with you." Okay. So we get one of Asaph's descendants who the Spirit of the Lord comes on him and he begins to prophesy a word of encouragement. And here's what begins to happen, okay? Jehoshaphat leads them out to battle and says this, okay? This verse 21, "After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing, not fight, to sing to the Lord and appraise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army." Okay. So hey guys, this is like a football team being like, let's get the cheerleaders. Hey, let's use cheerleaders as our defensive line, you know? So the quarterback didn't get sacked or as our offensive line. So the quarterback didn't get sacked. Like this is just ridiculous. Okay. So Jehoshaphat appointed men, just sing. Hey, I know, I know they've got bows and arrows put on your face. I know that they're throwing spears. They're out here with swords. I'd like you to sing. You know, can you please sing? A choir, choir? Can we sing? All right. I love this. Sing to the Lord and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness. Okay. As they went out at the head of the army, not even behind the army, not next to the army, in front of the soldiers. How about you guys just sing? Okay. "Gift thanks to the Lord for his love and ders forever." That's what they start singing. "Gift thanks to the Lord for his love and ders forever." As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seer who were invading Judah and they were defeated. The Ammonites and Moabites rose up against the men of Mount Seer to destroy and annihilate them. So allies are fighting against allies. After they finish slaughtering the men from Seer, they help to destroy one another. Okay. This is great. The only thing that the men had to do is sing and praise and God fought the battle for them. What a good story. And honestly, what a timeless truth. I know you've probably been in church where we sing that song, "This is how I fight my battles. This is how I fight my battles. This is how I fight my battles." Like, man, worship is warfare. I don't know if there's a better story like in the Bible. And by the way, there are a plethora of stories just like this all throughout the Bible where singing, where praise, where lifting up of hands, where physical, expressive worship literally is the defining weapon in the battle because God is able to fight battles for us if we actually do the thing that elicits his presence, which is praise and worship. This is how I fight my battles. Family, the weight is over. My brand new book, "Crushing Chaos," is out now and available everywhere

So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a books a million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book and if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. Alright, back to the episode. So the context for Psalm 83 is Second Chronicles chapter 20. All right, just trying to give some context here. All right, Psalm 84. Okay, these, this Psalm is written by the sons of Cora. This is a lament and this is designed to be a longing for Jerusalem. Okay, a lament a long for Jerusalem. And this is another Psalm for the Feast of Tabernacles. All right, we've seen this in Psalm 81, where Psalm 81 is all about desiring longing for the Feast of Tabernacles. So we're going to get to Psalm 84 and we're going to get the same exact place. But there's a longing to be in the house of God. And there's this famous verse, okay, Psalm 84 verse 10. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. I think that's actually one of the first verses that I memorized as a kid, because I just went to a church that did liturgy every week. And that passage was read every single week during the benediction or the opening. I can't really remember. I was really young talking like four, five, six, seven, eight years old. I grew up going to this African Methodist Episcopal Church called Charles Street AME in Boston, Massachusetts, and part of the liturgy was to quote this verse. And so this is one of the first verses that just got seared onto my memory as a young kid. And we're actually going to come back to it.

Okay. Now, now that we've kind of got context, okay, for all three of these Psalms, Psalm 82, Psalm 83 and Psalm 84. All right, now we're going to actually get into some nerdy nuggets. And it's probably going to require most of my time to really dive into Psalm 82. So if I don't get into any nerdy nuggets from Psalm 83, 84, I'm so sorry. Okay, but Psalm 82 is huge because we have the divine counsel. Psalm 82 says this, God provides in the great assembly. He renders judgment among the gods. Okay. Now this idea has stumped scholars for a long time. What who are these gods and what's this great assembly? What is this divine counsel that's meeting in the heavens? Why does God have a conference room? Why does he have a board? Like what's going on? Why is God having meetings with people? And who is he having meetings with? All right. There are three options for how to interpret this stuff. And I'm going to save the best for last and wink wink. The last one is the one I agree with. But anyway, I want to give you all three so that you can come to your own conclusion. And to be honest, do research, look this stuff up. All right, to be honest, I could do an entire course on just the ideas that I'm about to share the next two to three minutes. I'm not even going to do them justice as I'm going to give a very cursory overview of the ideas for this segment. So Psalm 82, we're going to have gods. OK, and I actually want to read this to you maybe in the NRSV just so that you can get a sense for some different language. Psalm 82, Psalm 82 verse one says this, God has taken his place in the divine counsel. So if you're wondering why I'm using that language, well, the NRSV uses that exact language.

So the great assembly is how the NIV has it divine counsel is way more accurate. And so, you know, I love the fact I like this language divine counsel. That's why I wanted to read it in the NRSV in the midst of the gods. He holds judgment, OK, in the midst of the gods. Where these gods, how long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Okay, give justice to the weak and the orphan maintain. from the hand of the wicked, they have not the knowledge nor understanding, they walk around in darkness. All the foundation of the earth are shaken. Okay, I say, you are God's children of the most high, all of you, nevertheless, you shall die like mortals and fall like any prince rise up. Oh, God, judge the earth for all the nations belong to you. All right, that's Psalm 82. Let's give three options on what's happening here. First option, first legitimate option. Okay, you don't have to agree with option number three, which is the one I agree with, which is the right answer. But I've genuinely, you can, I want you to come to your conclusions. Number one, this could be talking about human judges or leaders, okay, humans, mortals, humans who have great responsibility, okay, when it comes to leadership, okay. So these human judges or leaders or gods here should not be understood in the like demi God kind of understanding, but rather this in ancient term to indicate those in authority to judge others. Okay, this Psalm then would be a critique of Israel and Judah's failure of its judges and leaders to stop injustice in the land. All right, so perfectly legitimate way to execute this. That's also important to let people know there isn't like one right way to interpret a text. There are there could be multiple legitimate exegetical options for one text. There are oftentimes multiple legitimate exegetical options for any given text. All right, so human judges or leaders is what Psalm 82 could be talking about to which I think is getting a little warmer. I'd say pagan gods. Okay, pagan gods here are are literally gods like lowercase g and the Psalm paints a picture of God summoning all gods. Okay, this is what we would say when we say God that Yahweh is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, right? He's not just the only Lord. The idea here would be that the Old Testament specifically is not primarily monotheistic, but monolatrous. There's a difference. Monotheism is the belief in one God. Monolatry is the worship of one God. And I would honestly say, I think that the old and New Testament, but for sure the Old

Testament has a monolatrous or reflects a monolatrous worldview, not necessarily a monotheistic worldview. So God is summoning all of the pagan gods to a council where he critiques them for the injustice of their peoples, the ones that worship them and follow their ways. So God is putting some of the blame for idol worship on the idols themselves, the pagan gods themselves. Okay, that's number three. That's number two, number three, which is the one I like, but that's got nothing new with the price of tea and China. Okay, it's third one. Okay, ours number three would be spiritual forces, which would mean gods are meant in the sense of the spiritual forces that oversee nations. This is part of a wider idea, mostly based on Daniel with the Prince of Persia. Okay, which says that Yahweh has given regions of the earth, regions of the earth, guardian spirits, to oversee them. These then would be called the sons of Elohim, the sons of God, the divine council. They are in that sense responsible for what takes place in their jurisdiction. And so God critiques them for injustice that is found in their regions. This option, I actually think, is the best option. I think Paul's going to refer to this as the rulers of the age. I think Paul's going to refer to this as principalities and powers, that there are spiritual forces, and maybe these spiritual forces are manifesting as pagan gods. So then maybe we got a hybrid of two and three, but I definitely would lean towards spiritual forces that are supposed to be operating according to God's will, but have clearly rebelled. Okay, are in some kind of active rebellion. All right, so those are the three options. Now, I don't really have much time left at all. If that idea intrigues you that, like, there's a council of other Elohim, lowercase E, Elohim, and that Yahweh is the Elohim of Elohim. He's the god of gods, and that he has appointed other spiritual beings to oversee nations, to oversee regions of the earth, and that maybe Some of these spiritual beings have elicited worship from people and have become pagan gods. Like if that whole idea is new to you, foreign to you, then I would say you should Google Dr. Michael Heiser, divine counsel. And just dive in, like just start listening to the man 'cause he's brilliant and he's gonna have a lot more to say about this than I could ever share on a short, you know, 20 minute podcast.

So that is what my encouragement to you is going to be. Okay? So Psalm 82 has three different interpretive options. They are all fair options. Psalm 83, the context behind Psalm 83 is second Chronicles chapter 20. And for Psalm 84, we're gonna, we're gonna play it according to the same tune as Psalm 81 because it's a Psalm of celebration. And the verse that I really, really, really, really, really wanna highlight today that's gonna be the verse for our timeless truth is Psalm 84 verse 10 is really the anchor verse for our timeless truth for the day because this one verse has just echoed through the ages. I mean, this is a popular verse. We say it in church a lot. We quote this verse a lot. There's a recognition that hits at the heart of what it means to be human. This verse resonates with our humanity. We were made to dwell in the house of God. We are made in God's image. We are his idols, his icons. Okay? I don't know if you know this, but the word image like God made us in his image and in his likeness is the same word for when God says don't make any graven images. Okay?

Anyway, like an image or an idol of Baal is made after the likeness of Baal. Okay? So when you worship the idol, you're worshiping Baal because the idol represents Baal. Okay? In the same way that when God made us in his image, our, our design was for worship. That, that we reflect the glory of God around the earth. And that when people are impressed with our intelligence or our ingenuity or our compassion towards other people, it reflects good on who God is. Okay? So we are images of God, designed to reflect his glory out in the world, which is what an idol is doing for their God. Okay? We were made, we were literally designed for worship. We're designed to dwell in the house of God. Images of Yahweh that he has placed in his temple, AKA the earth. Why does one day in his presence mean so much more than thousands elsewhere? It's a great question. Well, it's because his home, his presence, his courts truly are home for us, home for our souls, home in terms of we are living out our design in our purpose. We recognize in his presence that it is where we are meant to be. It's where we were designed to be.

There's a book by St. Augustine called Confessions. And I think that right in the beginning, in the first part of the book, St. Augustine says, says these words, they're really, really powerful. I'm actually just gonna read them from my laptop. It says, you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Confessions one, one. And I think the reason that Augustine says this, and that Augustine's words resonate true, is because Psalm 84 verse 10 is true. It's true in the highest sense of truth. It literally resonates with the fiber of our being because it's what we were designed to do. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand years ago. That's what we were designed to do. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. It's funny, there's a girl on our launch team. Her name is Tati, I love Tati. Tatiana and Buna. And it's funny because Tati, when I met her, she was a women's health birth in health advocate. And she wanted to be a doula, and she wanted to start a business for doulas. And I remember one time we were at Thanksgiving, and I said, what's your dream? She kind of started sharing a dream.

I remember the Holy Spirit telling me why she was talking. There's no way she's gonna do that. Like, that's not what I put her on this planet to do. Well, over the course of a long series of conversations actually between her and a girl on our team started really pastoring. It became clear that Tati's creative, that like, why she went to school for medicine, I don't know, that maybe parents pressuring her or people trying to put their identity onto her, but God designed her to be creative. And right now she's actually the creative director at our church and she's crushing it. She's doing an amazing job. And she's helping other people launch podcasts and it's almost like Tati began to come alive when she began to do the thing that she was created to do. And maybe you've just been living life, feeling like, and it just feels like I'm wearing somebody else's clothes. Like, I'm wearing somebody else's purpose. So I'm not doing what I've been designed to do. Well, can I tell you that feeling is rooted in the fact that you've not yet taken your place in God's house, you've not yet enjoyed his presence. You are restless because you have yet to find rest in the one who made you. Psalm 84 is not just true for the sons of Kora. They're not just true in the context for which they were written. They're true forever.

That better is one day in your courts and a thousand elsewhere, that you were made to be in the presence of God. Same way that Tatiana was made to be a creative, created by God to be creative. You were created by God to reflect his image and to live in his temple and to image him. That's what you were made to do. And if you have yet to do that, your life will always lack purpose and meaning. And you probably don't need another career, but what you need to do is surrender to the lordship of Jesus so that you can actually take up your original design, which is to image and reflect the one who made you in his image. That's timelessly true. Tomorrow we got day 280. We're gonna be looking at Psalms 85 and 86. And I'm super, super excited that we get to continue our trek together through the book of Psalms. If you're on a streak, I'm proud of you. No matter what, I love you. And I'll see you right here tomorrow for day 280. Same time, same place. Love you. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend, and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebobaldapartment.com.

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