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JULY 12
“Praise the LORD, have allied yourself with Ahaziah, the LORD
For His mercy endures forever.” has destroyed your works.” Then the ships
were wrecked, so that they were not able to go
22 Now when they began to sing and to
praise, the LORD set ambushes against the peo- to Tarshish.
ple of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who Psalm 82:1–8
had come against Judah; and they were defeat- A Psalm of Asaph.
ed. For the people of Ammon and Moab
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to utterly kill and destroy them. And when G od stands in the congregation
stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir
of the mighty;
they had made an end of the inhabitants of He judges among the gods.
Seir, they helped to destroy one another. 2 How long will you judge unjustly,
So when Judah came to a place overlook-
24 And show partiality to the wicked?
ing the wilderness, they looked toward the Selah
multitude; and there were their dead bodies,
fallen on the earth. No one had escaped.
25 When Jehoshaphat and his people came to
take away their spoil, they found among them 82:1 congregation of the mighty. The scene
an abundance of valuables on the dead bodies, opens with God having called the world leaders
and precious jewelry, which they stripped off together. among the gods. Some have taken
for themselves, more than they could carry this psalm to be about demons or false pagan
away; and they were three days gathering the gods.The best interpretation is that these “gods”
spoil because there was so much. And on the are human leaders, such as judges, kings, leg-
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fourth day they assembled in the Valley of islators, and presidents (Ex. 22:8,9,28; Judg.
Berachah, for there they blessed the LORD; 5:8,9).God the Great Judge presides over these
therefore the name of that place was called lesser judges.
The Valley of Berachah until this day. Then
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they returned, every man of Judah and Jerusa-
lem, with Jehoshaphat in front of them, to go 3 Defend the poor and fatherless;
back to Jerusalem with joy, for the LORD had Do justice to the afflicted and needy.
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made them rejoice over their enemies. So 4 Deliver the poor and needy;
they came to Jerusalem, with stringed instru- Free them from the hand of the wicked.
ments and harps and trumpets, to the house of 5
the LORD. And the fear of God was on all the They do not know, nor do they
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kingdoms of those countries when they heard understand;
that the LORD had fought against the enemies They walk about in darkness;
of Israel. Then the realm of Jehoshaphat was All the foundations of the earth are
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quiet, for his God gave him rest all around. unstable.
31 So Jehoshaphat was king over Judah. He 6 I said, “You are gods,
was thirty-five years old when he became And all of you are children of the Most
king, and he reigned twenty-five years in Jeru- High.
salem. His mother’s name was Azubah the 7 But you shall die like men,
daughter of Shilhi. And he walked in the way And fall like one of the princes.”
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of his father Asa, and did not turn aside from
it, doing what was right in the sight of the
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LORD. Nevertheless the high places were not
taken away, for as yet the people had not di-
rected their hearts to the God of their fathers.
34 Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, 82:6 I said. Kings and judges are set up ulti-
first and last, indeed they are written in the mately by the decree of God (Ps. 2:6). God, in
book of Jehu the son of Hanani, which is men- effect, invests His authority in human leaders
tioned in the book of the kings of Israel. for the stability of the universe (Rom. 13:1–7).
After this Jehoshaphat king of Judah allied
35 But God may revoke this authority (v. 7). “You
himself with Ahaziah king of Israel, who acted are gods.”Jesus,in quoting this phrase in John
very wickedly. And he allied himself with 10:34, supported the interpretation that the
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him to make ships to go to Tarshish, and they “gods”were human beings. In a play on words,
made the ships in Ezion Geber. But Eliezer He claims that if human leaders can be called
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the son of Dodavah of Mareshah prophesied “gods,”certainly the Messiah can be called God.
against Jehoshaphat, saying, “Because you
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