Psalms

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Psalm 82

1 A psalm of Asaph. God stands in the assembly of El; in the midst of the gods he renders judgment.⁠ 2 He says, “How long will you make unjust legal decisions and show favoritism to the wicked?⁠ (Selah)⁠ 3 Defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless. Vindicate the oppressed and suffering.⁠ 4 Rescue the poor and needy. Deliver them from the power of the wicked.⁠ 5 They neither know nor understand. They stumble around in the dark, while all the foundations of the earth crumble. 6 I thought, ‘You are gods; all of you are sons of the Most High.’⁠ 7 Yet you will die like mortals; you will fall like all the other rulers.” 8 Rise up, O God, and execute judgment on the earth! For you own all the nations.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalm 82:2 and LXX Psalm 81:2

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

Summary

In Psalm 82, God accuses the other gods of the divine council of showing favoritism, using the Hebrew idiom “lifting up a face.” In the Greek Septuagint translation, the idiom becomes “taking the faces of sinners,” which made no sense in ordinary Greek.

Passages

Psalm 82:2

Hebrew Bible

1 A psalm of Asaph. God stands in the assembly of El; in the midst of the gods he renders judgment. 2 He says, “How long will you make unjust legal decisions and show favoritism to the wicked? (Selah) 3 Defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless. Vindicate the oppressed and suffering.

600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

LXX Psalm 81:2

Septuagint

1 A Psalm for Asaph. God stands in the assembly of gods; and in the midst of them will judge gods. 2 How long will you judge unrighteously, and take the faces of sinners? Pause. 3 Judge the orphan and poor: do justice to the low and needy.

100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Psalms

References

... you show no favor to anyone. Literally, “you do not lift up the face,” a Septuagintism, meaning that he shows no favoritism or partiality. This too prepares for the two-pronged pronouncement to come. The Greek phrase prosōpon lambanein would have been unintelligible in classical or Hellenistic Greek writing, where the verb lambanein means either (actively) “take, take hold of” or (receptively) “accept,” and never has the sense of “raise, lift up.” This meaning is found in the Septuagint as a translation of nāśāʼ pānîm. See page 115. It gave rise to the noun prosōpolēmptēs (Acts 10:34), God is no “respecter of persons,” that is, one who, when greeted by a person bowed in prostration, lifts up the face of the person as a sign of recognition, favor, or esteem. ...

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X–XXIV (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 1295.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Psalms150 psalms

Compare Psalm 82:2 and LXX Psalm 81:2

Summary

Passages

Psalm 82:2

LXX Psalm 81:2

References

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