Psalms 82:6

I said, Te are gods,

And all of you sons of the Most High (R.V.).

I is emphatic. It is by God's appointment that they have been invested with divine authority to execute judgement in His name. Cp. the language used of the king, Psalms 2:7; Psalms 89:27.

To the words of this verse our Lord appealed (John 10:34 ff.), when the Jews accused Him of blasphemy because He claimed to be one with God. In virtue of their call to a sacred office as representatives of God the judges of old time were called gods and sons of the Most High, and this in spite of their unworthiness. Was it then blasphemy, He asked, for one who had received a special consecration and commission as God's representative, one whose life and work bore witness to that consecration, to call Himself the Son of God?

On the surface this may seem to be a verbal argument such as the Jews themselves would have used; but the real significance of the quotation lies deeper. The fact that it was possible for men so to represent God as to be called gods or divine was a foreshadowing of the Incarnation. "There lay already in the Law the germ of the truth which Christ announced, the union of God and man." Bp Westcott.