Psalm 82:7

But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

82:6-8 It is hard for men to have honour put upon them, and not to be proud of it. But all the rulers of the earth shall die, and all their honour shall be laid in the dust. God governs the world. There is a righteous God to whom we may go, and on whom we may depend. This also has respect to the kingdom of the Messiah. Considering the state of affairs in the world, we have need to pray that the Lord Jesus would speedily rule over all nations, in truth, righteousness, and peace.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But ye shall die like men - You are mortal, like other people. This fact you have forgotten. You have been lifted up with pride, as if you were in fact more exalted than other people; as if you were not subject to the law which consigns all people to the grave. An ancient monarch directed his servant to address him each morning in this language: "Remember, sire, that thou art mortal." No more salutary truth can be impressed on the minds of the rich and the great than that they are, in this respect, like other people - like the poorest, the meanest of the race: that they will die under similar forms of disease; that they will experience the same pain; that all which is fearful in death will be their portion as well as that of the most obscure; and that in the grave, with whatever pomp and splendor they descend to it, or however magnificent the monument which may be reared over the spot where they lie, there will be the same offensive and repulsive process of decay which occurs in the most humble grave in the country churchyard. Why, then - oh, why - should man be proud?

And fall like one of the princes - And die as one of the princes. The idea in the word fall may be, perhaps, that they would die by the hand of violence - or be cut down, as princes often are, e. g. in battle. The use of the word princes here denotes that they would die as other persons of exalted rank do; that is, that they were mortal as all people, high and low, are - as common people are, and as princes are. Though they had names - אל 'Êl, and אלהים 'Elohiym - that suggested the idea of divinity, yet such appellations did not make any real change in their condition as people, and as subject to the ordinary laws under which people live. Whatever name they bore. it did not afford any security against death.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. fall like, &c.—be cut off suddenly (Ps 20:8; 91:7).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

But ye shall die: but let not this make you insolent and secure; for though you are gods by name and office, yet still you are mortal men, you must die and give up your account to me your superior Lord and Governor; and you shall die and fall by the hands of my justice, if you persist in your unjust and ungodly courses.

Like men; or, like ordinary men, as the Hebrew word adam sometimes signifies, as it doth Psalm 49:2. If it be objected, that there adam is opposed to ish, which notes persons of a higher rank; in like manner it is here opposed to the same sort of men, who are here called gods.

And fall like one of the princes: so the sense is, You (who are esteemed by yourselves and others gods upon earth) shall fall (or die, as he said in the former branch; falling being oft put for dying, with this addition, that it notes not an ordinary, but a violent and judicial death, as Exodus 19:21 Jeremiah 39:18 Hosea 5:5)

like one (or, like other, or other’s, as this very word is rendered, Judges 16:7,11, which also is expounded there, Judges 16:17, like every, or any) of the princes, i.e. as other unrighteous or tyrannical rulers have done in all foregoing ages, and still do, your eyes seeing it; even in like manner shall you, to whom now I speak, fall and perish, if you do not learn by their examples. But these words are by some late learned interpreters translated otherwise, and that very agreeably to the Hebrew words and accents, And you, O ye princes, (or, you that are princes, before called gods.) shall fall like one, or like every, or any, of them, i.e. of the ordinary men last mentioned. So there is only an ellipsis of the pronoun, which is frequent in the Hebrew language. Or, shall fall together, as this word is translated, Ezra 2:64 3:9; or alike, as it is rendered Ecclesiastes 11:6, in like manner, to wit, as ordinary men do. Your godhead shall be taken away from you, and your death shall show you to be but mortal men, as others are.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But ye shall die like men,.... As men in common do, to whom it is appointed to die, Hebrews 9:27 or as common men, as men in the lowest class of life: the wise man dies as the fool, the king as the peasant, high as the low, rich as the poor; death levels and makes all alike: or as Adam, as the first man, so Jarchi, who was lord of the whole universe; but being in honour, abode not, but became like the beasts that perish; sinning he died, and so all his posterity, even those who have the greatest power and authority on earth; see Psalm 49:2 and not only die a corporeal death, but an eternal one, dying in their sins; as Christ threatened the Jewish rulers, Scribes, and Pharisees, if they believed not in him, John 8:21.

and fall like one of the princes; or the chief of them, Satan, who fell like lightning from heaven, Luke 10:18 or rather as one of the giants that lived in the old world, famous for their injustice and oppression, that fell in the deluge, Genesis 6:4 or any of the Heathen princes, tyrants and oppressors, such as are mentioned in the following psalm, Psalm 83:9. This may have respect to the destruction of the Jewish nation, which is called the falling of them, Romans 11:11 and the words may be rendered, "and ye shall fall together, equally and alike, O ye princes" (a); when the Jewish state, civil and ecclesiastical, fell, they fell with it, and together; the princes of this world then came to nought, or were abolished, they and their authority, as the Apostle Paul says they should, 1 Corinthians 2:6 the sceptre then departed from Judah, and the lawgiver from between his feet; all rule and authority ceased among them, as Jacob foretold it would, Genesis 49:10.

(a) "pariter; sive ex aequo", Maius apud Gataker. Cin. c. 10. p. 292.

Geneva Study Bible

{e} But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

(e) No title of honour will excuse you, but you will be subject to God's judgments, and tender account as well as other men.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. But] R.V., Nevertheless. Though they bear this high title, it will not exempt them from punishment. They shall die like common men, and fall like any other princes whose ruin is recorded in history (Hosea 7:7). Or is there an allusion to the princes mentioned in Psalm 83:9 ff.?

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - But ye shall die like men. The name of "gods," even the fact of your being representatives of God, shall not save you from condign punishment. Ye shall be punished with death, as other wicked men are punished (Psalm 73:18). And fall like one of the princes; i.e. come to an untimely end, as so many "princes" have done (see Joshua 12:9-24; Judges 1:7; Judges 3:21; Judges 7:25; Judges 8:21, etc.). Psalm 82:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

What now follows in Psalm 82:5 is not a parenthetical assertion of the inefficiency with which the divine correction rebounds from the judges and rulers. In connection with this way of taking Psalm 82:5, the manner in which the divine language is continued in Psalm 82:6 is harsh and unadjusted. God Himself speaks in Psalm 82:5 of the judges, but reluctantly alienated from them; and confident of the futility of all attempts to make them better, He tells them their sentence in Psalm 82:6. The verbs in Psalm 82:5 are designedly without any object: complaint of the widest compass is made over their want of reason and understanding; and ידעו takes the perfect form in like manner to ἐγνώκασι, noverunt, cf. Psalm 14:1; Isaiah 44:18. Thus, then, no result is to be expected from the divine admonition: they still go their ways in this state of mental darkness, and that, as the Hithpa. implies, stalking on in carnal security and self-complacency. The commands, however, which they transgress are the foundations (cf. Psalm 11:3), as it were the shafts and pillars (Psalm 75:4, cf. Proverbs 29:4), upon which rests the permanence of all earthly relationships with are appointed by creation and regulated by the Tτra. Their transgression makes the land, the earth, to totter physically and morally, and is the prelude of its overthrow. When the celestial Lord of the domain thinks upon this destruction which injustice and tyranny are bringing upon the earth, His wrath kindles, and He reminds the judges and rulers that it is His own free declaratory act which has clothed them with the god-like dignity which they bear. They are actually elohim, but not possessed of the right of self-government; there is a Most High (עליון) to whom they as sons are responsible. The idea that the appellation elohim, which they have given to themselves, is only sarcastically given back to them in Psalm 82:1 (Ewald, Olshausen), is refuted by Psalm 82:6, according to which they are really elohim by the grace of God. But if their practice is not an Amen to this name, then they shall be divested of the majesty which they have forfeited; they shall be divested of the prerogative of Israel, whose vocation and destiny they have belied. They shall die off כּאדם, like common men not rising in any degree above the mass (cf. בּני אדם, opp. בּני אישׁ, Psalm 4:3; Psalm 49:3); they shall fall like any one (Judges 16:7, Obadiah 1:11) of the princes who in the course of history have been cast down by the judgment of God (Hosea 7:7). Their divine office will not protect them. For although justitia civilis is far from being the righteousness that avails before God, yet injustitia civilis is in His sight the vilest abomination.