Chapter Eighty-One

Despite the general content of the psalm, there are no obstacles to considering it written during the time of David by his contemporary singer Asaph. The psalm condemns the injustice of judges. At the beginning of the reign of David, such facts could not have been rare, since the era of the reign of Saul, especially in his final years, when the king himself in his relations with David grossly violated the elementary requirements of justice, could only corrupt the judges, giving them freedom to manifest their arbitrary will, which is why their decisions could not stand at the proper and required by law level of impartiality.

Similar phenomena could occur in the subsequent years of David’s reign, as is indicated by the fact of the spread among the people by Absalom of complaints about the injustice of judges. Evidently Absalom had several such facts in hand, which he used excessively, generalizing casual phenomena to the level of a dominant and authorized by the king direction of judicial activity, that is, he created a slander. To what time – the beginning of David’s reign or the time of Absalom’s revolt – the writing of the psalm should be attributed, cannot be established with certainty.

God stood in the assembly of gods and sternly rebuked them for partiality in judgment, since from this the foundations of the inner life of the people are shaken. For this the judges, despite the height of their service, will perish like any ordinary person (1–7). The writer prays the Lord to arise for this judgment not only over the Hebrews, but over the entire earth (8).

Psalm 81:1. God stood in the assembly of gods; in the midst of the gods He pronounced judgment: “God stood in the assembly of gods.” By gods, as is evident from the context, are meant people engaged in judicial affairs, that is, judges: they allow partiality like ordinary people (2–4); they do not understand and do not know the responsibility placed upon them; they are also subject to death, like any person (5–7). If they are called gods, it is because of the function which has been given to them by the Lord (6). The name of gods is applied to judges, as is evident from (Exod 21:6), because in their decisions the will of God should be heard, their verdicts should be distinguished by impartiality, accordance with the Law of God, so that they appear as it were as God’s representatives on earth and through them God Himself speaks (Deut 1:17). God is represented in the psalm as having come forth in the midst of earthly judges to evaluate their activity and having found that the latter deserves condemnation (“pronounced judgment”).

Psalm 81:3. “Give judgment for the poor and the orphan; do justice to the oppressed and the destitute; Psalm 81:4. deliver the poor and the destitute; rescue him from the hand of the wicked. When determining judgment, one should be guided not by the property or social position of a person, but by the essence of the case being investigated, therefore both the rich and the poor, the noble and the commoner should be equal before the judges.

Psalm 81:5. They do not know, they do not understand, they walk in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. “They do not know, they do not understand, they walk in darkness” – not in the sense of incomprehension of the law or difficulty of the case being investigated, but in the sense of intentional violation of the law, conscious partiality, which leads to the shaking of the earth, to the disturbance of the foundations of inner life, to the destruction of lawfulness, and through that – to arbitrariness and violence in relations between people. If such transgressions of judges were unconscious and accidental, the Lord would not have condemned them.

Psalm 81:6. I said: “You are gods, and children of the Most High – all of you; “You are gods, and children of the Most High” – in the sense that you are representatives and immediate executors on earth of God’s will in judicial decisions.

Psalm 81:7. but you will die like mortals, and fall like any of the princes. The height of a judge’s position among the people and the sacred importance of his service cannot prevent the heavy responsibility for wrong conduct: an unjust judge will die and fall (be deposed) like an ordinary prince or ordinary person.

Psalm 81:8. Arise, O God, judge the earth; for You shall inherit all the nations. Concerning the restoration of justice, the writer prays to God not only for the land of Judea, but for the whole world, since “all nations” – are God’s inheritance, in His power.