The Gods-Complaint: Psalm 82 as a Psalm of Complaint

Abstract

Psalm 82 has long resisted a consensus regarding its genre. While some scholars have noted that the psalm's language overlaps with that of the complaint genre, several features of the psalm appear to complicate that reading. As a result, the framework of the divine council is frequently given interpretive priority, which has resulted in a variety of solutions to the psalm's several interpretive difficulties and has also contributed to a general reluctance to consider the psalm within the literary context of the psalms of Asaph. I argue that the psalm's interpretive difficulties are best resolved by understanding the psalm as a complaint, specifically a complaint put into the mouth of YHWH and addressed to the gods of the nations-a "gods-complaint. " This reading provides a new interpretive framework that may help resolve important questions related to the psalm's compositional background, rhetorical function, and theological influence. The unique mythological themes of Ps 82 have long compelled scholars to consider it apart from the other psalms of the Asaph collection. 1 For many, the 1 The literature on Ps 82 is phenomenally broad, but some notable contributions include

“Monotheism” and the Hebrew Bible

“…Elohim declares that these gods will die like humans, and this conceptual loss of immortality effectively demotes them (Ps 82:6-7). As Daniel McClellan discusses, Elohim complains about and to the other gods, and the framework within the psalm facilitates an expansion of Elohim's roles (McClellan, 2018). Though the psalm characterizes neighboring gods negatively and sentences them to loss of status, in doing so, the psalm generates for them a particular place within this dynamic theology.…”