Psalm 82 is one of the shortest Psalms, but oh what a can of worms it opens up! It is dense with possibility. The text (JPS translation) is as follows:
"God stands in the divine assembly;
among the divine beings He pronounces judgment.
How long will you judge perversely,
showing favor to the wicked?
Judge the wretched and the orphan,
vindicate the lowly and the poor,
rescue the wretched and the needy;
save them from the hand of the wicked.
They neither know nor understand,
they go about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth totter.
I had taken you for divine beings,
sons of the Most High, all of you;
but you will die as men do,
fall like any prince.
Arise, O God, judge the earth,
for all the nations are Your possession."
~Psalm 82
The JPS is literally translated direct from the ancient Hebrew. Now, this has been interpreted that G-d here is talking to the assembly of Israel, NOT to an actual assembly of "gods." That is a very hard position to assert, since the first two lines make it clear where G-d is speaking and who he is speaking to. Also, men from Adam on have always died. And clearly they are not "any prince."
According to Middle-Eastern mythology, different gods govern the fates of different nations. However the rest of the Bible tends to come down on the side of saying that the pagan gods do not actually exist at all. Who then is being referred to as the "divine" governors of these nations?
I think it is fairly clear that we are being given a snapshot into the fall of the fallen angels. Now there is not very much of the Tanakh, the Old Testament, that deals with demons at all. But let us back up a moment.
The third line refers to these rulers judging perversely, showing favor to the wicked. G-d says they should instead be saving the needy from the depredations of the wicked. At this point the psalm sounds a lot like the writer of Luke, with his concern for the poor. But are the poor only the economically poor? Are not others poor in their hearts and minds?
The next lines make clear that it is not only economic poverty that is being spoken of. The people, in other words the people in these nations that these "divine beings" are supposed to be responsible for, neither know nor understand. They stumble around in ignorance and are led astray. The foundations of the Earth stagger around like a drunk. Yes these "divine beings" show favor to the wicked. But more than that, they make the world a playground for those wicked ones, because the people live in darkness. Spiritual ignorance. They do not have the spiritual food that they need.
It seems to me likely that it is saying that different angels were appointed to be the guardians of different peoples and nations, but these angels fell into judgment. These angels might not have been exactly the same as the pagan gods worshiped by those people (hence Molag Bal for instance might fully be a human invention) but they were nevertheless responsible, like "gods" over those nations. So the pagan gods could still be absolutely null and void, but this Psalm is speaking of the actual angelic governors of those nations rather than them.
What is of special interest to me is that these angels-turned-demons are here being turned mortal: in other words they will be destroyed in the Last Judgment just like sinful people will. Now their lifespans may be aeons longer than ours, but a death sentence now still hangs over them the same as it does over unregenerate Man. Eventually they will be destroyed. It is my interpretation that neither the wicked nor even the demons will frolic around in the flames and brimstone for all eternity; they will be destroyed. Gone, bye-bye, no more.
Hell and immortal souls are Greek conceptions not Hebrew ones. The fact that they crept into the New Testament is understandable considering that the Gospel spread first and most widely among the Greeks. But that doesn't make them true. G-d Alone is Life, and He gives that Life to those humans He has chosen through his Son Jesus Christ. Those apart from G-d will live out the terms of their mortal life that have been given to them, and then die and be destroyed, apparently demons as well as men. I have often thought that the idea of an eternal Hell for people is an insult to the final and total victory of G-d, but evidently not even demons will live in Hell after the Judgment. They'll be destroyed, just like men.
The words "fall like any prince" prefigure Jesus' words, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." Fall where? To the Earth. The demons now live, albeit invisibly, on the same planet we do. And their government of the nations of the Earth is proceeding apace.
Now Jesus quotes this Psalm, "you are gods," in the Gospel of John. Which would tend to reinforce the very nonliteral interpretation that the Psalm is actually speaking of the leaders of the Israelites, like the scribes and pharisees that Jesus was speaking to. This despite the fact that neither the Israelites nor anyone else has ever been immortal on the Earth. However he may have been speaking as it were over their heads to their bosses. If one assumes that demons were giving the pharisees their words and that the human beings were actually loyally serving demons, he is actually talking past the pharisees to their bosses. That is one interpretation anyway. It is said of Judas "the devil entered him," so we know that according to the New Testament, devils can essentially run human beings and speak through them.
Alternately, according to the "divine beings are Israel's leaders" idea, you could say that the life they are losing is their eternal life. Not that they were not going to die in the flesh but they were going to be eternally destroyed in the Last Judgment. The fact that the Psalm actually states that G-d is standing among divine beings, which hopefully no leader of Israel would have ever called themselves, mitigates against this theory but the Psalm is so short we are left with as many questions as answers.
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