---
title: Psalms 82:1
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/psalms-82-1/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/psalms-82-1.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Psalms 82:1
testament: OT
section: Poetry
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Psalms 82:1

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> God presides in the divine assembly; He renders judgment among the gods:

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "God takes his place in the divine assembly; In the middle of the gods he judges"

## JW Usage

Watchtower teaching takes the elohim of Psalm 82 to be corrupt human judges of Israel, called "gods" only metaphorically because they exercised delegated authority. This reading is the standard JW deflection of John 10:34, where Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6: Jesus is taken to be merely observing that Scripture sometimes calls humans "gods," so calling himself God's Son was no blasphemy — but did not assert deity.

## Protestant Usage

Psalm 82:1 opens the divine council scene: God takes his place in the divine assembly, and in the middle of the gods he judges. The elohim are not humans — Psalm 89:5-7 places them "in the heavens" among the "sons of God," and the punishment in v7 ("you will die LIKE men") is meaningless if they were already men. Elohim is a category that includes Jehovah and other spiritual beings, and the worship test settles which category Jesus belongs in: every loyal angel refuses worship (Revelation 22:8-9), every rebel god is judged for accepting it (Psalm 82:6-7), but Jesus accepts worship and the Father commands it (Hebrews 1:6). He fits no created-elohim category.

## NWT Issue

The NWT main text reads "in the middle of the gods" — faithful to the Hebrew elohim. But a footnote glosses elohim as "judges," which is the reading Watchtower theology requires to defuse the John 10:34 polemic. The footnote contradicts v7 itself, where the threat that the elohim "will die like men" presupposes beings who are not already mortal. The footnote is an interpretive overlay, not a translation of the Hebrew.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Elohim Category Trap](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/elohim-category.md) — Psalm 82 — If Jesus Is 'a God,' Which Kind? [Deity of Christ]