{"id":7519,"date":"2016-04-19T00:05:14","date_gmt":"2016-04-19T07:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=7519"},"modified":"2016-04-18T13:05:40","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T20:05:40","slug":"among-the-gods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2016\/04\/19\/among-the-gods\/","title":{"rendered":"Among the Gods"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>God has taken his place in the divine council; <br \/>\nin the midst of the gods he holds judgment:  <br \/>\n\u201cHow long will you judge unjustly  <br \/>\nand show partiality to the wicked?      Selah  <br \/>\nGive justice to the weak and the orphan;  <br \/>\nmaintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.  <br \/>\nRescue the weak and the needy;  <br \/>\ndeliver them from the hand of the wicked.\u201d  <br \/>\nThey have neither knowledge nor understanding,  <br \/>\nthey walk around in darkness;  <br \/>\nall the foundations of the earth are shaken.  <br \/>\nI say, \u201cYou are gods,  <br \/>\nchildren of the Most High, all of you;  <br \/>\nnevertheless, you shall die like mortals,  <br \/>\nand fall like any prince.\u201d <br \/>\nRise up, O God, judge the earth;  <br \/>\nfor all the nations belong to you!   (Psalm 82)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Kings have no divine right to their thrones.  Sooner or later, the unjust ruler will suffer God\u2019s certain wrath.  The kings of all the nations around Israel were more than just arrogant and self-absorbed.  They actually believed\u2014and the people of their nations believed\u2014that they were, in fact, incarnations of their gods.  The Pharaoh of Egypt believed himself to be the incarnation of the Sun god, Ra.  The king of Babylon believed himself to be the incarnation of Marduk.  <\/p>\n<p>In this Psalm, the one true God addresses them sarcastically, asking them that if they really are gods, then why don\u2019t they act like it?  Instead of being righteous, they are wicked.  Instead of dispensing justice, they create most of the oppression and injustice that existed in their lands.  <\/p>\n<p>Therefore, God told them that he was going to execute judgment against them; despite what they might think about themselves, they were mere mortals and would die like anyone else.  Though they might not offer justice to their people, though they might lack mercy, God would be merciful to their people and give their evil oppressors what they deserved at last.<\/p>\n<div class='kindleWidget kindleLight' ><img src=\"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/plugins\/send-to-kindle\/media\/white-15.png\" \/><span>Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment: \u201cHow long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2016\/04\/19\/among-the-gods\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7519"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7521,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions\/7521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}