Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 82:8

"Arise, O God, judge the earth; For thou shalt inherit all the nations." — Psalms 82:8 (ASV)

Arise.—The psalm would have been incomplete had the poet not resumed here in his own person, with an appeal to the Supreme Judge to carry His decrees into effect against the oppressors of Israel.

Here, at least, if not all through it, the affliction of the community and the perversion of justice by foreign rulers are the motives of the song.

It is as if, despairing of the improvement of the corrupt magistrates, the poet, pleading for Israel, takes his case out of their hands, as Cranmer in the play takes his case out of the hands of the council, and entrusts it to the Great Judge of the world. Israel belonged to Him as a special inheritance, and He was also to show His claim to the submission and obedience of all nations.