Matthew Henry's commentary on the passage is instructive:
We have here,
I. Earthly gods abased and brought down, v. 6, 7. The dignity of their character is acknowledged (v. 6):
I have said, You are gods. They have been honoured with the name and title of gods. God himself called them so in the statute against treasonable words Ex. 22:28,
Thou shalt not revile the gods. And, if they have this style from the fountain of honour, who can dispute it? But what is man, that he should be thus magnified? He called them
gods because
unto them the word of God came, so our Saviour expounds it (Jn. 10:35); they had a commission from God, and were delegated and appointed by him to be the shields of the earth, the conservators of the public peace, and revengers to execute wrath upon those that disturb it, Rom. 13:4. All of them are in this sense
children of the Most High. God has put some of his honour upon them, and employs them in his providential government of the world, as David made his sons chief rulers. Or, "Because
I said, You are gods, you have carried the honour further than was intended and have imagined yourselves to be
the children of the Most High," as the king of Babylon (Isa. 14:14),
I will be like the Most High, and the king of Tyre (Eze. 28:2),
Thou hast set thy heart as the heart of God. It is a hard thing for men to have so much honour put upon them by the hand of God, and so much honour paid them, as ought to be by the children of men, and not to be proud of it and puffed up with it, and so to think of themselves above what is meet. But here follows a mortifying consideration:
You shall die like men. This may be taken either, 1. As the punishment of bad magistrates, such as judged unjustly, and by their misrule put the
foundations of the earth out of course. God will reckon with them, and will cut them off in the midst of their pomp and prosperity; they shall die like other wicked men,
and fall like one of the heathen
princes (and their being Israelites shall not secure them anymore than their being judges) or like one of the angels that sinned, or like one of the giants of the old world. Compare this with that which Elihu observed concerning the mighty oppressors in his time. Job 34:26,
He striketh them as wicked men in the open sight of others. Let those that abuse their power know that God will take both it and their lives from them; for wherein they deal proudly he will
show himself above them. Or, 2. As the period of the glory of all magistrates in this world. Let them not be puffed up with their honour nor neglect their work, but let the consideration of their mortality be both mortifying to their pride and quickening to their duty. "You are called gods, but you have no patent for immortality;
you shall die like men, like common men; and
like one of them, you, O princes! shall fall." Note, Kings and princes, all the judges of the earth, though they are gods to us, are men to God, and shall die like men, and all their honour shall be laid in the dust.
Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat—Death mingles sceptres with spades.
