Psalms 82:6-7

82:6 I thought, ¹  ‘You are gods;

all of you are sons of the Most High.’ ² 

82:7 Yet you will die like mortals; ³ 

you will fall like all the other rulers.” ⁴ 

Isaiah 31:3

31:3 The Egyptians are mere humans, not God;

their horses are made of flesh, not spirit.

The Lord will strike with ⁵  his hand;

the one who helps will stumble

and the one being helped will fall.

Together they will perish. ⁶ 

Ezekiel 28:2

28:2 “Son of man, say to the prince ⁷  of Tyre, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

“‘Your heart is proud ⁸  and you said, “I am a god; ⁹ 

I sit in the seat of gods, in the heart of the seas” –

yet you are a man and not a god,

though you think you are godlike. ¹⁰ 

Ezekiel 28:9

28:9 Will you still say, “I am a god,” before the one who kills you –

though you are a man and not a god –

when you are in the power of those who wound you?

Acts 12:22-23

12:22 But the crowd ¹¹  began to shout, ¹²  “The voice of a god, ¹³  and not of a man!” 12:23 Immediately an angel of the Lord ¹⁴  struck ¹⁵  Herod ¹⁶  down because he did not give the glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died. ¹⁷ 

¹ tn Heb “said.”

² sn Normally in the OT the title Most High belongs to the God of Israel, but in this context, where the mythological overtones are so strong, it probably refers to the Canaanite high god El (see v. 1, as well as Isa 14:13).

³ tn Heb “men.” The point in the context is mortality, however, not maleness.

⁴ tn Heb “like one of the rulers.” The comparison does not necessarily imply that they are not rulers. The expression “like one of” can sometimes mean “as one of” (Gen 49:16; Obad 11) or “as any other of” (Judg 16:7, 11).

⁵ tn Heb “will extend”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NCV “stretch out.”

⁶ tn Heb “together all of them will come to an end.”

⁷ tn Or “ruler” (NIV, NCV).

⁸ tn Heb “lifted up.”

⁹ tn Or “I am divine.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “and you made your heart (mind) like the heart (mind) of gods.”

¹¹ tn The translation “crowd” is given by BDAG 223 s.v. δῆμος; the word often means a gathering of citizens to conduct public business. Here it is simply the group of people gathered to hear the king’s speech.

¹² tn The imperfect verb ἐπεφώνει (epefwnei) is taken ingressively in the sequence of events. Presumably the king had started his speech when the crowd began shouting.

¹³ sn The voice of a god. Contrast the response of Paul and Barnabas in Acts 14:13-15.

¹⁴ tn Or “the angel of the Lord.” See the note on the word “Lord” in 5:19.

¹⁵ sn On being struck…down by an angel, see Acts 23:3; 1 Sam 25:28; 2 Sam 12:15; 2 Kgs 19:35; 2 Chr 13:20; 2 Macc 9:5.

¹⁶ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Herod) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁷ sn He was eaten by worms and died. Josephus, Ant. 19.8.2 (19.343-352), states that Herod Agrippa I died at Caesarea in a.d. 44. The account by Josephus, while not identical to Luke’s account, is similar in many respects: On the second day of a festival, Herod Agrippa appeared in the theater with a robe made of silver. When it sparkled in the sun, the people cried out flatteries and declared him to be a god. The king, carried away by the flattery, saw an owl (an omen of death) sitting on a nearby rope, and immediately was struck with severe stomach pains. He was carried off to his house and died five days later. The two accounts can be reconciled without difficulty, since while Luke states that Herod was immediately struck down by an angel, his death could have come several days later. The mention of worms with death adds a humiliating note to the scene. The formerly powerful ruler had been thoroughly reduced to nothing (cf. Jdt 16:17; 2 Macc 9:9; cf. also Josephus, Ant. 17.6.5 [17.168-170], which details the sickness which led to Herod the Great’s death).