Ps. 82.5 (the impossible persistence of evil)

They neither know / nor understand
they wander about / in darkness
while the very foundations of the earth shake. 

From the commission to the gods, to administer justice and maintain the proper order of creation we now descend into darkness. There is no story that fills in this space between commission and failure; we are not given a glimpse into how exactly this failure took place. Indeed, we are never given a glimpse into whether the gods ever enacted justice. It could be argued that with the immediate juxtaposition the gods received the command to perform justice and, Adam-like, failed almost immediately. This may tie into a further thematic note that is struck here between the apparent and the hidden. The gods are wandering in darkness. It is not a darkness that is merely external but it mimics their internal darkness: their failure to adhere to the command of God to ‘fill in the gaps’ of justice. Crucially, this darkness is not something that simply envelops them, as passive recipients. They perpetuate and enact the darkness. They are ‘dark gods’, wreaking havoc by their failure, spreading darkness across the nations they have been assigned to protect. Contrasted with this is the fact that their destruction is causing the earth to shake. The foundations of the world are shaking as the earth is being enveloped in darkness. In other words, their darkness is creating a situation of chaos that is manifest and clear and yet they persist in it. It is the collision between these two poles of darkness and clarity that generates God’s fury at the gods. They have not only failed but they refuse to turn around even when creation itself is threatened by their failure. This is the impossible persistence of evil, which is something we have clearly seen in the human realm. However, in a deeply troubling fashion, we realize it is a darkness that inhabits the realm of the gods.