BIBLIOTHECA SACRA 158 (January-March
2001): 52-74
[Copyright © 2001 Dallas
Theological Seminary; cited with permission;
digitally prepared for use at
DEUTERONOMY 32:8 AND
THE
SONS OF GOD
Michael
S. Heiser
MOSES'
FAREWELL SONG IN DEUTERONOMY 32:1-43 is one of
the more intriguing portions of Deuteronomy and has
re-
ceived much attention from
scholars, primarily for its po-
etic features, archaic
orthography and morphology, and text-
critical problems.1 Among the textual variants
in the Song of
Moses,
one in verse 8 stands out as particularly fascinating. The
New
American Standard Bible renders the verse this way: "When
the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
when He sepa-
rated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the
peoples ac-
cording to the number of the sons of
The last phrase, "according to the number
of the sons of Is-
rael," reflects the
reading of the Masoretic text lxerAW;yi yneB;,
a reading
also reflected in some later revisions of the Septuagint:
a manu-
script of
Theodotion.2
Most witnesses to the Septuagint in verse 8, however,
read, a@ggelw?n
qeou? ("angels of God"), which
is interpretive,3 and
Michael
S. Heiser is a Ph.D. candidate in Hebrew and Semitic
Studies at the Uni-
versity of Wisconsin-Madison.
1 For a recent overview of the scholarship
on the Song of Moses, see Paul Sand-
ers's thorough treatment in The Provenance of Deuteronomy 32 (Leiden: Brill, 1996).
See
also Frank M. Cross and David Noel Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic
Poetry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997); William F. Albright, "Some Remarks on
the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy XXXII," Vetus Testamentum 9
(1959): 339-46;
and D. A. Robertson, Linguistic Evidence in Dating Early Hebrew Poetry (
MT:
Scholars, 1972). .
2 Fridericus
Field, ed., Origenis Hexaplorum, Tomus I: Prolegomena, Genesis-
Esther (Hildesheim:
Georg Olms, 1964), 320, n.
12.
3 This is the predominant reading in the
Septuagint manuscripts and is nearly
unanimous. See John William Wevers,
ed., Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum
Graecum, Auctoritate Academiae
Scientiarum Gottingensis Editum, vol. 3.2: Deuter-
onomium (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), 347; and idem, Notes on the
Greek Text of Deuteronomy
(Atlanta:
Scholars, 1995), 513. Wevers refers to this
majority reading as "clearly a later attempt
to avoid any notion of lesser deities in
favor of God's messengers" (ibid.).
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God 53
several others read ui[w?n qeou? ("sons of God").4 Both of these Greek
renderings presuppose a Hebrew text of either Myhlx ynb or Mylx ynb.
These
Hebrew phrases underlying a@ggelw?n
qeou? and ui[w?n qeou?
are
attested in two Hebrew manuscripts from
(conflated) manuscript of Aquila.6
Should the verse be rendered "sons of
The
debate over which is preferable is more than a fraternal spat
among textual critics. The notion that the nations of
the world
were geographically partitioned and owe their
terrestrial identity
to the sovereign God takes the reader back to the
Table of Nations
in Genesis 10-11. Two details there regarding
God's apportionment
of the earth are important for understanding
Deuteronomy 32:8.
First, the Table of Nations catalogs seventy
nations, but
not included.7 Second, the use of the
same Hebrew root (draPA) in
both Genesis 10 and Deuteronomy 32 to describe the
"separation"
of the human race and the nations substantiates
the long-
recognized observation that Genesis 10-11 is the
backdrop to the
statement in Deuteronomy 32:8.8 Because
Israel alone is Yahweh's
portion, she was not numbered among the seventy
other nations.
The reference to seventy "sons of
text), initially seemed understandable enough, for
both Genesis
46:27 and Exodus 1:5 state that seventy members
of Jacob's family.
4 Wevers,
ed., Septuaginta,
347.
The Gottingen Septuagint has adopted ui[w?n
qeou?
as the best reading, despite its having fewer
attestations.
5 The words lx ynb
are not an option for what was behind the Septuagint reading,
as demonstrated by the
vised Septuagint. First,
manuscript 4QDtq has spaces for additional letters follow-
ing the l of its [ ] lx
ynb. Second, 4QDtJ clearly reads Myhvlx ynb
(Sanders, The Prove-
nance of Deuteronomy 32, 156). See also Emanuel Tov,
Textual Criticism of the He-
brew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 269.
6 Wevers, ed., Septuaginta, 347;
and Field, Origenis Hexaplorum, Tomus I: Prole-
gomena, Genesis-Esther, 320. The manuscript of
7 As Allen P. Ross notes, "On
investigation the reader is struck by a deliberate
pattern in the selection of names for the Table.
For example, of the sons of Japheth,
who number seven, two are selected for further
listing. From those two sons come
seven grandsons, completing a selective list of
fourteen names under Japheth. With
Ham's
thirty descendants and Shem's twenty-six, the grand total is seventy"
("Studies
in the Book of Genesis; Part 2: The Table of Nations in Genesis 10--Its
Structure,"
Bibliotheca Sacra 137
[October-December 1980]: 342). Some scholars,
Ross
observes, arrive at the number of seventy-one for the names, depending on how
the counting is done (ibid., 352, n. 18). Ross and Cassuto agree that the accurate
count is seventy (cf. Umberto Cassuto,
A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: From
Noah to Abraham [
8 Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis,
174-78; Albright, "Some Re-
marks on the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy
XXXII," 343-44. A Niphal form of drp
is used in Genesis 10:5 (Udr;p;ni), and the Hiphil
occurs in Deuteronomy 32:8 (Odyrip;haB;).
54
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA / January-March
2001
went to
however, to the logic of the correlation: How is
it that the number
of the pagan nations was determined in relation to
an entity (Is-
rael) or individuals (Jacob
and his household) that did not yet ex-
ist? Even if one contends that
the correlation was in the mind of
God
before
possible point would there be behind connecting
the pagan Gentile
nations numerically with the Israelites? On the
other hand what
could possibly be meant by the notion that a
correspondence ex-
isted between the number of
the nations in Genesis 10-11 and
heavenly beings?
Literary and conceptual parallels discovered in
the literature
of
the number seventy in Deuteronomy 32:8 and have
furnished sup-
port for textual scholars who argue against the
"sons of
reading. Ugaritic
mythology plainly states that the head of its pan-
theon, El (who, like the God
of the Bible, is also referred to as El
Elyon, the "Most High") fathered seventy
sons,10 thereby specifying
the number of the "sons of El" (Ugaritic, bn il).
An unmistakable
linguistic parallel with the Hebrew text underlying
the Septuagint
reading was thus discovered, one that prompted
many scholars to
accept the Septuagintal
reading on logical and philological
grounds--God (El Elyon
in Deut. 32:8) divided the earth according
to the number of heavenly beings who existed from
before the time
of creation.11 The coherence of this
explanation notwithstanding,
some commentators resist the reading of the
Septuagint, at least in
part because they fear that an acceptance of the Myhlx ynb
or Mylx ynb
readings (both of which may be translated
"sons of gods") somehow
9 There is a textual debate on this
passage in Exodus as well. Although space
prohibits a thorough discussion of Genesis 46:27
and Exodus 1:5, they do provide
examples, in conjunction with Deuteronomy 32:8,
of the primary guiding principle
in textual criticism: The reading that best
explains the rise of the others is most
likely the original. In the case of Genesis 46:27 and
Exodus 1:5, the Septuagint and
seventy-five people went to
five additional descendants from Ephraim and
Manasseh. This example from these
verses features the same textual alignment as with
Deuteronomy 32:8 (the Septua-
gint and
Masoretic reading is to be preferred. The point is
that one cannot be biased in favor
of either the Masoretic
or the Septuagintal readings; instead, the reading
that best
explains the rise of the others is the preferred
reading, regardless of the text-type.
10 Manfried
Dietrich, Oswald Loretz, and Joaquin Sanmartin, eds., The Cuneiform
Alphabetic Texts from
ster:
11 Job 38:7 states that the heavenly host
was present at creation.
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God 55
means that Yahweh is the author of polytheism. This
apprehension
has prompted some text-critical defenses of the Masoretic text in
Deuteronomy
32:812 based on a misunderstanding of both the
tual history of the Hebrew
Bible and text-critical methodology, a
prejudiced evaluation of non-Masoretic
texts, and an unfounded
concern that departure from, the Masoretic reading results in "Isra-
elite polytheism." The goal of this article is
to show that viewing
"sons of God" as the correct reading in Deuteronomy 32:8
in no way
requires one to view Israelite religion as
polytheistic.
TEXTUAL CRITICISM AND THE "SONS OF
GOD"
IN DEUTERONOMY 32:8
A
WORD ABOUT TEXT-CRITICAL METHOD AND PREJUDICES
The
textual evidence cited above presents a situation in which one
reading (that of the Septuagint) is supported by
very ancient
manuscript evidence (notably
soretic reading) has a
preponderance of the support, thereby cre-
ating an
"oldest-versus-most" predicament. As in similar New Tes-
tament cases the correct
reading can be verified not by counting
manuscripts but by weighing them. Hence it matters
little that the
Septuagint
reading is "outnumbered," especially since the more
numerous sources are much later, and in fact are
interdependent,
not independent, witnesses. When considering the
evidence, it is
wrong to assume that the Masoretic
text is superior at every point
to other texts of the Old Testament. It is equally
fallacious to pre-
suppose the priority of the Septuagint. Simply
stated, no text
should automatically be assumed superior in a
text-critical investi-
gation. Determining the best
reading must be based on internal
considerations, not uncritical,
external presumptions about the
"correct" text.
Unfortunately the notion of the presumed
sanctity of the Ma-
soretic text still persists.
The dictum that the Masoretic text is to
be preferred over all other traditions whenever it
cannot be faulted
linguistically or for its content
(unless in isolated cases there is
good reason for favoring another tradition) is all
too enthusiasti-
cally echoed.13
The idea seems to be that whenever a Masoretic
12 For example David E. Stevens, "Does
Deuteronomy 32:8 Refer to 'Sons of God' or
'Sons of
writing his article Stevens has repudiated this
view and has accepted the reading
"sons of God" (David E. Stevens, "Daniel 10 and the
Notion of Territorial Spirits,"
Bibliotheca Sacra 157 (October-December
2000): 412, n. 9.
13 Ernst Wurthwein,
The Text of the Old Testament, trans. Peter
R. Ackroyd (New
56
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
reading could
be accepted it should be accepted.
Such an approach,
however, hardly does justice to non-Masoretic readings that also
could be acceptable on their
own linguistic and contextual terms.
Put
another way, the above view seldom addresses why the Ma-
soretic text should be held in
such esteem. Where there are wide
and significant textual divergencies
between the Masoretic text
and the Septuagint, many textual studies have shown
that the
of the Hebrew text underlying the Septuagint. For
example it is
well known that the Masoretic
text of 1 and 2 Samuel is in poor
condition in a number of places and includes
instances of signifi-
cant haplography.14 First and 2 Kings are
riddled with both short
and lengthy pluses and minuses, transpositions, and
chronological
differences.15 Also portions of the Masoretic text of Ezekiel, espe-
cially chapters 1 and 10,
could serve as a veritable digest of textual
corruptions.16
Judging by the survival in Old Testament textual
criticism of a
"textus receptus"
approach like the one that once held sway in New
Testament
textual criticism, more consideration is needed as to
how the Masoretic text
came to be considered the "received text."
Just
because the Masoretic text was the received text of
the medie-
val Masoretes
does not mean that it merits textual priority among
today's extant witnesses, or even that it had
textual priority in
biblical times. The Masoretic
text rose to prominence only after
centuries of textual diversity and not, as noted
above, by "intrinsic
factors related to the textual transmission, but
by political and so-
cioreligious events and
developments."17
The evidence from
14 P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel (New York: Doubleday, 1980); and idem, Textual
Criticism: Recovering
the Text of the Hebrew Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 38.
15 Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,
142.
16 Daniel Block, "Text and Emotion: A
Study in the 'Corruptions' in Ezekiel's Inau-
gural Vision (Ezekiel
1:4-28)," Catholic Biblical
Quarterly 50 (July 1988): 418-42.
17 Emanuel Tov, "Textual Criticism (OT)," in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. D. N.
Freedman
(New York: Doubleday, 1992),6:395,407. Tov summarizes the historical
situation as follows: "By the end of the 1st
century A.D. the Septuagint had been
accepted by Christianity and abandoned by Jews.
Copies of the Samaritan Penta-
teuch were available, but in
the meantime that sect had become an independent
religion, so that their texts were considered
Samaritan, not Jewish any more. The
struction of the temple.
Therefore the sole texts that existed in this period were the
ones that were copied and distributed by the central
group in Judaism. . . .This
situation gave rise to the wrong conclusion that
the MT had 'ousted' the other texts"
(ibid., 407).
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God 57
fiable textual plurality among Jews in
tween the third century B.C.
and the first century A.D.18 Precursory
forms of the Masoretic
text, the Septuagint, and the Samaritan
Pentateuch
existed and are attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As
further proof of textual diversity the
tains "independent"
or "unaligned" texts, which exhibit both
agreement and disagreement with the textual
traditions of the Ma-
soretic text, the Septuagint,
and the Samaritan Pentateuch.19 The
reading, 4QDeutj,n, are among the
unaligned texts.20
Two points derive from this review of the
textual plurality in
the
data that the Jews held a negative view of Hebrew
texts not
grouped among those that later received the
appellation "Ma-
soretic." Second, the
undeniable textual diversity at
gues against any suggestion that the Qumranites
altered a text
ultimately used by the Septuagintal
translators as their Vorlage.
Besides
the chronological and logistical difficulties of such an idea,
this question remains: If the
altering texts to reflect allegedly strange
angelic views or Gnostic
tendencies, why did they leave so many texts within
each of the
major textual strains unaltered? Stated another way,
why did the
that point to God's uniqueness, omnipotence, and
sovereignty to
stay in the texts they deposited in the nearby caves?
It hardly
makes sense to sneak one alteration into Deuteronomy
32:8 while
letting hundreds of other "nondualistic" texts remain.
EVALUATING
THE INTERNAL TEXT-CRITICAL EVIDENCE
FOR
DEUTERONOMY 32:8
Those
who assume the priority of the Masoretic text might
offer
two explanations as to why Deuteronomy 32:8 reads
"sons of God"
in some manuscripts, including the
is that this reading should simply be regarded as
an intentional
error reflecting the theological predilections of
Septuagintal
translators.
However, this theory has already been
called into question. The other explanation suggests
that the vari-
ant arose unintentionally; that is, the consonants rWy were acciden-
18 Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,
116-17. See also S. Talmon, "The
Old Testament Text," in
F.
Evans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963); 1:159-99.
19 Tov,
"Textual Criticism (OT)," 395, 402, 404, 406.
20 Ibid., 402.
58
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
tally omitted (by parablepsis)
from the word lxrWy leaving lx
ynb in
the text in the place of lxrWy
ynb.
This second explanation is less than
satisfactory for at least
two reasons. First, one could just as well argue
that rWy was added
to the text. This is hardly a satisfying response,
however, for it is
as much of a speculation as the competing
proposition. The real
problem with the parablepsis
proposal is that, while it accounts for
the consonants lx in the text, it fails
to explain adequately how the
consonants Myhv would have come to be
added after lx to the text
underlying the Septuagint reading. It is
particularly significant in
this regard that the texts from
gint do not read the
consonants lx ynb as this explanation
would
postulate, for in one text, 4QDeutq,
there are spaces for additional
consonants after the l of the word lx. The other
supports the Septuagintal
reading, 4QDeutj, unambiguously reads
Myhlx
ynb.21
Second, and perhaps even more damaging to the
proposed
parablepsis explanation that an
original "sons of
tentionally corrupted to "sons
of God" in Deuteronomy 32:8, is that
there exists another text-critical problem in
Deuteronomy 32 in
which heavenly beings--"sons of Myhlx / Mylx"--are the focus
(v.
43a)!
Deuteronomy 32:43 reads differently in the Masoretic
text,
the Septuagint, and a
The Masoretic text has
one line:
"O nations, rejoice His people."
4QDeutq has a bicolon:
"O heavens, rejoice with Him
Bow to Him, all divinities."
And the Septuagint has two bicola:
"O heavens, rejoice with Him
Bow to Him, all sons of the divine.22
O nations, rejoice with His people
And let all angels of the divine strengthen themselves in
Him."23
21 Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible,
269. Also see note 5 in this article.
22 The translation of the Septuagint
provided by Tigay could reflect Mylx instead of
Myhlx since
"divine" rather than "God" is chosen as the translation
(Jeffrey H. Tigay,
Deuteronomy, JPS Torah Commentary [
1996],516).
23 The translations are from Tigay, Deuteronomy,
516.
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God 59
It is significant that the Masoretic text lacks a second line in
what should be the first pairing. Even more striking
is the fact that
this missing colon is the one in which reference is
made to divie
beings in the
texts each colon has its partner. This argues
strongly that the Ma-
soretic text originally had a bicolon, a pairing that was deliberately
eliminated to avoid the reference to other
"divine beings."24 While
the other Masoretic
omissions can be explained by haplography,
the absence of the line that would have made
reference to heavenly
beings cannot be so explained.25
What does this imply? It suggests,
for one thing, that those
who defend the priority of the Masoretic
text would have to argue
for accidental changes in Deuteronomy 32:8 (the
missing rWy) and
in 32:43--changes that produced false readings in
favor of angelic
beings in both cases, while simultaneously accounting
for all the
consonants in Myhlx in 4QDeutj.
Such a coincidence is possible, but
it stretches credulity to argue that the Masoretic text of Deuteron-
omy 32:8 and 43 best
represents the original text when (a) the ex-
clusion of heavenly beings in
verse 43 is so obviously a textual mi-
nus and (b) its conceptual
parallel in verse 8 cannot coherently ac-
count for how the Septuagintal
reading for verse 8 may have
arisen. It is far more likely that both texts were
intentionally al-
tered in the Masoretic text for the same reason, namely, to elimi-
nate a reference to heavenly
beings in order to avoid allegedly poly-
theistic language. It is inconceivable that a
scribe would have done
the reverse, that is, altering an innocuous lxrWy ynb ("sons of
to a potentially explosive Myhlx ynb ("sons of
God"). Therefore the
reading in the Septuagint sufficiently explains
how the Masoretic
reading could have arisen, but the alternative
does not.
DEUTERONOMY
32:8 IN LIGHT OF GOD'S DIVINE COUNCIL
IN THE HEBREW BIBLE
Although
some may fear that adopting the Septuagintal reading
for Deuteronomy 32:8 amounts to embracing the
notion that Yah-
weh is the author of
polytheism, this is not the case at all. In fact a
proper understanding of the concept of the
"divine council" in the
Old
Testament provides a decisive argument in favor of the Sep-
tuagint/Qumran reading.
The Old Testament often reflects
literary and religious contact
24
Ibid.
25 Ibid.,
516-17.
60
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
between
dence of such contact
concerns a "divine council" or "divine assem-
bly" presided over by
a chief deity.26 Of particular interest to the
study at hand are the Ugaritic
texts, since that language bears a
close linguistic affinity to biblical Hebrew.27
THE DIVINE COUNCIL IN THE OLD
TESTAMENT
An
example of the divine council assembled for deliberation is in 1
Kings
22:19-23 (cf. 2 Chron. 18:18-22).28 First
Kings 22:1-18 in-
troduces the political alliance
forged between Jehoshaphat of
Judah
and the king of Israel for invading Ramoth Gilead,
the ap-
proval of the plan by four
hundred prophets of
hoshaphat's insistence on hearing
from a true prophet of Yahweh
concerning the matter. The king of Israel revealed
that there was
indeed a prophet of God, Micaiah
ben Imlah, whom they could
con-
sult, but that Micaiah never prophesied anything favorable about
him. Micaiah was
summoned, and at first he mockingly prophesied
blessing for the invasion, but Jehoshaphat immediately detected
his duplicity. This set the stage for Micaiah's genuine vision.
Micaiah continued,
"Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I
saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the
host of heaven
standing around him on his right and on his left.
And the LORD
said, 'Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and go-
ing to his death there?'
One suggested this, and another that. Fi-
nally, a spirit came forward,
stood before the LORD and said, 'I will
entice him.' 'By what means?' the LORD asked. 'I will
go out and be
a lying spirit in the mouths of all his
prophets,' he said. 'You will
succeed in enticing him,' said the LORD. 'Go and
do it.' So now the
LORD
has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of
yours. The LORD has decreed
disaster for you" (vv. 19-23, NIV).
In a scene that resembles Ugaritic
council scenes, Micaiah pic-
26 The major work on the
divine council is E. Theodore Mullen, The
Divine Council
in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature, Harvard Semitic
Monographs (
MT:
Scholars, 1980). Two works that focus on more specific aspects of the divine
council are Lowell K Handy, Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian
Pan-
theon as Bureaucracy (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns,
1994); and Conrad
L'Heureux, Rank
among the Canaanite Gods: El, Ba'al, and the Repha'im, Harvard
Semitic Monographs (Missoula, MT: Scholars,
1979).
27 Stanislav
Segert, A Basic
Grammar of the Ugaritic Language: With Selected
Texts and Glossary (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1985), x, 13-15.
The
present study focuses on material from Ugarit, but
the concepts delineated can
also be found in the literature of ancient
28 In addition to the two
primary examples of the council in the Old Testament
discussed in this section, see also Job 1-2 and
Zechariah 3:1-8.
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the
Sons of God 61
tured Yahweh as the
sovereign,29 enthroned among the members of
His
council and directly addressing its members, who "stand" (a
technical term30) before Him.31
The question God asked occurs in a
form paralleled in Ugaritic
literature and other passages involving
Yahweh's
presence in the Hebrew Bible.32 God then approved the
course of action He knew would be successful, and a
messenger
(the "spirit"33 in 1 Kings
sioned. This does not mean
that Yahweh lacks ideas or that the
council members exercise independent authority,
but rather that
the council serves only to "reemphasize and
execute His deci-
sions."34 This pattern is also seen
in the Ugaritic council texts.35 In
1
Kings 22 Micaiah was permitted to observe the deliberations
of
the divine "boardroom meeting" and thus
as a messenger of the
divine assembly he could pronounce with certainty the
Lord's mes-
sage.
A second example of the divine
council is in Psalm 82:1-8.
"God
[Myhilox<]36 standeth
in the congregation of the mighty [lxe-tdafEBa];
he judgeth among the
gods [Myhilox<]. How long will ye
judge un-
justly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
Defend the
poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and
needy. Deliver
the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the
wicked. They
[i.e.,
Myhlox<] know not, neither will
they understand; they walk on in
darkness: all the foundations of the earth are
out of course. I have
said, Ye are gods [Myhlox<]; and all of you are
children of the most
29 The chief deity and
leader of the council at
text makes it clear that El is
the Bible does not share behaviors of His Ugaritic counterpart) and that Yahweh is
El(Deut. 7:9;
epithets of the Ugaritic
high god El are used of Yahweh in the Old Testament
(Cross,
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic,
44-76).
30 Mullen, The Divine Council, 207,209-26. In this
regard it is interesting to note
Isaiah
6:2 in the Septuagint, where the angelic beings in the passage stand before
Yahweh, not above Him as in the Masoretic text.
31 Cf. KTU 1.16:V.9-28; Ugaritica
V.2.I.2--4. See Mullen, The Divine
Council, 205.
32 Cf. KTU 1.16:V.10-11,
14-15, 17-18, 20-21.
33 This is a common
designation for Yahweh's and/or the council's messengers. See
Mullen,
The Divine Council, 206.
34 Ibid.,
207.
35 Ibid.,
206.
36 The Masoretic text is used here. As is noted in several of the
studies cited sub-
sequently, the only meaningful
variant in the text is whether the first occurrence of
Myhilox< in verse 1 should be
replaced by hvhy. The choice makes no
difference for the
interpretation of the psalm.
62
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
High
[NOyl;f,
yneb;U]. But ye shall die like men [Adam], and fall
like one
of the princes [the Shining Ones].37
Arise, 0 God, judge the earth:
for thou shalt inherit
all nations" (KJV).
This psalm has generated much
scholarly controversy.38 The
problem focuses on the meaning of Myhilox< in verses 1b and 6a.39
How
can God (Myhilox<) be said to be standing
in the council of God (lxe) in
the midst of a (singular) God (Myhilox<)? It would seem obvious
that
the second Myhilox< (v. 1b) must be
pluralized, but since this allegedly
smacks of polytheism, many commentators have resisted
the
translation "gods." Therefore other
interpretations of Myhilox< in
verses 1b and 6a have been offered: (a) Myhilox< are Israelite rulers
and judges; (b) Myhilox< are rulers and judges
of the nations; or (c)
Myhilox< are members of the
divine council. In reality the latter two
options are both correct and must be combined
for an accurate in-
terpretation of the psalm.40
As Cyrus Gordon pointed out over
sixty years ago, under-
standing Myhilox< as Israelite
"rulers" or "judges" lacks validity and is
an example of theologically "protecting"
God.41 Since Gordon ade-
quately chronicled the examples
in which Myhilox< is only specula-
37 The Hebrew here is MyrW.Aha dHaxak;, which is usually
translated "like one of the
princes," under the assumption that the
noun MyriWA.ha is related to the Akkadian
Sarru,
meaning "ruler, prince." While there may be some question about whether
the verbal form sararu means "shine,"
the adjective form saruru
certainly does
mean "shining," as evidenced by its use in
astronomical texts to describe the planet
Venus (Hugh R. Page, The Myth of Rebellion [New York: Brill, 1996], 97, n. 134).
Psalm
82:7 could therefore contain a substantive use of the cognate adjective (see
also Mullen, The
Divine Council, 239-40). The reference to a "Shining One" in
verse
7
is paralleled by Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-17, where heavenly beings
are
in view (or where tales of heavenly beings form
the backdrop for these passages).
Ezekiel
28:13-16 and Isaiah 14:12-15 provide an overt linguistic connection be-
tween
in the Old Testament held its meetings. The Myhilox< of Psalm 82:7 will die
like Adam
and fall like one of the "shining ones"
did (see Ezek. 28:12-17). The point of the
verse is that the beings judged in the psalm will be
(or were) stripped of immortality
and cast from their high estate, just as Adam and
that heavenly being who was
punished in the same manner earlier had been
punished. The word rWA ("prince") is
used in Daniel 10:13, 20-21; 12:1 to identify
heavenly beings--those Myhilox< who still
rule the nations, and Michael, guardian of God's
portion,
38 See Julian
Morgenstern, "The Mythological Background of Psalm 82," Hebrew
Union College Annual 14 (1939): 29-98; W.S. Prinsloo, "Psalm 82: Once Again,
Gods or Men?" Biblica 76:2 (1995), 219-28; and
Lowell Handy, "Sounds, Words and
Meanings
in Psalm 82," Journal for the Study
of the Old Testament 47 (1990): 51-66.
39 Prinsloo,
"Psalm 82: Once Again, Gods or Men?" 219.
40 Mullen, The Divine Council, 228, n. 195.
41 Cyrus Gordon, "Myhlox" in Its Reputed Meaning of Rulers, Judges," Journal of
Biblical Literature 54 (1935): 139-44.
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the
Sons of God 63
tively translated as
"rulers" or "judges"42 and demonstrated that in
each case such a translation is unnecessary, this
article focuses on
features of Psalm 82 that show that Myhilox< in verses 1b and 6a
should be translated "gods" or better,
"heavenly beings."
Several external considerations
point to Psalm 82:1b and 6a as
describing the divine council and its
"heavenly beings." First, the
fact that the Myhilox< in verse 6a are called NOyl;f, yneB;
is a strong argu-
ment for their heavenly
nature, because NOyl;f, is an obvious title for
deity in both Hebrew and Ugaritic.
In the Bible and Ugaritic relig-
ious texts the word NOyl;f, refers only to God /
EI.43 The point is that
the divine character of the offspring of El in the Ugaritic texts is
beyond question. That the same descriptive appellation
for those
offspring is used many times in the Old Testament
of nonhuman
inhabitants of the heavens makes the translation
"human judges"
nonsensical44 and ignores the
comparative Semitic philology. Sec-
ond, the terms and themes
in this psalm are present in Ugaritic
literature. "Elyon,"
"princes," and "gods," are all present in the Ug-
aritic poem "The Gracious
Gods," and it is quite telling that the
notion above in Psalm 82:7 of the Myhilox< "falling" like "one of the
Shining
Ones" is found in a specific episode "in which the fall of one
of the bn srm ('sons of the shining ones') of the heavenly congrega-
tion was depicted."45
Third, the fact that the psalm speaks of ren-
dering justice to the poor and
needy does not argue for human
judges, since the council terminology from
arit "referred
originally to the political organ of a primitive democ-
racy, a phenomenon which can be discerned in the
pantheons of
various non-Israelite cultures."46
Fourth, verses such as Isaiah
42 For example see Jay P.
Green, The Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius
Hebrew and
English Lexicon (Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 1979), 43a.
43 In Genesis
Ugaritic as either an epithet of El or a
"double name of a single god," see Cross,
Canaanite Myth and
Hebrew Epic,
51.
44 See Gerald Cooke,
"The Sons of (the) God(s)," Zeitschrift fur die alttestament-
liche Wissenschaft 76 (1964): 34.
45
Ibid.
46 Matitiahu
Tsevat "God and the Gods in Assembly," Hebrew Union College An-
nual 40-41 (1969-1970): 127
(italics added); and Page, The Myth of
Cosmic Rebel-
lion, 158-64. In all these
ancient religions, as well as in the theology of the Old Tes-
tament, the gods / God and
their / His council were supposed to render right judg-
ment for the oppressed and
the poor (see Mullen, The Divine Council,
231-38). The
earth itself was founded on justice (Isa. 28:16-17) and each member of the council
had his own earthly responsibilities (Deut.
and
protect the weak from the strong" (Cyrus
Gordon, "History of Religion in Psalm 82,"
64
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
24:21
("In that day the LORD will punish the powers in the heavens
above
and the kings on the earth below," NIV) clearly distinguish
between Yahweh's host and earthly rulers.
Internal features of Psalm 82 place
beyond dispute the view
that Myhilox< in verses 1b and 6a are
not human judges. Two recent
articles on Psalm 82 have produced a number of
structural proofs
in favor of this view.47 Two
observations will suffice here. First
Psalm
82:1 has a chiastic structure that compels the understand-
ing that the second Myhilox< does not refer to human beings:
a. bc.Ani
Myhilox< ("God takes His stand")
b.
lxe-tdafEBa ("in the
congregation of God")
b.' Myhilox< br,q,B; ("in the midst of gods")
a.' fPow;yi ("He judges")
Second, the particle NkexA in verse 7 indicates "a strong antitheti-
cal relationship with v. 6."48 The
presence of yTir;maxA introducing the
clause before NkexA means roughly "I
had thought. . . but."49 The con-
trast is, of course, between
the speaker of verse 6, Yahweh (who in
either view is the only One who has the authority to
render the
death sentence for these Myhilox<), and the Myhilox< of verse 6a--the word
being in parallel to NOyl;f,
yneB; ("sons of the Most High"). So interpret-
ing the phrase "you
shall die like Adam" (v. 7) as referring to hu-
man judges would contradict
the contrasts required by the syntax.
It
would also require ignoring the parallel here with the judgment
on Adam and Eve. The point is not that the Myhilox< were put to death
at the moment Yahweh judged them, but that they
must die as a
result of their actions (i.e., they would become
mortal).50 Moreover,
as Smick noted, "if
they are going to die like mortals, they are not
in Biblical and Near Eastern Studies: Essays in Honor of
William Sanford LaSor,
ed. Gary A. Tuttle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 129-31 (see esp. 130).
47 Prinsloo,
"Psalm 82: Once Again, Gods or Men?" 222-28; and Handy, "Sounds,
Words,
and Meanings in Psalm 82," 51-66. See also Mullen, The Divine Council,
226ff.
48 Prinsloo,
"Psalm 82: Once Again, Gods or Men?" 226.
49 Morgenstern,"The Mythological Background of Psalm
82," 33.
50 Ibid.,
73-74. This does not rule out the possibility, as some argue, that Adam
and Eve possessed contingent immortality before the
Fall. In that case their pun-
ishment would involve removing
that contingency (i.e., the tree of life from which
they ate) which maintained their immortality. The
effect would be the same--they
were now fully mortal and could not avoid death.
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the
Sons of God 65
mortals."51 The initial
immortality of those suffering this judgment
is clearly presupposed.52
THE
DIVINE COUNCIL AND THE VOCABULARY OF BIBLICAL HEBREW
The
texts above (and others) are all the more convincing once the
Ugaritic terminology for the divine council is
compared with the
vocabulary of biblical Hebrew. Such a comparison
yields both se-
mantic congruences and exact
philological equivalents.
Terminology
for the assembly.53 The literature of
number of designations for the divine assembly or
council. The two
most common at
meaning "congregation, assembly,"54
and dr,
meaning "generation,
assemblage."55 The phrases phr ‘ilm
("congregation of the gods"),
mphrt bn ‘ilm ("congregation of
the sons of the gods"), and dr bn
‘il
("generation of the sons of El") are quite common.56
None of these
forms is used in biblical Hebrew as exact linguistic equivalents,
though their conceptual equivalence is clear.
A common appellation for the divine
assembly at
'ilm ("assembly of the gods"),57
a phrase that corresponds exactly to
the one in Psalm 82:1 (lxe-tdafEBa, "in the assembly
of God"). Another
Hebrew
term for the council that has an equivalent in Ugaritic
is
dOs ("assembly").58
(See, for example, Jeremiah
51 Elmer Smick, "Mythopoetic Language
in the Psalms,"
Journal 44 (1982): 95.
52 It does no good to
suggest that the Myhilox< in question are humans
who thought
themselves to be divine, for the text does not say
this, and, more importantly, be-
cause the suggestion would put such words in the
mouth of Yahweh (the verb "said"
or "thought," yTir;maxA, is first-person
singular, not second-person plural). To object that
it is impossible to conceive of gods dying like
men in an attempt to argue for human
beings as the Myhilox< is to sound
polytheistic in orientation, for the objection would be
based on the assumption that the plural Myhilox< have the same
qualitative essence
(noncontingent immortality) as
Yahweh. The point here is that if more than one
being possessed noncontingent
immortality, the result would be true polytheism. It
is necessary to recognize a distinction between
Deity (God) and divinity (godlike-
ness) as a solution for reconciling the plural Myhilox< and Israelite
monotheism.
53 For a full discussion
of this topic see Mullen, The Divine
Council, 111-27.
54 Marjo
Christina Annette Korpel, A Rift in the Clouds: Ugaritic and Hebrew De-
scriptions of the Divine (Munster: Ugarit,
1990), 269; Cyrus Gordon, Ugaritic Man-
ual,
Analecta Orientalia 35
(Rome: Pontificium Institutum
Biblicum, 1955), 312.
55 Gordon, Ugaritic Manual, 256.
56 For example KTU
1.47:29; 1.148; 1.40:25; 1.65:3; 1.2 (cf. E. Theodore Mullen,
"Divine Assembly," in Anchor Bible Dictionary, 2:214-15).
57 Gordon, Ugaritic Manual, 303. For example see KTU
1.15:11.7, 11.
58 For example see Psalm
55:14 (Heb., 15; translated "throng" in NIV); Jer.
6:11
66
BIBLIOTHECA
SACRA / January-March 2001
When in a vision Isaiah saw Yahweh
enthroned and minis-
tered to by seraphim, he
heard the Lord ask, "Whom shall I send,
and who will go for us?" (Isa.
6:8, NIV). The winged creatures in
verses 2-3 have undeniable parallels in the Ugaritic council
scenes.60 In fact visions or
auditory revelations of Yahweh and His
divine council were viewed as an authentication of the
veracity of
the prophet's message and status, a test of true
"propheticity."61
Terminology
for the members of the assembly.62 Ugaritic
litera-
ture regularly refers to
heavenly beings as phr kkbm (the
"congrega-
tion of the stars"),63
language corresponding to rq,bo
ybek;OK ("morning
stars"; in parallelism with the "sons of
God" in Job 38:7) and
lxe
ybek;Ok (the "stars of God," Isa.
these references, each of which clearly points to
personal beings,
not astronomical phenomena, it is significant that
in the entire an-
cient Near Eastern literary
record, El is never identified with a
heavenly body. Thus the phrase "the stars of
El" points to created
beings with exalted status.64 The Hebrew
Bible also uses Mywidoq;
("assembly" in KJV); Proverbs
1.20:1.4;
and Korpel, A Rift in the Clouds,
271.
59 The King James Version
translation of "
Jeremiah
23:18, 22 is another example of how the linguistic parallels with the an-
cient Near Eastern
"council" terminology are missed.
60 Ibid.,
207. Mullen argues that the winged creatures / seraphim are council
members, but elsewhere in his
book he notes that such fiery (cf. the root srp for the
seraphim) messengers are mere emissaries to the
council at
Council, 140). Handy argues that the
seraphim at
only messenger "gods" (a term appropriate
only for a polytheistic context), had no
independent personal volition, were clearly a
subclass (even in Jewish tradition),
and were most likely the "security
guards" of the heavenly throne room where the
council met (Handy, Among the Host of Heaven, 151-56). They are thus only ser-
vants of the council
membership and its head, not members. It seems more likely,
however, that the whole heavenly host
constitutes the divine council (cf. 1 Kings
61 H. Wheeler Robinson
demonstrated that the divine council forms the back-
ground for the commissioning of the prophet ("The
Council of Yahweh," Journal of
Theological Studies 45 [1944]: 151-57). See
also Christopher Seitz, "The Divine
Council:
Temporal Transition and New Prophecy in the Book of Isaiah," Journal of
Biblical Literature 109 (1990): 229-47;
Frank M. Cross, "The Council of Yahweh in
Second
Isaiah," Journal of Near Eastern
Studies 12 (1953): 274-77; and Mullen, The
Divine Council, 215-26.
62 See Mullen, The Divine Council, 175-208; and Korpel,
A Rift in the Clouds,
269-99.
63 KTU 1.10:1.4.
64 Ulf
Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 82 (1970): 187-208 (esp. 197).
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the
Sons of God 67
("holy ones") and tOxbAc;
("hosts")
for inhabitants of heaven,65 a term
not utilized in Ugaritic
for the heavenly host. The "hosts" of Yah-
weh (hvhy tOxbAc;) is an umbrella term
that includes the variety of
categories of nonhuman beings who serve God.66
In fact Miller has
argued that the "host" of heaven, the divine
council, and the Old
Testament's
portrait of Yahweh as a warrior are linked.67
The members of the assembly at
classified as ‘ilm ("gods"), bn ‘il
("sons of El"), and bn’ ilm ("sons of
the gods").68 Specifically in the Keret Epic the Canaanite chief de-
ity El sits at the head of
the assembly and four times he addresses
its members as either) 'ilm ("gods") or bny ("my
sons").69 Both Uga-
ritic and biblical Hebrew use
ml’k
("messenger," typically trans-
lated "angel") to
denote heavenly beings. In Ugaritic and in the Old
Testament
the terms Myhilox<, Mylixe, and Myhilox<
yneB; are not equated with
the MykixAl;ma
("messengers"). All these beings are members of the di-
vine council, but within that council a hierarchy
exists.70
Terminology for the meeting place of
the assembly.71 In Uga-
ritic mythology El and his
council met to govern the cosmos at the
"sources of the two rivers," in the "midst of the
fountains of the
double-deep,"
and in the "domed tent" of El, located on the moun-
tain of El, Mount Sapanu.72
This mountainous meeting place was
also designated phr m’d, the place of the "assembled congrega-
tion,"73 and was associated with
both physical and mythical peaks
65 Job 5:1;
Carol
A. Newsom, "Angels," in Anchor
Bible Dictionary, 1:248.
66 See Psalms 103:19-21;
148:1-5. However, several passages unambiguously dis-
tinguish heavenly beings from
others (e.g., Isa. 24:21, "And it shall come to
pass in
that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the
high ones that are on high
[MOrm.ABa MOrm.Aha xbAc;], and the kings of the
earth upon the earth," KJV), and other pas-
sages describe those that dwell in the
"heights" (e.g.,
67 Patrick D. Miller,
"The Divine Council and the Prophetic Call to War," Vetus
Testamentum 18 (1968): 101-7.
68 In addition to the
citations above with references to the 'ilm, see KTU 1.16; 1.15;
1.40:7-8,42; cf. Mullen, "Divine Assembly," 215.
69 See
KTU 1.16.V.I-28 for El's leadership in the council.
70 Handy, Among the Host of Heaven, 151-59;
Mullen, The Divine Council, 210-16;
and Korpel, A Rift in the Clouds, 289-317. See KTU 1.2:1.11; 1.13:25.
71 Full discussions of
this topic occur in Mullen, The Divine
Council, 128-74, and
Richard
J. Clifford The Cosmic Mountain in
vard Semitic Monographs IV (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1972), 34-176.
72 Frank M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (
versity Press, 1973), 36; Korpel, A Rift in the
Clouds, 370; and Clifford, Cosmic
Mountain, 98-160. See KTU 1.4;
1.2:111; 1.3:V.5-7; 1.6:1.32-34; 1.101:2; 1.3:111.29.
73 Korpel,
A Rift in the Clouds, 269.
68
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
to the north of Ugarit.74 In like
manner Yahweh's sanctuary is on a
mountain (
north," the NOpcA
yteK;r;ya (Ps. 48:1-2).75 The "height of
watered garden" (Jer.
31:12; cf. Isa. 33:20-22), and in Ezekiel
28:13-16,
the terms "mountain of God" and "
mention
the dfeOm
rha ("mount of assembly"), again located in the
"heights of
the north/Saphon" (Isa.
course, evokes the imagery of the tabernacle.76
OBJECTIONS
TO THE REALITY OF A DIVINE COUNCIL
IN
THE OLD TESTAMENT
Some
interpreters argue against the idea that the Myhilox< of Psalm
82:1b
and 6a are heavenly beings by introducing Exodus
he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he
shall be, even
he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him
instead of God [Myhilox<]") and 7:1
("And the LORD said unto Moses,
See,
I have made thee a god [Myhilox<] to Pharaoh: and Aaron
thy
brother
shall be thy prophet," KJV).
Since Moses is referred to as Myhilox<, the argument goes, the
Myhilox< of Psalm 82:1b and 6a
also refer to human beings. While it is
true that Moses is referred to as an Myhilox< (Exod.
must Myhilox< refer to a human being
in Psalm 82? As discussed, structural
elements and parallelism of that psalm argue
against this conclusion,
as does the logic of verse 6, as well as other
passages that refer to
plural
Myhilox<.77
The reason Moses is called Myhilox< in Exodus
he was functioning similar to the way a member of
God's council
would function. Moses was not a mere messenger (he is
not re-
ferred to as a j`xAl;ma). Unlike prophets such as Jeremiah and Isaiah,
who were commissioned in the presence of Yahweh's
council, Moses
74 Clifford, Cosmic Mountain, 34-160.
75 In addition yDawa (Shadday) may mean "mountain
dweller" (Korpel, A Rift in the
Clouds, 581; and Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 48-60).
76 Richard J. Clifford,
"The Tent of El and the Israelite Tent of Meeting," Catholic
Biblical Quarterly 33 (1971): 221-27.
77 For example Psalms
89:6-7 ("For who in the skies above can compare with the
LORD?
Who is like the LORD among the heavenly beings [Mylixe
yneb;B;]? In the council of
the holy ones [Mywidoq;
dOsB;] God is greatly feared; he is more awesome than all who
surround
him," NIV); 29:1-2 ("Ascribe to the LORD, O mighty ones [Mylixe], ascribe to
the LORD glory and strength. Ascribe to the LORD
the glory due his name; worship
the
LORD in the splendor of his holiness," NIV); and Isaiah 24:21, which
clearly dis-
tinguishes human rulers from the
council of Myhilox< ("In that day the
LORD will pun-
ish the
powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below," NIV). The
only powers in heaven besides Yahweh are the Myhilox< and the divine council.
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the
Sons of God 69
regularly spoke to Yahweh "face to
face." Moreover, his task went
well beyond dispensing revelation; he was a
governing mediator,
effectively ruling
discretion marks him as an Myhilox<, much in the way that
king was called a "son of Myhilox<" (Ps. 2:7; see
also 110:3 in the Sep-
tuagint). Whether addressing
Pharaoh or his own people, Moses as
Myhilox<
displayed divine authority.
A second objection to the divine
council and its Myhilox< is that
Isaiah
40:18-20; 41:5-7; 44:9-20; 46:5-7 denounce idols and force-
fully contend that there are no other gods besides
Yahweh. Such
claims are also present in Deuteronomy 32 itself (vv.
15-18, 21).
Since
the Scriptures do not contradict themselves, the presence of
such passages, particularly when juxtaposed with
references to the
heavenly council in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 and 43, do
not mitigate
against the existence of the Myhilox<, but actually assume
their reality
to make the point of the comparison. Nevertheless
how are these
statements to be reconciled with the reality of the
divine council?
Simply stated, these passages assert
that there is no other De-
ity besides Yahweh. He is
the only true God; all the other Myhilox<
have contingent existence and power, were created,
and are not
omnipotent or omniscient.
For example in Isaiah 40:12-24 the
prophet mocked the idols
and their feebleness in comparison to Yahweh, and
then wrote, "'To
whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?' says
the Holy
One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these?
He who brings out the
starry host one by one, and calls them each
by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one
of them is missing" (vv. 25-26, NIV; italics
added).
Elsewhere Myhilox< are referred to as
"the starry host" (Deut.
being compares to Him, Yahweh answered His own
question by
saying that He created these "stars," and
they are therefore subject
to Him and "line up at His command." It
would be nonsensical for
the Lord to claim to have created them and then to
command enti-
ties that do not in fact exist. The juxtaposition of
passages like this
one with the proclamation that there is only one
true God demon-
strates that the reality of a
divine council of Myhilox< is in no way in-
compatible with monotheism.
THE
DIVINE COUNCIL AS AN OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGICAL
CONCEPT AND DEUTERONOMY
32:8
As
noted, Old Testament passages and comparative linguistic data
show that the Hebrew Bible includes the concept of a
divine as-
70
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
sembly that is undeniably
analogous to that at
tion other ancient Near
Eastern civilizations). So there is no need
in Deuteronomy 32:8 to opt for the Masoretic reading of "sons of
4QDeutq and 4QDeutj. In fact the "sons
of God" reading makes
much better sense in light of biblical history and
Old Testament
theology, especially that of Deuteronomy. The
same cannot be said
for the Masoretic
reading.
THE
NATIONS GIVEN UP
Accepting
the Masoretic reading in Deuteronomy 32:8 ("he
set the
bounds of the people according to the number of the
sons of
along with the correlation of that verse with Genesis
10-11 results
in logical problems. As Tigay
notes, "This reading raises a number
of difficulties. Why would God base the number of
nations on the
number of Israelites? . . .Why
would He have based the division on
their number at the time they went to
tioned in the poem? In
addition, verse 9, which states that God's
portion was
the other peoples were somebody else's share, but
verse 8 fails to
note whose share they were."78
In other words it makes little sense
for God, shortly after He
dispersed the nations at
graphical regions on the earth on the, family size
of
cially since there was no
Jewish race at the time. This problem is
compounded when one considers Deuteronomy 32:9.
What logical
correlation was Moses making when he wrote in verse
8 that God
"set the bounds of the people according to the number of the chil-
dren of
that "the LORD's
portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheri-
tance" (NIV)? Certainly
the wording suggests a contrast between
verses 8 and 9. But what is contrastive about saying
God divided
the earth into seventy units since there were
seventy sons of
and then adding that
reading is abandoned, however, the point of the
contrast becomes
dramatically clear.
The statement in Deuteronomy 32:9
that "the LORD's portion is
his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance"
(NIV) provides the key for
understanding the contrast between
verses 8 and 9. Since verse 9
clearly presents the nation of
lotted inheritance, the
parallelism in the Masoretic text would re-
78 Tigay,
Deuteronomy, 302.
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the
Sons of God 71
quire the "nations" of verse 8 to be given
as an inheritance as
well.79 Hence the point of
Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is not merely that
God
created seventy territorial units after
these units was given as an inheritance. The question
is, To whom
were the nations given? This is left unstated in
verse 8a, but verse
8b, provides the answer. The parallel makes sense
only if the origi-
nal reading of verse 8b
included a reference to other beings (the
"sons of God") to whom the other nations could be given.
The point
of verses 8-9 is that sometime after God separated
the people of
the earth at
be located, He then assigned each of the seventy
nations to the
fallen sons of God (who were also seventy in number).80
After ob-
serving humanity's rebellion before the Flood
and then again in the
with humanity. In an action reminiscent of Romans 1,
God "gave
humanity up" to their persistent resistance
to obeying Him. God's
new approach was to create a unique nation,
recorded in the very next chapter of Genesis with
the call of Abra-
ham (Gen. 12). Hence each pagan nation was overseen
by a being
of inferior status to Yahweh, but
"God of gods," the "Lord of lords"
(Deut.
According to Deuteronomy
was a punitive act. Rather than electing them to a
special relation-
ship to Himself, God gave these nations up to the
idolatry (of which
these two passages together demonstrates this
relationship. "And
beware lest you lift up your eyes to heaven, and when
you see the
sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of
heaven, you be
drawn away and worship them and serve them, things
which the
LORD
your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole
heaven" (Deut.
their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he
set up bounda-
ries for the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God. For
79 The Masoretic reading of this verse implies that the nations of
the earth inher-
ited a certain amount of
property at God's hand, namely, their own lands, with the
translation "When the Most High gave the
nations their inheritance" (NIV). How-
ever, it seems preferable to view the verse as
saying that the nations themselves
were given as an inheritance, with the rendering,
"When the Most High gave the
nations as an inheritance." Examples of the
latter sense are in Deuteronomy 1:38;
3:28;
21:16; 31:7; Joshua 1:6; 1 Samuel 2:8; Proverbs 8:21; and Zechariah 8:12.
80 As noted earlier, at
sons of God are referred to here as
"fallen" in light of Genesis 6 as well as Deuteron-
omy 4:19.
81 The same verb
"allotted" (qlahA) is used in Deuteronomy
72
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA /
January-March 2001
the LORD's portion is his
people, Jacob his allotted inheritance"
(32:8-9;
author's translation, following the Septuagint and the
Tigay
notes that these passages "seem to reflect a biblical view
that. . . as punishment for man's repeated spurning
of His author-
ity in primordial times
(Gen. 3-11), God deprived mankind at large
of true knowledge of Himself and ordained that it
should worship
idols and subordinate celestial beings. . . . He
selected Abraham
and his descendants as the objects of His personal
attention to cre-
ate a model nation."82
THE
DIVINE COUNCIL AND ISRAELITE MONOTHEISM
If
a divine council does not exist, verses like Psalms 29: 1 and
89:6-7
are eviscerated of meaning. "Ascribe to the LORD, a sons
of
the gods [Mylixe
yneB;], ascribe to the LORD glory and strength" (Ps.
29:1).
"For who in the skies above can compare with the LORD?
Who
is like the LORD among the sons of the gods [Mylixe
yneb;Bi]? In the
council of the holy ones [Mywidoq;-dOsB;] God is greatly feared;
he is
more awesome than all who surround him"
(89:6-7).
How hollow it would be to have the
psalmist extolling the
greatness of God by comparing Him to beings which
do not exist,
and then in turn to ask these fabricated beings to
ascribe glory and
strength to the Lord!
How can it be maintained that the
Old Testament espouses
monotheism when its authors continued to use the
terms Myhilox< and
Mylixe and "the sons of” Myhilox< and Mylixe in reference to nonhuman fig-
ures? The solution to this
apparent impasse is relatively simple,
but requires an adjustment in both the way the
English word "God"
is defined and how one understands the data of the
Old Testament.
Making
such adaptations will show the uniqueness of
ligion in the ancient Near
East.
First, hesitation to embrace the
details of the divine council
stems from habitually viewing the Old Testament through
western
eyes. Many Christians have been so conditioned by
their concept of
the word "God"--who is omnipotent,
self-existent, omniscient, om-
nipresent, and possessing
ultimate creative power--that they as-
82 Tigay,
Deuteronomy, 435. The same idea contained
in these verses also seems to
be the point of Zephaniah 3:9 ("For then will
I turn to the people a pure language,
that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to
serve him with one consent").
David
was certainly familiar with this idea, as his incensed tone in 1 Samuel 26:19
indicates: "Now let my lord the king listen
to his servant's words. If the LORD has
incited you against me, then may he accept an
offering. If, however, men have done
it, may they be cursed before the LORD! They have
now driven me from my share in
the LORD's inheritance
and have said, 'Go, serve other gods'" (NIV).
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the
Sons of God 73
sume the unreality of any
entity but one referred to by that word.
Would
the ancient Semitic mind have defined "God" as westerners
do, and then made the same assumption? As already
noted, even
Isaiah,
famous for his diatribes against pagan worship, used lan-
guage and imagery analogous
to depictions of the divine council in
other places in the Old Testament and outside it.
Isaiah simulta-
neously affirmed the existence
of other heavenly beings and the
one true Deity of Israel.
Unfortunately the ancient Near
Eastern religious systems
have been referred to as "polytheistic"
with the assumption that the
ancient Semites believed that all nonhuman
entities bearing the
label Myhilox< must have been
omnipotent, self-existent, omniscient,
omnipresent, and possessing ultimate creative power.
As a result
current observers often fail to recognize that
the ancients in fact
understood that the various Myhilox< existed in a hierarchy
and with
differing attributes.
The authors of the Old Testament,
however, affirmed the exis-
tence of plural Myhilox<, while they also asked,
"Who among the gods
is like you, a LORD?" (Exod.
because they already knew that Yahweh is an Myhilox<, but that only
He
is omnipotent, preexistent, and omniscient. It was no conun-
drum for the people of
language described actual beings that Yahweh had
credited, who
were members of His council, while knowing that none
of these
Myhilox< were truly comparable
to Him. In fact they could not deny the
existence of other Myhilox< since Yahweh had
created them! Whereas
other ancient Near Eastern religions showed only
glimpses of the
monotheistic idea,83
theism. There is no need to create wholly
interpretive, camouflaged
translations,84 or to interpret Myhilox< as human
"judges," an ap-
proach that requires either
paying only lip service to an Old Tes-
tament hermeneutic that
incorporates comparative philology or
83 As discussions of the
pantheons and the phenomenon of the divine council dem-
onstrate, all ancient Near
Eastern religions divided their gods into "noncouncil"
and
"council" groups, the latter forming the "upper
tier" of those beings who inhabited
the heavenly realms. The fact that there exists
evidence in
theistic ideology, and that at least one Egyptian
"theology" (the Memphite theology)
presents one god as supreme creator of all the
others shows that one must not su-
perimpose the exclusivity of the
attributes of Yahweh to other Myhilox<, nor should one
assume the ancients were incapable of the same distinction.
With respect to Meso-
potamia in this regard see
Johannes Hehn, Die
Biblische und die babylonische
Got-
tesidee (Leipzig:
J. C. Hinrichs, 1913); and Bruno Baentsch,
Altorientalischer und
israelitischer Monotheismus (Tubingen:
J. C. B. Mohr, 1906).
84 For example, the New
International Version translates Psalm 29:1, "Ascribe to
the LORD, O mighty ones [Mylixe
yneB;], ascribe to the LORD glory and strength."
74
BIBLIOTHECA SACRA / January-March
2001
jettisoning the analogous material altogether.
Second, it is hardly necessary to
balk at affirming the reality of
the divine council, for the Old Testament's
presentation of the con-
cept is distinguished from
the pagan understanding. Aside from
uncontradicted assertions that none of
the Myhilox< were comparable
to Yahweh, the description of the divine council
in the Old Testa-
ment departs from that of
other ancient Near Eastern religions in
several important ways.
For example Yahweh is clearly
depicted as the sole Deity
credited with bringing all that exists into
being. He was unassisted
in His creative acts.85 None of the
other Myhilox< aided Him in this
endeavor. An equally radical departure from the
ancient pagan
mind is the absence of any hint of theogony in the Old Testament.
God
produced the Myhilox< and everything else
without a consort.
Yahweh's
"fatherhood" of the Myhilox< can only be spoken of
in formal
terms. Also the members of the divine council,
contrary to ancient
Near
Eastern religions, cannot be viewed as genuine rivals to the
Most High. Yahweh does not need to battle them in
order to main-
tain His position as Leader
of the council and hence the cosmos.
There
are no mighty deeds ascribed to any other than Yahweh.
Yahweh
is unchallenged and in fact unchallengeable.
CONCLUSION
This
article responds to the false notion that accepting the Septua-
gint and
onomy 32:8 requires seeing
Israelite religion as polytheistic. In an
effort to demonstrate that this conclusion is unfounded
two asser-
tions were offered and
defended. First, the textual evidence favors
the "sons of God" reading, particularly
when common misunder-
standings of text-critical history and method
utilized to favor the
Masoretic text are
corrected. Second, the concept of the divine
council, common to ancient Semitic religions, is
referred to in the
Old
Testament and constitutes the theological backdrop for Deu-
teronomy 32:8-9. In light of the
evidence there exists no textual or
theological justification for preferring the Masoretic reading of
verse 8. That verse should read "sons of
God," not "sons of
85 As the plural cohortative and plural pronouns ("let us make man in
our image")
in Genesis 1:26-27 indicate, the creation of
humankind was a decision of the divine
council. It should be noted, however, that the
following verb (God "created") is sin-
gular, thereby noting that
only Yahweh/El did the creating. He merely announced
His
decision to the council and carried it out.
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
www.dts.edu
Please
report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at:
thildebrandt@gordon.edu