The Gods of the Nations – Who Are They?

Todays topic is about the third rebellion that I mentioned: the Tower of Babel. In reality, this is about the fallout of that rebellion. When we think about the past, and we study history, it is impossible not to think about the ancient cultures, such as Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, and others. If you’re anything like me, you have, at one time or another, been fascinated by the mythologies of these cultures. I always liked learning about these stories. We see gods like Zeus and Poseidon in Greek mythology, Osiris and Horus in the Egyptian tales, or even Odin and Thor (for my Marvel fans!) in the legends of the Norse people.

As Christians, we often look at these and think that these are just silly stories that those people made up in order to understand the world around them, and in some ways, that is correct. However, is there any more to it? Is there a reality to these pagan gods? Some may even ask what makes belief in these any different from belief in the God of the Bible. Well, believe it or not, the Bible does have something to say on this topic. So, are the gods of these other nations real? How, as Christians, should we incorporate the existence of these myths into our biblical worldview?

In order to answer this question, we first have to look at two particular verses within the Torah (the first five books of the Bible), and we are going to have to discuss a textual issue that occurs within these verses. First, though, let me set a little of the backstory. In the first 11 chapters of Genesis we see God creates everything, places man and woman in the Garden, they choose rebellion against God (with the help of a wayward cherub), time progresses, people get worse and worse, and God floods the earth. After this however, people begin to repopulate the world, and they decide to settle in one area, against God’s command to spread out (Gen. 9:1), and they build a tower at Babel to “make a name for themselves.” This is something God doesn’t like.

When the people attempt to build this tower, and a city along with it, God comes down and confuses their language, essentially dividing them into many nations. We see these nations in Genesis 10, often called the Table of Nations. This is where our two verses come into play. Deuteronomy 32:8-9 say, “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. 9 But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.”

First, what does this mean? Well, what it is saying is that God divided mankind into nations, and Israel He took as His portion and inheritance. This is a reference to what happened at Babel. What it says, though, is that God gave to the nations their inheritance. I’m going to suggest that this means that He put other, lower divine beings in authority over the other nations. This is probably not something most people have ever heard, but I believe it is consistent with the biblical narrative.

In Deuteronomy 4:19-20, Moses writes to the Israelites, “And beware lest you raise 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 bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. 20 But the LORD has taken you and brought you out of the iron furnace, out of Egypt, to be a people of his own inheritance, as you are this day.”

In this passage, Moses is telling the Israelites to make sure that they don’t direct worship towards “the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven.” These are references to divine beings. As Dr. Michael Heiser states, “Ancient people thought the stars were living entities. Their reasoning was simple: Many stars moved. That was a sign of life to the ancient mind. Stars were the shining glory of living beings.” So, in the Deuteronomy passage, Moses is saying don’t turn your worship to these lesser, created beings, because they have been given to the other nations, but God had taken the Israelites for Himself.

So, what we see is God giving the people over to what they desired. As I said in my post on the three rebellions, the Tower of Babel was a way of “calling” God down to, more or less, serve them. As this is not how Yahweh works, He gave the nations over to gods that were not Yahweh. This isn’t an unusual way for God to deal with people. We see it also in Romans 1:24-25 (and other places). In effect, God disinherited the nations. He placed others over them.

Now, these beings were supposed to rule over the nations as Yahweh would, not taking worship for themselves, but that’s not how it worked out. If we go to Psalm 82, we see Yahweh judging these beings for their treatment of the nations. That psalm ends by saying, “Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!” Why would God have to inherit something that was already His? Well, because He had previously turned them over to someone else.

I hope this makes sense so far, and I hope that you can see how, biblically, this isn’t a far out idea. There is a lot more that I could go into, but in the interest of not writing a novel, I’m going to leave it at that for now. The next thing I want to talk about is the “textual issue” I mentioned. When I quoted Duet. 32:8-9, I was doing so from the ESV. If you’re reading the NIV, NASB, KJV, or NKJV, then yours says something different. Mine (and the NRSV and NLT) says, “he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” Yours will say “Sons of Israel.”

Why is it different, and why does it matter? Well, English Bibles primarily use what is called the Masoretic Text (MT) as the Hebrew version of the Old Testament that they translate from. This version uses “Sons of Israel.” However, the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) and the Dead Sea Scrolls (the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament) say “Sons of God.” Some English translation opt for that reading instead.

So, how do we know which is right? Well, first let’s look at a logical issue. God divided the nations at the Tower of Babel event. It wasn’t until after this that God called Abraham and started the nation of Israel. This means that at the time He divided the nations and gave them their inheritance, there was no Israel. He couldn’t have done it according to the number of the “Sons of Israel.” There is, however, more reason to go with the “Sons of God” translations . . . and I’m sorry. This might be more than any of you wanted to read, but I hope it is helpful to someone.

The main argument for the textual variant between manuscripts has to do with the spelling of the words “Israel” and “God” (El) in Hebrew. The argument, basically, is that the letters “I-S-R” (two consonants in Hebrew) could have been either added or removed accidentally in the process of copying manuscripts. Theoretically, I guess, it could be either one of those, which makes choosing difficult still. However, Dr. Heiser writes in his peer reviewed article, Deuteronomy 32 and the Sons of God, for Bibliotecha Sacra, “It is inconceivable that a scribe would have done the reverse, that is, altering an innocuous . . . (“sons of Israel”) to a potentially explosive . . . (“sons of God”). Therefore the reading in the Septuagint sufficiently explains how the Masoretic reading could have arisen, but the alternative does not.” (The deletions I made were just the Hebrew letters, which didn’t paste correctly.) Heiser’s point is that if scribes made changes, it usually was to make the text easier, or more “acceptable,” not more difficult.

This textual evidence, coupled with the fact that Israel didn’t even exist yet, seems to point to the fact that the “Sons of God” reading is correct. So, why does it matter? Well, there is a big difference between God allotting the nations according to the number of the sons of Israel (which makes little sense to me anyway) and God allotting the nations to the Sons of God, who are seen to be divine beings based on Genesis 6:1-4 and the divine council scenes of Job 1-2. If we take the “Sons of God” reading, then we conclude that the other nations were given over to the authority of these lesser, created, spiritual beings.

The final question to address is that of worldview. How do we, as Christians, deal with this idea? Well, let me start by saying that I don’t believe the gods like Zeus or Thor are real, actual beings. Rather, I believe that there are real, rebellious spiritual beings behind the myths of the nations. We already know, from Genesis 3, that these “fallen angels” are more than happy to lie to humans. It is no wonder, then, that these “gods” would have created, or simply allowed, these myths in order to draw worship away from Yahweh. That’s kinda what they do. Because of this, we know that there is a real spiritual battle for the worship, and even the souls, of humanity. This should spur us to an even more intentional and intimate relationship with Yahweh, the true God of gods and Creator. He is our shield and refuge in this spiritual warfare.

Finally, I do believe that this view (called the Deuteronomy 32 worldview) of Scripture affects our reading of the rest of the Bible. Understanding that the Israelites saw these other gods as real spiritual beings and that they controlled the world outside of Israel explains a number of other confusing passages and stories in both the Old and New Testaments. It has bearing on the mission of Jesus and things that He said and did during His earthly ministry. It influences the way the Apostles viewed the sharing of the Gospel to the early Church and how Paul viewed his ministry. It even has explanatory power when it comes to understanding the purpose and interpretation of the book of Revelation.

I’m not going to get into any of that right now, but, needless to say, I have plenty of material to keep writing about. Until then, I just hope that if you know Christ as your Lord and Savior that you continue in faith in Him. If you are one of my readers who wouldn’t call themselves a Christian, first of all, I love you and value you. Second, though, I pray that you would listen to the Sprit of God drawing you to the Father. To be sure, Jesus has overcome the world, and His kingdom is here. These other gods no longer have any power over the people of the nations! He loves you, He died for you, and He wants you to enjoy eternal life in Him! If you have questions, please ask them, either to me or someone else that you have in your life. It is the greatest decision you could ever make!

Why the World is Broken

I feel like I have been going on and on about things that, on the surface, don’t really impact our day to day lives. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t important to our understanding of the Bible. They are really just a framework and don’t really lead to any application on their own. That’s ok, but today I want to start to get into something that actually impacts our worldview and the actual world around us. I want to talk about rebellion against God and what the Bible says about it.

If you were to ask a few different Christians why there is evil and suffering in the world, why it seems like it is broken, or why things aren’t “the way they should be,” you will usually get the same answer from all of them. They would tell you about Genesis 3, where a serpent came into the Garden of Eden and tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This first sinful act brought curse upon humanity and creation, forever changing our reality and our relationship with God. That would absolutely be true . . . but it’s not the whole story!

Instead of just only seeing one rebellion in the Bible, I suggest that there are actually three, which are both human rebellions and spiritual (i.e., rebellions of supernatural beings). We see all three of these rebellions taking place in Genesis 1-11, what is sometimes called primeval history or pre-history, because these stories took place prior to any written records. These stories include Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. Now, if you’re familiar with this part of the Bible, you may already see what those three rebellions are. If not, don’t worry. I’m going to talk about them in more detail.

The first of these rebellions is the one we are most acquainted with and the one I’ve already mentioned. This is the episode in which the serpent tempts Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This rebellion can be seen as both human and spiritual. Here’s what we see. After Adam and Eve were created and put in the Garden of Eden, and after an unknown amount of time had passed, Eve encounters a serpent at this particular tree. He (or it) asks Eve if God really says they can’t eat of the fruit of the trees. As we see, he starts off by twisting God’s words. The ensuing conversation (yes, between Eve and a snake) eventually leads to Eve eating the “forbidden fruit” and then handing it to Adam to eat as well.

So, why would I say this is both human and spiritual in nature? Well, I think all Christians who read this (and anyone else, for that matter) understand that this serpent is more than a serpent. At the very least, we see it as an actual snake who Satan takes possession of. I will go into detail on this in another post. The specifics of this aren’t what is important here. Anyway, this snake convinces Adam and Eve that God is holding out on them, and that if they want to be like God (or the gods, the word is elohim), they should eat the fruit, which will not kill them, but open their eyes.

Sadly, they give in, choosing to grasp a knowledge that God wasn’t ready for them to have. Incidentally, it seems to me that if Adam and Eve were to carry out their commission of filling the earth and ruling over it (under God’s authority), they would have, at some point, required this knowledge. I think that God was going to give it to them, but not yet. As such, what we see is a creature of some sort convincing humans to go around God’s plan and take for themselves what was God’s to give. Interestingly, this is exactly what we see Satan tempt Christ with when he offers Him the kingdoms of the world!

The results of this rebellion are pretty clear. Because of the actions of the serpent and Adam and Eve, sin and death entered our world. This result made humans unfit for God’s presence. God had intended to live in perfect and intimate relationship with the humans he created, but after choosing our way over His, we are no longer able to live in His sacred space without polluting it. This rebellion explains why we experience a separation from God. We all desire to go around the will and timing of God in order to get what we see as good.

The second rebellion is one I’ve already talked about too. This is the short episode in Genesis 6:1-4 in which the sons of God (rebellious supernatural beings) decided to come down to earth, presumably taking on human form, and having sexual relations with the human women. I’m not going to go into detail on the Biblical story here, but there is a little more too this that what we see in the Bible, so I am going to mention some information found outside the Bible to flesh it out a bit. Again, I don’t think these other writings are Scripture, but I do think they give us an insight into what these ancient people believed about this particular story, and, more importantly, how this story is meant to draw a distinction between the worship of Yahweh as opposed to the other nations’ gods.

In the book of 1 Enoch, the author goes into great detail about what these fallen sons of God (also called watchers in the book of Daniel) did when they decided to leave Heaven and come to earth. In 1 Enoch 6-8, the author (who we know is not really Enoch), explains that 200 of the sons of God decided to make a pact to come down to women in order to have children by them. This, other than the number, is what is stated in the Genesis account. While this alone would have a bad effect on humanity, what the book goes on to say shows that these fallen angels did even more damage to the world of men.

Here I’m going to list some of the names of the watchers and what they taught to humanity. First, Azazel taught them how to work metal in order to form weapons, as well as making jewelry and makeup (no, I don’t think jewelry and makeup are evil) in order to enhance the beauty of the women. Armaros taught enchantments, or magic. Baraqijal taught astrology. Kokabel taught the constellations. Ezeqeel taught knowledge of the clouds. Araqiel taught the signs of the earth, and Shamsiel the signs of the sun. Finally, Sariel taught the course of the moon.

Ok, what does all of this mean? Basically, these watchers taught men (and women) how to more effectively kill each other, how to stir up lust in one another, how to use magic, and how to read the signs of the sun, moon, stars, and earth for the purposes of divination. In other words, they taught the humans how to better rebel against God. This explains the widespread depravity of humankind. Yes, humans are capable of depravity enough all on their own. These rebellions beings simply helped us to be more efficient at it.

The third rebellion is solely a human rebellion, although that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a spiritual aspect to it, only that it was conceived in the minds of men. This rebellion is the Tower of Babel incident. I think we can all agree that this was definitely a rebellion, but I’m not sure if we have fully understood the purpose and the implications of what the people did. This took place after Noah and his family left the ark and began to refill the earth.

As the people moved from Ararat, they found the plain of Shinar, or what is today Babylon in Iraq. Here they decided that they would build a city and a tower to “make a name” for themselves. While God had commanded that they spread out and fill the earth, these people, instead, wanted to stay in one place and build up power and notoriety for themselves. In short, they decided that they didn’t like God’s way of doing things and wanted to do what they saw was right in their own eyes. Sound familiar? It should. It is what Adam and Eve did, and it’s what humans will continue to do throughout the course of history.

So, these people wanted power and fame, but they also wanted something else. The tower they built was likely a ziggurat. That was a common style of tower in the ancient Near East. The purpose of these towers, however, is interesting. In the Pagan religions that surrounded Israel in the later days, a ziggurat was a temple of sorts. It was a kind of man-made mountain. It was in these places that people thought their gods would come down, dwell among them, and dole out blessing in return for sacrifices. What we see, then, is the people, led by a man name Nimrod (which means rebel), attempting to call down God for just this purpose. These people felt like God was theirs to command, and not the other way around. I’m not going to say that we see this in some strains of Christianity today . . . but we do!

The fallout from this rebellion, like the others, was worldwide. While the rebellion of the watchers was supposed to be dealt with by the Flood (spoiler alert! It wasn’t), the first and third rebellions are still affecting us to this day. I don’t want to say much about what the spiritual ramifications of the Tower of Babel rebellion were. I’m going to save that for one of my next posts, but I will say that this was the beginning of the separation of Israel from the nations. As a little teaser, the event that immediately follows this act of rebellion is God calling Abraham to begin the nation of Israel. There is a reason this is the very next thing to happen, but that will have to wait (sorry).

So, these are the three rebellions that explain why our world in not as we know it should be. Even atheists and those of other religions acknowledge this. This is the bad news of how humanity got into the position it’s in. There is good news though! All of these will be dealt with by the coming Messiah (yes, I know He’s already come in our day). Jesus will take care of our sin, our depravity, and the fallout from the Tower of Babel (no, it’s not just different languages). However, unless you have put your trust in Christ, you will not be able to experience the joy of a world in which this brokenness no longer exists.

As I close this post, that is my prayer for any of you who don’t know Jesus yet: that you would consider the claims of Jesus and Christianity and that you would come to trust Jesus as your savior. I’m not here to “shove my religion down your throat.” Rather, I want to warn you of the consequences of choosing to continue in your own rebellion. I do this, just as I would try to warn a driver who is hurtling toward a bridge that is ou, because I love you. To do anything less would be hate. Not only that, I would love to see you in eternity and talk with you about how you finally came to trust Jesus and what He did in your life. I honestly can’t wait to hear all the stories of how God changed lives.

Thank you to all of you who read these. I write them as an outlet for all the weird stuff in my brain, but I also hope to reach at least a few people who want to see the Scriptures come alive, and through them fall even more in love with their Lord and Savior. As always, I love you all. I’ll talk to you again in a few days!

The Sons of God . . . Men or Monsters?

Hey everyone! I want to address a topic today that some people may be familiar with, but that has been debated among biblical scholars, Bible teachers, and just Christians in general. This topic is about who exactly the sons of God in Genesis 6:1 are. I hit on this a bit in my post about Jesus’s birthday, but it was a very quick mention that didn’t really address this issue in any meaningful way. Before I get into the meat of this issue, I guess we should just look at what the passage says. This comes at the beginning of God’s announcement of the upcoming Flood which will clean the earth of the pervasive evil that has taken root in the hearts of men. Here is what Genesis 6:1-4 say:

“1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”

I will be the first to admit that this passage is cryptic. There is little doubt that these verses are intended to be an explanation of why God brought the Flood on the world, since what follows is God’s choosing of Noah and His announcement that He was about to destroy all life on earth. Whatever this passage means, we need to understand it as a problem that is severe enough to warrant the wiping out of every living thing.

Who are these “sons of God”? Well, as I said this is a debated issue in the Church. There are two prevailing views that have been brought forth to explain this passage. The first (the Sethite view) is that the sons of God are those of the line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. It has been the dominant view since about the 4th century A.D. This view sees the line of Seth as the Godly line of man, those who remained faithful to Yahweh. The daughters of man, then, are the line of Cain, those who had abandoned faith in God. The idea is that these marriages between faithful and unfaithful were seen as an abomination to God.

The second view (the fallen angel view), while not as accepted in the world of academia today, is more . . . supernatural. In this view, the sons of God are seen to be divine beings who came down and had sexual relations with human women. Now, I need to explain here the when I use the word “divine,” I am not saying that these being were divine in the same sense that Yahweh is divine. They are created beings who are lesser than the God of the Bible. No, when I say divine, all I mean is that they are spiritual beings who, at least up until this point, resided in Heaven with Yahweh.

So, which view is correct? Well, let’s first look at the first view and how it is held and explained by a few Bible scholars and commentators. Trevor J. Major, M.Sc., M.A. writes, “Thus, after the generations of Cain and Seth have been outlined in chapters four and five, and 6:2 then speaks of two groups of people, is it not reasonable to conclude that the earlier familial division is being carried on into the later discussion?” His point is that the previous chapters outlined the lines of Cain and Seth, so it would be reasonable to conclude that this passage is carrying this forward.

Ayantunde Olaoluwa Meshach of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria writes in the Pharos Journal of Theology, “. . . when we take the sons of God to be fallen angels, everything looks like falling into place . . . But the interpretation of the sons of God as godly male descendants of Seth is more appropriate because it is due to the sin of men and not of angels.” He sees the rationale for the Sethite view as the idea that the Flood was because of the sin of man, not angels (divine beings).

On a surface reading, this view seems to have some merit. Some argue that angels or divine beings are never mentioned in the narrative up to this point (an idea that I will deal with in a later post); therefore, it is wrong to see them in this passage. Others argue that it would be impossible for spiritual beings to have physical relations with human beings. While I can see where this view comes from, and why some may hold it, I believe that it lacks both the historical and textual support to be the correct view. Let’s move on the second view.

Again, this view states that some members of Yahweh’s divine family rebelled and came down to earth, having sexual relations with human women. Where do we find support for this view? Well, the best place to look is the rest of the Bible.

Let’s start with the book of Job. In Job 1-2 we see a divine council scene in which the Satan comes to challenge Job’s devotion to Yahweh. The operative verses are Job 1:6, 2:1: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them,” and, “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.” Now, there is no dispute that these two verses describe divine beings coming before God which are called the sons of God. We also have Job 38:7: “when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” This is describing the divine beings who were with God when He created the world.

Those are the only places in the Old Testament where the phrase “sons of God” is used, and they all refer to divine beings. There is also Psalm 82 where they are referred to as “sons of the Most High.” Interestingly, though, we can also find support for the “fallen angel” view in the New Testament. Two writers, one an Apostle and the other a brother of Jesus, both make reference to this event and take the supernatural view.

2 Peter 2:4-10 reads, “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 8 (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.”

Peter talks about the “angels when they sinned.” There is really no other reference in the Old Testament that could be about angels (plural) sinning. He goes on to compare their sin to that of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who wanted to “know” the angels who were visiting Lot. Verse 10 also is a clarifying phrase in which Peter says that this is about “those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” If we see divine beings or fallen angels in Gen. 6:1, that is exactly what they did. They gave into their lusts and despised the authority of God who made a separation between the spiritual and physical worlds.

The second New Testament author to make mention of this is Jude, the brother of Christ. In his one chapter book, he says in verses 5-7, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.”

Jude mentions the “angels who did not stay within their own positions of authority, but left their proper dwelling.” These angels left their spiritual realm and the authority of God in order to transgress the separation God had put in place. In case we weren’t sure what they did when they left their proper dwelling, v. 7 tells us that they, just like Sodom and Gomorrah, indulged in “sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire.” In other words, they pursued sexual relations with physical, human beings which is unnatural for a divine being to do.

Now, this part is going to be slightly controversial, but I want to bring it up because I believe it gives historical support to this view. In 1 Enoch (commonly called the Book of Enoch), chapters 6-8 tell the same story as Genesis 6:1, but in more detail. I’m not going to quote any of it. If you’re interested, I suggest you find a way to read it. It’s interesting, to say the least.

I need to make a disclaimer here. I know there is a lot of disdain in the conservative Christian community for the Book of Enoch. I am in no way claiming this book is Scripture. Rather, I believe, as others do, that it gives insight into the beliefs of the Jewish people in the 2nd Temple era (the time between the Old and New Testaments). The story told in Enoch points to the fact that the ancient Jews also held to the supernatural/fallen angel view of Genesis 6. Other 2nd Temple texts also refer to this event, such as Jubilees and the Book of the Giants. They are all interesting reads, but they are not Scripture and should not be taken as though they are. They are simply a glimpse into the worldview of the people who read and studied the writings of the Old Testament. It is also important to note that Jude actually quotes the Book of Enoch verses 14-15 of his letter, showing that he was familiar with the book and gave it at least some credit as having valuable information.

With all that being said, I think that the evidence points to the fact that the sons of God in Genesis 6 are rebellious beings who left God’s divine council in order to corrupt humanity and satisfy their own lusts. I feel like we, as Christians, should not be afraid of this view. We believe in a supernatural God and should have a supernatural worldview. This view should not present a problem to us. Not only that, but it seems to be what the people who wrote and read the Bible believed.

There is a lot more that can be said of this, but for now, I think this will do. I hope you got something out of this and enjoyed it. More than that though, I hope you draw close to God today, that you strive to live and look like Jesus, that you make every effort to love and minister to those around you, and that, if you don’t know Jesus, that you look into the claims of Christianity and get to know Him. That is the best I could hope for anyone, because it is the only way to find true joy and fulfillment in this life. I love you all. I hope you have a great next few days, and I will write more shortly.

Yahweh . . . Has a Council?

So, in my last post, I talked about what “elohim” means and what they are. Today, we are going to look at a certain subset of the elohim. Yahweh’s divine council. Righ off the bat, here, I will address an objection to this idea. Does Yahweh need a council to help him run the universe and make decisions? Absolutely not! “Then, why have one?” you may ask. Well, He doesn’t need humans either, yet here we are, His human family, given a role in ruling by having dominion over the fish and birds and animals (Gen. 1:28). In the same way, Yahweh has a heavenly family that He has included in the ruling of His creation.

So, what is this “divine council”? To put it simply, it is the heavenly host that is mentioned throughout the Old Testament. We see passages where Yahweh is referred to as the Lord of hosts (1 Sam. 1:3, 11; 2 Sam. 7:8, 26-27; Psalm 46:11, and many more). In our culture and language today, we would probably refer to these as the angels, but, in reality, that is not a great description. They would be more aptly called the Sons of God, the Sons of the Most High, or even the Holy Ones. Not to get to deep into the heirarchy of Heaven, but “angel” is a job description (messenger) and, seemingly, a lower rank than these Sons of God.

Where else do we see this divine council of Sons of God in Scripture? Well, the most obvious place is in Psalm 82, which I discussed in my last post. Let’s look at it again. Verse 1 says that God took His place in the divine council. These particular members of His council have rebelled and acted unjustly toward the people of the nations, and he calls the “sons of the Most High” and “gods.” Remember last time that I said that some people claim that this council is just men . . . Israelites appointed as elders. Well, if you look in other places, that view doesn’t seem to make sense anymore. In Psalm 89:5-7, it reads:

“5 Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones! 6  For who in the skies can be compared to the LORD? Who among the heavenly beings is like the LORD, 7  a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him?” This council is said to be “in the skies” and are called “heavenly beings.”

To quote Dr. Heiser, “There is no reference in Scripture to a council of human beings serving Yahweh in the skies (Jews or otherwise).” (Unseen Realm, p. 29)

OK, so maybe your beginning to get on board. Maybe you can see that the Bible does seem to point to some sort of council that Yahweh has, and that this council is made up heavenly beings called Sons of God (or some variation of the term). That’s all well and good, but that’s only two passages in poetic literature. I agree. Poetic writing is hard to take literally, and we should probably have more than two passages to establish a doctrine of the theology. Perhaps there are more . . . spoiler alert: there are!

Another passage that mentions the divine council can be found in a story in 1 Kings 22:19-22. In this passage we have King Jehoshaphat (the southern kingdom) meeting with King Ahab (the northern kingdom), and Ahab is asking Jehoshaphat to go to war with him against Ramoth-gilead. Jehoshaphat asks for a prophet of Yahweh in order to see if he is willing to ally with Ahab, and the prophet Micaiah comes and tells about a vision he had. The vision is in vv. 19-22:

“And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; 20 and the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ 22 And the LORD said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’”

Yahweh had already decided that it was time for Ahab to die. Yet, He asked his council, which is made up of spirits, how it should happen. Did He need to ask? No. He already knew the best way. If one of the spirits had made a stupid suggestion, Yahweh would not have entertained it most likely. But the one spirit suggests giving Ahab’s prophets a false message, and Yahweh goes with that plan.

There are other passages that can be seen to be “divine council scenes.” In Daniel 7, Daniel has a vision of Heaven in which thrones are placed, thousands of beings are around Yahweh, and it says, “The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened.” In Isaiah 6:1-8, Isaiah is being commissioned by Yahweh as a prophet. We see the Seraphim around the throne singing, “Holy, holy, holy . . .” We see a similar scene in Revelation 4, in which “living creatures” are fulfilling the same role. There are also the 24 elders who praise Yahweh in the throne room. It is a matter of debate, but these may also be angelic (spiritual) beings.

There are some others that are slightly controversial that I believe do refer to the divine council as well. The first is Genesis 1:26. Now, you may be familiar with this verse. It says, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'”

How many of you have heard that the “us” in this verse refers to the Trinity? I had heard that, and believed it, as well. Now I’m not so sure. Here are two reasons that I think that Yahweh is talking to the divine council in this verse. First, the members of the Trinity are co-equal and co-omniscient. There would be no need to discuss the plan with “yourself.” Of course, this doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. The second reason is that in v.27, it says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” If the Trinity was the “us” of v. 26, why would the plural pronouns not have stuck in v.27? It is still the Trinity doing the creating. To me, it seems that God is, again, including his divine council in the plan.

One hesitation that I had, and you may have as well, is that it says “in our image.” This gets into what the image of God is and who exactly has the image. I will get into that in a later post, but to be clear, I don’t believe that this precludes the divine council from being the ones addressed here.

The second “iffy” passage would be Genesis 11. When the people build the tower of Babel, Yahweh says, “Let us go down there and confuse their language.” Again, this could be the Trinity, but I find it more likely that Yahweh is, again, including his divine council. This will be brought up again when I talk about the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, but I believe that there was a good reason that Yahweh brought the council with him to deal with the tower issue.

One final reason that I don’t see the Trinity is either of these passages is that we don’t see Yahweh refer to Himself as “we” or “us” in any other part of the Bible. While we know that God is triune, He always refers to Himself in the first person singular as “I” or “me.” To think that these two instances are somehow the exception doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. However, I could be wrong, and neither of these would change the fact that I very clearly see a divine council of Yahweh throughout the Old and New Testaments.

My point is this: the Bible shows that God has a divine council, and this council is involved in decisions, judgments, and even the commissioning of prophets. As with my last post, I don’t expect you to do a ton with this information, but I do hope that it will maybe give you a clearer picture of some of the things that take place in the Old Testament (and sometimes the New). One point I do want to make is that the Bible seems to indicate that some of the members of this council have, on occasion, rebelled against the will of Yahweh. Psalm 82 appears to be dealing with this issue. I’m not going to get into this yet, but keep in mind that this is not the only rebellion of these “Sons of God” that we see in the Bible.

Hopefully you enjoyed this post. Hopefully you still don’t think I’ve completely lost it and taken a ride on the heresy train. I do want to say that these are very brief discussions of all of these topics. There is way more information to be found if you are interested. Again, you can always contact me, or you can go to www.drmsh.com and check out Dr. Heiser’s teaching for yourself. You can also go to this link for the BibleProject’s website and they have a really cool video series on spiritual beings. I will be back in a few days to talk about another topic, but until then, I love you guys, and I hope you get a chance to dig into the Bible for yourself in the mean time.

What in the World is an Elohim?

When we read the Bible, most of us are stuck with our English translation. Now, I’m not here to bash our English Bibles. I am no language scholar, and I use English translations as my primary Bible (I can’t read Hebrew, and I’m clunky in Greek at best). What I will say is that without a little understanding of the original languages of the Bible, some things can, and will, be missed.

One place where this is really important is with the word “Elohim,” which is my topic for today. All of this information comes from my reading of Michael Heiser’s book, The Unseen Realm, which I highly recommend. Some of you may know this word as one of the names of God, and that would be true. Over 1000 times in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word Elohim refers to the singular God of Israel. However, there are times where it doesn’t.

The world Elohim is grammatically plural, but it can have a singular meaning as well. We see this in English with words like deer, moose, or fish (a lot of animals for some reason). Because of this, there are times in the Old Testament where the word Elohim should be understood as plural and translated as “gods.” Now, this is a difficult concept for some Christians because when we see the letters G-O-D, we tend to ascribe a set of attributes to that word. We think of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. We think of the eternal being who created the heavens and the earth. To pluralize that word makes us uncomfortable . . . and even feels like heresy.

The problem with this is that when an ancient Israelite heard the word “Elohim,” this is not how they viewed it. We will get into how they viewed it, but first I need to make the case that not all Elohim are “God.” From this point on, I will use “Yahweh” instead of “God” to refer to the God of Israel and the Bible just to avoid confusion.

So where in the Bible do we see the word Elohim used for beings other than Yahweh? The first place to look is the passage that brought Dr. Heiser down this path and led to the writing of his book. That passage is Psalm 82. Verse 1 of this psalm reads, “God (Elohim) has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods (elohim) he holds judgment.” Now, depending on your favored translation, it may not say “gods” in the second phrase, but most of them do.

So, what does this mean? Well, first of all, let’s look at who the other “gods” are. Some have said that these are human rulers, elders of Israel. A reason for holding this view may be because of a New Testament passage. In John 10:34, Jesus quotes Psalm 82:6, “I said, ‘You are gods . . .'” to the Jews who want to kill him for blasphemy. This passage is difficult to understand, so one way of making sense of it is to say that the “gods” in Psalm 82 are actually men: therefore, Jesus is simply saying that the Jews are like “gods” as well. Where this interpretation falls short is that these “gods” in Psalm 82 are ruling over the nations. There is absolutely nowhere in the Old Testament where Jewish men are set in authority over the other nations. There is a lot more to it, but that’s the gist of it.

A second interpretation is that Yahweh is speaking with the Trinity. On this view, when it says “in the midst of the gods,” what it means is “with the other members of the Godhead. This view actually results in a serious heresy. If we read verses 2-4, these “gods” are ruling unjustly and are corrupt. If this is the Trinity, then we have a big problem. How can the Son and the Spirit be at odds with the Father? The answer is they can’t.

With those two views out of the way, there is a third. I am not going to go into a ton of detail on it yet, because it will be the subject of another post very soon, but I believe that just from reading this psalm we can come to two conclusions. These gods, also called sons of the Most High in v. 6, are (or were) members of Yahweh’s divine council. That is evident from the first verse. It is in this council that Yahweh is passing judgment. Second, these gods have been given authority over the nations of the world. We can tell this by the fact they are said to “judge,” which is a term used of a ruler. Also, the final verse says, “Arise, o God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit the nations!” The implication is that, as of this time, Yahweh is not in possession of these nations. Again, I will cover this in far more detail in a post very soon. Please don’t stone me for blasphemy. I still believe that Yahweh is in total control of His creation. He is King of kings, Lord of lords . . . and God of gods.

The point of all of this is to show that the word elohim, in this passage, refers to beings other than Yahweh. So, we see one category that is called elohim: The divine council (also called the Sons of God). There are four other categories in which “elohim” refers to lower beings who are not Yahweh. I won’t go into as much detail on these, but I will show the verses in which it occurs.

First, the god’s of foreign nations are referred to as Elohim in 1 Kings 11:33 – “because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of Moab, and Milcom the god of the Ammonites, and they have not walked in my ways, doing what is right in my sight and keeping my statutes and my rules, as David his father did.” These are the gods worshipped by these nations, who are obviously not Yahweh.

The second category is demons. Yes, demons are called elohim in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 32:17, it says, “They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.” These demons (shedim in Hebrew) are, again, clearly not Yahweh, yet the term elohim is applied to them.

A third category is disembodied human dead. This one may be little hard to believe, but it is right there in the text of 1 Samuel 28:13 – “The king said to her, ‘Do not be afraid. What do you see?’ And the woman said to Saul, ‘I see a god coming up out of the earth.’” This is where Saul went to the medium in Endor and asked her to call up Samuel so he could ask him questions. When she sees Samuel, she calls him an elohim. We know it is Samuel because of how she describes him. Again, this is NOT Yahweh, but another lower being.

Finally, we see angels/the Angel of the Lord referred to as elohim. This one, I’ll admit, is a little ambiguous, and it depends highly on your interpretation of the passage. Genesis 35:7 says, “and there he built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother.” This verse refers back to the story of Jacob wrestling with a man who is clearly more than just a man. It seems that this man is an angel or the Angel of the Lord. Either way, in 35:7, this “man” is referred to as elohim. Again, the exact meaning here depends on whether you see the Angel of the Lord as a high ranking angel or as a visible manifestation of Yahweh Himself.

When we look at all of these categories that are identified as elohim in the Old Testament, one thing sticks out. They are all beings whose primary residence is the spiritual realm. In other words, they are spiritual beings (even the dead, disembodied Samuel who no longer resides in the physical realm). What does this tell us then? Well, the word elohim is not a description of a set of attributes in the same way we see the word God to be in English. Rather it is a “place of residence” term which simply means “a being whose primary state of being is spirit and lives in the spiritual realm.”

In this way, the ancient Israelites had no problem maintaining their strict monotheism (see Deuteronomy 6), and yet believing in more than one god (elohim). In fact, I would suggest (and I try to do this when I can) that we see the term “god” in English as equivalent to “elohim” in Hebrew. This is why I tend to use the name Yahweh when talking about God. If we are to understand and believe the supernatural worldview of the biblical writers, we need to be comfortable with the idea of a multitude of “gods.” That is what they believed, and it is what the Scripture shows. The important thing to remember is that these gods are not Yahweh. To quote Dr. Heiser, “The Old Testament writers understood that Yahweh was an elohim – but no other elohim was Yahweh. He was species-unique among all the residents of the spiritual world.” (Unseen Realm, p.32)

What, then, do we do with this information? At first, when I read this, I felt like I was getting into some weird form of heresy. I almost quit reading, but I was intrigued, so I kept going. I hope you will do the same thing. In reality, I don’t expect you to do much with this information. It is simply an introduction into the supernatural worldview of an ancient Israelite. Hopefully, in some way, it will bring more understanding to the Bible for you, but I suspect that more information will be needed before that really happens. I just felt like this was a necessary first step (as it was for me) in order to really understand what I will discuss as I go on in subsequent posts about the divine council, the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, the value of incorporation Ancient Near East and 2nd Temple Jewish texts into your study, and many other topics I hope to get into in the future.

Hopefully, at the very least, this was interesting for you to read. I really hope it doesn’t make you think I’ve lost it or that I have gone off and become a heretic. If you have questions, want to go deeper, or if I did a terrible job of explaining this, please feel free to contact me by e-mail (or phone if you know me). Or you can go to http://www.drmsh.com, which is Dr. Heiser’s own website to explore more. He also has a ton of stuff on YouTube. Anyway, I hope this at least piqued your interest a bit. Until next time, I love you all, and I am really looking forward to continuing through this content with all of you!