Introduction
One of the more obscure concepts in the Bible for me has been the idea of Heavenly beings. I say it is obscure because when they are mentioned in texts they remain quite enigmatic, and opinions among biblical scholars and theologians concerning the nature of these beings vary all over the map.
In diving into this subject we have to keep in mind that the question is: “What was in the mind of the biblical authors when they referred to a ‘divine council’, or ‘sons of God’, or ‘hosts of heaven’”, NOT what the reality is (something I contend we cannot know in this life). We must remember that the purpose of the Biblical stories that feature supernatural beings was not to convey objective facts but rather to express how the people then perceived their cosmos (and the things wrong in it).
Let’s see what we can learn about the ancient Biblical author’s “cosmos view”, or “god view”, or just worldview that we find seeping out into their texts.
“sons of God”
One term we’ll pay special attention to is “sons of God”. Too often, interpreters (as evidenced by their commentaries and scholarly papers) have simply assumed that the beings being referenced by that term were spiritual. We’ll look for texts where that’s true; and texts where it’s not, according to the Bible itself.
Polytheism vs Monotheism
Many of those who reject the idea of the real possibility of multiple heavenly agents (“gods”), as at least inferred in the Bible, do so to defend Monotheism. Here we should only note that YHWH never claimed that He was the only god; only that He was the Most High God, the existent One (“’ I am’ is My name”), the alpha and omega, the One whose throne was the heavens and the earth His footstool, etc.
Furthermore, He never said they were real. Even His allusion to “ruler of this world” could be symbolic (though Jesus did use the anthropomorphic image of him being “cast out”, though we should be, I believe, very cautious concluding He is referring to some unique personality).
So we usually visualize a being in heaven being thrown out. Why? This leads us into an entirely different rabbit hole that we can’t chase into here. But we should keep at the top of our mind in reading such verses that Jesus, no less the entire Bible, was very fond of talking in symbols – things that were symbolic of the people’s reality so that they would understand the symbolized message. In any event, the Bible on several occasions makes it abundantly clear that its writers saw YHWH as supreme over whatever other heavenly-based beings existed (i.e. monolatry). The Bible on several occasions makes it abundantly clear that its writers see YHWH as supreme over other heavenly-based beings that existed.
Context of The Texts
Celestial Bodies as gods
Going back to the start of recorded history, most ANE[i] cultures understood the Sun, Moon, and stars as divine beings – gods. It’s hard to pin down where this idea got its start. However, it was widely held in the ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian cultures. (Most people, for example, have heard of Egypt’s sun god “Ra”.) This worldview was the source of the universal idea that the gods existed in “the skies” (heavens — 8064. שָׁמַיִם šāmayim — e.g. Jer 19:13). What’s a little more perplexing is to see how making animal and other sacrifices to these beings in the “skies” was seen to benefit either the offeror or the one offered.
Collectively, the pantheon of all spiritual/heavenly beings was known by the Hebrew term: 430. אֱלׂהִים ‘elōhiym – meaning gods, and even used of the God, YHWH. That Elohim was understood by the biblical writers (if not all of Israel) as the one supreme Elohim who created all things (Ge 14:22, Dt. 10:17). The biblical writers thought of these beings (the images that they saw shining in some kind of “glory” in the night sky) as intimately involved with themselves, as the heavenly realm reached out into their earthly lives.
Throughout the Bible, these (potentially) heavenly beings are identified via several terms. Kuo, in his paper,[ii] identifies the following list of appellations:
“The gatherings of God’s servants have several titles: (Mount of Assembly — Isa 14:13, a mythological allusion 7); (“camp of God” — Gen 32:2); (“company” [of destroying angels] — Ps 78:49); (“council of God” — Job 15:8, 29:4); (“council of YHVH”—Jer 23:18, 22); (“council of holy ones” — Ps 89:7); (“congregation of God” — Ps 82:1); and (“assembly of holy ones” — Ps 89:6). Each of these terms, except for the Aramaic (“court”, Dan 7:10, 26), is also used in the HB for Israel’s human gatherings, whether the purposes are religious, military, or simply communal (having fellowship and obtaining counsel).”
But the domain and population of such gods wasn’t confined to the night sky. There were at least two additional major categories of god: 1) the god attributed to the creation/control of some natural phenomena (e.g. the Canaanite’s storm/war god Ba ‘el), and 2) the god associated with a city/region or people group (e.g. Mesopotamia’s god Nanna, associated with Ur and later Haran).
As best I can gather, the relationship between an individual (or a community) and a god was that he/they were thought to be dependent on the god for some benefit – rain, to grow crops for food, fertility for their flocks and themselves, absence of plague and pestilence, etc. So he/they needed to gift that god with their rituals and offerings to stay in his favor. (This, by the way, was a significant part of the rationale of early Israel and their penchant for ritual purity and sacrificial offerings to YHWH, thus keeping His favor.)
It’s helpful to try to put yourself in the mind of one of these early ANE residents. You had no control over natural events on which your life or well-being depended (rain/drought, fertility/bareness, health/sickness, etc.) and so you spent each day in the position of being dependent on gods being favorable to you so that you, your family, and your flocks could not only have food to eat, but remain healthy, protected from enemies, and grow in number.
The gods, in the view of these folks, controlled their lives. If something bad happened to them it was because they didn’t appease the appropriate god adequately at his standing stone, shrine, or altar. We get a glimpse of this mindset in John 9:2 with the disciples asking Jesus:
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
This, then, is a thumbnail of the worldview of the ancients regarding their gods. The gods were typically thought to live in “the skies” (heavens), though there were some who lived in the “pit” – beneath the earth. These latter meant you harm (or death) from which you needed protection by your chief god.
Earthly Kings as gods
There is another, important and quite widely acknowledged conception of “gods” in the ANE and that is of earthly kings as themselves gods; divinity (sometimes called “sacred kingship”). Examples include Mesopotamia (Dumuzi, and Gilgamesh), and Egypt (Pharaoh).
Kuoii comments:
“Attested among multiple Ancient Near East cultures is the rite of hierogamy, or sacred marriage. The nature of the rite itself and what it involved is much debated and probably varied from culture to culture, but that such a rite existed and that it is very ancient is uncontested.77 Falling under the category of sacred marriage are sacred wedding feasts, sacred intercourse, etc. It may include the ritual enactment of marriage between two deities or of a deity and a human. While the former may be relevant, the latter is what we want to focus on.77”
These divine, or descended from the divine, kings often had daughters they proclaimed sacred priestesses whose principal function was to consort with the High Priest or the King to beget yet another generation of kings with a divine pedigree[iii]. We need to keep these self-professed divine kings firmly in mind in decoding the biblical texts we look at.
Gods in the Bible
As the Bible attests, the Israelites were not immune from the extant polytheistic worldview. Up against this worldview, beginning with Adam and Eve (Gen 2-3), but extending down through Noah (Gen 5) to Abraham (Gen 12:1) and the other Fathers of Israel, we have the One God interacting, conversing, and even eating with His people (e.g. Gen 18).
It’s hard to overemphasize how dramatically the idea of One God Who rules over all, and Who is in control of everything, would have so profoundly assaulted the people’s earlier view of “the gods”. Because of this dramatic departure from polytheism, it is also not surprising that some inertia of the “old ways” would have persisted into not only the Fathers’ lives, but also into Jacob’s tribe, later removed from polytheistic Egypt by God through the agency of Moses, and their eventual transit into the land promised them – polytheistic Canaan, adjacent to polytheistic Assyria and polytheistic Philistia, Moab, and Edom.
In other words, if we find some celestial, or even regional, gods popping up from time to time in the Hebrew Bible, we should be mindful of not only the people’s past worldview, but the ongoing influence of their surrounding neighbors, and co-residents in the land.
Just the language itself (God/gods: Elohim [430. אֱלׂהִים ‘elōhiym]) was and is plural, This term was used to refer not just to YHWH (“LORD God”) but to all the gods of foreign nations (e.g. Dagon 1 Sa 5:7). And it doesn’t always mean “heavenly being(s)”. The KJV confusingly renders the term “judges” in Ex 22:8-9, obscuring whether they’re heavenly or human. The term has an ancient singular form – “El”( 410. אֵל ‘ēl), and it, too, is used on occasion to refer both to YHWH (e.g. Ps 5:4) as well as other gods (Dt 3:24).
It is, however, quite clear that the biblical writers were quite comfortable with an all-powerful YHWH, creator of all there is including themselves, accompanied in some fashion by a host of other divine beings, and that they were unconcerned about our modern dichotomy between Monotheism and Polytheism. These writers, like Isaiah, could easily navigate between the Shema (Dt 6:4), and his vision of God’s throne room in Is 6:1-3.
From a historical perspective, we should note that with the Persian control of Judah came a significant influence of their view of Heaven being the home of their multiplicity of Gods. In particular the Zoroastrian religion of this period featured six “Holy Immortals”[x]. While it’s not clear what specific influence these ideas had on Judahites, it could not have encouraged simple Monotheism. And, its influence may play a role in dating some of the purportedly multiple-divinity narratives in the Tanakh as post-exilic.
This supreme vs subservient dichotomy would later become their resolution to the monotheistic “God as author of evil” charge. They would say: “No, God is not the creator of evil. It’s the faction of His disobedient heavenly entourage that succumbed to their desire to act on their own and against their Lord.”
“Council” or “Counsel”?
Certainly, before we get too carried away with the image of spirit beings surrounding YHWH in His heavenly realm discussing taking actions w/r/t people on earth, we need to recognize what the text actually means. There are two Hebrew words translated as “council” in our English Bibles. The first means a group of people/beings:
5712. עֵדָה `ēḏāh: A feminine noun meaning a congregation, an assembly, a band, an entourage, a pack. The word is modified to indicate various kinds of groups or communities. It is used to describe a congregation of heavenly or human beings;
Most often the word refers to Israel as a group in many settings. It describes all Israel gathered before Solomon (1Ki 8:5;12:20); or as a total community in general (Ho 7:12); it refers to the community of Israel at the Exodus in phrases like the congregation of the Lord (Nu 27:17;31:16; Jos 22:16); the community of Israel (Ex 12:3,6;Nu 16:9); or the community of the sons of Israel (Ex 16:1,2;17:1). At times leaders in Israel were described as the leaders or elders of the congregation (Ex 16:22;Lev 4:15;Nu 4:34).
The second is:
5475. סוֹד sôḏ: A masculine noun meaning counsel. Confidentiality is at the heart of this term. According to Pr 25:9, information shared in confidence should remain confidential. Yet gossip makes it difficult to do this (Pr 11:13;20:19). Elsewhere, this term reflects a more general meaning of counsel, which is viewed as essential to successful planning
Astoundingly, some commentators, translators, and scholars treat this word as the group ēḏāh. I can’t imagine how that’s possible.
As we proceed through the relevant verses, we’ll pay close attention to which type of “council” is being described and use that meaning to interpret the text. You may be astonished at how many scholarly papers on the subject and even translations make the crucial error of assuming a group is being discussed when it is not. Look, for example, at the following table identifying verses as referring to “council” when, in fact, they are referring to “counsel”.
| Verse | Reference to סוֹד sôḏ — counsel | Translation (NIV) |
|---|---|---|
| Ge 49:6 | [6] O my soul, come not thou into their secret; …(KJV) | “Let me not enter their council…” |
| Job 15:8 | [8] Hast thou heard the secret of God? and dost thou restrain wisdom to thyself? | [8] Do you listen in on God’s council? Do you have a monopoly on wisdom? |
| Je 23:18 | [18] For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it? (KJV) | [18] But which of them has stood in the council of the LORD to see or to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word? |
| Eze 13:9 | [9] And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD. | [9] My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They will not belong to the council of my people or be listed in the records of Israel, nor will they enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD. |
In this last example, both translations are wrong since the underlying word is sôḏ — counsel.
Holy Ones/Heavenly Beings/Saints/Angels
First, let’s consider angels – the mal’-ak, or messengers. Many Hebrew Bible verses mention angels, even in great numbers. But there is an issue to keep firmly in mind and that is that the Hebrew word being used is literally “messenger” — 4397. מַלְאָךְ mal’āḵ. In other words, these residents of God’s realm have a specific function, and that is to communicate God’s warnings and instructions to humans on earth – typically His prophets. Certainly, they are sometimes portrayed as worshipping God, But then all those in heaven worship God. They are nowhere portrayed as an assembly with whom God consults.
Heavenly Hosts
The Bible doesn’t contain the literal phrase “heavenly hosts” or “hosts of heaven”. So the term seems to be a catchall for the general notion of there being other spiritual beings present in God’s domain and presence. The Bible does refer to “hosts of the LORD” and “LORD of hosts”. The term “hosts” in general (6635. צָבָא ṣāḇā’) means servant. So “hosts of the LORD” means “servants of the LORD”. See, e.g. Ex 12:41, which equates “hosts of the LORD” with Israel, which YHWH always called to His service throughout the Exodus narrative.
The relationship between the term “hosts” and God is first established in Gen 2:1: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.”, apparently referring to all the creatures – human and animal – He had created. It’s unclear who the “hosts” are meant to be in the ubiquitous phrase “LORD of hosts”. It may mean heavenly beings, but it could just as well be the hosts (e.g. living things, plus the Sun, moon, stars, planets) of Gen 2:1.
Some biblical scholars argue[iv] that the reference is to the celestial bodies, reminding the hearer/reader of Jehovah’s gloriousness and His superiority to any earthly rulers. It is interesting that in Samuel’s day, the term had come to be used as essentially God’s name: “Jehovah of hosts”. It is declared literally as God’s name in Jer 48:15.
“Divine Council/Assembly”
The term “divine council” (or “divine assembly”) appears only in Ps 82 verse 1 in the Hebrew Bible (and only in a few translations). The writer uses the image of a collection of “gods” (Elohim) in v1 & v6 (ESV).
[82:1] God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
The word here rendered “divine” (KJV “mighty”) is the term “El”, a singular form of Elohim that typically carries the meaning “God”, “god”, “mighty one” or “hero”. So we have “Elohim has taken his place in the mighty ones/congregation, in the midst of the Elohim he holds judgment.” The word “El” in v1-a (“divine”) has its parallel in the term “Elohim” in v1-b.
In verses 2-5 we have God/the prophet excoriating these “gods” for not following His desires for them:
[2] “How long will you judge unjustly
and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
[3] Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.
[4] Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
[5] They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
It’s hard not to recognize that these were God’s commands to Israel (see Dt 24:17 among many examples in Deuteronomy). What, then, is the basis of the writer’s use of the term “gods” to describe Israel? We have only to look one verse ahead:
[6] I said, “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;
Clearly, God is calling his people to be “gods” (Elohim) in serving Him, not unlike His characterization of them in Ex 19:5-6:
[5] Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, [6] you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
The character being addressed seems to be holiness. The Psalmist recognizes, however, that Israel has fallen down on the job God gave them and so he concludes:
[7] nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.”
In other words, “Had you obeyed me you could have been my Elohim and (apparently) shared in My eternal life. But since you didn’t, you’re just going to die like any other common man or prince.”
It seems quite clear, then, that Psalm 82’s “divine council” was Israel, not some assemblage of spiritual beings.
While at first blush, we might tend to interpret this as a scene between YHWH and His assembled heavenly beings, we find something completely different where the Psalmist’s language and imagery obscure to our Western minds his true meaning. We have a similar situation in Ps 89:5-7:
[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?
In v5 the term rendered “assembly” is 6951. קָהָל qāhāl, which, sure enough, means assembly. The word here rendered “holy ones” is:
- קָדוֹשׁ qāḏôš: An adjective meaning sacred, holy. It is used to denote someone or something that is inherently sacred or has been designated as sacred by divine rite or cultic ceremony. It designates that which is the opposite of common or profane. It could be said the qāḏôš is a positive term regarding the character of its referent, where common is a neutral term and profane a very negative term.
The KJV translates this term as “saints” which seems to be in keeping with God’s characterization and admonition to Israel to “be holy because I am holy” (Lev 11:44,45; 19:2). “council” in v7 is one of our mistranslations of 5475.” סוֹד sôḏ — counsel. The verse is trying to extol God by saying that “God is to be revered through His counsel to His saints..”, not, as so many translations state, that He is to be revered in the council (assembly) of His saints.
So once again, we lead ourselves astray by reading into the term “holy ones” as some spiritual entities, and by our Bible’s quite prevalent mistranslation of סוֹד sôḏ as an assembly.
“sons of God”
Too often, interpreters (as evidenced by their commentaries and scholarly papers) have simply assumed that the beings being referenced by this term were spiritual beings. We’ll look for texts where that’s true; and texts where it’s not, according to the Bible.
Genesis 6:1-4
Probably the most controversial usage of the term occurs in the antediluvian tale of “sons of God” that “came in to the daughters of man”. One can be forgiven for reading this as distinguishing the form of the sons of God as not human, in contrast to the “daughters of man” that are. That’s probably an error.
[6:1] 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. [5] The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
The context of this passage is that it is leading us up to the point of God’s judgment of the flood on the entire world, because, as the Genesis author notes (v5):
[5] The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
This is where the Genesis author wants to go. These verses are the culmination of the “fall” narrative that began in Gen 3 in the garden. Just to make sure we don’t miss the author’s intention to claim that the entire narrative was one continuous decline into depravity that started in the Garden, he here reprises a version of the garden fall scenario.
| Event | Eve/garden — Gen 3 | “sons of God” — Gen 6 |
|---|---|---|
| Seeing and Judging what is Good. | The woman “saw” that the tree is “good” (tov) and desired it. | The soG’s “saw” that the daughters of man were “good” (tov). |
| Disobedience | she “took” of its fruit | The soG’s “took” as their wives any they chose. |
It can’t get much clearer than that. The author is reinforcing his “fall” narrative, which also includes Cain murdering Able and the Cain-led genealogical spread of evil throughout the earth, to culminate in God’s flood judgment. (See my commentary on this scene: “Some Mosaic Pieces and Their Connection to Other Pieces” here.)
Just to shed a different light on the subject, there are several places in the Bible where the children of Israel are referred to directly or indirectly as “sons/children of God”, or by God as “my son” (Ex 4:22-23, Dt 14:1, Ho 11:1, etc.). We need to keep this idiom clearly in mind here in decoding “sons of God” passages.
So who, in the Genesis author’s mind, are these sons of God?
Three main theories have been formed over the centuries as to who they are. We’ll look briefly at each.
Divine Agents Expelled from Heaven
This is perhaps the most ancient interpretation (yet the most popular today) and is attested by
Jude 1:6 – talks about angels who overstepped their proper role and committed sexual sins, and
2 Peter 2:4 – that essentially repeats Jude 1:6.
Dr. Michael Heiser was a modern-day champion of this interpretation which he documented and defended in his book[v] “The Unseen Realm”. Heiser is quite scathing in his dismissal of arguments for these beings being anything other than heavenly representatives.[vi]
While the ancients’ worldview was permeated by the idea of many divine beings, are these “sons of God” among them?
Descendants of Seth
This theory, the so-called “Sethite view”, is based on the tradition that when Cain slew Able, the earth lost its only inhabitant who had God’s favor, based on his offering to God causing God to “have regard” for him. So later, Seth is born to Adam and Eve and, again according to the tradition, he (and all of his descendants) represents the continuation of the righteous ones that Able had represented. His descendants became, effectively, “sons of God”, in recognition of their righteous lineage, unlike those from the murderer Cain.
So when we read here of the sons of God falling into depravity and evil themselves (see the Genesis 3 parallel, above), it is clear that the author is closing the door on any possibility that there may remain any “godly” men on earth (except as we read later, Noah and his family). If the one godly line has been corrupted, then all that’s left is corruption.
Some see the women in the story as a different type of being than the men because of its use of the phrase “daughters of man”. They conclude the daughters are human and therefore the sons of God aren’t because of their title and the distinction drawn between them and the human women.
Advocates of the theory say no, they’re simply being differentiated from those in the line of Seth, implying that the women represent the line of Cain.
This view goes back at least to Augustine as he laid it out in his “The City of God”. It strikes me as plausible, even likely, that this was the angle the author was taking in applying this label to the men in the story as a way to demonstrate the totality of the population falling into evil.
Earthly Kings
The third candidate for the label “sons of God” in Gen 6 is earthly kings. The culture of the day often equated Kings with the gods, in some way related to them, for example, the Pharaohs as sons of Ra.
Culturally, kings had nearly as much influence on the quality of their subject’s life as the imagined storm and fertility gods. So from a purely cultural point of view, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine the Genesis author employing this image of kings descended in some sense from gods becoming, therefore, “sons of God”. How divine status actually ended up on a king is quite involved and varied from culture to culture.
We introduced the historical practice/cultural belief of “sacred marriage” earlier. The general idea seems to focus on two modes of operation. In the first, a King (perhaps himself thought to be of divine origin) impregnates his “wife”, who serves in the role of the local temple priestess. The resultant son is then thought to be a “son of God”. See thisii reference for a large survey of ANE sacred marriage practices and examples.
Another scenario simply focuses on the priestess. Her credential is that she has inherited divine credentials from her temple devotion to the (usually female) god figure in her culture, e.g. Ishtar. She, therefore, is deemed a daughter of the gods. Her impregnation by anyone then produces yet another divine-right person who, if a male, can later be made King, and if a female, can later replace her mother as temple priestess. One can easily see the attraction of “going in” to such a temple priestess/prostitute if you can produce thereby a god-adopted son or daughter.
So, if this theory’s sons of God are thought to be divine kings, who are its “daughters of man”? The answer is any woman in the king’s city/kingdom that he chooses to consort with, through his kingly authority.
The following table from Kuoii summarizes these three theories including their view of the passage’s Nephilim, a subject I’ve purposely avoided so far.
| Sons of God | Daughters of Man | Nephilim |
|---|---|---|
| Angelic beings | Human women | Angel/human hybrid race (via direct or proxy intercourse) |
| Line of Seth | Line of Cain | Incidentally powerful kings |
| Earthly kings | Human lowborn women | Incidentally powerful persons |
The Nephilim
Just as the most popular of these theories sees the sons of God as heavenly beings or angel/human hybrids, it also concludes that the Nephilim mentioned here (and only one other place in the Bible – Num 13:33) are the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of man.
This is a pure interpretive invention. The text certainly doesn’t say this nor is it logically implied. V4 says the Nephilim were “on the earth” in those days and “afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.” The Nephilim were already there when this metaphorical procreation was happening, and the women bore children.
The conclusion of v4 is quite ambiguous, as we don’t know which “These”, the sons of God or the Nephilim, are being referenced by the verse:
“These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.”
They are described as the ancestors of the people of Anak, a tall race of people (Nu 13:33; cf. Dt 2:10,11;9:2; Jos 15:14) No doubt the Israelites had a cultural memory of a people having large stature that they had come up against (as these verses reveal). How did the descendants of Anak get so different, physically, from the Israelites? They descended from the “giants” – the Nephilim.
I think there is at least a chance that the Hebrew word in v4 here rendered “mighty” (1368. גִּבּוֹר gibbôr, גִּבּׂר gibbōr) may actually be intended to be sarcastic of these sons of God. While typically it is used as a descriptor of God (e.g, “mighty God”, Is 9:6), it can be used sarcastically as in Is 5:22, where Isaiah indicts those who are “heroes” ( גִּבּוֹר gibbôr) “at drinking wine” – i.e. mighty at getting drunk).
This just may be a tongue-in-cheek reference to corrupt kings of the day who saw themselves as “sons of God” – products of “sacred marriages” – when, according to the author, they were all about to be drowned, just like everyone else.
Were the “sons of God” spirit beings that somehow had the facility to impregnate human women, as many believe? One of the problems that interpretation raises is that we have examples of divine impregnation of human women, resulting in another generation of the sons of God (i.e. offspring of divine parentage). The Bible teaches that Christ was God’s only son (Jn 3:16, Jn 1:14, Jn 1:18, 1 Jn 4:9). So, it seems to me that divinities (spirit “sons of God”) impregnating human women to produce offspring creates a kind of ontological problem with the Incarnation. Either it was the first and only, or it wasn’t. The New Testament says it was.
Dt 32:8
[8] 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.
This verse evokes the image of the people of Babel being dispersed into separate nations (the descendants of Noah who produce those 70 nations are enumerated in Gen 10), each with a different language, and somehow overseen by 70 “sons of God”, one for each dispersed nation.
The author may be drawing, once again, on the role of Israel as priests – mediators between God and man – and perhaps symbolically associating the 70 elders of Israel at Horeb with these 70 sons of God. This would be at best a ceremonial association for these (far future) elders – something like them receiving an “honorary” degree. You don’t “do” anything for it. But it is “conferred” upon you.
It is also possible that this is a backhanded way of indicting Israel’s then-current Sanhedrin, a ceremonial copy of Moses’ 70 elders. (Sorry, but much of the Pentateuch was edited long after the events it relates.) This is a bit of a stretch for the author of Deuteronomy, unless he had clearly in mind the reference in Gen 6:4, and so was joining in on the sarcasm (see above re: Gen 6:1-4).
However, 70 is one of those special numbers in the Hebrew Bible. And so, the author may not be trying to equate the 70 elders (or the Sanhedrin) with the “sons of God”, but simply stating that there is a (spiritual) son of God for each nation. I don’t believe there’s a conclusive way to tell, based strictly on the text.
Job 1:6, 2:1
The book of Job is in the Bible’s “Wisdom Literature” genre and is therefore full of poetic passages and symbolic language.
The author of Job makes very clear his worldview that the realm of God features the spirit beings of the “sons of God”, and Satan, of course. He is quite ambivalent as to whether Satan is one of the “sons of God”, or just one of their type, i.e. spiritual.
It is interesting that in these two places, at least, the sons of God have no part to play. They’re just there. The author of Job wants his story to be about God vs Satan, and how God orchestrates an outcome through which He is glorified.
Job 38:4-7
[4] “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. [5] Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? [6] On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, [7] when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
This verse seems to reinforce the author of Job’s cosmology as spiritual beings occupying the “heavens”. In v7 he’s placing them at the event of the Creation. Certainly, the Israelites weren’t at that event. Nor were there any kings on earth then. So, this reference to “sons of God” (v7) is clearly, in the author’s mind, to spiritual beings.
And as there are no subsequent references to them in Job, we must conclude that this is the author of Job’s exclusive worldview. One of the pieces of the cultural cosmology of the day is this notion of Satan as the influencer to evil of the sons of God assigned to oversee the post-Babel 70 nations.
There are similar Canaanite myths that equate Ba ‘al with Satan. Kuo brings this point out in this statement: “In fact, the Graecised[vii] Beelzeboul in Matthew 12:24-27, in which Beelzeboul is also named ‘Satan’ and ‘prince of demons’, seems most probably derived from the Semitic Baal-zebul, that is ‘Baal, prince.’”
Conclusions
The major takeaway I have from doing this study is that not only are casual English Bible readers thrown curve balls when reading passages that contain some of these key “trigger” phrases (“divine counsel”, “sons of God”, “LORD of hosts”, etc.), but that scholars and interpreters are too! It seems that the prevailing cosmology of these biblical authors’ day – that of the “hosts of Heaven” – seems to have been bought hook, line, and sinker by even serious translators and interpreters. They may have reasoned that with this overwhelming “hosts of Heaven” cosmology there was simply no point in interpreting these trigger phrases in ways other than as references to heavenly, or quasi-heavenly beings. Whatever the reason, to me the widespread misinterpretation, and resultant misrepresentation, is stunning.
I think we’ve shown quite conclusively that human interpretations for these trigger phrases/terms in many, many cases are if not provably references to this or that group of people, that a human interpretation is at least as likely to be the author’s intent as the heavenly being interpretation. (We need to remember that these authors were commenting as much on the reality they observed around them when they wrote as they were recounting Israel’s oral history.)
Stepping back from the individual texts for a moment we have to ask ourselves: What benefit did the ancient authors think God received from a pantheon of subservient gods? Did they think He needed their “help”? Certainly, we see the purpose and functioning of the Messengers (angels) throughout the Hebrew Bible. But if the authors understood God as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, what did they think the purpose of these “gods” was? It’s never discussed, except in the case of Satan who serves as the tester of men (mainly Gen 3, Job, and Mt 4).
So is it, in other words, possible that the ancient Biblical authors shared in some of the same cultural inertia that their countrymen did in not being able to fully embrace the idea of One God, and extract themselves and their cosmological view from the ancient and yet-surrounding worldview of legions of gods and other heavenly hosts intimately involved in determining the circumstances of their lives? I’m guessing we’re seeing some of that cultural inertia seep out into their texts.
For those who want to dig in deeper, Sumner[viii] provides this[ix] extensive reading list for further study.
Addendum
Subsequent to finishing this piece, I learned that a scholar who I deeply respect, Richard Elliot Friedman, disagrees with my readings of Psalm 82 and Genesis 6. He believes that the “sons of God” being described in each (as well as in Deut 32:8, where he uses a DSS translation rather than the MT) are references to divinities; “gods”. The reason he does so is that he theorizes that Israel needed a story to tell itself that explained how they were once polytheists but “now” (post-Biblical writings dissemination) were monotheists. The story, he proposes, is the punchline of Psalm 82 (v7): YHWH killed the gods because they were disobedient. So, there are none even there to worship anymore. But when they were there, it was OK to worship them. We disagree.
[i] Ancient Near East
[ii] Kou, Christopher D., A Biblical Theology of The Divine Counsel
[iii] Sacred Marriage and Sacred Prostitution in Ancient Mesopotamia – History (historyonthenet.com)
[iv] Keil and Delitzsch Commentary – 1 Samuel 1:2-3
[v] Heiser, Michael S, The unseen realm: recovering the supernatural worldview of the Bible, Lexham Press, 2015
[vi] Heiser, Michael S., Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible, Liberty University Faculty Publications and Presentations, 2008
[vii] Graecize – definition of Graecize by The Free Dictionary
[viii] Sumner, Paul B., The Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible: Chapter 2 of VISIONS OF THE DIVINE COUNCIL IN THE HEBREW BIBLE, 1991, 2013
[ix] Among the most useful studies on the divine council are: B. W. Anderson, “Hosts, Hosts of Heaven”, IDB 2.654-56; G. Cooke, The Sons of (the) God(s), ZAW 76 (1964): 22-47; F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel) (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973), 177-190; P. D. Miller, “The Divine World and the Human World” (chap. 1), in Genesis 1-11 (Studies in Structure & Theme) (JSOT Sup 8; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978), 9-26; idem, “The Sovereignty of God” in The Hermeneutical Quest (ed. D. Miller; Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1986), 129-44; E. T. Mullen, Jr. The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (HSM 24; Chico: Scholars Press, 1980); D. Neiman, ÒCouncil, Heavenly,Ó IDBSup 187-88; M. E. Polley, ÒHebrew Prophecy Within the Council of Yahweh, Examined in its Ancient Near Eastern Setting in Scripture in Context (Essays on the Comparative Method) (ed. C. Evans, Hallo, J. White; PTM 34; Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1980), 141-56; H. W. Robinson, “The Council of Yahweh”, JTS 45 (1944): 151-57; R. N. Whybray, The Heavenly Counsellor in Isaiah xl 13-14 (A Study of the Sources of the Theology of Deutero-Isaiah) (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971), 39-53; G. E. Wright, The Old Testament Against its Environment (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1950), 30-41.
[x] Amesha Spenta, Wikipedia
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