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2 The sons of the gods saw that the daughters of the humans were good.
וַיִּרְא֤וּ בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם כִּ֥י טֹבֹ֖ת הֵ֑נָּה
We’re still talking about “the sons of the gods” from Gen 6:2; today we’re going to start the Deuteronomistic detour I promised last week. The odds that I will be writing this column long enough to reach the end of the Torah are fairly low; at my current pace it would take until about 2062. (Not saying I won’t give it my best shot.) Consider today’s post a sneak preview.
I’m not, of course, just taking the day off from our close reading of Genesis. We’re going to Deut 32:8 with a purpose: to discuss “the sons of the gods” and “the seventy nations.” I admit that neither of those phrases appears in that verse, but one of them once did — and we’ll need the other to explain it. Here we go.
Deut 32:8 When the Most High gave nations their homes
And set the divisions of man,
He fixed the boundaries of peoples
In relation to Israel’s numbers.
The “Most High” is עליון elyon — or perhaps I should make that Elyon with a capital E. Here’s what Frederick Schmidt says about it in the Anchor Bible Dictionary:
MOST HIGH [Heb ʿelyôn עֶלְיוֹן]. Meaning “the Exalted One,” ʿelyôn is the title given to the highest of the gods in the Canaanite pantheon and was appropriated by the Hebrews as a title for Y׳hw׳h at various intervals in the life of the nation (e.g., Deut 32:8–9; 2 Sam 22:14; Pss 7:17; 97:9). Used frequently in Gen 14:18–22, ʿelyôn appears in combination with the title ʾēl.
I do expect we’ll get (eventually) to Genesis 14. I’m not arguing against the assertion that Elyon is used as a title of YHWH in our Deuteronomy verse, but since the expression “sons of the gods” in Gen 6:2 — on the face of it — is speaking about multiple sons of multiple gods, it’s important to highlight the polytheistic background to this epithet Elyon. Here’s what Eric Elnes and Patrick Miller have to say about it in the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible:
In the present form of the biblical lext, the term is understood to be an epithet for Y׳hw׳h, the God of Israel. It is possible. however, as some have argued, that the epithet may conceal a reference to a separate deity, possibly an older god with whom Y׳hw׳h came 1o be identified. This has been argued, for example, with reference to Gen 14:18, Num 24:16 and Deut 32:8. The matter cannot be resolved without considering occurrence of ʿElyôn in other texts from the ancient Near East. ʿElyôn is attested in a variety of extra-biblical literature such as Aramaic. Phoenician, Ugaritic and Greek. As a theophoric element, ʿElyôn may also be traced in South-Semitic personal names.
Our Deuteronomy verse is clearly stating that this is the God who “gave nations their homes,” drawing the map with a location for each of them. Now read on:
Deut 32:9 For YHWH’s portion is His people,
Jacob His own allotment.
Do you get it? Each of the nations is supervised by its own god, all of them (we presume) reporting to Elyon if there’s anything that requires his attention. The God of “Jacob” (= Israel) is YHWH.
Isn’t that the God who created the world, you ask? True, Version 1 just calls him elohim, but Version 2 calls him YHWH Elohim, the God YHWH — and it’s the same character, isn’t it? If he is the hero of a story that goes from Adam to Noah to Abraham-Isaac-Jacob, that’s certainly a story about the nation of Israel, who descended from Jacob. Indeed, that’s absolutely what these first chapters of the Bible are telling us.
But other ancient stories, some of them alluded to in the Bible itself, tell a different tale. I once taught Psalm 114 at Oklahoma City University as the Neustadt lecturer. The punchline of that psalm is this: YHWH can get water out of the rock for the Israelites because he is the same God who told the water to scram so the dry land could appear on Day 3 of creation.
A student asked, in perfect innocence, “What’s the big deal?” But it was a big deal when people believed that there were multiple gods, all of whom must have claimed to be the creator god and put forth their candidacy to be God #1. Each of the ancient peoples assumed that their god was the greatest and most powerful.
How did YHWH become #1? Psalm 82 (I believe) explains it. Here’s how that psalm opens, in the NJPS translation as adapted by me:
1 Elohim stands in the assembly of El;
among the elohim He pronounces judgment.
The trick here is to know that Psalm 82 is part of the Elohistic Psalter, Psalms 42-83, where the name YHWH that was originally in these psalms is often replaced by the title Elohim (compare Psalms 14 and 53). It is really YHWH (not “Elohim”) who stands up in the assembly of the elohim — a gathering of all the gods, chaired by El Elyon — in Ps 82:1, and similarly it is YHWH (not “Elohim”) who is voted into the chair in the last verse of that psalm:
8 Arise, YHWH, rule the earth,
for all the nations are Your possession.
One day I may start a series teaching biblical poetry — go here for a quick preview — and if I do, it will certainly begin with Psalm 114, and Psalm 82 will show up somewhere down the line. Right now, they are only on-screen long enough to illuminate the polytheistic background of “the sons of the gods” in Gen 6:2. We’ll continue our discussion of Deut 32:8, for that same purpose, next time.