Another notable phenomenon
is the mention of other deities besides YHWH. In the earliest piece of psalmody,
although the texts do not indicate that these deities played more than a marginal
role compared to the storm-god and divine king YHWH. Some early psalms speak of
“gods” (אלים or אלהים) or “sons of gods” (בני אלים) who submissively
pay homage of YHWH (Ps 29:1-2; 97:7), and other psalms praise YHWH’s
incomparability among the gods (Ex 15:11; 89:7), but the extant hymns and
prayers do not clearly focus on individual deities besides YHWH. Passages with
more explicit polytheistic content may have been blurred or omitted during the
long process of textual transmission (a well-known case in point is Deut 32:8-9
MT, see BHS and BHQ), but the oldest texts in the Psalter suggest that YHWH
worship had a monolatrous tendency from its beginnings. (Reinhard Müller, “The
Origins of YHWH in Light of the Earliest Psalms,” in Jürgen van Oorschot and
Markus Witte, eds., The Origins of Yahwism [Beihefte Zur Zeitschrift Für
Die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 484; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2019], 207-38,
here, pp. 209-10)
A comparable view of
foreign polytheism in E is earlier evinced by Abraham when he explains to the
Philistine king Abimelech why he had been duplicitous about his relations to
Sarah: “When the Gods caused me to wander from the house of my father, I said
to her . . . Say of me, “He is my brother”” (Gen 20:13). Abraham is, of course,
being polite to the foreign king, but the plural verb הִתְע֣וּ (“caused me to
wander”) makes it clear that the subject אֱלֹהִים (“God, gods”), is in the plural. In
dealing with foreigners and foreign gods, Abraham is as discreet as Jacob is
sly. (Ronald Hendel, “God and the Gods in the Tetrateuch,” in Ibid., 239-66,
here, pp. 248-49; for more on Gen 20:13, see the discussion of this verse at Refuting
Jeff Durbin on “Mormonism”)
