In a very interesting
book on personal religion in exilic and post-exilic texts of the Bible, Susan
Niditch wrote the following about the Divine Council which will be of interest
to Latter-day Saints:
One important set of biblical materials
dealing with the experiential dimension [of experiencing the divine personally]
describes the physical presence of a human being inside the realm of the
sacred; he has somehow been transported to the divine throne room, where he
observes and interacts with holy beings, including some manifestation of the
deity himself. Divine-council scenes are common stock in the epic literature of
the ancient Mediterranean world. In its most frequent form, the chief deity,
who makes decisions regarding groups and individuals, war and peace, is surrounded
by fellow celestial beings, including his advisers and sometimes his
adversaries or rivals. This cross-cultural constellation of motifs, including
the king-like figure, his retainers, the conversation, and actions, is
specified in an Israelite prophetic medium. The seer, a human being, is
transported to the heavenly realm, where he observes the scene or hears, the
conversation and often participates in the action . . . The simplest (though
not necessarily earliest) version is found in Exodus 24:9-11, in which Moses,
Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders ascend to the divine realm after
the escape from Egypt and the formative scene at Sinai. Exodus 24:9-11 alludes
to a banquet, an appropriate motif to conclude the victory-enthronement
patterns that characterizes the escape from Egypt, the defeat of the Egyptian
enemy, and the enthronement on the mountain, “God’s sanctuary,” as described
poetically in Exodus 15. This same pattern is found in ancient Near Eastern
creation epics such as the Mesopotamian Enuma
Elish and the Ugaritic table of Baal and Anat, in which the enemy is death
or chaos and the new order is celebrated by a gathering of deities and
feasting. In Exodus 24, the world of God is “above”—one ascends (24:9). The
deity is visible—he has feet (24:10)—and the human guests behold him. The
seeing is described in two verbs (24:10, 11), one of which, ḥzh, is related to an ancient term for “prophet,”
as suggested by the biblical author at 1 Samuel 9:9. The environment appears to
be tactile, though more luminously pure than anything on earth—“like the image
of sapphire tile-work,” like the “very substance of heaven” (24:10). A feast is
provided as the guests commune with God in an important symbolic representation
of their relationship. The deity, the powerful warrior seen in the electric,
volcanic presence at Sinai, where the people and even ritual pure priests are
warned to keep their distance lest he lash out against them, here welcomes the
feasters. The author emphasizes that God does not lay a hand upon them,
although they are in his very realm. Indeed no supramundane counselors are
present. Human beings play the role of those invited to dine at God’s behest,
but this is no randomly selected set of people; they are leaders, people of
inherited status. The image and role of the elites, Levites and elders, is
thereby asserted and enhanced. (Susan Niditch, The Responsive Self: Personal Religion in Biblical Literature of the
Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods [New Haven: Yale University Press,
2015], 110-12, comment in square bracket added for clarification)
