Deuteronomy 32:8
As noted in the Commentary, the
variant reading of verse 8, “equal to the number of sons of the divine” (le-mispar benei ʾelohim), obviates
several problems that are raised by the Masoretic reading “equal to the number
of the sons of Israel” (le-mispar benei
yisraʾel). For this reason, the variant is most likely the original
reading.
According to Job 1–2, the “sons
of the divine” are a group that periodically present themselves before God to
report on their assignments. One of them, called “the Adversary” (the satan), is a sort of roving investigator
and prosecutor who reports to God what he has seen on earth. In Hebrew these
beings are called benei ʾelohim,
“sons of ʾelohim” meaning “members of
the ʾelohim class.” The equivalent
term in other Canaanite languages is benei
ʾel(im), and according to Ugaritic mythology there are seventy such beings.
Although ʾelohim and ʾel(im) literally mean “god/gods,” they
also refer to various types of supernatural beings and heavenly bodies that
form God’s retinue, as noted in the Comment to 3:24. These include spirits,
angels (malʾakhim, lit.,
“emissaries”), the sun, moon, stars, and “the host of heaven.”
In some passages one encounters
traces of a belief that these beings and bodies govern the earth for God.
Genesis 1:16 and 18 say that God created the sun and moon “to rule” (lememshelet, li-mshol) over the day and
night. The existence of such beliefs is also reflected in passages that
criticize or combat them. For example, in Psalm 82 God rebukes the “divinities”
(ʾelohim) for judging unjustly and
the psalmist calls upon God to judge all
nations personally and take them all
as His allotment.
The idea stated in the variant
reading, that the number of nations equals the number of “sons of the divine,”
suggests that each of these beings is paired with a nation. Jewish sources of
the Hellenistic and talmudic periods elaborate on this picture, indicating that
God appointed divine beings to govern the nations on His behalf. Ben Sira
paraphrases our passage as follows:
In dividing up the peoples of all
the world,
Over every people He appointed a
ruler,
But the Lord’s portion is Israel.
The “rulers” are Ben Sira’s
equivalent of Deuteronomy’s “sons of the divine.” The book of Daniel, from the
same period as Ben Sira, refers to them as “governors” or “princes” (Heb. sarim) and describes them as angelic
patrons and champions of various nations. It mentions those of Persia and
Greece and—here it disagrees with Deuteronomy and Ben Sira—one for Israel, too.
The same picture is also known in a variety of forms in Jewish Hellenistic and
rabbinic literature, where the number of these beings is seventy.
The sources indicate that the
“sons of the divine” were angel-like beings under God’s authority, a belief
compatible with the monotheistic viewpoint expressed in Deuteronomy 32:17, 21,
and 39. The designation benei ʾelohim,
“sons of the divine,” may even have
been chosen to emphasize their inferiority. Nevertheless, the concept seemed
problematic. At the very least, it indicates that God shared the world with
supernatural beings associated with individual nations and seems to imply that
He intended the other nations to worship those beings (see Excursus 7). The
scribes responsible for transmitting the text of the Bible were probably
concerned that readers not envisage them as having the power and authority that
would encourage Jews to worship them along with God, an act completely
incompatible with Deuteronomy’s opposition to angelology (see Comments to 4:19,
37 and 13:6). They may also have considered the concept too reminiscent of
polytheistic pantheons, such as the Canaanite “assembly of benei ʾel” (it may, in fact, have evolved from such a concept). For
one or both of these reasons, they eliminated the reading benei ʾelohim, “sons of ʾelohim,”
and replaced it with benei yisraʾel,
“sons of Israel.” This reading preserved the numerical aspect of the verse, for
according to Deuteronomy 10:22 there were seventy Israelites at a key point in
Israel’s history, equal to the number of divine beings and nations. Hence the
text still meant that God divided the human race into seventy nations.
The original reading of verse 8
survived in the Septuagint, which was made for Greek-speaking Jews and
preserved by Greek-speaking Christians (it is still used today in the Greek
Orthodox Church). Traces of it survived among Jews as well. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan
actually reflects both readings, as indicated by italics here:
When the Most High allotted the
world to the peoples that came forth from the sons of Noah, when he gave
separate scripts and languages to humanity in the Generation of the Division,
at that time He cast lots with the
seventy angels, princes of the nations, with whom He revealed himself [when
going down] to see the city [where the Tower of Babel was being built], and at
the same time He established the boundaries of the nations equal to the number
of seventy Israelite persons who went
down to Egypt.
What is more, the version of this
story related in the eighth-century-c.e. work Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer tells of
God casting lots with the seventy angels and appointing them over the seventy
nations, and says nothing about the number seventy matching the number of
Israelites, even though it alludes to our verse. Apparently this is an old
tradition that goes back to a text of Deuteronomy that stated that the number
of nations was based on the number of “sons of the divine.” As late as the
tenth century c.e. Saadia Gaon felt compelled to rebut the view that the text
implies that God shared the world with other supernatural beings.
The issues raised in verse 8 are
also involved in 4:19 which implies that God took Israel for Himself and
allotted the heavenly bodies to other peoples to worship. Allotting the
heavenly bodies to other peoples is the converse of the idea in 32:8 that God
allotted the nations to the “sons of the divine.” As noted in the Comment to
4:19 and in Excursus 30, the statement that God allotted the sun, moon, and
stars to other nations, instead of allotting the nations to the divine beings,
seems to be a way of revising 32:8 (or the tradition underlying it) so as to
eliminate any suggestion that the gods of the nations are supernatural beings
who own or govern the other peoples. However, as noted in Excursus 7, even the
formulation of 4:19, implying that worship of the heavenly bodies by other
nations was ordained by God, struck many as unlikely, and according to a
tradition in rabbinic literature, the original Septuagint revised the text of
that verse to read that the Lord allotted the heavenly bodies to other peoples
“to give light to them,” in other
words to give light, but not to rule.
The idea that God distributed the
nations among the angels is unique to the Bible. Elsewhere we hear of the major
gods dividing the regions of the universe among themselves by lot, or of a
chief deity distributing cities, lands, and regions to other gods. These myths
are concerned with the allotment of residences and cult centers to the gods,
not with relationship of the gods to the people of these places. In the Bible
the motif serves to express God’s relationship to humanity and his election of
Israel. (Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy [The JPS Torah
Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996], 514-15)
