Deuteronomy 32:1-43, an ancient
poem often called the Song of Moses, says, “When the Most High apportioned the
nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods [the oldest and best Hebrew text of this
passage, 4QDeutj, reads bene ‘elohim; DJD XIV, Plate
XXIII, fragment 34]” (Deut. 32:8:8), that is, when God created the nations, God
set Israel apart as God’s own special, particular possession (Deut. 32:9) and assigned
the other nations to the bene ‘elohim. Later monotheistic scribes found
this notion so offensive that they altered the text to read “according to the
number of the sons of Israel” (cf. MT, and the KJV and NIV of this verse). (Steven
S. Tuell, God the Creator: Biblical Images of the Divine [Interpretation:
Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster
John Knox Press, 2026], 89)
