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The ANE Desk
Old Testament passages beside the ancient Near Eastern texts they are compared with, and what Israel does with what it shares.
Seventy sons
At Ugarit El's family of gods is called the seventy, the children of Athirat. Genesis 10 lists seventy nations, by the usual count. Deuteronomy 32:8 divides the nations by the number of the sons of God. A popular link with three joints, each weaker than the last.
Deuteronomy 32:8-9, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: does Deuteronomy 32:8 count the nations by the gods? The company has seventy branches and seventy branch managers. That might be a plan, one manager to a branch, or two numbers that happen to match. You would want to see the org chart before you decide. What does Deuteronomy 32:8 actually say about the number?
He invited the seventy, the children of Athirat.
The Jewish Study Bible says Most High, Elyon, is the formal title of El, who presided over the divine council at Ugarit, and that the reading preserved in the Septuagint and at Qumran, according to the sons of El, makes much more sense than the Masoretic text: the chief god gives the nations to lesser gods. Smith says the gods of this rank at Ugarit were called the seventy, the children of Athirat, and that seventy is a conventional number for a large defined group. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible ties Deuteronomy 32:8 to the seventy nations of Genesis 10 and to the seventy sons of Athirat. Heiser makes the same link and draws a theological conclusion from it: "a theological gauntlet was thrown down".
Deuteronomy 32:9 keeps one people back: the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. Heiser reads the point as Yahweh alone commanding the nations and their gods. At Ugarit the seventy are El and Athirat's own children, a family, and Baal later fights them. The Jewish Study Bible notes that the translators of the NJPS added the word own in verse 9 to avoid the impression that Elyon, as head of the pantheon, assigned Israel to YHVH as one member among many, and says the Hebrew permits either reading. The Genesis tool, Genesis, the Beginning, connects this verse with Babel in its entry Babel.
The link has three joints. First, the sons of God reading: the strongest. The Jewish Study Bible and Heiser accept it, the NIV Cultural Backgrounds note calls it "increasingly favored by scholars," and the NIV text itself follows the Masoretic sons of Israel. Second, Elyon as El's title: the sources read here disagree. The Jewish Study Bible calls it the formal title of El at Ugarit; the IVP Bible Background Commentary says there is "no convincing evidence thus far of Elyon as the name of a deity" and treats it as an epithet used of both El and Baal. Third, the seventy: Deuteronomy 32:8 gives no number. The seventy comes from counting the nations in Genesis 10. Smith says only that the seventy tradition "perhaps survives" in the later Jewish idea of seventy angels over seventy nations, citing the Targum on this verse. The match of seventy gods to seventy nations is a plausible and popular reading built on a count; the texts do not state it.
Not a claim that Israel worshiped Athirat's sons. Every source here reads Deuteronomy 32:9 as setting Israel apart from the nations and their gods.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-11-1-9\/","n":"Genesis 11:1-9","s":"Babel, the scattering, and the moment the nations are set aside.","r":"Genesis 11:1-9"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/psalm-82\/","n":"Psalm 82","s":"God stands in the divine assembly and passes sentence on the elohim He put in charge.","r":"Psalm 82"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/gods-of-the-bible\/el-elyon\/","n":"El Elyon","s":"A title meaning Most High, used in the verse where the nations get handed out to different gods.","r":"Genesis 14:18-22"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/gods-of-the-bible\/bene-elohim\/","n":"Bene elohim","s":"Sons of God: a group of lesser divine beings who show up at God's throne.","r":"Genesis 6:2"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/gods-of-the-bible\/the-princes-of-persia-and-greece\/","n":"The princes of Persia and Greece","s":"Spirit figures in Daniel who rule nations and can hold up a messenger from God for weeks.","r":"Daniel 10:13"}
- Mark S. Smith and Wayne T. Pitard, The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, Volume II: Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU/CAT 1.3-1.4 (Brill, 2009), introduction on the children of Athirat, and translation of KTU 1.4 VI 38-59
- The Jewish Study Bible, 2nd ed., ed. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford University Press), notes on Deuteronomy 32:8 and 32:9
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, ed. John H. Walton and Craig S. Keener (Zondervan, 2016), NIV text note on Deuteronomy 32:8
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament (InterVarsity Press), on Deuteronomy 32:8
- Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm, ch. 14, Divine Allotment, and ch. 20, Retooling the Template
