Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
Psalm 29:1
Ascribe unto the LORD, O ye mighty. Literally, sons of the elim, gods, the divine council again.
Psalm 29:1, in every translation this tool compares.
English mighty ones reads as a vague compliment, powerful people or important figures. Bene elim is the same technical phrase already met describing heavenly beings surrounding God's throne, an audience of gods, not an audience of impressive humans, being summoned to worship.
Because the psalm opens by addressing sons of the mighty, bene elim, the same divine-council phrase already met at Genesis 6:2 and recurring at Psalm 89:6, calling heavenly beings, not human worshippers, to ascribe glory to the LORD.
Most versions read O ye mighty, sons of the mighty, or heavenly beings, a range reflecting real disagreement about how directly to render bene elim's divine-council background into English.
בְּנֵי אֵלִים bene elim · H1121 + H410
Bene elim, sons of the elim, gods, occurs only here and at Psalm 89:6, and closely parallels the Canaanite divine-council phrase sons of El attested in Ugaritic mythological texts, where it names the assembly of lesser gods surrounding the high god El. The psalm opens by summoning this same heavenly assembly, not human worshippers, to acknowledge the LORD's glory, the same divine-council imagery already met at Genesis 6:2 and Psalm 82:1.
English mighty ones or you heavenly beings both lose the specific technical weight bene elim carries as a recognized ancient Near Eastern divine-council term, so a reader cannot easily connect this opening line to the same council imagery running through Genesis 6, Psalm 82, and Psalm 89.
Track bene elohim, bene elim, and edat el, each a variant of the same divine-council phrase, across their several occurrences rather than treating each one as an isolated poetic flourish. The psalms and Genesis are drawing on one shared, coherent picture of a heavenly assembly.
Mighty ones or heavenly beings both work as general English glosses. Sons of the gods, or sons of the elim, kept closer to the Hebrew, more directly connects this opening summons to the same council-of-gods imagery already established at Genesis 6:2, Psalm 82:1, and Psalm 89:6.
- The same phrase at Psalm 89:6
- The Canaanite parallel, 'sons of El,' in Ugaritic divine-council texts
- Psalm 82:1's edat el, council of El, as the closely related phrase
