Tool Beta
The Gods of the Bible
Every named divine being in Scripture, what the text calls it, and what the ancient world thought it was.
Bene elohim
Sons of God: a group of lesser divine beings who show up at God's throne.
Genesis 6:2, in every translation this tool compares.
Sons of God. The phrase works like sons of Israel, which never meant boys with a father called Israel. It is an idiom for a category, and the category is divine beings. They are plural, created, under God, and standing at his throne.
Sons of God. Plural, created, subordinate, and present at the throne. The phrase doesn't mean "angels" in the later systematic sense, and it doesn't mean human worshippers. DDD's Parker treats it as an idiom for "divine beings" on the model of bene ha-adam, "human beings." Hebrew grammar leaves it open whether the second noun in the phrase is singular or plural, and when the LXX flattens both elohim and elim to theou, that is one resolution of the ambiguity rather than the only one an ancient reader had. Yahweh's first-person plurals read the same way: in Genesis 1:26 ("let us make") and 3:22 ("like one of us") a human is compared to one of a group of divine beings among whom Yahweh is first. Isaiah 6:8's "who will go for us" belongs to the same pattern, now inside an explicit council scene. Parker also reads Deuteronomy 32:8 with Elyon as a high god distinct from Yahweh, which DDD's own Elyon article disputes; see the El Elyon dissent.
The Ugaritic 'dt 'ilm, "assembly of El" or "assembly of the gods," is the closest parallel to the council language of Psalm 82:1, and it is the same phrase rather than a similar idea. Ugaritic bn il ("sons of El") and bn ilm ("sons of the gods") name the same group and are swapped freely in the Ugaritic texts, the direct linguistic parallel to the Hebrew wavering between bene elohim and bene elim. Both traditions used the phrase to mean "the gods" without stopping to ask whether the second noun was technically singular or plural.
1 Enoch 6-11 reads Genesis 6 this way, and so does Jubilees 5. Daniel 3:25 gives the Aramaic singular of the same phrase, bar-elahin, "a son of the gods," for the fourth figure in the furnace, and Nebuchadnezzar's own explanation in 3:28 calls him Yahweh's messenger, so the older divine-plural language is already being absorbed into the newer and more monotheistic word "angel."
The Sethite reading of Genesis 6 has a long pedigree and a weak textual base.
- Genesis 6:2,4
- Job 1:6
- Job 2:1
- Job 38:7
- Psalm 29:1
- Psalm 89:6-7
- Deuteronomy 32:8 (4QDeutj)
- Genesis 3:22
- Genesis 1:26
- Isaiah 6:8
- Daniel 3:25,28
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-6-1-4\/","n":"Genesis 6:1-4","s":"The sons of God take wives, and the Nephilim are in the earth.","r":"Genesis 6:1-4"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/job-1-6-12\/","n":"Job 1:6-12","s":"The sons of God present themselves and the satan comes among them.","r":"Job 1:6-12"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/psalm-89-5-7\/","n":"Psalm 89:5-7","s":"Yahweh is feared in the council of the holy ones, and nothing in the skies compares to Him.","r":"Psalm 89:5-7"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/deuteronomy-32-8-9\/","n":"Deuteronomy 32:8-9","s":"The Most High divided the nations, and the number He divided them by is where the whole argument turns.","r":"Deuteronomy 32:8-9"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/deuteronomy-32-43-hebrews-1-6\/","n":"Deuteronomy 32:43; Hebrews 1:6","s":"The end of the Song of Moses, where the Masoretic text is one line and every other witness is longer.","r":"Deuteronomy 32:43; Hebrews 1:6"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-1-26-27\/","n":"Genesis 1:26-27","s":"Let us make man in our image, and then a singular verb does the making.","r":"Genesis 1:26-27"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/genesis-6-2\/","n":"Genesis 6:2","s":"The sons of God saw the daughters of men. The oldest reading takes sons of God as divine beings, not a human family line.","r":"Genesis 6:2"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/psalm-29-1\/","n":"Psalm 29:1","s":"Ascribe unto the LORD, O ye mighty. Literally, sons of the elim, gods, the divine council again.","r":"Psalm 29:1"}
- S. B. Parker, DDD s.v. "Sons of (the) God(s)," 794-799
- Heiser, "Divine Council," in *Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, Poetry & Writings* (IVP Academic, 2008), 113
- Heiser, *Unseen Realm*, chs. 3, 8
- Ellen White, *Yahweh's Council*
