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The Gods of the Bible
Every named divine being in Scripture, what the text calls it, and what the ancient world thought it was.
El Elyon
A title meaning Most High, used in the verse where the nations get handed out to different gods.
Genesis 14:18-22, in every translation this tool compares.
A title, not a name. It means Most High. Picture a landlord carving a building into floors and putting a different caretaker over each one. That is what Deuteronomy 32:8 describes happening to the nations, and who the caretakers are depends on which ancient copy of the verse you read.
Most High. In Deuteronomy 32:8 Elyon divides the nations and assigns them, and what he assigns them to is where the divine council framework begins. The Masoretic Text ends verse 8 with "according to the number of the sons of Israel," but the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint read "sons of God," and nearly every modern critical edition follows them. The scrolls give two witnesses rather than one: 4QDeutj reads bny 'lhym, "sons of God," while 4QDeutq has room for more consonants after the 'l, pointing to "sons of El" or "sons of the gods." The strongest argument against the Masoretic reading is chronological: the dispersal the verse describes happens generations before Israel exists as a people, so Israel's headcount is an odd yardstick for it. The usual answer is the seventy of Jacob's household in Genesis 46, which has the same problem. None of that settles it, and the Qumran evidence is fragmentary enough that calling the question closed goes too far. Deuteronomy 4:19-20 is the companion text, where Yahweh "allotted" the other nations their gods the same way he "took" Israel as his own portion.
H5945 (עֶלְיוֹן), 53 occ
Whether Elyon and Yahweh are one figure or two in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is a real argument, and DDD argues it both ways in two different articles. Its Elyon article reads the ki of verse 9 as asseverative ("Indeed, Yahweh's own portion was his people"), which makes the dividing and the portion-taking one act and Elyon an epithet for Yahweh. Parker's "Sons of (the) God(s)" article has Elyon as the old high god handing out the territories, with Yahweh receiving Israel at his hands. Verse 9 is where it is decided.
- Genesis 14:18-22
- Numbers 24:16
- Deuteronomy 32:8
- Psalm 82:6
- Daniel 7:25
- Deuteronomy 4:19-20
- Daniel 7:18,22,27
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- {"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\/divine-council-index\/daniel-7-9-14\/","n":"Daniel 7:9-14","s":"Thrones are set in place, plural, the court sits, and one like a son of man comes on the clouds.","r":"Daniel 7:9-14"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/genesis-14-18a\/","n":"Genesis 14:18a","s":"Melchizedek, priest of the most high God. A title shared with Canaanite religion, which Abraham treats as naming his own God.","r":"Genesis 14:18"}
- Heiser, "Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God," *Bibliotheca Sacra* 158
- DDD s.v. "Elyon," 293-298
- S. B. Parker, DDD s.v. "Sons of (the) God(s)," 794-799
- Heiser, *Unseen Realm*, ch. 14-15
