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.
The morning stars
Stars that sing at the creation of the world, set in parallel with the sons of God.
Job 38:7, in every translation this tool compares.
Hebrew poetry says a thing twice, the second time in different words. Job pairs the morning stars singing with all the sons of God shouting, which puts the two in one category rather than putting one of them in the sky. They are cheering while the earth is being founded, so they were already there.
Set in parallel with "all the sons of God," and Hebrew poetry puts equivalents in the B-line, so the morning stars are a class of being and not lights. They shout at the founding of the earth, so they predate it. Lelli's entry on Stars reads the joy of the stars there alongside Job 15:15's "he does not trust his holy ones" and Job 25:5, where even the moon and stars are unclean in God's eyes. All three assume a divine entourage that is subordinate to Yahweh and corruptible before him, with the stars as its visible members.
11QTargum of Job renders Job 38:7 as "when the morning stars shone together and all the angels of God shouted together," replacing the parallel bene elohim clause with "angels" outright. It is the earliest datable Jewish reading of the verse, and it already takes the morning stars as divine beings while quietly closing off any polytheistic reading of the older Hebrew.
- Job 38:7
- Job 15:15
- Job 25:5
- F. Lelli, DDD s.v. "Stars," 810-814 (DDD has no "Morning Star" headword
- Job 38:7 is handled here)
