http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/What%20is%20an%20Elohim.pdf

So What Exactly is an Elohim?

chapter excerpted from Mike’s first draft of his next book

To this point in our discussion, we’ve talked about the Bible’s divine council of gods

and angels, the unique God of Israel who directs that council, and the “second God” (the

“Son” deity figure) who is co-ruler of the council. If you’re tracking with me, you

know that I believe in the Trinity just like most of you who are reading this book. Way

back in the introduction I telegraphed that for you. And in the last chapter, which no

doubt came out of left field for practically every reader, I related how certain members

of the divine council are explicitly called gods in the inspired text, but that these gods

were inferior to Yahweh, the God of Israel, and His unique co-ruler, the Son.

I know how difficult it was for me to understand that some cherished notions about the

word G-O-D were actually misconceptions. One was an idea dealt with in the last

chapter, that the false gods of the Bible were only idols. Another notion that didn’t

conform to the reality of the text was that the word G-O-D is only a name, not just an

“ordinary” noun. Because I thought G-O-D was exclusively the name of a personal

being, and a unique being at that, I tended to assign the attributes of that being, Yahweh

of Israel, to the three letters G-O-D. When I came to realize that there were other G-OD-

S in a heavenly council, it seemed (and that’s an important word) as though Yahweh

was just one among equals. That bothered me.

In the last chapter I explained why this concern was imaginary. Yahweh is inherently

distinct and superior to all other gods. Yahweh is an elohim (a god), but no other

elohim (gods) are Yahweh. I’m not assuming that the last chapter answered all your

questions about the divine council, though. I’m betting that many of you are like I was

after first discovering what the inspired text really says—what the ancient worldview of

Israel really assumed. You still may be stuck on the idea that there can only be one

elohim since Yahweh is called elohim in so many places in the Bible. And if that’s not

Yahweh can be part of the class of elohim and still be “species unique” as I described in

the last chapter. That’s what we’re going to address here.

The second doubt is easily handled. On one level, it is no problem for Yahweh to share

attributes with inferior creatures he has created. After all, he does that with respect to

us. We mirror the creator in what theologians have often called “communicable”

attributes. Examples would be love, mercy, intelligence, and so forth. Those attributes

Yahweh alone possesses are often termed “incommunicable” attributes. Examples

would be omnipotence, self-existence, and omniscience. By definition only one being

can be all powerful (omnipotent). If that being’s power is matched by another, then he

wouldn’t truly be supreme in power. As the High God shares attributes with us as his

creatures, so lesser elohim may share some of his qualities.

The former concern is probably the one that most readers find more tricky: How can

Yahweh can be part of the class of elohim and still be “species unique”? Answering

this question is actually not difficult, but it requires two adjustments in your thinking:

only associate Yahweh; and (2) that the term refers only to a being’s proper plane of

existence. The second consideration is crucial, in that it is the key to sorting out how

various beings can be described as elohim and yet only one Yahweh exists.

I don’t have to tell you that sorting out this issue is important so as to coherently

distinguish Yahweh from the other elohim. But I’ve been holding back another reason

why it’s important. It may surprise you, but there are other beings in the Old Testament

that are called elohim besides Yahweh and the gods of the divine council. Demons and

the spirits of the human dead are also called elohim in the Hebrew text! Angels may

also be called elohim, depending on how one takes a text or two. If we don’t come to

grips with just what an elohim is, it can create a lot of confusion. We can’t very well

have God, the gods, demons, angels, and the spirits of dead people all interchangeable

with respect to their attributes! That just makes no sense—and highlights why

understanding the term elohim as denoting a certain plane of existence is so critical to

getting the Bible’s worldview and its theology right.

With Chapter 3 fresh in your mind, you’re familiar with the other plural elohim of

Yahweh’s council. No need to repeat that. So let’s move on to the other entities who

are referred to as elohim. In Deuteronomy 32, Moses is rehearsing how Israel sinned

during their wilderness trek by worshipping other gods. When we get to verse 17 we

gods (elohim) they had never known, new gods (lit., new ones) that had come along

recently, whom your fathers had not feared.” The important observation is that the

Israelites sacrificed to demons, and those recipients of the sacrifices are also called gods

(elohim).

In 1 Samuel 28:13 we see that spirits of the human dead are also called elohim. That

text occurs amid the story of Saul and the witch at Endor. The wider context (1 Samuel

28:3-18) reads:

him in Ramah, his own city. And Saul had put the mediums and the

encamped at Shunem. And Saul gathered all Israel, and they encamped at

medium, that I may go to her and inquire of her.” And his servants said

himself and put on other garments and went, he and two men with him.

And they came to the woman by night. And he said, “Divine for me by a

said to him, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off

the mediums and the necromancers from the land. Why then are you

Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice. And the woman said to Saul,

“Do not be afraid. What do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see

his appearance?” And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is

wrapped in a robe.” And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed

Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” Saul answered,

“I am in great distress, for the Philistines are warring against me, and

God has turned away from me and answers me no more, either by

prophets or by dreams. Therefore I have summoned you to tell me what I

will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.”

Traditional commentators have often tried to argue that the text doesn’t mean what it

clearly says. They want to have the woman lying to Saul. However, many scholars

recognize that this hardly explains the woman’s fear—when she sees Samuel, she

somehow knows it is Saul who stands before her. Nor does it do any good to say the

woman was faking the event. This would not explain Saul’s own conversation with

Samuel. If the woman was lying, how is it that Saul speaks to the spirit of Samuel?

There is evidently some entity present, because Saul bows down before it in homage.

The truth is that everything in this narrative conforms to ancient Near Eastern parallels

that refer to the spirits of human dead as divine beings (elohim), and that have such

spirits being able to cross over into the realm of the embodied living. In the literature of

the broader ancient Near East, there were a variety of terms for entities we would think

of as ghosts or spirits of the dead, some of which are found in the Old Testament. The

The word ob often speaks of a spirit, and a spirit of a departed human being. As today,

there was a conception in ancient Israel that even after people were put into the grave,

their spirit could come back and interact (for good or evil) with the living. In Isaiah

29:4, for example, Isaiah says, “and you shall be brought low; from the earth you shall

speak . . . your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost (ob)” (ESV).

People who could commune with the dead (with an ob) were condemned to death in the

Old Testament law (Lev. 20:27).

1 Samuel 28:7, most English translations have Saul asking something like “Find me a

woman who is a medium.” That translation is in the ballpark, but it misses something.

The Hebrew behind it more literally reads, “Find me a woman, a mistress of the ob.”

Specifically, 8, Saul asks (again more literally from the Hebrew), “Consult for me an

ob, and bring up for me whomever I shall name to you.” Saul specifically wanted a

direct line to the spirit of Samuel—and he got his wish. And the ob produced was also

called an elohim.

Before we leave this example, it is worth pointing out that the death penalty for

consulting a spirit of a human dead person was not issued because such consultations

didn’t work. Rather, there was a concern because they did. To commune with the

spirits of the human dead was a violation of one’s proper plane of existence. It was

trespassing into the forbidden realm of the “spirit world,” a world whose inhabitants

were put there by God. We tend to assume that when a human spirit goes to heaven or

hell they have no mobility, as it were. Out conception of the afterlife in that regard

doesn’t line up with the text.

I mentioned earlier that one of the reasons we can’t quite wrap our mind around the

“flexibility” of the word elohim is because we’re used to thinking of that term as

denoting a being who possesses unique, unshared attributes—the Elohim of Israel, as it

were. That just isn’t true. While it’s true that the word came to be used as a name for

the God of Israel, the term itself has no essence that must be equated with Yahweh. The

Old Testament passages above that have demons and spirits of the dead as elohim forbid

such an equation. This equation must be dispensed with. The word elohim more

broadly does not refer to “deity attributes.” Rather, it points to a plane of existence. An

elohim is simply a being whose proper habitation is the spirit world.

That definition needs some unpacking. By “spirit world,” I mean “that place inhabited

by beings who don’t by nature have physical bodies, or who have been separated from

physical bodies.” That doesn’t mean these beings cannot assume physical form. We’ve

already seen that angels and even Yahweh can do that (Gen 18) if they wish. The point

is that angels and Yahweh are not by nature physical beings—they are spirits (Psa.

104:4; Heb. 1:14; John 4:24). The same would go for the plural elohim in the heavenly

council, whether they are faithful to Yahweh or have rebelled against Yahweh

(demons).

This approach works with the human dead very well. By nature human beings are

physical beings into which God has placed an eternal spirit. When we die, our bodies

suffer physical decay and corruption, and our spirits go to the “spirit world” or

“afterlife,” which has its own sort of cosmic geography, described by terms like

“heaven” and “hell.” A prerequisite for residing in this realm is being disembodied,

since that plane of reality is designated as home for disembodied beings. At times,

disembodied spirits (like Samuel) are permitted to “pass over” to their old estate. At

other times, a human who has not died is allowed to glimpse the “other side”—for

example, Paul (2 Cor. 12:1-4) or Isaiah (Isa. 6).

But why refer to spiritual beings as elohim? The association is not difficult to

understand, actually. Since God is a spirit, and in fact the supreme spirit, and he is

“father of all spirits” (Heb. 12:9), then the realm of the spirits is “where God lives.”

The beings who belong to the spirit realm are therefore “divine.” The best word to

inhabitant of the spiritual plane of reality.

Angels may also be identified as elohim depending on whether there is a connection

between Genesis 35:7 and Genesis 32:1-2. In Gen. 35:7, the word “God” (in all English

translations) is elohim, but it is accompanied by a plural verb form, which may mean

we are to translate the word “gods.” If Gen 35:7 then has Jacob saying “the gods”

appeared to him when he was feeling from his brother, he has to be referring to Gen.

32:1-2, when “the angels of God” appeared to him at that time. We’ll be tackling this

issue in a later chapter, but for now it is safe to say that Angels are elohim anyway by

virtue of them being spirits (Heb. 1:14).

What all this means is that, although there are multiple beings in the spiritual plane of

reality who are called elohim, we are not required to assume that they are the same

when it comes to attributes. They are just “on the same playing field” without respect to

difference in kind.

In the future, the spiritual realm and the earthly realm are apparently merged (the eternal

state / new heaven and new earth), allowing a “heavenly” plane of reality to have

physicality (and vice versa). This seems to be foreshadowed in instances in the New

Testament where Jesus is taken to heaven bodily (he already possessed what Paul calls

the glorified body or the resurrection body; 1 Cor 15:39ff.) and the transfiguration,

where Peter, James, and John somehow recognized Moses and Elijah (Mark 9:1-4). It

was actually foreshadowed even earlier—but for that we need to go back to Genesis 1.

demons, no gods,” or “They sacrificed to demons that were no gods.” Both of these examples make it

sound like the demons are not gods, but the text says the opposite. The goal may also be to try and make

it seem as though gods are only idols. This translation allows this argument when juxtaposed with Deut

32:21. Hence it is a misguided attempt at “preserving monotheism” by the translator.

End of this article.

1

Dr. Michael S. Heiser

Academic Editor, Logos Bible Software, Bellingham, WA

The polytheistic nature of pre-exilic Israelite religion and Israel’s gradual

evolution toward monotheism are taken as axiomatic in current biblical scholarship. This

evolution, according to the consensus view, was achieved through the zealous

commitment of Israelite scribes who edited and reworked the Hebrew Bible to reflect

emerging monotheism and to compel the laity to embrace the idea. One specific feature

of Israelite religion offered as proof of this development is the divine council. Before the

exile, Israelite religion affirmed a council of gods which may or may not have been

headed by Yahweh. During and after the exile, the gods of the council became angels,

mere messengers of Yahweh, who by the end of the exilic period was conceived of as the

lone council head over the gods of all nations. Deuteronomy 32:8-9 and Psalm 82 are put

forth as rhetorical evidence of this redactional strategy and assumed religious evolution.

The argument is put forth that these texts suggest Yahweh was at one time a junior

member of the pantheon under El the Most High, but that he has now taken control as

king of the gods. Mark S. Smith’s comments are representative:

The author of Psalm 82 deposes the older theology, as Israel's deity is

called to assume a new role as judge of all the world. Yet at the same

time, Psalm 82, like Deut 32:8-9, preserves the outlines of the older

theology it is rejecting. From the perspective of this older theology,

Yahweh did not belong to the top tier of the pantheon. Instead, in early

2

Israel the god of Israel apparently belonged to the second tier of the

The focus of this paper concerns the position expressed by Parker and held by

many others: whether Yahweh and El are cast as separate deities in Psalm 82 and

Deuteronomy 32. This paper argues that this consensus view lacks coherence on several

points. Parker’s position is in part based on the idea that these passages presume Yahweh

and El are separate, in concert with an “older” polytheistic or henotheistic Israelite

religion, and that this older theology collapsed in the wake of a monotheistic innovation.

The reasoning is that, since it is presumed that such a religious evolution took place,

these texts evince some sort of transition to monotheism. The alleged transition is then

used in defense of the exegesis. As such, the security of the evolutionary presupposition

is where this analysis begins.

BACKDROP TO THE PROBLEM

In the spirit of going where angels—or perhaps gods in this case—fear to tread, in

my dissertation I asked whether this argumentation and the consensus view of Israelite

earliest conceptions well into the Common Era. This conception included the idea that

1 Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 49.

Literature” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004).

3

Yahweh was “species unique” in the Israelite mind, and so terms such as henotheism,

polytheism, and even monolatry are not sufficiently adequate to label the nature of

term in Israelite religion, denoting some quality or qualities that points to polytheism if

being properly belongs (for example, the “spirit world” versus the “corporeal world”).

For these reasons and others it is more fruitful to describe Israelite religion than seek to

define it with a single term.

Questioning the consensus on such matters requires some explanation, and so the

path toward consensus skepticism is briefly traced below via several examples where the

consensus view suffers in coherence. These examples demonstrate that the consensus

view has been elevated to the status of a presupposition brought to the biblical text that

produces circular reasoning in interpretation.

First, Deutero-Isaiah is hailed as the champion of intolerant monotheism, giving

us the first allegedly clear denials of the existence of other gods. And yet it is an easily

demonstrated fact that every phrase in Deutero-Isaiah that is taken to deny the existence

of other gods has an exact or near exact linguistic parallel in Deuteronomy 4 and 32—

two passages which every scholar of Israelite religion, at least to my knowledge, rightly

sees as affirming the existence of other gods. Deutero-Isaiah actually puts some of the

comparing Genesis 32:1-2 with the plural predication in Genesis 35:7) and 1 Samuel 28:13.

4

same denial phrasing into the mouth of personified Babylon in Isaiah 47:8, 10. Should

readers conclude that the author has Babylon denying the existence of other cities? Why

is it that the same phrases before Deutero-Isaiah speak of the incomparability of Yahweh,

but afterward communicate a denial that other gods exist?

Second, the rationale for the shift toward intolerant monotheism is supported by

appeal to the idea that since Yahweh was once a junior member of the pantheon, the

belief in his rulership over the other gods of the nations in a pantheon setting is a late

development. The consensus thinking argues that Yahweh assumes a new role as judge

over all the world and its gods as Israel emerges from the exile.

This assertion is in conflict with several enthronement psalms that date to well

before the exilic period. Psalm 29 is an instructive example. Some scholars date the

cosmology, the flood upon which Yahweh sat was situated over the solid dome that

covered the round, flat earth. Since it cannot coherently be asserted that the author would

assert that Gentile nations were not under the dome and flood, this verse clearly reflects

the idea of world kingship. And in Israelite cosmic geography, reflected in Deuteronomy

32:8-9 and 4:19-20, the nations and their gods were inseparable. The Song of Moses,

4 F. M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1973), 90-93. See also David Noel Freedman, “Who is Like Thee Among the Gods?” in Ancient

Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. Patrick D. Miller Jr., Paul D. Hanson, and S. Dean

McBride (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 317.

5

among the oldest poetry in the Hebrew Bible, echoes the thought. In Exodus 15:18 the

Cross noted over thirty years ago, “The kingship of the gods is a common theme in early

Mesopotamian and Canaanite epics. The common scholarly position that the concept of

Yahweh as reigning or king is a relatively late development in Israelite thought seems

Lastly, my own work on the divine council in Second Temple period Jewish

alone. Many of these instances are in the context of a heavenly council. If a divine

council of gods had ceased to exist in Israelite religion by the end of the exile, how does

one account for these references? The Qumran material and the way it is handled is

telling with respect to how hermeneutically entrenched the consensus view has become.

As all the scholarly studies on the divine council point out, in terms of council

attention to the Qumran material say that this deity vocabulary now refers to angels. For

example, Mark S. Smith asserts that later Israelite monotheism, as represented by Second

Isaiah, "reduced and modified the sense of divinity attached to angels" so that words like

5 F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975), 45, n.

59.

6 To my knowledge, all recent scholarly treatments of the material from Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible with respect to

the divine council distinguish these entities in the pantheon. For example, see E. Theodore Mullen, Jr., The Divine

Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature, Harvard Semitic Monographs, vol. 24 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press,

1980), 175-209; Lowell K. Handy, Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy

(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1994), 97-168; Smith, Origins, 41-53.

6

‘messengers,' or what we call 'angels', when it was not used to refer to Yahweh . . . these

But why must these terms refer to angels? Whence does this assurance emerge?

Why does the same vocabulary mean one thing before the exile but another after? A

tagged computer search of the Dead Sea Scrolls database reveals there are no lines from

In fact, there are only eleven instances in the entire Qumran corpus where these plural

Newsom, trying to account for the data, refer to these deities as “angelic elim,” a term

that is oxymoronic with respect to the tier members of the divine council.

It is difficult to discern what else guides such a conclusion other than the

preconception of a certain trajectory toward intolerant monotheism. Such reasoning

unfortunately assumes what it seeks to prove. The plural deity words in texts composed

after the exile cannot actually express a belief in a council of gods, because that would

result in henotheism or polytheism. Rather, the word must mean "angels," because that

7 Smith, Origins, 47-51.

8 Lowell K. Handy, “One Problem Involved in Translating to Meaning: An Example of Acknowledging Time and

Tradition,” SJOT 10:1 (1996): 19.

9 This statement reflects searches in The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library (CD-ROM), ed. Timothy H.

Lim in consultation with Philip S. Alexander (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997).

7

would not be henotheism or polytheism. The consensus reconstruction becomes the

guiding hermeneutic.

YAHWEH AND EL, OR YAHWEH-EL IN PSALM 82?

http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/

God (elohim) stands in the divine council;  in the midst of the gods (elohim) he passes judgment. Psalm 82:1 Mike's resume / CV

I said, "you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.
Therefore, you shall die as men do, as one of the princes you shall fall."
Psalm 82:6

Psalm 82:1 is a focal point for the view that the tiers of the divine council

collapsed in later Israelite religion:

אֱֽלֹהִ֗ים נִצָּ֥ב בַּעֲדַת־אֵ֑ל בְּ קֶ֖רב אֱלֹהִ֣ים יִשְׁפֹּֽט׃

God has taken his place in the divine council;

in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.

verses 1a, 8 refer (as usually in the Elohistic psalter) to Yahweh," and that "most scholars

assume that God, that is Yahweh, is presiding over the divine council," Yahweh is

presiding over an assembly of his sons. Yahweh, one of those sons, accuses the others of

injustice. His role is prosecutorial, not that of Judge. That role belongs to El. The fact

that Yahweh is standing, which means he is not the presiding deity, alerts us to Yahweh’s

inferior status.

Continuing with Parker’s interpretation of Psalm 82, the accusation that follows in

verses 2-5 is uttered by Yahweh, the prosecutorial figure:

2 עַד־מָתַ֥י תִּשְׁפְּטוּ־עָ֑וֶל וּפְֵנ֥י רְ֝שָׁעִ֗ים תִּשְׂאוּ־סֶֽלָה׃

10 Simon B. Parker, "The Beginning of the Reign of God – Psalm 82 as Myth and Liturgy," RB 102 (1995): 534-535.

11 Ibid., 536.

8

3 שִׁפְטוּ־דַ֥ל וְיָת֑וֹם עִָנ֖י וָרָ֣שׁ הַצְדִּֽיקוּ׃

5 ל֤אֹ יֽ דְע֨וּ׀ וְל֥אֹ יָבִ֗ינוּ בַּחֲשֵׁכָ֥ה יִתְהַלָּ֑כוּ יִ֝מּ֗וֹטוּ כָּל־מ֥וֹסְדֵי אָֽרֶץ׃

justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the

foundations of the earth are shaken.

These charges are immediately followed by the judicial sentencing, also

6 אֲֽנִי־אָ֭מַרְתִּי אֱלֹהִ֣ים אַתֶּ֑ם וּבְֵנ֖י עֶלְי֣וֹן כֻּלְּכֶֽם׃

7 אָ֭כֵן כְּאָדָ֣ם תְּמוּת֑וּן וּכְאַחַ֖ד הַשִָּׂר֣ים תִּפֹּֽלוּ׃

To this point, Yahweh issues the charge and pronounces the sentence. No

explanation is offered as to why, in the scene being created, the presumably seated El

does not pronounce the sentence. In this reconstruction of the psalm, El apparently has

no real function. He is supposed to be declaring the sentence, but the text does not have

him doing so.

At this juncture, Yahweh takes center stage again in the scene. Smith, whose

interpretation is similar to Parker’s, notes that, "[A] prophetic voice emerges in verse 8,

Here Yahweh in effect is asked to assume the job of all the gods to rule their nations in

12 Smith, Origins, 48; Parker, “The Beginning of the Reign of God,” 539-540.

13 Ibid., 48.

9

"the psalmist then balances this with an appeal to Yahweh to assume the governance of

8 קוּמָ֣ה אֱ֭לֹהִים שָׁפְטָ֣ה הָאָ֑רֶץ כִּֽי־אַתָּ֥ה תִ֝נְחַ֗ל בְּכָל־הַגּוִֹיֽם׃

Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!

Note Parker’s words in the preceding quotation closely. In Psalm 82:8 he has the

to assume governance of the world. This is considered the lynchpin to the argument that

there are two deities in this passage, but it appears in reality to be the unraveling of that

position. If the prophetic voice now pleads for Yahweh to rise up and become king of the

context of the psalm’s imagery, Yahweh had heretofore been seated. It is actually

Yahweh who is found in the posture of presiding, not El. El is in fact nowhere present in

82:8. If it is critical to pay close attention to posture in verse 1, then the same should be

done in verse 8. Doing so leads to the opposite conclusion for which Parker argues.

It is more coherent to have Yahweh as the head of the council in Psalm 82 and

performing all the roles in the divine court. The early part of the psalm places Yahweh in

the role of accuser; midway he sentences the guilty; finally, the psalmist wants Yahweh

to rise and act as the only one who can fix the mess described in the psalm.

This alternative is in agreement with early Israelite poetry (Psalm 29:10; Exodus

15:18) that has Yahweh ruling from his seat on the waters above the fixed dome that

covers all the nations of the earth and statements in Deuteronomy and First Isaiah that

14 Parker, “The Beginning of the Reign of God,” 546.

10

concert with equations of Yahweh and El in the pre-exilic Deuteronomistic material like

fits cohesively with the observation made by Smith elsewhere that the archaeological data

shows that Asherah came to be considered the consort of Yahweh by the eighth century

B.C.E. To quote Smith, “Asherah, having been a consort of El, would have become

that El and Yahweh would have been merged in the high God position in the pantheon by

the eighth century B.C.E., begging the question as to why, at least two centuries later,

there was a rhetorical need to draw attention to Yahweh as high sovereign.

YAHWEH AND EL, OR YAHWEH-EL IN DEUTERONOMY 32:8-9?

Ultimately, the notion that El and Yahweh are separate deities in Psalm 82 must

garner support from Deuteronomy 32:8-9, which most scholars see as pre-dating and

influencing Psalm 82. Deuteronomy 32:8-9 reads:

9 כִּ֛י חֵ֥לֶק יְהָוֹ֖ה עַמּ֑וֹ יַעֲקֹ֖ב חֶ֥בֶל נַחֲלָתֽוֹ׃

When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he

fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of [the sons of God]. But the

15See also Deuteronomy 3:24; 4:39; 7:9; 10:17; Joshua 22:22; Psalm 77:14; Isaiah 37:16.

16 Smith, Origins, 49.

17 Textual critics of the Hebrew Bible are unanimous in agreement that the Qumran material is superior to the

Qumran,” BASOR 136 (1954) 12-15; idem, “Qumran and the Present State of Old Testament Text Studies: The

Masoretic Text,” JBL 78 (1959) 21; Julie Duncan, “A Critical Edition of Deuteronomy Manuscripts from Qumran,

Cave IV. 4QDt b, 4QDt e, 4QDt h, 4QDt j, 4QDt b, 4QDt k, 4QDtl,” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1989); Emanuel

Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 269; Eugene Ulrich et al., eds.,

(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 514-518.

11

an older polytheistic theology where El and Yahweh were separate deities is stated

concisely by Smith:

The texts of the LXX and the Dead Sea Scrolls show Israelite polytheism

which focuses on the central importance of Yahweh for Israel within the

larger scheme of the world; yet this larger scheme provides a place for the

other gods of the other nations in the world. Moreover, even if this text is

mute about the god who presides over the divine assembly, it does maintain a

place for such a god who is not Yahweh. Of course, later tradition would

identify the figure of Elyon with Yahweh, just as many scholars have done.

However, the title of Elyon ("Most High") seems to denote the figure of El,

That the text of LXX and the Dead Sea Scrolls is superior to MT in Deuteronomy

32:8-9 is not in dispute. At issue is the notion that the title Elyon in verse 8 must refer to

El rather than to Yahweh of verse 9. There are several reasons why separating Yahweh

and El here does not appear sound.

First, the literary form of Deuteronomy 32 argues against the idea that Yahweh is

not the Most High in the passage. It has long been recognized that a form-critical

pattern. An indictment (32:15-18) is issued against Yahweh's elect people, Israel, who

had abandoned their true Rock (32:5-6; identified as Yahweh in 32:3) and turned to the

18 Smith, Origins, 48-49.

12

worship of the other gods who were under Yahweh’s authority. The judge—Yahweh in

with Psalm 82, the straightforward understanding of the text is that Yahweh is presiding

over the lawsuit procedures and heavenly court.

Second, the separation of El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 in part depends

lacks consensus, conclusions based on the adversative syntactical choice are not secure.

19 Ibid., 33-53.

and the Gods in Assembly,” Hebrew Union College Annual 40 (1969): 132, n. 28.

L. Christensen, Deuteronomy 21:10-34:12, Word Biblical Commentary 6B (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers,

2002), 791 (n. 9a-a), 796.

22 Paul Sanders, The Provenance of Deuteronomy 32, Oudtestamentiche Studien 37 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1996), 159-

160, 363-374, esp. 373.

23 M. C. A. Korpel, A Rift in the Clouds: Ugaritic and Hebrew Descriptions of the Divine (Münster: Ugarit Verlag,

1990), 276; N. Wyatt, "Titles of the Ugaritic Storm-God," Ugarit Forschungen 24 (1992): 419; E. E. Elnes and Patrick

D. Miller, "Elyon," in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd rev. ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill / Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1999), 294. Hereafter, DDD.

24 See KTU 1.16:III.6, 8; Wyatt, "Ugaritic Storm-God," 419.

13

Deuteronomy 32:8-9. Due to the well-established attribution of Baal epithets to Yahweh,

century B.C.E. due to the transferal of Asherah to Yahweh as consort, then a Yahweh-El

fusion had occurred before Deuteronomy was composed. Hence it would have been

natural for the author of Deuteronomy to have Yahweh as the head of the divine council.

Indeed, what point would the Deuteronomic author have had in mind to bring back a

Yahweh-El separation that had been rejected two hundred years prior?

aware of this, but attribute it to "later tradition," contending that, in Deuteronomy 32:8-9

the title of Elyon should be associated with El distinct from Yahweh. Again, this would

be most curious if Yahweh and El had been fused as early as the eighth century. In this

regard, it is interesting that other texts as early as the eighth century speak of Yahweh

appears that the presupposition of an early Yahweh and El separation requires the exegete

to argue for “a later tradition” at this point.

Fifth, separating El and Yahweh in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is internally inconsistent

within Deuteronomy 32 and Deuteronomy at large. This assertion is demonstrated by the

25 E. E. Elnes and Patrick D. Miller, "Elyon," DDD, 296.

26 J. Luyten, “Primeval and Eschatological Overtones in the Song of Moses (Dt 32, 1-43),” in Das Deuteronomium:

Entstehung, Gestalt, und Botschaft, ed. Norbert Lohfink (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1985), 342.

14

two preceding verses, Deuteronomy 32:6-7. Those two verses attribute no less than five

well-recognized El epithets to Yahweh, demonstrating that the redactors who fashioned

Deuteronomy recognized the union of El with Yahweh, as one would expect at this point

6 הֲ־לַיְהוָה֙ תִּגְמְלוּ־ז֔אֹת עַ֥ם נָבָ֖ל וְל֣אֹ חָכָ֑ם הֲלוֹא־הוּא֙ אָבִ֣יךָ קָּנֶ֔ךָ ה֥וּא עָֽשְׂךָ֖

וַֽ יְכֹנְנֶֽ ךָ׃

7 זְכֹר֙ יְמ֣וֹת עוֹלָ֔ם בִּ֖ינוּ שְׁנ֣וֹת דּוֹר־וָד֑וֹר שְׁאַ֤ל אָבִ֙יךָ֙ וְיַגֵּ֔דְךָ זְקֵֶנ֖יךָ וְי֥אֹמְרוּ לָֽךְ׃

consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your

elders, and they will tell you.

These verses clearly contain elements drawn from ancient descriptions of El and

27 Sanders, The Provenance of Deuteronomy 32, 360-361.

28 KTU 1.14:I.37, 43.

29 KTU 1.3:V.35-36; 1.4:I.4-6.

30 H. Donner and W. Rollig, Kanaanaische und Aramaische Inschriften, 4th ed., Band 1 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz,

1979). The text cited is KAI 26.III.18-19.

31 KTU 1.3:V.9.

32 KTU 1.10:III.5.

15

Since the El epithets of Deuteronomy 32:6-7 are well known to scholars of

Israelite religion, those who argue that Yahweh and El are separate deities in

Deuteronomy 32:8-9 are left to explain why the redactor of verses 6-7 would unite

Yahweh and El and in the next stroke separate them. Those who crafted the text of

Deuteronomy 32 would have either expressed diametrically oppositional views of

Yahweh’s status in consecutive verses, or have allowed a presumed original separation of

Yahweh and El to stand in the text—while adding verses 6-7 in which the names describe

a single deity. It is difficult to believe that the scribes were this careless, unskilled, or

confused. If they were at all motivated by an intolerant monotheism one would expect

this potential confusion to have been quickly removed.

Last, but not least in importance, the idea of Yahweh receiving Israel as his

allotted nation from his Father El is internally inconsistent in Deuteronomy. In

Deuteronomy 4:19-20, a passage recognized by all who comment on these issues as an

Deuteronomy 9:26, 29; 29:25). Neither the verb forms nor the ideas are passive. Israel

was not given to Yahweh by El, which is the picture that scholars who separate El and

Yahweh in Deuteronomy 32 want to fashion. In view of the close relationship of

33 M. Dahood, Ras Shamra Parallels, ed. L.R. Fisher, Analecta Orientalia 49, vol. I (Rome: Pontifical Institute, 1972),

294-295.

34 KTU 1.6:I.36; 1.17:VI.49.

16

Deuteronomy 32:8-9 to Deuteronomy 4:19-20, it is more consistent to have Yahweh

taking Israel for his own terrestrial allotment by sovereign act as Lord of the council.

CONCLUSION

The goal of this article was to critique the coherence of what have become

broadly accepted interpretations of Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32:8-9. These

interpretations and the argument for the evolution of Israelite religion that presupposes

those interpretations have a number of incongruities for which to account. The issues are

important in the effort to describe Israelite religion’s view of God at all stages.

end of this article.