When we start to examine the Old Testament through ancient eyes, it begins to become apparent that the Israelites thought in terms of the divine council. As we saw in our last post, the information that we gain from other ANE documents provide us information with how the divine council was believed to function in the ancient world. Based on that information, we can understand the worldview of the Israelites more clearly.
With that being said, there are a few distinctions that need to be made. First, the Old Testament does indeed portray Yahweh as the only true God. There are no others, and He alone is the sole authority and has no need of council (Isaiah 40:14). Yet with that being said, there still exist in Scripture a divine council which surrounds Yahweh (we will talk about their function shortly).
Another distinction to note is that the members of this council are not made up of gods, but lesser beings. Unlike the Mesopotamian council, which was made up of the great gods, the Israelite council resembles more of that of the Ugarit, which was made up of lesser beings.
For the rest of this post, we are going to examine the scriptural evidence of the divine council, the members of the divine council, and the role of the divine council.
Psalm 29, 82, 89
“Ascribe to the LORD, O sons of God, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.”- Psalm 29:1
“God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment…I said, ‘You are gods, sons of the Most High…’”- Psalm 82:1,6
“Let the heavens praise your wonders, O LORD, your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones.”-Psalm 89:5”
Psalm 82 and 89 mention the divine assembly or council. In Psalm 82, Yahweh is pictured as taking His seat and calling the session into order, almost like a courtroom scene. Along with the mention of this divine assembly, there are two other phrases that solidify these verses as talking about the divine council.
Sons of God- This Hebrew phrase has parallels to the Ugaritic phrase “sons of El”, which was used to describe members of the divine council in the Ugaritic stories (other phrases in Ugarit that parallel are “assembly of El”, “council of El”). El was one of the higher ranked gods, whose name was taken and applied to Yahweh as a polemical statement to show that Yahweh is the one, true God (or El).
In the Hebrew Bible, the phrase “sons of God” (sons of Elohim; sons of El) refers to heavenly beings who are part of the divine council. Other than the Psalm passages, the phrase “sons of God” also appears in Genesis 6:2,4; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7’ ad Deuteronomy 32:8-9, and is used to refer to spiritual beings. Therefore what we see is that the mention of the divine assembly and the phrase “sons of God” point to some sort of divine council in Hebrew thought.
Holy ones- Psalm 89 mentions the assembly of the holy ones. The phrase holy ones is not talking about humans, but of spiritual beings. The phrase is used elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible to refer to divine beings (see Deut. 33:2-3; Job 5:1; 15:5; Zech 14:5; Dan. 4:17).
Therefore what we see from the Psalms is a clear picture that the divine council is made up of spiritual beings referred to as “sons of God” or “holy ones.”
The Book of Job
“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and the adversary also came among them.” – Job 1:6
This heavenly scene in the book of Job portrays God calling together those on the divine council to give a report. We also see that “the adversary” or “the accuser” or “the satan” is among those who report in for this divine council meeting (more on this when we get into our post on Satan). The indication here is that these beings are coming before the Lord for a meeting in which reports are given and decisions made.
The Book of Deuteronomy
“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.”- Duet. 32:8
English translations disagree on this verse. Some say “sons of Israel”, while others say “sons of God”. Why the difference? It has to do with the manuscripts. The Masoretic Text (MT) reads “sons of Israel”, while the Dead Sea Scrolls (older manuscripts) and the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) reads “sons of God”. To save you a long technical discussion on text criticism, in summary, the majority of scholars have concluded that the textual evidence favors the rendering “sons of God”.
So, what does this verse mean? Basically, it is refereeing to the division of the nations at the tower of Babel (Gen. 11) and the table of nations (Gen.10). Upon that division, God appointed “sons of Gods”- members of the divine council, to rule and govern those nations. As we will see later on, according to Psalm 82, some of these “sons of God” rebel and do not govern well, and are condemned for their disloyalty and corruption and sentenced to judgment.
1 Kings 22: The Role of the Divine Council
So far in our discussion, we have talked about the biblical evidence of the divine council, along with looking at who the members are- the sons of God. Now we will address the question, “what is their role?”
As seen in Deuteronomy and Psalm 82, one of their roles was to govern the nations that were appointed to them. Evidence for this is seen in the book of Daniel 10, where Michael, the “prince” or “ruler” of Israel engages in combat with the “prince” or “ruler” of Persia.
From the book of Job, we see that part of their responsibility was to gather before Yahweh and give report.
However, one of the most significant passages on how the divine council operates is found in 1 Kings 22. In this passage, the divine council appears in the vision of the prophet Micaiah. There is a discussion going on among the council about a strategy for dealing with wicked King Ahab. Finally, it is decided on that a spirit will be sent to deceive Ahab’s prophets.
Based on this passage on the others mentioned, it seems that both the role and concerns of the divine council is to uphold both the moral and legal order of all the societies in the world. They decide about victory and defeat in war, and decide the fates of kings and nations. Basically the role of the divine council is to shape the history of the world. They do this by adhering to the decision of Yahweh, and carrying out His commands.
It is also worth mentioning the structure of this divine council. In the Ugaritic portrayal, El and his wife Athirat are presented as inhabiting the top tier. Under them, in the second tier was their royal family, the sons of El. One particular member of the second tier, Baal, served as the co-regent of El. In the third tier there were the “craftsman deities”, and in the fourth tier, the “messengers”.
The Hebrews seemed to have had a three-tiered council. In the first tier was Yahweh. He alone is in that tier and none are His equal. The second tier consists of created beings (not gods) called the “sons of God”. It is interesting to note that these “sons of God” are never referred to as angels. In fact, it is the “angels” who inhabit the third tier and serve as messengers.
In closing, I would like to mention that this concept of the divine council has helped us have a better understanding of certain grammatical constructs in the Hebrew language. One of those being what is referred to as the “divine plural.” This is what we see in Genesis 1 and Isaiah 6 (Let us make man in our own image; who will go for us?) 1 Kings 22 provides us with the understanding that the “us” statements refer to a deliberation of the divine council, and is not a reference to the trinity (the Hebrews had no concept of the trinity then).
In our next post, we will examine the role and development of Satan.
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