Wrath and the gods: Deut. 32 and the Mirror of Judgment - Episode 127

Welcome to Genesis Marks, the spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel and I hope that you have been enjoying the last few episodes where once again, I've accidentally dropped myself into a whole series, and actually now we're into some splinter series with what I'm talking about.

[00:00:33] Last week when laying out the cup of wrath imagery, I said we would be getting into the idea of judgment on the gods of the nations. And of course, here we are talking about the Deuteronomy 32 worldview. There's a lot more information than some would suppose on this, and ultimately to talk about the dismantling of the powers, we'd need to get into the work of Jesus. But that is a long thread to trace. So we're not gonna try to get into all of that today or even necessarily soon.

[00:01:08] But it's an important thing to tackle. As much as most Christians have a simplistic view on this, there's actually so much to be said about it. So let's start this thread. And I thought I would get into it in a little bit of a different way today, because often we turn directly to Psalm 82 and all of that, and some people new to the Divine Council worldview or the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, think, "Oh, you're basing doctrine off of a psalm and you can't do that!"

[00:01:42] Now, of course, if you are genuinely familiar with the idea, that is not what is happening, nor is it true that the start to the Deuteronomy 32 worldview just hinges on a single verse in that chapter. And not only a single verse, but a single verse that has multiple manuscript traditions to it.

[00:02:03] It's actually far more prevalent in this chapter. So I thought I would lay out some things directly stemming from Deuteronomy 32. And yes, this is going to look into the wrath of judgment. The whole song of Moses here in this chapter is just packed full of this context.

[00:02:24] Today we'll be talking about the context of scripture in its presentation of the heaven and earthly realms, and how that deeply embedded view is why we have something called the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, or the Divine Council worldview, if you prefer.

[00:02:40] And just because there's some labels there doesn't mean that this is a novelty belief. The reason that we have labels is because in some areas of Christianity, not all of them, but some, this concept of heaven and earth being married is simply no longer a view that we have. So today we will be talking about the mirroring of heaven and earth, and I'll try to keep that to a minimum, to give some space to our main topic of looking at Deuteronomy 32 itself, including how that passage is connected to an exorcism Psalm and how I believe that helps shine some light on the concept of wrath.

[00:03:25] Now, just a warning, I will be disagreeing with some of the things that Dr. Heiser has said here, specifically the idea of whether or not the gods were rebellious when God assigned to them to the nations. I used to fully be on board with Dr. Heiser's presentation and opinion on that, but the more I study, the more I disagree. And of course, there's nothing wrong with disagreement, and I really wish that he was still here to bring this up as I think he would find some of these thoughts interesting.

[00:03:59] Now, first of all, we need to disabuse ourselves of the false idea that the Bible is presenting anything other than a reality of good and bad heavenly power.

[00:04:12] And no matter what you personally feel about that doesn't really matter for this discussion because we need to know what the ancient person felt and thought. Part of what we'll discuss today is connected to polemics and de mythologizing, but we need to keep in mind that any de mythologizing is not done to suggest that these spiritual powers don't exist, but rather that they have nothing on Yahweh. They're not true rivals to Yahweh, and that even when they do their thing as rebellious deities, they are still under the will of Yahweh.

[00:04:51] The very fact that the Bible presents false worship as such a big deal means that people were turning to false gods and they wouldn't do that if they didn't think those false gods were real. So at least for the moment, we can set aside a modernist discussion on metaphysical reality, because what we're doing is entering that world and mindset.

[00:05:17] Now, a side note for those interested. Because this does tie into the work of the Messiah, I do think we need to presume a reality here because Jesus didn't come to defeat forces that don't exist. Soon I will be getting into some of Dr. Walton's content. And we'll talk a lot more about that kind of thing.

[00:05:38] But suffice to say for today, I don't care either way, if you take a metaphysical view of the spiritual realm or not. But it is essential to see that the Bible is presenting a reality that is a genuine threat, not a threat to Yahweh, but a threat to the people. And so that way that the Bible is presenting that threat is not just to say, don't worry guys, these things don't exist.

[00:06:07] Now, I do have a recent blog post in case you're also interested in more on that topic where I review a book from Thomas Judge called Other Gods and Idols: The Relationship Between the Worship of Other Gods and the Worship of Idols within the Old Testament. And I can try to remember to link that blog post to this episode.

[00:06:30] I will be doing some further divine counsel aligned blog posts. So check out my website or sign up for my newsletter to get those links. And please if you've got any questions you'd like to see me address in all of this, you can let me know through my site or on Facebook.

[00:06:48] Okay, so the very presumption of God's judgment is that it will fall on whatever creatures have some sort of responsibility where they might fail. And God being the ultimate judge, presumes that he will preside over a judgment and that his authority over all means that any spiritual being will be judged just like any human will be.

[00:07:13] And I'm sorry, but it remains a bit mind boggling to me to see so many critics of the Divine Council worldview say things that suggests that Psalm 82 can't be about God judging the gods. I don't understand that because shouldn't we see that the rebellious divine beings are judged accordingly?

[00:07:35] But anyway, let's talk for a moment about cosmic geography and assigned governance. Now, the way we should be looking at this is from that ancient Near Eastern backdrop of gods as regional administrators and kings as divine mirrors of those deities.

[00:07:58] In order to make the kind of arguments that gods can't be judged for not keeping justice, you almost have to discount the idea of the mirroring of heaven and earth, which is of course a common topic that we get to here in this podcast, and a common way of viewing the cosmos to the ancient person.

[00:08:18] So I just wanted to touch on a few ways that we do see that in Scripture. It is so embedded into their thinking that we have to see it for what it is when it shows up.

[00:08:29] The problem is that today many people have divorced the natural from the supernatural. And honestly, that's a bit ironic. Actually it's really true that not everyone who divorces the supernatural from the natural even necessarily rejects a supernatural reality. For many Christians, God can do supernatural things, but only God can.

[00:08:58] And this is as opposed to the people of the past who actually had trouble in an opposite way. They had trouble understanding that God was powerful enough to deliver on his promises. And so they did things like synchronistic worship, where they worshiped Yahweh as well as other deities so that they could hedge their bets.

[00:09:22] Well, the message of the Bible is against those gods and to the idea that God himself is the faithful covenantal partner who will see his promises fulfilled.

[00:09:36] Now, we could think in terms of like what is a miracle, right? The way that we think of miracles in a post-enlightenment world is that we have God reaching into creation to do something that he wouldn't do otherwise. Now it is true that God does perform extraordinary work from time to time that goes beyond the expected. And that is kind of like God reaching into creation to do something special.

[00:10:05] But Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary says, it is, quote, " impossible to grasp the essence of the biblical miracle by viewing it simply as a violation of the rules of natural order, since the concept of nature and natural laws is foreign to the religious literature of the Bible. Instead of this concept, the Bible speaks rather of the creation.

[00:10:31] " Philo of Alexandria sees the creation as the miracle par excellence. These extraordinary and seemingly incredible events are but child's play to God in comparison with that which is really great and worthy of contemplation: the creation." End quote.

[00:10:52] In addition, not all miracles even disturb the order of creation. When events appear to take place at just the right moment, like when a person or an object appears on the scene at just the right instant, that is also a miracle. We can think of Hagar seeing the well of water in Genesis 21. Now, that could be God opening her eyes in a miraculous way, but that is not by necessity, some breaking of the laws of nature.

[00:11:23] We have Saul's journey for the lost donkeys. We have Abraham seeing the ram in the thicket in Genesis 22. We have Moses being seen by Pharaoh's daughter or coming by the well in Midian.

[00:11:38] So again, according to the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, quote, " The definition of miracle in the Bible then is a literary definition. An extraordinary occurrence attributable to God's hand, which at times disrupts the order of creation and which leaves a marked impression in the text. The criteria for determining what is to be considered a miracle are literary in character." End quote.

[00:12:07] Now of course, we also have magic in the Bible. We have pagans who are worshiping other gods, who also perform what seem to be miracles. Like the court magicians who failed to solve Pharaoh's dreams in Genesis 41. They wouldn't be there if they weren't sometimes successful. We have Nebuchadnezzar's wise men who don't interpret his dream in contrast to Daniel's success. Again, that's not because they couldn't ever do anything, but rather it is a polemic to show that the other gods have no power in comparison to Yahweh.

[00:12:48] When we're talking about the mirroring of heaven and earth, a really good way to see that is in the tabernacle as a copy of the heavenly tabernacle. I won't go into these passages, but you can look at Hebrews eight and Hebrews nine, in contrast to Exodus 25 verses eight through nine, which show that there is a heavenly tabernacle and an earthly tabernacle.

[00:13:14] Of course, we have the image of God where we are literally the image of God. And for pagan nations, it was the king who was the sole image of the deity, which means that the king was the representative of the deity on earth.

[00:13:31] Then we can look at creation and origin stories. There is a definite difference in the Bible from pagan portrayals of deities and their creation, but the logic of the natural world connecting to the heavens remains in the Bible.

[00:13:48] I've talked a lot about creation stories, so I won't go any more into that, but what about the judges being called elohim? This is a really big point that gets hit on by Heiser critics quite frequently when they want to claim that the Hebrew word elohim can in fact refer to people. Now, I won't get too deep into this, and if you're not familiar with these arguments and claims, don't worry too much about it, but I know a lot of you are.

[00:14:19] And so I would say that the mirroring concept is crucial to understanding the idea that the judges of Israel are associated with the term elohim. I won't say that they're called elohim because I don't think they are. The word elohim is still referring to God in these passages because the judges are the representatives of God.

[00:14:45] And yes, they are acting as God's earthly counterparts, but they're not being called elohim. The referent is still to God. I mean, what's going on in the context of the judges judging the people? Well, they're supposed to do that rightly, and the only way to do that is to give a judgment that aligns with God's will, and it's like you are really being judged by God even though the judge is right in front of you.

[00:15:15] And honestly, this should be a no-brainer and it should be a no-brainer especially for someone who wants to say that only God judges. I mean, I don't think this also means that God's agents don't have true participation in that judgment, but nonetheless, the judgment given is supposed to be the judgment of God.

[00:15:37] Alright, I could go on and on and do a whole slew of episodes on this topic, but let's leave this part of the episode by looking at Isaiah 24 versus 21 through 23. This shows the mirroring of gods and kings on earth.

[00:15:54] Isaiah 24, verses 21 through 23, say quote, " And this shall happen on that day, Yahweh will punish the host of heaven in heaven and the kings of the earth on the earth, and they will be gathered in a gathering like a prisoner in a pit, and they'll be shut in a prison and be punished after many days. And the full moon will be ashamed and the sun will be ashamed, for Yahweh of hosts will rule on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before his elders in glory." End quote.

[00:16:28] So that is a really crystal clear representation of the heavens and the earth.

[00:16:35] Now let's look into the chapter of Deuteronomy 32. I would like to go through this whole chapter, but I don't know how far we will get, but I think we'll get far enough to make my point.

[00:16:47] This is of course called The Song of Moses, and it's an interesting part of the text and it has some special treatment by the scribes as we see in ancient manuscripts. In the Lenin grad Codex, for instance, it goes from copying the text in three columns to giving this song two columns. Part of that is to emphasize the text, but also part of it seems to be to give it a proper line order, and there's a lot of numerology related to this as well that we can't possibly get into here.

[00:17:23] But as we look at Deuteronomy 32 and the Song of Moses, the focus of attention is on the contrast between Israel's disloyalty to the covenant and God's loyalty to Israel.

[00:17:37] And there is very much an intersection of heaven and earth in this Psalm. God's wrath is not just against Israel's disobedience, but it's against her enemies who are the nations, but also their deities. So what we see is a representation of wrath against spiritual powers that failed their stewardship and received false worship.

[00:18:03] The center of the song is in verses 26 through 29, and I'll read that section right here. Quote, "I thought, I will wipe them out. I will make people forget they ever existed. If I had not feared a provocation of the enemy, lest their foes might misunderstand. Lest they should say, Our hand is triumphant and Yahweh did not do all this. For they are a nation void of sense and there is not any understanding in them. If only they were wise, they would understand this. They would discern for themselves their end." End quote.

[00:18:44] And there is so much packed into these little verses here. At the end, who is the reference for "they"? If only they were wise. Is that referring to Israel or the nations or what?

[00:19:00] And probably it is both because the center here has a shift in focus. The first part of the song is very much about God's decision to punish Israel. But then the second part of the song is about God's decision to punish Israel's enemies. And that is in spite of the fact that Israel still does not have proper discernment.

[00:19:27] Another interesting point about this section here is that there's an indication that they don't see. They don't discern. And we see that kind of language elsewhere in the prophets for idols and makers of idols, right? They become like what they worship.

[00:19:47] So again, what we have in this song as a whole is God's faithfulness, Israel's disloyalty, God decides to punish Israel. Then in the middle we have God's mercy, Israel's lack of discernment, and God will then punish Israel's enemies and God is loyal and will deliver Israel.

[00:20:09] So again, who are those enemies? Well, it's clearly the nations, but it's also clearly their gods, and we will see that as we go through the language.

[00:20:20] Why does it matter who the enemies are in the immediate ancient context? Well, that matters because a logical presumption by the people of the time would suggest that if Israel was defeated, then that means Yahweh was defeated and that the enemy deity would have defeated Yahweh.

[00:20:41] But that is not what we have in the text. Deuteronomy 32 is saying that it is Yahweh who gave the people up to be defeated, and it is only Yahweh in mind whose wrath is being poured out. No other deity.

[00:20:58] Why does it matter who the enemies are according to our modern questions? Well, because punishing Israel's nations is punishing the gods associated with them.

[00:21:10] And also, we just have the general idea that the nations think they have the upper hand in conquering God's people, and it turns out that, whoops, their very act of humbling the nation of Israel is actually their undoing.

[00:21:26] Now, I wish we had enough time to get really into the nitty gritty nature of this song. There's so much really cool stuff about it, but there's several different sections here. The first one we can look at is versus one through 14, and verses one through six have an opening indictment.

[00:21:46] Deuteronomy 32, 1 through four says, quote, " Give ear O heavens and I will speak and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching trickle like the dew, my words like rain showers on tender grass and like spring showers on new growth, for I will proclaim the name of Yahweh! Ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect. For all His ways are just. He is a faithful God and without injustice, righteous and upright is he." End quote.

[00:22:27] Okay. I'm going to stop there for a moment and I will be using Word Biblical Commentary for a lot of what I am going to bring out about this passage.

[00:22:37] Some scholars have said that the Hebrew word rock corresponds to the Ugaritic word for mountain and is one of Canaanite god Baal's appellations. So here we are already. This is also the first time we have the word rock used for God. We probably all know that this is a familiar metaphor and that it can refer to God's unchangeable power, his faithfulness and his love. God is a source of refuge.

[00:23:13] And it's very interesting that this might be a hit against Baal, saying, no, no, no, you are not the rock. You are not the mountain. God truly is.

[00:23:24] When we come to these words, righteous and upright at the end of verse four, is that talking about being morally good?

[00:23:33] Well Word Biblical Commentary says, quote, "Tigay calls attention to the fact that derivatives from the root tsadek in Aramaic are used of loyalty and devotion to an ally. And in Arabic, they often have the nuance of true and loyal friendship for fulfilling a covenant with God. The term upright conveys a similar meaning, that of unswervingly trustworthy or reliable." End quote.

[00:24:05] So this isn't just saying that God is morally good, but rather that he is truly faithful.

[00:24:12] Moving on to verse five, it says, quote, " They have behaved corruptly toward him. They are not his children. This is their flaw. A generation crooked and perverse." End quote.

[00:24:27] The Hebrew here is quite difficult because it is very short and very poetic. So here in the Lexham English Bible, it's translated as if the referent is the people. The people have behaved corruptly toward God. And that's not a bad translation, but it's adding in some more words because those words aren't there in Hebrew.

[00:24:52] The JPS translation says, quote, " Is corruption his? No, his children's is the blemish. A generation crooked and perverse." End quote.

[00:25:08] So this is like a courtroom scene where the question is, is Yahweh corrupt? And the answer is no. His children are the problem. His children have the flaws.

[00:25:24] Word Biblical Commentary says, quote, "The interrogation was put by the king's messenger who transmitted the accusation. The same person made the opening appeal to the heavens and the earth and recalled the past benefits of the Great King. The parallel is very close in these verses where Yahweh is king, and Moses is his messenger." End quote.

[00:25:49] Oh, I also wanna point out that in the first part of the song where he mentions the heavens and the earth, we're bringing up the idea of creation, which is also a major theme of this because God has created the nation of Israel.

[00:26:05] Moving on to verse six, it says, quote, " Like this, do you treat Yahweh, foolish and unwise people? Has he not, your father, created you? He made you and he established you." End quote.

[00:26:22] Okay, now we're gonna get into the section here where we have the allotment of the nations. I'm going to read verses seven to nine, which say, quote, "Remember the old days, the years long past? Ask your father and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High apportion to the nations, at his dividing up of the sons of humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. For Yahweh's portion was his people. Jacob, the share of his inheritance." End quote.

[00:27:01] Now of course you might be familiar with this. And that there are textual variants. There are manuscripts that say Sons of God or angels, and there are manuscripts that say Sons of Israel. Now, part of what I would argue is that this is six of one and half a dozen of the other by the time of the first century, because they were thinking in terms of that mirroring of heaven and earth.

[00:27:29] And if the Sons of Israel is the judges or the Sanhedrin, well then they are to mirror the heavenly counsel. So this isn't necessarily a sign of the people changing the text in order to get away from the gods, but rather the people changing the text to show that, hey, we are the reflection of that divine counsel.

[00:27:56] But that being said, what we have here is the older version of the text says Sons of God. Okay, so if you're familiar with the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, you already know a lot about these verses, and I'm not really going to spend a whole lot of time here. Interestingly, Word Biblical Commentary says that the term here for Yahweh's portion is his rope allotment. Which is based on the practice of measuring land allotments by rope, which that's quite interesting.

[00:28:32] Okay, so previous to these verses, we have Yahweh being faithful. We have the creation account in mind, and these two things are married together, right? Like Yahweh's ability to create is associated with Yahweh's faithfulness. And he has created the people of Israel, which means that he will be faithful to them even though what we see next is not going to bode very well.

[00:29:01] Starting in verse 10, it says, quote. "He found him in a desert land and in a howling desert wasteland. He encircled him. He cared for him. He protected him like the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreads out its wings, takes them, carries them on its pinions, so Yahweh alone guided him and there was no foreign God accompanying him." End quote.

[00:29:34] Stop there for a moment. Verses 10 and 11 are the center of this first cycle in the song. So we have God finding them in the desert land. Well, wait, doesn't it just say that God created them? Well, yes. This is in reference to probably multiple things. We have Sinai, which is in the desert.

[00:29:59] But also as Word Biblical Commentary, says, quote, " The word wilderness took on a special meaning in subsequent biblical tradition as the wilderness of Judah's bordering on the Dead Sea in the vicinity of Jericho, the end point of the wilderness wandering and the site of the encampment of Israel in the region of the Jordan Valley north of Moab, which can be seen from the top of Pisgah and Peor." End quote.

[00:30:30] So we should be thinking Sinai, but we should also be thinking the end of their wilderness wanderings when they're entering the land.

[00:30:40] Now this imagery of the eagle. I really like what Word Biblical commentary says here, so I'm going to read it. Quote, " The imagery of an eagle teaching its young to fly, catching them on its wings when they tire, appears also in Exodus 19 four, GR Driver has given us two useful illustrations in addition to the earlier observations of SR Driver of what is meant.

[00:31:08] " The instance recorded by AC Bent merits quotation, ' The mother started from the nest in the crags and roughly handling the youngster, she allowed him to drop, I should say, about 90 feet. Then she would swoop down under him, wing and he would alight on her back. She would soar to the top of the range with him and repeat the process. Once perhaps she waited 15 minutes between flights. I should say the farthest she let him fall was 150 feet. My father and I watched him, spellbound, for over an hour." End quote.

[00:31:49] All right, so continuing on with Deuteronomy 32. Let's read verse 12 again and move on into verse 13. Quote, " So Yahweh alone guided him and there was no foreign God accompanying him. And he set him on the high places of the land and he fed him from the crops of the field, and he nursed him with honey from crags and with oil from flinty rock." End quote.

[00:32:17] Okay, so we have Yahweh versus foreign gods. We have the mentioning of high places in the land, and as I've recently been talking about food, here we have honey and oil, and those are not covenantal by necessity. Well, oil can be, but honey really isn't. Honey is the idea of nourishment and plentitude, and yet the honey is coming from crags and oil from flinty rock. That's probably calling up this mountainy image. And God being the rock and the high places of the land. All of that, bringing into the idea that the high places of the land where the other gods would be worshiped? Those don't belong to the other gods. They belong to Yahweh. And Yahweh is setting the people there.

[00:33:14] An interesting point from Word Biblical Commentary, quote, " GE Wright translates the text as, ' He made him ride on the back of Ars, where Ars was taken as another name for the God Mot, or death." End quote.

[00:33:34] And so the idea of being nourished from rocky places is a picture of deliverance from death.

[00:33:43] Verse 14 goes on to take the idea of nourishment even further, quote, "With curds from the herd and with milk from the flock, with the fat of young rams, and rams, the offspring of Bashan, and with goats, along with the finest kernels of wheat, and from the blood of grapes you drink fermented wine." End quote.

[00:34:09] Okay, so here we have our picture of the abundant land. God providing them milk, curds, fat of young rams, and in some biblical texts we have the kidney in view here, which that has been changed in other texts and in translations because people weren't supposed to eat the kidney since that was supposed to belong to God. And we have God nourishing the people on the kidneys here, and I don't think that we should take that as being against the idea of the Levitical sacrifices and what they say about it, but rather a picture of, look, I am giving you even that which I am owed and which I eat.

[00:34:55] Of course, if you are familiar with the context of Bashan and Scripture, that should be lighting up areas in your brain.

[00:35:03] Now, I do think this is probably referencing the idea that rams from Bashan were of high quality, but this probably is that double layer of meaning with a knock against the gods of Bashan and how God is feeding the people on those rams from Bashan. There is so much imagery there that we could talk about.

[00:35:27] Oh, also another point. It says, kernels of wheat here in my translation, but it literally means fat of kidneys of wheat. So clearly that's an idiom as the best part or the best wheat . But again, calling back to earlier in the verse, this is a picture of amazing abundance and provision that God is giving.

[00:35:52] And even though the wine mentioned is probably the cup of joy that I've been talking about, bringing out the point of fermentation is probably also a warning of what should come.

[00:36:05] Moving into the second cycle of Moses's song, which goes from verse 15 to 29, here we have Israel's sin provoking God's anger. So we have a shift from God's blessing to Israel's sin.

[00:36:21] The center in this section is verse 16, which says, quote, " They made him jealous with strange gods. With abominations they provoked him to anger." End quote.

[00:36:34] This is framed by the idea of Israel turning to other gods and forsaking the true God.

[00:36:42] Verse 15 says, quote, " And Jerushrum grew fat and he kicked. You grew fat, you bloated, and you became obstinate. And he abandoned God, his maker, and he scoffed at the rock of his salvation." End quote.

[00:37:00] Now, the referent for Jerushrun here is likely like a pet name or a shortened name or some sort of reference that has some sort of meaning. It derives from the root of upright and Word Biblical Commentary says that it might be related to the book of Jasher, of which we really don't have a legitimate copy today.

[00:37:24] But moving to verse 16 says, quote, " They made him jealous with strange gods, with detestable things they provoked him. They sacrificed to the demons, not God, to gods whom they had not known, new gods who came from recent times. Their ancestors had not known them." End quote.

[00:37:48] Okay, so here we have foreign gods and idols in mind. We have the word demons here. This is the word shedim, and it is an Akkadian loan word that we see elsewhere in Scripture. And in 1 Corinthians 10 20, we have Paul calling back to this by saying, "I do not want you to be partners with demons."

[00:38:12] Now, of course, a lot of people will say that means that this is just demons, right? Those fake scare quotes, "just demons" as opposed to the gods of the nations. As if demons are less scary, they're less of a problem somehow.

[00:38:29] But the whole context of this chapter and this song is about Israel and their enemies, like their national enemies. But also their national enemies are going to have deities over them, and these are the demons or the gods that are being referenced here.

[00:38:48] So don't mistake this word and think that it is just recalling some lower form of entity, right? This is a territorial being.

[00:38:59] Verse 18, quote, " The rock who bore you, you neglected. And you forgot God, the one giving you birth." End quote.

[00:39:10] Recall back the rocks and crags giving honey and oil and the curds that people were given. We have a lot of maternal imagery of caring and birth and creation and bringing forth. God is presented as both the father and the mother, and that's not some gender thing or whatever. This is showing God's sufficiency in who he is in provision and whatnot.

[00:39:39] Word Biblical Commentary brings out the fact that there's Syrian inscriptions that describe kings as both father and mother to their people. So quite likely this is calling upon that kind of idea that would just, again, be very prevalent in the minds of the people.

[00:39:58] Now let's move on to the divine response to what's going on here. God responds to Israel's faithlessness with jealousy, with anger, with judgment, with discipline, and the point of that is to bring the people back into covenant with him.

[00:40:17] Verse 19 says, quote, " Then Yahweh saw and he spurned them because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. So he said, I will hide my face from them. I will see what will be their end. For they are a generation of perversity, children in whom there is no faithfulness." End quote.

[00:40:41] Now reading that in English doesn't give us the right idea of what the Hebrew is saying here. In both the terms that is referencing God where he says, I will hide my face. There is the idea of turning, but also in the idea of perversity that is mentioned for the people, there is the idea of turning. And I think that is such an important aspect to notice when we're talking about wrath and what's going on here. Because a lot of times we think of wrath as being this thing that God has to enact and he can't stop it.

[00:41:21] He can't help himself. He must do it because you've done something bad, right? Like you were faithless. Therefore, you will receive his wrath.

[00:41:35] But really there is always this idea that God can turn and that people can turn. There can be a choice made where the wrath is turned away and is no longer going to be displayed.

[00:41:50] Word Biblical Commentary says about this word that is in perversity here. It says, quote, " The root turn or overturn carries a double meaning in the Hebrew Bible as evidenced by Jonah's message that Nineveh will be overturned in Jonah three, four.

[00:42:10] " To Jonah, the word meant that Nineveh would be overturned in the sense of being destroyed. But to God, the same word meant that Nineveh would be overturned in the sense of being turned around or converted. That same double meaning may be anticipated here in that Israel is presented as a turnabout generation that broke faith with Yahweh. The hope is that God's punishment will lead to another turnaround that will ultimately produce a cleansing of the land of God's people, and which God will one day wipe away his people's tears." End quote.

[00:42:53] Verse 21 says, quote, " They annoyed me with what is not a god. They provoked me with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those not a people, with a foolish nation, I will provoke them." End quote.

[00:43:11] Now the word for idols here is not the formal word that is usually used for idols, but it literally means vapor or a puff of breath.

[00:43:23] So verse 21 is saying that the people annoyed God with what is not a god, and that it is these idols that are worthless. Now is that saying that the gods don't exist? Well, the parallel in the verse is that God will make them jealous with those who are not a people, and he's not talking about invisible or make believe people here.

[00:43:50] So it's really silly to presume that one of them means that God is saying they don't exist while the other one isn't. That's not consistent hermeneutic. And we're reading a very specific text right here.

[00:44:06] Verse 22 says, quote, " For a fire was kindled by my anger, and it burned up to the depths of Sheol and it devoured the earth and its produce and it set a fire the foundation of the mountains." End quote.

[00:44:23] I just wanna read this part from Word Biblical Commentary about this because it's lovely. Quote, " as Craigey puts it, the anger of God is like the love of God, knowing no limits in the places to which it extends. See Romans 8 38. But the anger of God is an awesome and terrible thing exactly because it follows from a rejection of the equally pervasive love of God." End quote.

[00:44:53] I really like that. Okay, so now we are going to hit on these really key verses that I was hoping to get to today. And we probably won't get past these two verses in Deuteronomy 32, but that's okay because my point will have been made.

[00:45:09] And you should read the whole chapter and the whole song of Moses here with the idea of the mirroring of heaven and earth, with the idea of God's covenantal faithfulness, with the idea of Israel's unfaithfulness and their following after other gods. And this idea that God will punish Israel but then he will also punish Israel's enemies, and that is in context of deliverance for Israel.

[00:45:38] Now this is really key, these two verses that we're gonna read, verse 23 and 24, which say, quote, " I will heap disasters upon them. My arrows I will spend on them. They will become weakened by famine and consumed by plague and bitter pestilence. And the teeth of wild animals I will send against them, with the poison of the creeping things in the dust." End quote.

[00:46:07] Actually, no, I'm gonna read into 25 through 27 here just for a moment. But then we're gonna jump back up to 23 and 24. 25 says, quote, "From outside her boundaries, the sword will make her childless. And from inside, terror, both for the young man and also the young woman, the infant, along with the gray headed man. I thought, I will wipe them out. I will make people forget that they ever existed. If I had not feared a provocation of the enemy, lest their foes might misunderstand, lest they should say, Our hand is triumphant and Yahweh did not do all of this." End quote.

[00:46:51] I bring out those verses because I want it to be very clear that there is the sword in mind here. Warfare. There is decimation wiping people out, but God's not gonna do that because if he did, he would not be covenantally faithful to his promises. And the enemy, who is not just the nations, but their deities, would presume that they would have triumphed over Yahweh. That is not the case. So I really wanted to point that out because we cannot forget that we have military arrogance and actual military destruction here. The people are not just going to be decimated by weather or plagues.

[00:47:37] But let's jump back up to those verses that is talking about those things. Now, I said I would be connecting Deuteronomy 32 to a Psalm of exorcism. And if you are a listener of the Naked Bible Podcast, you might be familiar with this idea. We're gonna be referencing Psalm 91, which has been found in like an ancient amulet as a amu against demons. Now, why are we talking about demons?

[00:48:10] Let's read these two verses again, quote, " I will heap disasters upon them, my arrows I will spend on them. They will become weakened by famine and consumed by plague and bitter pestilence. And the teeth of wild animals I will send against them with the poison of the creeping things in the dust." End quote.

[00:48:33] Okay. All of that seems like natural things, right? Well, what we're reading in English is missing the Hebrew context of these terms, disaster, famine, plague, pestilence. Those are used very specifically for other spiritual beings. They're used in other literature. They're used in various places in the Bible.

[00:48:58] And so what we have here is a both and kind of a thing. Because remember I've talked about before, if you've listened to my episode about sickness, you might wanna go check that one out. If you haven't.

[00:49:12] There is a presumption that whatever's going on in the earthly realm is being caused by the spiritual realm.

[00:49:19] And I hate to break it to you, but God is seen as the cause of sickness and other things. Just like what we see here in Deuteronomy 32. It is God doing this. But I'll suggest very strongly that that does not discount the participation of lower elohim.

[00:49:41] I mean, remember, Israel is in trouble. Why? Why are they in trouble? Because of idolatry. They're literally following these other elohim. And what are they getting in response? Well, they're getting things that the elohim are giving them. So although this is presenting Yahweh as doing it, the strongest reading that I can see here is that Yahweh is utilizing the lower elohim to enact his wrath.

[00:50:12] Just like we see in the exile, just like we see in the cup of wrath. This is completely consistent across the imagery, across what's going on, how God is doing things, where God is the ultimate agent of the wrath, but he is not the proximate agent of the wrath.

[00:50:34] There is an intermediary there. That intermediary is not a good guy, just like Babylon is not a good guy, and Assyria is not a good guy. God is giving the people up to what they've requested and they're reaping what they sow.

[00:50:53] Now, Dr. Heiser in his Naked Bible Podcast on this Psalm 91 suggests that what we have here is a de mythologizing. He is suggesting that these verses are saying that it's not really the other gods who are doing this, but it's really just plague and famine and pestilence that I am giving you. Well, I would say it's not a either or kind of a thing, that both things are in mind and that that makes the most sense of what we see in this text and in God's wrath in general.

[00:51:32] Now, I'm not saying Dr. Heiser can't be right. It's a viable reading what he says. But like I said, when you look at wrath across the board and you consider that what we have going on is not just the famine and the plague and the pestilence, but also the sword. And Israel wasn't exiled and wasn't punished because of disease, they were punished by going into exile. That is the main thing.

[00:52:03] So the arrows, the swords in association with disaster, famine, plague, pestilence, it's a whole complete picture of the divine realm intersecting with the natural realm, although I hate to say that.... intersecting with our earthly realm. That's a better way to say it. In the form of, yes, we have weather calamities, we have disease calamities, and we have military calamities, and those are all connected.

[00:52:35] Those are all connected to the gods of the nations. And yes, again, we can't lose sight of the fact that it is Yahweh's judgment. This is Yahweh's pronouncement and Yahweh's wrath, but there are agents. That doesn't remove God's sovereignty by any means.

[00:52:58] Let's look also at Habakkuk chapter three verses three through six that Dr. Heiser also mentions here. It says, quote, "God came from Teman, the holy one from Mount Peran Selah. His splendor covers the heavens and his praise fills the earth, and his brightness was like the light, flashing rays came from his hand for him, and there is the covering of his strength. Before him went disease and pestilence went out at his feet. He stood and measured the earth. He looked and made the nation's tremble. Then the mountains of old were shattered. The hills of old collapsed. The ways of old belonged to him." End quote.

[00:53:45] The light flashing we might think of as probably like lightning and thunder, and that is probably referencing real meteorological phenomena.

[00:53:55] But this is also the context of God's bringing judgment, and here we have disease and pestilence going out before God, using the same terms which are also terms for deities. And we could think that this is de mythologizing, but it's very much a divine thing. It's not just saying, look, you know, disease and pestilence, those aren't really divine. They have no connection to the divine realm. Sometimes you just get sick, and that's just all there is to it.

[00:54:29] No, it's putting these in the context of judgment as well as deliverance. This is a scene here in this chapter, not just of God judging, but God delivering. And those two things happen simultaneously.

[00:54:47] So I, don't think we have to see this as a de mythologizing. It's just as legitimate, and I would suggest more legitimate to look at this as God utilizing or employing other deities. And that doesn't mean that they have to be on his payroll as really loyal followers of God, but just God saying, okay, fine, you guys go do what you're gonna go do and see what it gets you.

[00:55:17] And I don't think Dr. Heiser didn't really see this, but keeping in mind that he is coming at the text with the presumption that God is employing only loyal followers in the divine realm.

[00:55:31] Dr. Heiser in his Naked Bible episode says, quote, " So what we've got going on here is the Bible is dipping into and using a matrix of ideas about natural forces and natural disasters and weather and so on and so forth. And instead of affirming that, yeah, there are specific dudes in the spiritual world that are in charge of that, basically it says, no, all of these forces in nature are at the command of the God of Israel. It uses military language, it uses the visualization of a retinue and all of these things. The biblical writers do these things, but their point is that the way that the Canaanites think about this is not the case because the Canaanite deities that you think are in charge of this really aren't. They really aren't in charge of anything like this. God doesn't have to fight them to get them to not do these things or to do these things. They don't actually have any control over this." End quote from Dr. Heiser.

[00:56:29] And well my response to that is, well, God doesn't have to fight them, but that doesn't mean that God can't utilize them in order to pour out his wrath to the people by giving them over to what they want, which is where they are anyway. And which is why they are getting these responses from the deities, because the deities are rebellious and they're not performing justice and they're not performing righteousness. So the people are getting these things from them, but that is also God doing it because God is giving them over.

[00:57:05] And I know I'm repeating myself. I know, I'm sorry about that, but just trying to show how consistent this can be across board.

[00:57:13] Verses 11 and 12 in Psalm 91 say, quote, "For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone." End quote.

[00:57:30] So Psalm 91 has the idea of demons or wicked spiritual beings, as well as deliverance from angels. Okay, so look, God is using angels to deliver the people. Therefore, he's using rebellious angels to deliver wrath. That's as consistent of a view as I can possibly imagine. The people are falling prey to the beings that they have handed themselves over to, but they're also going to be rescued by Yahweh. And both of those things happen with Yahweh using intermediaries.

[00:58:12] All right. There is a lot more I could say about this. Dr. Heiser brings up Psalm 58, which is another connection to Psalm 82. So sorry to break it to you everybody, but it's not just about Psalm 82. And I won't read this whole psalm, and you have some textual varients here. So not every translation will bring out the point at the first of the chapter of Psalm 58 about the gods here and how similar this looks to Psalm 82. But Psalm 58 talks about venom, snakes, vipers, teeth, and fangs of young lions, talks about bows and arrows.

[00:58:55] So my point here is that we have this really consistent imagery cross what we're talking about with judgment on people, judgment on gods, and the de mythologizing that is going on, which I do think there is something going on that could be said to be de mythologizing, but the de mythologizing is not saying those don't exist, and it's really only weather phenomena. Because that explanation I don't think would fly in the ancient world. It's not something they'd accept.

[00:59:30] It's not how they were thinking. So instead, God is saying, these beings, even though they're rebellious and they're against me and they're unrighteous and all of these things, guess what? You put yourselves under beings like that, and you end up with things like this. You end up with my wrath. You end up with plague and pestilence and bad crops and military action because you have put yourself under false worship of Gods who are very real and who are giving you this. But they're not giving you that because somehow they have overcome me.

[01:00:13] That's not the case. I'm still in charge. And the only reason you are still under there is because I have allowed it. And the reason I've allowed it is because I want you to come back to me. I want you to repent and turn to me so that we can stop all of this nonsense. And if you guys don't do that willingly, I will still get it done because I am the faithful, I am the God of the promises.

[01:00:41] And I mean, really, I don't think Dr. Heiser would even fully disagree with what I'm saying here. In his episode, he says, quote, "Scripture has the notion that extends from Deuteronomy 32 and Daniel 10. And the things that go on with wicked people and wicked rulers. Behind that is actually wicked supernatural beings that influence that chaos that's happening on earth. They don't do anything about it to correct it. They either permissively let it go, or if we take the wording of this psalm, it seems a little more intentional. No, in your hearts you devise wrongs, your hands deal out violence of the earth. If you go to the end of the psalm, this is another reason why people look at this as kind of a dim mirror of Psalm 82, the way it ends. Mankind will say, surely there is a reward for the righteous. Surely there is a God who judges on Earth. End quote.

[01:01:41] Dr. Heiser goes on to say, quote," I think we could say this, natural disasters and disease were linked to demons because they were a threat to human life. They are chaos forces that just happen to people, and that's going to get linked to the notion of supernatural chaos forces. End quote.

[01:02:01] So there we go. He's still saying that these are connected to the spiritual powers, and I would go further and make sure we understand that these things are also battle images.

[01:02:13] These are in parallel with the battle imagery. That matters when we go back into the flood and see what's happening there with the violence and the flood waters and chaos, and not just something that's happening with the flood, but true warfare. We see a lot of that in first Enoch.

[01:02:34] Again, we know that there's parallel language all the time with supernatural beings and weather and with war, and I don't wanna discount that it's probably referencing actual weather because the deities and the heavens were seen to provide that. We can't forget that the gods were associated with nations, and nations had militaries, and we know again, that Israel wasn't just subject to weather and disease as a means of judgment for their faithfulness.

[01:03:06] No. The main thing is that they were taken into captivity by an evil nation and that evil nation had associations with evil, divine powers. And those evil divine powers are clearly not the cause of anything because the judgment still is coming from God. But on the other hand, they might be the cause of something just because that's what they're doing.

[01:03:29] They are sowing and fermenting chaos and it comes in the form of battle and destruction via the nations.

[01:03:37] So again, I'm still repeating myself. The other deities aren't putting one up on Yahweh or the people of God, but God is using them as an instrument. And then tellingly, God is also going to turn around and judge them.

[01:03:52] The people were facing devastating consequences because they were in relationship to unjust deities who caused those devastating consequences. That was a given. That wasn't because they were more powerful than God, but because God gives people over and that is how he's enacting this judgment.

[01:04:15] I think it's super, super, super useful to notice this consistent wrath imagery of that as how this happens. That also helps explain this really uncomfortable thing about God causing the sickness. Like what is that about?

[01:04:36] A lot of Christians, especially in certain circles, want to say that Satan is the cause of sickness. Well, I did a whole survey and I'm sorry, you can't say that. It's not true. It's not how the Bible is presenting things. But again, with this idea that God can use good angels for deliverance purposes and wicked angels for punishment purposes, this makes total sense.

[01:05:07] And again, the punishment is always to help people come back in.

[01:05:13] Now, as Deuteronomy 32 shows, even when people are given over, they can still be rescued. Now of course, that's referencing the people of Israel. And as I said in my cup of wrath episode, there's no suggestion that the nations are gonna get delivered.

[01:05:31] However, when we get to the New Testament and Jesus, of course we do have people from the nations being delivered. And I really like Jason Staple's work in discussing that, where he suggests that the people like the gentile nations who are coming in to follow Jesus, they are the inheritors of the promise as the nation of Israel had turned itself into the nations, basically, at the level of the wickedness they had towards Yahweh. And so in order to bring Israel back, that required they be treated in the same way as the nations. And so surprisingly, the nations can come in as well. Even though it seems in the Old Testament that the nations will never get repentance.

[01:06:19] However, again, there's a nuance here. The national entities aren't being reconciled. They're still being judged. The national entities are connected to the rebellious elohim who do not receive forgiveness. And so we have this deep connection to the gods being judged for their lack of justice. The nations lose cohesion and identity as they lose people over to the people of God, right?

[01:06:51] So once you come into the people of God, you are no longer in allegiance to those nations. So therefore those nations are not being reconciled. But people from the nations certainly are. And that is a massive picture of God's covenantal faithfulness, not just for Israel, but also for the world, which that's a beautiful picture. And it's really interesting getting into this topic of wrath because of the way that so many people talk about it as this necessity, when really it is entirely and completely wrapped up in God's faithfulness.

[01:07:34] Now again, I would love to have read more of Deuteronomy 32, but I will leave that to you, and I think that you have a lot of seeds here to really look at things. I didn't even get to read the verses about the grapes of venom and those are super interesting.

[01:07:51] The idea of vengeance as being God's is definitely here, but notice how much that isn't just about, you guys screwed up, therefore, I'm going to enact my vengeance. But really it is a method of God's covenantal faithfulness. It's hard to see for us, but there we have it. All right, I'm going to leave the episode at this for now, and I really hope you guys enjoyed this one.

[01:08:19] If you have any questions, you can always reach out to me on Facebook or through my website at genesis marks the spot.com. You can contact me there or you can sign up for my newsletter. You can read all of the blog posts I have. You can look at my store. By the way, I have some new merchandise up on the store this week, so go have a look there.

[01:08:41] And also thank you to those of you who support me either through listening, sharing the episodes, or particularly those of you who support me financially. You guys are a major blessing to me and I'm really grateful. So with all of that being said, I'm still intending to turn to more episodes about alcohol because we haven't gotten to any New Testament context yet. We'll probably have more Divine Counsel episodes. As I said, I'm gonna be talking about John Walton and some of the intersection of Walton and Heiser's work and how I kind of see that because I think I see there's a bit of a middle ground that a lot of people don't touch on here. So I hope you'll all look forward to that. Thanks for listening and I wish you all a blessed week and we will see you later.