Deuteronomy 32:8
→Bible→Old Testament→Deuteronomy
8 When the Most High apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods[a];[a] Q Ms Compare Gk Tg: MT the Israelites
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
8 When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,
when he divided up humankind,
he set the boundaries of the peoples,
according to the number of the heavenly assembly.
4 The Rock!—His deeds are perfect,
Yea, all His ways are just;
A faithful God, never false,
True and upright is He.
. . .
8 When the Most High gave nations their homes
And set the divisions of man,
He fixed the boundaries of peoples
In relation to Israel’s numbers.
The Jewish Study Bible Notes to Deuteronomy 32.8:
'Most High,' or "'Elyon," is the formal title of El, the senior god who presided over the divine council in the Ugaritic literature of ancient Canaan. The reference thus invokes, as do other biblical texts, the Near Eastern convention of a pantheon of gods ruled by the chief deity (Pss. 82.1; 89.6-8). Israelite authors regularly applied El's title to Israel's God Gen. 14.18-22; Num. 24.16; Pss. 46.5; 47.3 [Hebrew Bible numbering]). Even the precise parallelism "Rock" / "'Elyon" (see v. 4; Ps. 78.35) reflects a conventional Ugaritic title for El. 'In relation to Israel's numbers' is unintelligible as it stands. The variant attested by the Septuagint and at Qumran, "according to the sons of El" (cf. NRSV), which preserves the mythological reference to 'Most High' ("'Elyon") earlier in the verse, makes much more sense. Here, the idea is that the chief god allocates the nations to lesser deities in the pantheon. (A postbiblical notion that seventy angels are in charge of the world's seventy nations echoes this idea.) Almost certainly, the unintelligible reading of the MT represents a "correction" of the original text (whereby God presides over other gods) to make it conform to the later standard of pure monotheism: There are no other gods! The polytheistic imagery of the divine council is also deleted at 32.43; 33.2-3, 7.
This passage is an example of the usage of Hebrew adam. The phrase translated "humankind" (NRSV, NET), "the sons of Adam" (KJV), and "man" (JPS Tanakh) here is בני אדם (bnei adam — see The human race).
Also see notes at Genesis 5:1-5 and "adam" the common noun. This passage echoes the usage of Genesis, where God is said to have made them male and female and called them "adam".
Re "the number of the gods" (NRSV), "the heavenly assembly" (NET) and "Israel’s numbers" (Tanakh) see Jewish Study Bible notes above, and Divine Council.
Literal Reading
This passage is cited here as "accepting" events of early Genesis "as literally true". See comment here.
| ← prev. . . . references said to "accept" a literal Genesis . . . next → |
