Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut? 32:8-9 and Psalm 82?
Dr. Michael S. Heiser
Academic Editor, Logos Bible Software, Bellingham, WA
mheiser@logos.com
Citation: Michael S. Heiser, “Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 32:8-9 and Psalm
82?” Hiphil 3 [http://www.see-j.net/hiphil] (2006). Published on October 3, 2006. Read
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Introduction
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 Israel the god of Israel
apparently belonged to the second tier of the pantheon; he was not the presider god, but one of
his sons.
1
The focus of this paper concerns the position expressed by Smith 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. This 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 religion it
produces were coherent.2
I came to the position that Israelite religion included a council of
1
Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001), 49.
2 Michael S. Heiser, “The Divine Council in Late Canonical and Non-Canonical Second temple Jewish
Michael S. Heiser, “Are Yahweh and El Distinct Deities in Deut 32:8-9 and Psalm 82?” Hiphil 3
[http://www.see-j.net/hiphil] (2006). Published October 3, 2006
2
gods (אלהים (and servant angels (מלאכים (under Yahweh-El from its earliest conceptions
well into the Common Era. This conception included the idea that 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 Israelite religion. Those who
use such terms also assume that אלהים is an ontological term in Israelite religion, denoting
some quality or qualities that points to polytheism if there are more than one אלהים .This
fails to note the use of the term within and without the Hebrew Bible for the departed human
dead and lower messenger beings (מלאכים.(3
Rather, אלהים in Israelite religion denotes the
“plane of reality” or domain to which a 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 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 poetry of this
psalm between the 12th and 10th centuries B.C.E.4 The very first verse contains plural
imperatives directed at the ליםִ֑א ֵניֵ֣בּ , ְpointing to a divine council context. Verse 10
;flood the over enthroned sits LORD Theְ֭ (“יהָוה ַלַמּ֣בּוּל ָיָ֑שׁב ַוֵ֥יּ ֶשׁב ְ֝יהָ֗וה ֶ֣מֶל ְלעוָֹ ֽלם׃ :declares
the LORD sits enthroned as king forever”). In Israelite 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, among the oldest poetry in the Hebrew Bible, echoes the
Literature” (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2004).
3
Examples in the Hebrew Bible would include Genesis 28:12 (compared with Genesis 32
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