In this post we’re going to look at the divine council doctrine, to see whether it’s biblical or heretical. Note: All scripture quotes are from the ESV unless otherwise specified.

The Divine Council Idea

For those of you who don’t know The Divine Council hypothesis is the idea that God presides and in fact rules over a council of lesser gods or divine beings which he makes use of in deciding how to best proceed in judging and blessing nations or people. It’s similar to how ancient kings of the Near-East had an assembly of advisers and military leaders surrounding them, who helped them in making decisions. If this sounds controversial to you, you’re not alone. Many theologians have a problem with this idea, because it seems to imply there are many gods besides the one true God of the Bible. My intention in making this post however is not to start controversy but simply to explore this hypothesis and see if there is any evidence for it in scripture.

So what are the problems with acknowledging that there are multiple gods, if it isn’t obvious. It almost sounds like the pagan concept of the pantheon, doesn’t it? And wouldn’t that undermine Monotheism? However rest assured this doctrine does not claim that the God of the Bible is just any other god; on the contrary he is the supreme, ultimate, being, which is above all other gods. He is the one who sits over the divine assembly and decides what’s going to happen. So it’s a little bit different from the various pantheons the pagans thought of. Instead of the term gods, we can think of these council members as spirit beings, i.e. angels.

What does elohim mean?

The term elohim, which is typically translated as god or gods because it’s both plural and singular, contrary to popular belief is simply a term that describes a being of the spirit realm. It can be used to refer to the one true God, Yahweh, as it is in most cases, but also to his council members as in Psalm 82, or to other spirit beings, such as the deceased Samuel in 1 Samuel 28. Contrary to our English word ‘god’ today, the Hebrew word elohim did not have a bunch of attributes, like omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence associated with it. When the Hebrews used the word elohim, they did not immediately jump to Yahweh. To them it simply referred to a being not of this world but of the spirit world. In other words an immaterial being.

Psalm 82

So Let’s take a look at psalm 82, which is one of the most striking passages of the divine council.

1 God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

Notice in verse 1, we have two instances of elohim. One singular, referring to YWHW and one plural referring to his council members, since God can’t be in the midst of himself. And we even have the usage of the word divine council here. Continuing:

2 “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah

This is God speaking.

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

4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

6 I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;

Sons of the most high and sons of God is a common term for divine beings in the Old Testament, e.g. Gen. 6, Job 1,2,38.

7 nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.”

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

First and foremost, let’s address the obvious. This is a debated psalm. Some theologians try to argue that this psalm is merely talking about Israelite judges, or the princely rulers of the nations, not supernatural sons of God. But I think that interpretation falls flat when we consider what God is saying about these sons of God: (v6-7) I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” If they were men to begin with, the statement that they will die like men doesn’t make any sense, in my opinion.

There are other objections skeptics of the divine council idea would raise. For example that the term elohim is used of human Israelite judges elsewhere in the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus, and that it’s therefore to be understood similarly in psalm 82. But that passage itself in Exodus can be debated. And some scholars think that the usage of elohim there could very well refer to the one true God, not judges. For the sake of length, I’m going to restrict answering the objections to these few.

Other gods?

If we assume Psalm 82 to be talking about a heavenly divine council as it indicates, and not an earthly one, then it seems to affirm the existence of other so-called ‘gods’. Consequently you might say ‘but I thought the Israelites believed in only one God’ and passages like Isaiah 43:10 confirms that.

Before me no god was formed,

nor shall there be any after me. (Is. 43:10b)

Well scholars have discovered that the Israelites believed in the absolute superiority of Yahweh, but they also acknowledged the existence of foreign gods that were sometimes hostile to Yahweh. One passage which reinforces this idea is Deuteronomy 32:17 (The ISV translates in correctly).

They sacrificed to demons—not to the real God—gods whom they didn’t know, new neighbors who had recently appeared, whom your ancestors never feared. (Deu 32:17)

To the ancient Israelites and the apostles of Jesus’ day, these demons, foreign gods, were enemies of the one true God, Yahweh. Or how about that verse where Moses asks rhetorically, Who among the gods is like you, Yahweh (Ex. 15:11)? Don’t tell me Moses is comparing Yahweh to non-existent beings. It’s also simply nonsensical to think that God would punish Israelite apostates for worshiping other gods that aren’t real.

Passages like Isaiah 43:10 only affirms Yahweh’s ultimate superiority above any other god. Now what are we to make of this? This is controversial among mainstream Christianity but scholars hypothesize that the Israelites were either Henotheists or Monolatrists, believing in the one true God Yahweh but not denying the existence of others.

Deuteronomy 32 Worldview

So if that’s the case, then in Psalm 82 God is judging the other gods for judging unfairly. He says, ‘how long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?’ Well you might be asking yourself, when did the sons of God ever judge or preside over other nations or people groups? I thought that was God’s role to play on earth, right? Well as it turns out, there is scriptural support for the idea that God gave the other nations over to lesser gods, his divine sons. That support can be found in Deuteronomy 32:8-9. This passage is part of the song of Moses and it reads:

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 Lord’s portion is his people,

Jacob his allotted heritage. (Deuteronomy 32:8-9)

There is a textual variant present here. The masoretic text which we use for our Old Testament reads ‘according to the number of the sons of Israel‘ here instead of sons of God. Why did the ESV then insert sons of God here? Well as it turns out, older manuscripts than the masoretic text from the dead sea scrolls reveal the original reading to us, namely that of sons of God. I won’t get into all that too much here. But if you’re interested in more you can check out Dr. Michael Heiser on this passage.

So in this passage we learn that God divided up the the nations according to the number of his divine sons, but Isreal would be God’s portion. When did God divide up the nations? That would be at the tower of Babel event back in Genesis 11. Remember God came down and dispersed the people over the whole earth? Presumably he then put his divine sons over these new nations, because deut 32 says according to the number of the sons of God. The subsequent chapter 12 of Genesis is the chapter entitled the Call of Abraham. That’s when God decided to start over with a new people, Abraham and his offspring. They would be his special portion. By disinheriting the nations, God essentually pushed the reset button. He gave up on trying to be their God and gave them over to lesser ones, who were of course supposed to be loyal to YHWH and delegate worship to him, but as we find out from psalm 82, something eventually went wrong. The lesser gods became corrupt, perhaps due to seeking worship for themselves and ruled unfairly. Makes sense? And the table of nations in Genesis 10 shows us what became of the new nations.

I think it’s important to note that this idea of the other nations being under the control of lesser gods is also present in some 2nd temple pseudopigraphical literature works, like the book of jubilees (Jubilees 15:31-32). That goes to show that this was a common idea among the ancient Israelites. They believed that they were God’s special possession and that the other nations were under the control of lesser hostile gods. And since God is ultimately sovereign and in control of the other gods, he had to have arranged it in that way. What we just covered is called the Deuteronomy 32 worldview by Dr. Michael Heiser and scholars like him.

The Role of the Divine Council Members

Let’s return to the divine council idea. What do they help God accomplish? We gleam a glimpse behind the curtain of the divine council in 1 Kings 22, where the evil King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom plans to attack his ally Syria. He justifies it by the notion of reclaiming what was lost, since the region he plans to attack was once under Israel’s control. He seeks the help of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, the Southern Kingdom, who seems to agree with the rational but wants assurance that YHWH is on their side by conferring with the prophets. Ahab calls four hundred of his prophets and they all prophesy well for him, telling him he will be successful. But the King of Judah requires to see one more prophet, Micaiah. He has quite a different story to tell. We read:

1Ki 22:19 And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; 20 and the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ 22 And the LORD said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’

Here we see God judging the evil King Ahab, but letting his council members choose by which way. God did not preprogram his council members to respond the way they did. No he allows them free choice in carrying out his orders. God does not require the help of anyone, but he chooses to work through his free-will agents to accomplish his will, angels and humans.

Did God use Deception?

Now you might have some questions about the way the spirit wanted to help God, by being a lying spirit in the mouths of his prophets. The question obviously arises. I thought God cannot lie? Presumably neither can his heavenly servants? This isn’t the main topic of this post, but I will briefly cover it due to its controversial nature. Well apparently God’s servants can lie, if the cause is justified. The fact of the matter is, God does on occasion use deception in order to achieve his goals throughout the Old Testament. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Deception can be justified when it’s meant for good. For example, would you not be justified in lying to the authorities in order to save lives? Like during World war 2, with the Jews who were hiding in the basements of people? Of course you would be. That’s how God uses deception in the Old Testament, for righteous purposes in order to achieve good. What we cannot do is to conclude from this that it’s okay for us to lie for our own personal good whenever we feel like it. No lying is still generally bad and shouldn’t be done for selfish reasons.

The Cosmic War

So as we’ve touched on earlier, there is Yahweh and his council members and then there are divine beings who apostatized and became hostile to Yahweh. These are the hostile gods the foreign nations are under control of. There is this cosmic war going on between Yahweh and his angels against the forces of darkness. Evidence of this is found in the book of Daniel chapter 10:

Dan 10:13 The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia,…

and

Dan 10:20 Then he said, “Do you know why I have come to you? But now I will return to fight against the prince of Persia; and when I go out, behold, the prince of Greece will come.

Here we see an unidentified divine being talking to Daniel relaying to him why he was delayed. The reason being that he had to fight against hostile ‘princes’ of other nations. These princes of other nations are the same fallen divine beings who God placed over these nations and who’ve we’ve been talking about. They turned their back on God and seek to oppose him now. It is God’s mission to reclaim the lost nations of the earth, and today that is achieved by the spreading of the gospel message throughout the world. That way a continually growing bastion is established in an individual country and the nation is slowly being reclaimed for the kingdom of God.

Conclusion

In conclusion, is it heresy to say God has a divine council? Based upon the passages I cited, no I don’t think so. I see no reason to label it as heresy, but instead I believe we should accept it as Biblical doctrine and alter our theology accordingly. And lastly I’ll leave you with this, are there multiple true Gods? No, there is one true God. There are however multiple elohim, which the Bible calls God’s divine assembly members.

Sources:

The Unseen Realm – Dr. Michael Heiser

The Naked Podcast – Dr. Michael Heiser