Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Deuteronomy

[Fresh]

Deuteronomy 32.9-10 is the most challenging passage to defend the Bible. Yes, I know it's a somewhat obscure passage to pick out for that title, but, at least for me, I find it to be true. First, let's look at the passage itself: "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance."

At first glance, this might not seem like such a controversial passage. However, if we look a little closer, we can see that the passage is clearly referring to two different gods: "Most High" and "the LORD". This is most evident when looking up the verse's original Hebrew, where "Most High" is called "Elyon" and "the LORD" is called "Yahweh", who we all know is the God that Christians serve now.

When I was a child, I was taught that things like this occurred because God has many different names. However, if you study what most experts now believe about the early Israelites, things begin to make sense. The ancient Israelites were very likely polytheistic, believing in the Canaanite pantheon of gods and goddesses. The peoples in the Canaanite region, including the Israelites, believed in a god who was above all the other gods, "El". They also believed that every nation had their own regional god. In the Israelites' case, this was "Yahweh".

So why is this the most challenging passage in the Bible? Well, at least to me, it appears to be the clearest reference in the Bible to the Israelites' early polytheistic beliefs. If the Bible is the inspired work of the one true God, then why is there a passage in it that seems to so clearly acknowledge the presence of other gods? It even relegates "Yahweh", the God of the Bible, to a secondary status, saying that Jacob's people are his, but that the other peoples of Canaan belong to others.

In short, Christianity is absolutely built upon the tenet that there are no other gods but Yahweh. But the ancient Israelites, from whom Christianity grew from, did not seem to share those beliefs. In fact, Yahweh himself did not seem to share them in passages such as Exodus 20:3 - "You shall have no other gods before me". If this is true, how can Christianity be believed?

[jimwalton]

In the OT, the term *Elyon* ("Most High") is usually used as an epithet for YHWH (as in Gen. 14.17-24 et al.). There is no convincing evidence thus far of *Elyon* as the name of a deity in the ancient Near East, nor in Canaan in particular, but it is fairly common as an epithet for various gods, particularly *El* and *Baal*, the principal gods int he Canaanite pantheon. That means Moses is here using "Most High" as an epithet for YHWH, as he does in many other places, and it should not be interpreted to mean that the early Israelites were polytheistic. Deuteronomy 32.8-9 are saying the YHWH has chose to exercise a particular level of jurisdiction over Israel in particular. It is based on the metaphor of inheritance but, of course, YHWH is not really inheriting Israel from someone else (viz. from some other deity).