Is There a Divine Council?

Now that I have explored Michael Heiser’s divine council theology and evaluated the key passages he uses to prove his view, I don’t think his position is as convincing as he seems to believe. One question I would like to consider, however, is whether or not there is a “divine council” to begin with. There are a handful of passages that suggest a gathering of supernatural divine elohims that meet together with YHWH God. Are we to understand that gathering in the same way that Heiser presents it? That being, a council of divine sons of God that were appointed to keep watch over men, or govern the affairs of the nations, and who God consults for their advice when He is readying Himself to judge Israel or the other pagan nations around them? 

Definitions

I’ll start with answering that question by looking at a basic definition for the word “council.” When we think of a council, generally we have the idea of a governmental or administrative body of officials who oversee a school district or perhaps manage a city municipality. They are elected to that position and have been invested with a limited amount of authority to act on behalf of those individuals who elected them. In the business world, a council may consist of advisors that offer opinions and suggestions for important financial investments or decisions needing to be made. 

Reading through Heiser’s material on a divine council from Psalm 82, that is the picture he presents to us about the sons of God. There is a group of divine beings who were specifically created by YHWH to function as his advisors; helping with the governing of the earth and humanity. Those elohim have been granted specific authority on behalf of YHWH, and at times He consults them when He makes decisions or prepares to exercise His decrees. Additionally, as the history of Scripture unfolds, some of them rebel against YHWH or attempt to thwart His purposes.   

The word in Psalm 82:1 that is translated as “council” is edah, and it basically has the idea of “congregation,” “assembly,” or “gathering.” The LXX, the Greek translation of the OT, translates the word as “synagogue.” We know that primarily as a NT term describing the gathering of Jewish worshipers in a community. The word edah is only translated as “divine council” in the RSV and its modern update, the ESV. Most of the main English translations translate the word as “congregation,” including the KJV, NKJV, ASV, NASB, and the LSB. Other translations like the 1599 Geneva, NET, NIV, HCSB, and ISV translate the word as “assembly” or “great assembly.”

Assemblies and congregations, however, are not necessarily in an advisory role, but are gathered to worship and hear instruction. If we do a search with a concordance, we will discover that the word “congregation” or “assembly” translated from edah, describes Israel or the children of Israel. That usage is clearly evident in the Pentateuch and the history books of the OT. It also applies to the gentile nations in a number of instances. So the primary use of “congregation” is describing a human gathering, not a gathering of spiritual beings. Immediately, that more accurate translation of the word edah in Psalm 82:1 removes the significance of a divine council that is the center piece of Heiser’s angelology. 

He also mentions the use of council in Jeremiah 23:18, “But who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he should see and hear His word? Who has given heed to His word and heard?” That verse is from the larger portion of God’s rebuke of the false prophets who were leading Israel astray. They spoke lies, repeating visions from their own heart, and nothing that they said came from the Mouth of YHWH, 23:16-17. 

Let me pause here for a moment to note that I think Heiser has an interesting insight in this section regarding the office of prophets. That being, while it is true a prophet speaks for YHWH, what is noteworthy for a prophet is that he has encountered the living God and experienced communion with Him, so that the words He speaks are true words from YHWH. Think of Moses, who encountered Him on Mount Sinai, as well as Joshua and other leaders who had a meal in the presence of YHWH, Exodus 24:9-11. Moses then went up with Joshua to encounter God for 40 days and 40 nights, so Joshua’s commissioning in Exodus 33 to lead the people into the Promised Land is made a bit clearer. Additionally, other men of God like Samuel, then later Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, Zechariah, and then in the NT, Peter, James, John, and finally Paul, shared a similar encounter with YHWH. This is significant, because it links together the men who spoke for God and wrote our Scriptures that provide a stamp of canonical authentication on the books that make up the Bible. 

Back to Jeremiah….

In contrast to those false prophets, Jeremiah, the true prophet, is said to have “stood in the council of YHWH.” Heiser concludes, “The implications are clear: true prophets have stood and listened in Yahweh’s divine council; false prophets have not.” But that council mentioned here in Jeremiah is not the same as Heiser’s divine council. The Hebrew word in Jeremiah 23:18 is besodi. Rather than being an assembled advisory board of decision makers, it has more to do with privileged intimacy or having insider information that no one else has. Think more along the lines of divine revelation that God imparts to His people, particularly the prophets who spoke His word. What distinguished Jeremiah the true prophet from the other false prophets was that God revealed to him His true word. 

The root word sodi, is often translated as “secret” or “secret place” or “secret council.” For example, Psalm 25:14, “The secret of Yahweh is for those who fear Him, And He will make them know His covenant,” and Amos 3:7, “Surely Lord Yahweh does nothing unless He reveals His secret counsel To His slaves the prophets.” Proverbs 3:32, “For the devious one is an abomination to Yahweh; But His secret council is with the upright.” (The NASB translates the passage, “but He is intimate with the upright”). The overall picture we have here is that this council is not a place where an assembly gathers before YHWH, but it is the personal intimacy God has with His people when He reveals Himself to them. 

The Divine Assembly in Scripture

I want to look at three key texts in Scripture where Heiser believes the Bible speaks of the sons of God meeting with or gathered to YHWH God for the purposes of deliberating decisions and judgments in the world.

Job 1-2

Job is the oldest book in our Bible, and as Heiser himself even notes, it is something of an odd one, too. Most so-called “scholars” believe Job merely records a moral fable that is full of old superstitious tales about why ANE societies believe bad things happen to good people; but the events recorded are real, genuine historical events. They more than likely happened during the time of Abraham or perhaps before Abraham was called by YHWH. Whatever the case, the book is an historical record that reveals to us what was happening in the spiritual realm and how those events played out in our physical realm. (I taught a series of devotional style sermons from the entire book of Job several years ago with my volunteers. The written manuscripts are available HERE if anyone is interested). 

What makes the book of Job unique is the revelation it contains about the heavenly realm. After the book opens with a brief background to who the man Job was, the narrative shifts to the spiritual heavenlies. Job 1:6 states, “Now it was the day that the sons of God came to stand before Yahweh, and Satan also came among them.” We are not given much information about why the elohim came before God, but we can speculate that YHWH was asking them to give an account of what they were doing. John GIll, the great Baptist theologian, suggests that after they finish the assignments God had given them, they then return to tell Him of the completion of their duties and receive new orders. 

I should also note that Heiser believes the “Satan” mentioned in Job is not the enemy of God who deceived Eve and became the adversary of Christ and His people. He writes, “The satan in Job 1–2 is not a villain. He’s doing the job assigned to him by God…The satan described in these passages is not the devil. Rather, he’s an anonymous prosecutor, as it were, fulfilling a role in Yahweh’s council—bringing an accusatory report,” [Unseen Realm, 57]. He calls him “the Satan” because he insists that names don’t have articles. We don’t call our friends with a definite article before their name like “The Mike.” 

His take on Satan is a rather ridiculous conclusion. He is genuinely saying that God assigned an elohim to challenge Him – to play “devils advocate’ – and tempt Him to act against Job. For what purpose? Heiser puts himself into theological trouble by keeping the NT separated from the OT, because we know the NT does identify Satan as the accuser of the brethren. He was there questioning our Lord, tempting Him in the wilderness and even Peter borrows the language of Job when he writes that our adversary the devil roams about like a roaring lion, (1 Peter 5:8). It really is twisting Scripture to claim Satan, as he appears in Job, is not villainous or he is fulfilling a role assigned to him by YHWH. The text makes a point to say that he “came among them,” as if that was not his normal place. God even asks him what he was doing and it was YHWH who drew his attention to Job. Nonetheless, if we evaluate all the scenes of the spiritual realm recorded in Job, none of them present a council that is informing or advising YHWH. They appear to all be an audience that is there to glory in the presence of God and witness His providential acts. 

1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18

Turning to the events recorded in 1 Kings 22, the vision that the prophet Micaiah recounted of a heavenly throne room with YHWH surrounded by angelic messengers provides the closest resemblance of Heiser’s divine council we have in Scripture. King Ahab was preparing for war against the people of Aram and he requested that Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, join him in battle against them. He agreed, but asked if they could have a prophet inquire of YHWH about their decision. All of the false prophets Ahab brought forth promised certain victory. Jehoshaphat, however, was a bit dubious of their unanimous decision, and knowing that they were false prophets, asked for a true prophet of YHWH to be brought forth. Ahab said there was Micaiah, but he did nothing but prophesy evil against him, or in other words, spoke the hard truths he didn’t want to hear. 

When Michaiah was brought out to offer up his word from YHWH, he presented a rather unique vision, 

Then Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of Yahweh. I saw Yahweh sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. 
“And Yahweh said, ‘Who will entice Ahab so that he will go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that. 
“Then a spirit came forward and stood before Yahweh and said, ‘I will entice him.’ 
“And Yahweh said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You shall entice him and also prevail. Go out and do so.’ (1 Kings 22:19-22 cf. 2 Chronicles 18:18-22). 

There are a couple of observations to note with this vision. First, YHWH was on His throne and the host of heaven was standing by Him on His left and right, so immediately, this doesn’t appear to be a council meeting setting. Rather, YHWH is on His throne, and the host of heaven is standing ready to carry out His decrees. Secondly, they are named the “host of heaven. There is no mention of elohim or sons of God. More than likely what is involved here is all the angelic beings gathered before YHWH. Host is translated from saba, and it has the idea of “that which goes forth.” The context will determine if it is going forth to war as an organized army or going forth in some sort of service. In this case, YHWH calls on a volunteer angel to entice Ahab to go out and meet the army of Ramoth-gilead in battle so that he would fall. 

After YHWH asks who will entice Ahab, there seems to be a discussion ensuing, as if this is an example of deliberations between God almighty and Sons of God in Heiser’s divine council taking place. But instead of a vigorous debate as Heiser suggests, what is seen here is God asking who will entice Ahab. The Scriptures don’t record what was discussed, but that one said one thing, while another said something else. The only record we have of what was determined is when a spirit came forward and said he would entice Ahab by being a lying spirit in the mouth of his false prophets. The question is who is this lying spirit? Heiser insists it is one of the divine council members; but that would imply that the divine council members, who according to Heiser are tasked by God to watch over humanity and the nations, can lie and deceive on behalf of God. Instead, the most likely candidate is that it was Satan, who is called by our Lord Jesus the “father of lies,” (John 8:44). It was a similar situation we saw previously in Job 1-2. So while it is true God asks of the heavenly host what can be done with Ahab and there was some discussion, it is a bit of a stretch to conclude it was a divine council meeting when God has help figuring out how to bring judgment. 

Daniel 4

One final passage that presents something of a divine council of elohims is Daniel 4. It is the account when Nebuchadnezzar is struck down by God and is turned into a wildman for 7 years. It was the event that I believe brought him to saving faith and trust in the true and living God. Before he was struck down, however, he had a dream of a mighty tree chopped down to its stump. It bothered him so much that he called all his wisemen to interpret it and none of them could. He then calls Daniel, who tells him the meaning of the dream.

The section of this account that is relevant to our discussion on the divine council is 4:17. It reads, “This edict is by the resolution of the watchers, And the decision is a command of the holy ones, In order that the living may know That the Most High is the powerful ruler over the kingdom of mankind And gives it to whom He wishes And sets up over it the lowliest of men.”

Heiser believes this passage is telling us about the decisions and decrees of the divine council. The watchers, who are the sons of God, declare an edict against Nebuchadnezzar. Though YHWH is the ultimate sovereign authority over the decision they carry out, both God and the watchers are the ones involved in making this decision against the king of Babylon. But are they?

The main thing to note about Daniel 4:17 is that it is part of Nebuchadnezzar’s personal vision. He has a dream and is relaying what he saw in that dream. In other words, we are getting HIS version of what HE saw. Heiser wants to say the vision is showing us how the watchers are the elohim/sons of God on the divine council, but that is Nebuchadnezzar’s interpretation of what HE saw. The concept of “watcher” is from him and he could very well be explaining how he saw angelic messengers dispatched by God to carry out His decree that He alone established.  

Ultimately, God is the one who never slumbers, nor sleeps, Psalm 121:4. He is always awake and active when men are asleep and dreaming. Moreover, Psalm 103:20-21 says, “Bless Yahweh, you His angels, Mighty in strength, who perform His word, Obeying the voice of His word! Bless Yahweh, all you His hosts, You who serve Him, doing His will.” The angels are God’s agents and executors. They do not initiate their own orders, but they carry out God’s.

One final question I have is how exactly is the divine council functioning in our modern day? Heiser doesn’t really address how it currently operates. The divine council he presents in his studies has the sons of God appointed to look over the nations surrounding OT theocratic Israel. Those nations, however, no longer exist, with many of them dissolving before even Christ walked the earth. Were the sons of God watching over those nations reassigned to new nations? What about nations that are not immediately in the area of Israel, say for example China, India, or those in the Americas? Was there a son of God tasked to watch over them and report back to God when the council met? While the Scriptures certainly record that angels and even demons still operate in our world and their works both holy and profane will impact humanity’s spiritual development, the divine council that Heiser outlines in his book appears to be silent. If anything, its current operation seems to be unknown to us.

John 10:34-38 and Psalm 82

I continue with this post reviewing Michael Heiser’s popular book, The Unseen Realm. Those interested in previous review articles can find them all linked in chronological order HERE.

One of the passages we need to explore is John 10:34-38. It is our Lord’s interactions with the Jewish leaders after He declares that He and the Father were one and asserting His deity. They picked up stones to stone Him for blasphemy, and Jesus asked them why they were preparing to stone Him. The passage plays heavily into Heiser’s divine council theology because Jesus cites directly from Psalm 82:6 when He answers them. 

The Context

This exchange between our Lord and the Jews took place on the Feast of Dedication (John 10:22) or what we know as Hanukkah. The feast celebrated the victory Israel had over Antiochus Epiphanes after he had desecrated the altar by sacrificing a pig and setting up his own pagan altars in the temple. Once he was defeated during the Maccabean Revolt (166-142 BC), the temple complex and the altar were rededicated and consecrated. The Jews commemorate the event by lighting lamps and candles in their homes for 8 days. Adam Sandler even wrote a song about it! It was during this holiday that the Jews confronted Jesus in the temple demanding that He tell them whether or not He were the Christ. Jesus responded by saying, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these bear witness of Me.” (John 10:25). 

Jesus goes on to explain that they do not believe Him because they are not of His sheep, reminding them of His previous discourse declaring Himself as the Good Shepherd, another OT divine messianic title, John 10:1-18. He then tells them, “I and the Father are one,” (10:30). That statement caused the Jews to pick up stones to stone Jesus, and He asked them to tell Him which good works were they stoning Him for, but it wasn’t His good works, they responded, but because He made Himself God, (10:31-33). 

Jesus’s response is perplexing, because He cites Psalm 82:6 back to them. His use of that passage for silencing His accusers is odd. What exactly did He mean when He quotes the Psalm? Heiser believes when he cites that verse from Psalm 82, Jesus is affirming his divine council theology.

Heiser’s Take

In The Unseen Realm, Heiser doesn’t exegete the passage at all. The reader is directed to his online websites where he links to a paper he presented to the Pacific Northwest biblical literature society, Jesus’ Quotation of Psalm 82:6 in John 10:34. In an extended footnote in his book, he writes,

Due to space constraints I have excluded discussion of John 10:34–35, where John has Jesus citing Psa 82:6 in defense of his deity. Nearly all modern commentators fail to take the verse in light of the original context of Psa 82, which has the divine council as its focus. They strangely have the elohim of Psa 82:6 as mere humans, which reduces Jesus’ self-defense to saying that he is allowed to call himself the son of God because every other Jew could as well. This undermines Jesus’ claim to deity in the passage and ignores how the quotation is bookended with two suggestions of his deity: (1) identification with the Father (John 10:30)—who is Lord of the council; and (2) the assertion that the Father is in Jesus (John 10:38). Interpretation of the quotation of Psa 82:6 in John 10 must not ignore the original divine—not human—context of the psalm. That context is part of the power of the quotation—that the Jewish Scriptures bore witness to nonhuman sons of God. This reminder is the gist of Psa 82:6. Juxtaposed as its quotation is in John 10, between two statements that identify Jesus with the Father, the point of the theology produced by the quotation in context is that Jesus is not only a divine son of God, but superior to all divine sons of God in his identification with the Father, the Lord of the divine council.

Before I outline Heiser’s main view, I need to make one clarifying comment in response to that footnote. Contrary to what he says about modern commentators failing to consider the original context of Psalm 82, ALL the commentators I read mention Heiser’s divine council theory. In other words, the view that I have shown pre-dates Heiser nearly 150 years, if not more, that the elohim in Psalm 82 are divine beings. What he doesn’t like is that the vast majority of commentators, specifically big hitters evangelical commentators like Leon Morris, D.A. Carson, and Andreas Kostenberger, for example, disagree with his take, and they do so after rigorous exegesis of the relevant texts. Only the higher critical commentators that Heiser favors, who deny the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible and treat Scripture as a book of religious myth and superstitious folklore, agree with him that Israel believed in a divine council populated with a multitude of elohim or divine beings equal to or rivaling YHWH. Hence, modern commentators are not failing to take John 10:34 in light of the original context of Psalm 82, they don’t believe there is any exegetical warrant to conclude the Psalm is saying what Heiser wants it to say.

But what exactly is Heiser’s view? Summarizing his conclusions from his academic article, he zeroes in on the phrase in John 10:35, to whom the word of the Lord came, and insists that what Jesus is recalling is God’s pronouncements in Psalm 82 to the other lesser elohim on the divine council. The Jews would obviously have the divine council of elohim in mind when Jesus cited the passage, and the effect would be two-fold: first, Jesus reminded them that there are other non-human divine beings, known as the sons of God. When He links his further statements in 10:30 and 38 to Psalm 82, He is claiming his own divinity—he can call himself the Son of God based on Psalm 82, where other divine beings do the same thing. A second effect is that when Jesus says the Father is in Him, and He is in the Father, and He and the Father are one, He is connecting Himself to the divine council co-regency. He equates Himself as co-regent to the Lord of the council, YHWH Himself, and so the blasphemy charge now makes good sense.

In Response

First, Heiser’s perspective only works IF the sons of God in Psalm 82 are divine beings. He assumes they are and that his take is the correct one even though it is fraught with a lot of difficulties and has a host of interpretive problems to overcome as I noted in a previous article. Additionally, his arrogant dismissal of other viable interpretations of Psalm 82 and John 10:34 doesn’t help him. Just because he refuses to interact with their work by proclaiming “look-at-what-a- great-peer-reviewed-academic-I-am-just-believe-what-I tell-you” doesn’t make him right by default.

But the more troubling aspect of his view is how it makes Jesus, YHWH God, a “co-regent” with YHWH. As I noted in earlier articles, Heiser is emphatic that him saying Jesus was a co-regent with YHWH on the divine council does not do violence to the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. The problem, however, is that his conclusion that Jesus is a co-regent presents the picture of Him as a separate being apart from YHWH. There is YHWH and then Jesus who is co-regent with YHWH. Even more puzzling is how Heiser doesn’t see that confusion as a problem, yet as I have already noted, the Mormons use his divine council doctrine to affirm their polytheistic view of a multitude of gods.

Jesus, however, is not just another elohim or son of God like the other elohims supposedly on the divine council. HE IS YHWH! He is the elohim taking a stand in the midst of the assembly over all the other elohim. Heiser’s insistence on avoiding the identification of the Trinity in the OT creates an unintentionally applied heresy. Remember, he claims no Israelite would have understood the triune godhead in the OT, so any passages that uses “we” or “us” like Genesis 1:26, isn’t an interpersonal dialogue between the persons of the Trinity, but singular YHWH consulting with the other elohims on the divine council. God’s fullest revelation encompassing both the Old and New Testaments, however, tells us that those interpersonal dialogues are between the members of the triune godhead. It doesn’t matter if the OT writers understood fully what they were writing at that time. The point is that now with the coming of Christ and the Holy Spirit filling the Church, we do know what they were writing. 

So What Exactly is Jesus Saying in John 10:34?

Andreas Kostenberger notes that in his gospel the apostle John depicts Jesus on trial by the Jewish leaders throughout His entire ministry beginning in John chapter 2, [See Kostenberger’s discussion in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, D.A. Carson and G.K. Beale, ed.]. Rather than demonstrating Jesus’s guilt, the apostle is demonstrating the Jews culpability for rejecting their Messiah. Coming to John 10, we have another trial motif when the Jews demanded to know if He was the Christ, and when Jesus responded by saying He and the Father are one, they picked up stones to essentially pass the verdict of death by stoning for blasphemy. 

The expression that Jesus uses in 10:35, “to whom the word of God came,” is key to our understanding of the sons of God in Psalm 82. Heiser adamantly claims John has Jesus saying they are spiritual angelic divine beings, but he is virtually alone on that conclusion. He doesn’t inform his readers that commentators believe the more textual view of the sons of God in Psalm 82 is of Israel and the Jews that God commissioned as His spokesmen. We explored that in previous articles. That conclusion is reached with Jesus mentioning “to whom the word of God came.” It doesn’t come to angels or divine beings, but it does have special meaning to the people of Israel. Kostenberger explains, 

Jesus’ commentary on the scriptural passage that he adduces commences, “If he called them ‘gods’ to whom the word of God came” (10:35). In the OT the phrase “to whom the word of God came” often is used with reference to those who speak or act in God’s name. The expression “the word of the LORD that came” is found at the opening of the prophetic books of Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Micah, and Zephaniah (see also Luke 3:2). The phrase is used also with reference to David (1 Chron. 22:8) and Solomon (1 Kings 6:11) (see DalyDenton 2004: 125). Fittingly, the backdrop for the present use of Scripture is the Feast of Dedication and a portico named for David’s son Solomon (10:22–23).

Kostenberger further notes that Jesus’s argument, in typical rabbinic fashion, is from the lesser to the greater. His point is that if Israel’s leaders and judges can in some sense be called “god” in the Scriptures, how much more appropriate this designation is for Him, “whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world” (10:36) and who truly is the Son of God.

Additionally, it is providential that this exchange between Jesus and the Jews happened during the Feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah, for it also helps shed light on what He means. He says to them in 10:36, “do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” Just like the altar was set apart and consecrated anew, so the Father has set apart, sanctified and consecrated, the son to do His works. Jesus points them to the works He has performed, undeniable miraculous signs that no other explanation exists but to conclude Jesus is who He claims to be.  

AW Pink captures well what John is telling us with this episode,

The meaning and force of our Lord’s argument is obvious. If, in a book which you admit to be of Divine authority, and all whose expressions are perfectly faultless, men which have received a Divine communication to administer justice to the people of God are called ‘gods’ and sons of the Highest; is it not absurd to bring against One who has a higher commission than they (One who had been sanctified and sent by the Father), and who presented far more evidence of His commission, a charge of blasphemy, because He calls Himself ‘the Son of God’? You dare not charge blasphemy on the Psalmist;—why do you charge it on Me?… He reasoned with the Jews on their own principles. Were the Messiah nothing more than you expect Him to be, to charge One who claims Messiahship with blasphemy, because He calls Himself the Son of God, is plainly gross inconsistency. Your magistrates are called God’s sons, and may not your Messiah claim the same title? [Pink, Exposition of John, 556].

When we consider Heiser’s understanding of Christ’s debate with the Jews, I think it is safe to conclude that he is reading his divine council theology into His words without any genuine evidence that Jesus was referencing a divine council. Heiser is inadvertently breaking his own rules he laid out in the second chapter of his book. That is, he is reading his “tradition” onto the text. He assumes it is the only right view, and so he sees it everywhere in the Bible. But when we offer a bit of biblical scrutiny, his view doesn’t hold up like he thinks it does.

That said, we need to consider whether or not there is a genuine divine council and what exactly it does.