Ep 6: So Many Gods!

00:00And I gotta say, like, the reason that I chose this story was that you frequently shocked

00:07me with stories in the Bible that I had never heard or had never heard in the way that you

00:12explained them.

00:14Some of those stories were just interesting, but some were literally jaw-dropping, and

00:18today's story dropped my jaw, so.

00:23Hey, everybody.

00:26Hi, friends.

00:27This is Dan McClellan.

00:29And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:30And welcome to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we try to increase public access to the

00:36academic study of the Bible and religion and combat misinformation about the Bible and

00:41religion.

00:43My understanding is that we have a great episode today, Dan.

00:46Yes, that's what I've been told.

00:49I'm getting the information now, and yes, I am told that it is, in fact, going to be

00:55a fun episode.

00:56Well, I like that we're changing things up a little bit, then.

01:00Yeah, yeah, it'll be a nice relief from what we've been doing.

01:04I'm going to be talking about a moment that you made me aware of in the Bible that kind

01:12of blew my mind, and I'll have you sort of helping out, figuring out what's actually

01:17happening there.

01:19And then what are you talking about?

01:20I'm going to do a piece, what does that mean, talking about the divine council?

01:27I brought that up a lot on social media in the past.

01:29And people always say, can you talk more about the divine council?

01:32What does the divine council mean?

01:34So we're going to talk about it in the Hebrew Bible.

01:36We're going to talk about what literature, what archeological evidence is out there to

01:41help us fill in the gaps in our understanding and how that changed into Greco-Roman period

01:46Judaism and then into the New Testament.

01:49All right, well, let's dive into chapter and verse.

01:53All right, sounds good.

01:55All right, well, this story comes from the book of Second Kings, chapter three.

02:02And it opens by placing us in time and space.

02:05So the time is the 18th year of the rule of King Jehoshaphat of Judah, which is super

02:15helpful, I suppose, in terms of time.

02:19Now, a bunch of different kingdoms come into play in this story.

02:23And I have to admit that my knowledge of ancient Southwest Asia is scant.

02:31So I did a little research and maybe you can help me out with this, Dan.

02:35Okay.

02:36It's a bit of a tangent, but I think that it's useful because the truth is that like when

02:40I would read the Bible, I didn't know where anything was.

02:44I didn't know, I didn't have an image in my mind of any of this stuff.

02:48So I found it helpful, maybe some of our listeners will too.

02:54When I looked up the ancient kingdoms, here's what the best that I could figure out.

02:59The whole area of at least this story, including all the various kingdoms was roughly the size

03:06of New Hampshire, a little bigger than Delaware, but nowhere near as big as Ohio, according

03:13to the theoretical map that I found on Wikipedia.

03:19The four kingdoms at play, Israel, Judah, Edom, and Moab, basically surround the Dead Sea.

03:28Israel's to the north of the sea, reaching up over the Sea of Galilee.

03:34Its capital was Samaria.

03:35Is that right?

03:36Samaria.

03:37Samaria.

03:38Okay, on the western shore was Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem.

03:45South is the kingdom of Edom, and East is Moab.

03:49Correct.

03:50Now, this chapter starts with Jehoram, son of Ahab, as king of Israel in Samaria, not

04:02Sumaria, but Samaria, anyway, it's just Samaria.

04:09And there's a weird passage that mysteriously tells us that, quote, "He did what was evil

04:15in the sight of the Lord, though not like his father and mother, for he removed the

04:20pillar of Baal that his father had made.

04:24Nevertheless, he clung to the sin of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, that he caused Israel to commit.

04:32He did not depart from it.

04:33Now, call me weird, but I had no idea what the heck this thing was talking about it.

04:41And I texted you and was like, you're going to have to help me with this one.

04:45Yeah.

04:46So we've got, we've got some references before this, and we've got some references after

04:50this.

04:51It's not perfectly unified, it doesn't all make perfect sense.

04:56There are questions when we look at the rest of the text, but from 1 Kings 16, we've got

05:01this statement about steel eye or standing stone.

05:05So these would have been divine images for Baal and for Ashera, one for Baal, one for

05:11Ashera.

05:12Now, we've got this statement here that he removed the pillar of Baal that his father

05:16had made.

05:17The 1 Kings 16 is historically accurate and if this is approximating historical accuracy,

05:22that would mean that he left the pillar for Ashera in place.

05:27Now I actually think this has a chance of being historically accurate because Baal is

05:33the enemy of Adonai and of Israel going back very far.

05:39And I think that's probably because Adonai is trying to be the storm deity in this area

05:44that at one time was ruled over by Baal.

05:47And so they're both trying to fill the same role.

05:49So there's competition.

05:51Ashera does not become demonized and vilified until around the seventh century BCE under

05:57the reign of King Josiah.

05:59And so a lot of the texts as we have it are later authors who are editing the history

06:06that they've inherited.

06:07So they're looking back at the early history and saying, okay, that was bad.

06:10That was bad.

06:11That was bad.

06:12But it wouldn't surprise me for them to not really notice that the history they inherited

06:20only says, oh, you removed the statue of Baal and not realize, well, if we want to be perfectly

06:26consistent, we need to also mention that they took out the statue of Ashera or mention left

06:31the statue of Ashera and that was bad.

06:34So we've got some history that's being filtered through later ideological lenses.

06:40And so, but the use of standing stones of steleye of divine images is something that is associated

06:48with Jeroboam.

06:49He sets up calves at Dan and Beth Al, he's the king in the northern kingdom.

06:55And until the northern kingdom falls in around 722 BCE, they are criticized by those in the

07:05southern kingdom as at least according to the text as we have them now.

07:10Because they were always going after ball.

07:12They were using divine images.

07:13They were doing all this stuff.

07:15In reality, there was probably nobody who cared about any of that stuff apart from maybe

07:22ball until we get into the Exilic period and they're editing these old histories.

07:28And now it's bad.

07:30We're looking at the old history and we've got to say, well, they were all doing it all

07:34wrong back then.

07:35So there's a lot of editorializing here.

07:37It gets a little complex.

07:38But in short, there was probably a steely for Ashera, one for ball.

07:43The king gets rid of the one for ball.

07:45So he's taking one step in the right direction, but he's still doing something wrong.

07:49Maybe it is holding onto that steely for Ashera.

07:53Okay.

07:54And we've got, you know, there's a lot of gods at play in all of this.

07:59That's, you know, the part of why we chose this story leading into your next segment is

08:04that this is part, this is part of that, the ancient world had a lot of gods going around

08:12and everybody kind of believed in everybody else's gods.

08:15Is that right?

08:16Like, it's not like, you know, these were all gods that everyone understood to be real.

08:23Yeah.

08:24Is that true?

08:25Yeah.

08:26And in this early period, the idea is basically that Adonai is the God of Israel.

08:30He's our God and you even see in the book of Judges, like Jeff's messengers are confronting

08:36the Ammonite messengers.

08:38And the Ammonite messengers are basically like, Hey, give us back the land you conquered.

08:42And they say, Hey man, you keep what your deity has conquered for you.

08:47We're going to keep what our deity has conquered for us.

08:51And what Adonai conquered for them was that little piece of Ammonite land.

08:56And so, yeah, they in early Israel, they saw every other nation as being ruled over by

09:00a patron deity.

09:02And they acknowledged they believed that those deities existed.

09:04They believed they had power and they believed that there was, to some degree, there was

09:10cooperation among them to in on in another dimension, there was competition among them.

09:15And we're going to see that in more detail when I get to the divine council discussion.

09:20But yeah, these other we're going to see it by the end of this story.

09:23And I got to say, like the reason that I chose this story was that, you know, one of the

09:28things that I really was drawn to in your content, Dan, is that you frequently shocked

09:35me with stories in the Bible that I had never heard or had never heard in the way that you

09:40explained them.

09:42Some of those stories were just interesting, but some were literally jaw dropping.

09:47And today's story dropped my jaw.

09:50So, so that's what we're going on to, but for now, here's the story, King Mesha or Misha.

09:58How would you say it?

09:59Misha of Moab, Misha, Misha, okay.

10:03So King Mesha of Moab was apparently the big sheep guy of the region.

10:11And even though he was a king, he was apparently under Israel's thumb.

10:16How would you characterize the relationship between Moab and Israel at this time?

10:20So that was vassalage.

10:22So Moab was a vassal to Israel.

10:27Israel was the sovereign nation.

10:30And the idea here is if you've, there's an old episode of police squad, which is what

10:36the movie Naked Gun was based on, where there's a protection racket going down in the city.

10:43And so Frank Dreben starts up this fake key store and it's basically these two mobsters

10:50come in and they're like, this is a nice looking key store you got here.

10:54And Frank goes, what'd you say about my key store?

10:56They said key store.

10:58But then they say, hey, we'd hate for something bad to happen to you.

11:01So you give us 50 bucks a week and we protect you.

11:05And obviously the idea is, hey, pay us money or we're going to rough you up.

11:10And then they say, no, get out of here.

11:11You'll get nothing from us.

11:12So they leave and then Frank and his partner go back to work.

11:18And then suddenly there's gunfire, just erupts and glass everywhere and bullet holes just

11:23strafe the back wall and they don't notice.

11:26But then Frank looks up and goes, look out.

11:29And this brick comes through the window and there's, he picks up the brick and he kind

11:34of looks at it and he's like, I guess they mean business.

11:37But ignoring the fact that the whole wall's been shot up.

11:40But that's basically the modern concept of vassalage.

11:46A larger, more powerful nation ruffs up a smaller nation and says, hey, we'll protect

11:52you from these nasty people around here.

11:55You just got to pay us a tribute every year.

11:58When we go to war, you've got to provide soldiers for us and we'll get along great.

12:02And this was a Syria, the nation of Assyria kind of made this a big thing.

12:08And the concept of covenant in the Hebrew Bible is actually borrowed pretty much wholesale

12:15from some of the vassal treaties that Assyria had set up.

12:20And even the book of Deuteronomy is crafted after these Assyrian vassal treaties, which

12:27included things like, you will love us.

12:30And in turn, we will love you or else we will kill a bunch of you and drag off everybody

12:36into exile.

12:37So it was this contractual relationship.

12:41And so Moab was under vassalage to Israel.

12:46And then when Maysha, I don't remember if it happens right before Maysha.

12:50I think it's when Maysha exceeds to the throne, becomes king.

12:54He's like, you know what?

12:55We're not doing this anymore.

12:56And so the saying is he threw off Israelite vassalage, basically refused to pay the tribute.

13:03And that means that the big bad sovereign nation has got to do something about that.

13:10Right.

13:11So, and the vassalage up until, and the big event was that Ahab had died, who was the

13:19king of Israel before his son, Jeh, Jeh, Jeh, Jehorim.

13:27So anyway, so yeah, Moab had been delivering, and I don't know if this was a yearly delivery

13:33or whatever, a hundred thousand lambs.

13:37And then depending on what translation you go with, either a hundred thousand rams with

13:43their wool, or just the wool of a hundred thousand rams.

13:48To me, that's, that sounds like a lot of sheep.

13:50I don't know about, I don't know a lot about sheep.

13:53That sounds like a lot for a very small area.

13:55Yeah.

13:56And that this is almost certainly exaggerated.

13:59Okay.

14:00Fine.

14:01And anyway, I will exaggerate.

14:03It's okay.

14:04Whoa.

14:05Whoa.

14:06I don't know about that.

14:07We're going to have to check with some, some other scholars to make sure that that's

14:11true.

14:12Anyway, so the Ahab dies.

14:15And as you say, King Masha apparently didn't want to, apparently he didn't think that Jehorim

14:22had the stones to keep the protection racket up.

14:25And he made the power play of not delivering the sheep.

14:32So Jehorim was having none of that.

14:35And he called Jehoshaphat, who you'll remember was the delightfully named king of Judah.

14:41And he was like, Hey, Masha has joined up with the Tertalia family.

14:47And now they're not paying their sheep toll.

14:50So we're going to the mattresses.

14:51Will you join me?

14:52Jehoshaphat was like, he's going to sleep with the fishes.

14:56So they decided that they wanted to make triple sure that they'd beat these Moabites.

15:03So they went down to Edom and got the king of Edom, who doesn't apparently have a name

15:08in this story.

15:10Right.

15:11But I'm pretty sure it's something silly sounding that started with the J. I'll call

15:15him Jingleheimer.

15:16Anyway, he joined them too.

15:19And they all took, they took all of their armies and started to march to Moab.

15:24Yeah.

15:25So you've got three kingdoms, three kingdoms worth of armies marching against the sheep

15:33kingdom, which seems unfair, but whatever the kings setting right exactly the fellowship

15:41of the sheep.

15:43Unfortunately for them, much of Moab, much like the Moab that's here in Utah, Moab next

15:49to the Dead Sea was in the desert.

15:53And after a week of walking, the armies of Israel, Judah and Edom suddenly found themselves

15:58in a place with no water, which, you know, is bad.

16:03Oh, and their cattle were going to die too, because apparently you bring cattle with you

16:08when you go to war.

16:09They had a whole, a whole bunch of livestock apparently.

16:12Yeah.

16:13And this was a warfare was a big deal.

16:15And so usually there was a season where you set out for war and you would be gone for

16:20months.

16:21And so again, some exaggeration going on here, but it wouldn't be out of the question for

16:26them to be bringing their, their meat with them before it had been slaughtered.

16:30Okay.

16:31Keep everybody's protein levels up.

16:34Makes sense.

16:35Anyway, Jehorim was distraught that there was no water and they were going to die in

16:42the desert.

16:43But Jehoshaphat was like, didn't you guys bring a prophet of the Lord with you?

16:50Maybe he can help.

16:51Now, his confidence does make me wonder, did the Judah Heights worship the same God that

16:58the Israelites worshiped?

16:59They did.

17:00So that goes back as far as the existence of Judah.

17:05Our earliest reference of any kind to the house of David, for instance, comes from an

17:09inscription called the Tel Dan inscription, which it's not exact.

17:14We have to kind of reconstruct who it's a reference to, but it seems to refer to some

17:18kings, either in Israel or in Judah with Yauistic theophoric elements.

17:25So these kings already are named after Adonai, the God of Israel.

17:30And so I, there are different theories about where the kingdom of Judah came from at the

17:35moment.

17:36At this point in the early ninth century, it's probably just the house of David as a

17:39dynasty.

17:41And they probably are splitting off from the northern kingdom and taking over Jerusalem

17:48and creating the southern kingdom.

17:51So there are different reconstructions of how that happened.

17:54But yes, Judah does have Adonai as their patron deity by the ninth century.

18:01Okay, so they bring out Elisha who, who poured water on the hands of Elisha.

18:09Right.

18:10You know, I was going to say he poured water on the hands of Elisha so that you know he

18:14was good.

18:15Right.

18:16And in the chapter preceding this, Elisha watched Elisha.

18:22What was he carried away in a whirlwind or something like you?

18:25Yeah.

18:26I think a chariot, swing, swing, swing, swing, swing low and picked up Elijah and he went

18:36up in the whirlwind or the fire, whatever it was.

18:39That's a heck of a way to go.

18:42Don't even die.

18:43Just get picked up.

18:44Just call it, call a heavenly Uber when you're there.

18:48So Elisha was a little salty with Johor, Johorim at first, probably because of the whole Ashera

18:57stele thing, who knows.

19:00But he, he was a little grumpy, but then he said, but because I see you're hanging out

19:07with Johoshafat and I'm a total Johoshafat stan, I guess I will do some prophesying for

19:15you.

19:16On one condition, he, he says, get me a musician.

19:21Yes.

19:22This is my favorite part of the whole story.

19:24He couldn't just prophesy right then and there.

19:27No, he needed some atmosphere.

19:30So yeah, he's someone to musicians in here before we can do this.

19:35Yeah, you got to get, you got to get this.

19:37You got to get things chill before you start prophesying.

19:42So he comes, he, you know, the once the vibe is set, he, he goes into his prophesy mode

19:50and he comes up with two big things.

19:53The first thing is that if they dig a bunch of ditches, those ditches will fill with water

19:59even though it won't rain and they'll be enough for the soldiers and all their cattle

20:05and all that sort of stuff.

20:06So that's good.

20:08And the second prophecy, he, he played it up like it was not a big deal.

20:16He said, quote, this is but a light thing in the side of the Lord.

20:22He will deliver the Moabites into your hand and you shall smite every fenced city and

20:28every choice city and shall fell every good tree and stop all wells of water and mar every

20:37good piece of land with stones.

20:40Good old KJV.

20:41Yeah.

20:42So this is, actually, I don't know that that was KJV.

20:45I'm pretty sure that that's the KJV.

20:48It may well have been.

20:49Yeah.

20:50It may well have been.

20:51So I bounced back and forth between translations a lot.

20:54It's hard to keep them straight.

20:55And so here we've got basically a scorched earth policy, which is something that the

21:00Neo Assyrians, uh, innovated.

21:03We're going to, we're going to salt your fields.

21:05We're going to tear down all the trees.

21:06We're going to do all this kind of stuff.

21:07And even in those vassal treaties that we talk about, there are even, um, as we see

21:13in Deuteronomy, they were like prohibitions on doing this kind of thing.

21:18And so we can see borrowing from the way the Neo Assyrians are dealing with their neighbors.

21:23So here they're saying, and I think it's important to note in verse 18, it says, this

21:28is, this is just a, you know, this is a trifle for Adonai and it says he will also give Moab

21:34into your hand.

21:35Let me see what the, uh, the Hebrew says Natanat Moab, uh, beyedhem, which is, uh, he will

21:42give Moab into your plural hand.

21:46And the idea here is you will basically conquer Moab.

21:52You will return them to vassalage.

21:54The promise here is unmistakable Moab is throwing off vassalage.

21:58They're going in, they're not going in just to like slap them and leave.

22:02The point is to return them to vassalage because that's worth a lot of money and it is also

22:08worth a lot of, uh, status because if the new king shows up and Moab bounces and they

22:16let him go, that puts a taint on that king.

22:22And so the idea is we need to get Moab back under our thumb and the promise here is unmistakable.

22:28The Lord will put deliver Moab into your hand, meaning Moab will be back under vassalage

22:34to you.

22:36Right.

22:37So yeah, it does feel a little vindictive, the cutting down of the trees, the stopping

22:44the wells, uh, that, that's a lot I feel, and I feel like the throwing, throwing rocks

22:50in the field is, is just their version of the brick through the window.

22:55Hey, that's, that's just the, they mean business bit.

22:58Yeah.

22:59And, and part of it was, um, if you're not, if you're not going to deliver these annual

23:04tributes and we come in and punish you to this degree, it's going to make it a lot harder

23:09for them to actually deliver the, that tribute.

23:12And so there's a degree to which the scorched earth campaign was kind of like a one off.

23:18We're just going to destroy your nation.

23:21We're going to take whatever it is you have.

23:23And then we're going to bring you back into exile, we're going to scatter your, scatter

23:27you around our kingdom so that you can't organize and revolt.

23:30And basically, okay, you don't want to be under vassalage anymore.

23:34We're going to destroy you and we are going to take all your resources.

23:37So that's probably actually a little closer to what's going on here rather than, um, it

23:43might have been, you know, this is the threat, but we will return you to vassalage or we're

23:48just going to destroy your nation and we're just going to take you and everything that

23:52you have.

23:53And it's just going to be a one off final payment that's going to go on.

23:59Okay, so as you say, uh, Adonai has, uh, has promised that their campaign will be successful.

24:11All the cities will be delivered into their hands.

24:13So the water came into the ditches just as Elijah prophesied and everyone got enough

24:18to drink.

24:19So that was good.

24:21And the war started and there's a whole thing where the Moabite army thought that the water

24:25in the ditches was blood and then assumed that all the Israelites and Judah Heights and the

24:29Edomites were dead.

24:31So they meandered into their camp and got their butts handed to them.

24:35That that was a whole debacle, but then Jehorum marched everybody from city to city in Moab

24:44and they just wrecked everybody and through their stones in the field and stopped their

24:50wells and cut down their trees.

24:51So it's going well.

24:53Everything's going according to plan.

24:55Yeah.

24:56Finally, they make it to the capital city where the final big boss, the Moabite king was.

25:03And you know, they duke it out for a bit, but the Moabites were losing pretty badly.

25:09So, uh, the king of Moab, he pulled a desperation move.

25:15He grabbed his firstborn son and sacrificed him as a burnt offering on the wall of the

25:22city, which I mean, you know, yikes.

25:28And then here's what the last verse of the chapter says.

25:31I'll just read the quote.

25:34And there was great indignation against Israel and they departed from him and returned to

25:41their own land.

25:43Now, to me, that wording is underplaying it.

25:47Yeah.

25:49But it certainly sounds like Jehorum and by extension, Ad and I lost.

25:58Is that what happened?

25:59What happened here?

26:00It does.

26:01I think you're, you're right on both counts.

26:03It sounds like they lost and it also sounds like they're underplaying it.

26:06Like the author is being very, um, kind of just trailing off, uh, just so people don't

26:11notice what's going on here.

26:13But this phrase kits of Godol, great fury, KJV says great indignation.

26:19This comes from somewhere.

26:21And then we have Israel pulling up camp and going home.

26:25And we know from the historical record that Moab was not returned to Vassalage because

26:32we have an inscription from Mesa, crowing about having thrown off, uh, Israelite Vassalage.

26:40So we'll get to that in a second, but I want to talk about this phrase, kits of Godol.

26:44Uh, great fury.

26:46This occurs, I think 28 30 times in the Hebrew Bible, uh, two of the occurrences are late

26:52Persian period prose couplets.

26:55They're not relevant here.

26:56Um, and they, they're kind of poetic references to just general fury.

27:01All the other ones are referring to divine fury and specifically Ad and I's fury against

27:07somebody, whether it's Israel or somebody else.

27:09So it's a divine fury.

27:11And so this would seem to suggest there is some kind of divine fury against Israel that

27:16forces them to retreat, that forces them back to their own nation without having conquered

27:21the nation of Moab.

27:24And within the context of this discussion, they're losing the battle.

27:29They sacrifice the heir to the throne on the city wall.

27:33Immediately there is something that is probably divine fury that chases Israel off.

27:38Man, it certainly sounds like a, a deity came down and chase them off.

27:43And we have a parallel story that is almost identical, uh, later on in second Kings 18

27:51and 19 where when Hezekiah comes to the throne, he decides he's going to throw off vassalage

27:57to the neo Assyrian empire.

28:00And that this is, this is Israel throwing off.

28:02Yeah.

28:03So, Judah, so Hezekiah, Israel's destroyed, Hezekiah becomes king over Judah, decides

28:11he's going to throw off vassalage to the neo Assyrian king, Sennacherib, which angers

28:16Sennacherib.

28:17And so he mounts an invasion and comes in and destroys, um, cities and basically does

28:24what Israel is commanded to do here, what this coalition is commanded to do, just raises

28:29cities to the ground, a scorched earth campaign, uh, comes all the way to Jerusalem.

28:35And we actually have what's called the Sennacherib prism, a text by Sennacherib that says he

28:40trapped Hezekiah in his city, like a bird in a cage.

28:44And the text doesn't say he took the city because he didn't, uh, he actually abandoned

28:49the campaign and left Hezekiah on his own.

28:54He had successfully thrown off vassalage.

28:56And if you look in 2 Kings 18 and 19, it's a, it's a muddled text.

29:00There are actually a few different versions of this story that are being, uh, woven together

29:06and they don't make a lot of sense.

29:08Like, first there's this messenger who comes and says, uh, pay me my money.

29:13And it says, Hezekiah had to go down to strip the silver and the gold from the, from the

29:19doors of the temple and just paid what he was owed.

29:22And then the very next verse is Sennacherib saying, showing up and saying, Hey, pay me

29:28my money.

29:29And now Hezekiah says, uh, wouldn't be prudent, not going to do it.

29:34And so we have this standoff, Hezekiah, praise Isaiah, praise, uh, and you have the angel

29:40of just of the Lord, the angel of destruction goes through the camp overnight and kills

29:45180 something thousand Assyrian troops.

29:49So the next day they wake up everybody's dead and it says Sennacherib pulled up camp

29:55and went back home uses the same verbs that are used here to refer to Israel departing

30:01to refer to Assyria departing.

30:03So we've got this parallel story, a new king throws off vassalage, the, uh, the sovereign

30:08nation invades gets the, to the last city is going to take the city and then divine intervention

30:15drives them off.

30:17But there's no reason that the God of Israel would be driving Israel out of Moab.

30:22And so what most critical scholars agree on and I think is the only rational reading

30:29of the text is that the author is kind of furtively suggesting, well, they're God beat

30:37us and we ran off.

30:39So the God of Maysha Kemosh drove out the Israelites, uh, and their intervention was

30:47catalyzed by the, uh, sacrificial offering of the heir to the throne.

30:53So that basically appeased the God of Moab who came down and drove off the Israelites,

30:58frustrating the autistic prophecy and freeing Moab from vassalage.

31:05And that's even what the, uh, the text of the Maysha inscription, which dates to around

31:09the middle of the ninth century BCE says Maysha, um, boasts that Israel made things hard on

31:17them, but Kemosh drove them out of the land.

31:20Wow.

31:21Yeah.

31:22That is a, that is a, the first time I heard you explain that story.

31:26I was befuddled, uh, I suppose it makes sense that you don't often hear a Sunday school

31:34talking about, uh, that sort of thing.

31:37Um, it's not exactly faith promoting or whatever, but I find it fascinating.

31:43Yeah.

31:44I find it fascinating too.

31:45And I think the author is, is definitely kind of, you know, muttering this under their

31:48breath.

31:49They don't want to acknowledge this openly, you know, it's not two chapters worth of narrative

31:54like it is in second Kings 18 and 19.

31:57It's just like, yeah, and then, you know, we got, um, but at the same time, it's making

32:03an excuse because, uh, Moab successfully threw off vassalage.

32:09How are they going to explain how the God of Israel let that happen?

32:14Usually if somebody comes in and defeats you, you can say, oh, well, we were wicked and we,

32:18and we, you know, God abandoned us or God was angry with us and God used the other nation

32:24to punish us so that we would learn and we get a lot of that in the Hebrew Bible.

32:29And that's in the Maysha inscription as well.

32:31The reason that Maysha says Israel was allowed to oppress Moab text says, may, uh, chemosh

32:37was angry with his land.

32:39Um, so it's the exact same kind of rationalization.

32:42So what the author is doing here is just coming up with another explanation for how this could

32:47have happened that's, uh, allows Adonai to still be the sovereign over Israel and just

32:53says, well, Adonai lost home court advantage.

32:56They were outside of their territory.

32:58They were in another deities territory.

33:00They were out of pocket and you know, we got, and we got, and you know, it's funny because

33:06I did see, I have seen some people, uh, you know, doing apologetics for this and saying

33:14that, you know, Israel must not have obeyed, uh, the law, you know, obeyed Adonai in some,

33:23you know, they must have been wicked in their campaign or something, but there's no mention

33:27of this anywhere in this story.

33:31So all right.

33:33There you go.

33:34A fascinating, uh, look at the time when the God of Israel kind of, you know, apparently

33:40didn't quite, didn't quite, it came up a little short this one time.

33:44Yeah.

33:45And we're just going to win them all.

33:47We're just going to sneak it in between the lines of that one verse right there.

33:50And then we're going to move on quick, quickly, quickly we will move on, uh, and, and, and

33:57I suppose you and I can move on too.

33:59Thanks a lot.

34:00And, uh, let's, let's go on to our next segment.

34:02Okay.

34:03Hey, everybody.

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34:48Okay.

34:49Let's talk a little bit about what the divine council is.

34:53Now we've kind of set the stage with this discussion of Adonai, the god of Israel going

34:59into another nation and doing battle against the patron deity of that nation.

35:05And at least in second Kings three 27, Adonai loses that battle.

35:10Now there are, there are other times where Adonai goes into Egypt, for instance, with

35:14the Exodus and does battle against the gods of Egypt and judges the gods of Egypt and

35:19defeats them, uh, as the text says.

35:22And what this reflects is this ancient Southwest Asian notion that the different, uh, empires

35:30and territorial states in the world, the different sovereign entities had their own patron deities.

35:38And these were deities that had sovereignty in their land and over the people who occupied

35:43that land.

35:45And we see this idea reflected probably most clearly in Deuteronomy 32, eight and nine.

35:51And this is a passage that's the Masoretic text, the traditional, uh, critical text of

35:58the Hebrew Bible here, uh, has a little bit of a change.

36:02And I'll mention that, uh, briefly, but, um, I'm gonna talk to me first.

36:06Can you, can you define what Masoretic means?

36:09What, where does that word come from and what does it refer to?

36:12Yeah.

36:13So the Masoretic text is a medieval manuscript or set of manuscripts that all descend from

36:19the same set of scribes, scholars who were responsible for transmitting this manuscript.

36:26And they developed a system of vowels and different kinds of cancellation marks.

36:32And so basically created, uh, this complex composite, uh, manuscript of the Hebrew Bible

36:40that has become the most authoritative manuscript, uh, in the world is the one that is used by,

36:46um, most scholars today who are producing translations.

36:50And so it probably starts up, the Masoretes are, uh, scribes who live around the Sea of

36:55Galilee in the medieval period and the family there, uh, begins to copy these texts and

37:02creates a system for vowels, a vocalization system.

37:06There are a couple that had been created, but this is the one that, uh, that becomes

37:09predominant and they write a bunch of notes in the margins of the manuscripts about how

37:14many times words occur and that kind of thing.

37:16So they create this whole manuscript tradition and it gets handed down through the generations.

37:24And so the, the Leningrad Codex is the main, uh, copy of the Masoretic text that is generally

37:33used when people want to create a translation of the Hebrew Bible.

37:37There's an earlier one called the Aleppo Codex, which is almost identical in every way.

37:43Uh, the variations have to do with some of those marks that were added to the text.

37:49And then there's another manuscript that's actually, uh, going up for auction soon that

37:54is probably, uh, around the same age as the Aleppo Codex, uh, if not a little bit older.

38:01So the Leningrad Codex, I think dates to around 1,000, 1,000 eight CE, the Aleppo Codex and

38:09this other new Codex, not new, but this other Codex that is being auctioned off.

38:13They're probably about a hundred years earlier than that.

38:15So maybe around 900 CE.

38:18So somebody should buy that for us, uh, I feel like our podcast should have that.

38:22So wha, wha, wha, whichever one of you wants to be our, the patron that buys us the priceless

38:29precious ancient document, we, we, we will gladly, uh, we will send you a, uh, a free

38:33sweatshirt.

38:34Uh, so the Masoretic text, uh, has a slight change here and I'll mention this, but, but

38:41this text kind of establishes a bit of the worldview from this time period.

38:46And we have, uh, Deuteronomy 32 is the song of Moses, uh, which is at the end of, uh, the

38:52book of Deuteronomy and it's probably much older than the rest of the book of Deuteronomy.

38:56Deuteronomy begins to come together in the seventh century and into the sixth and fifth

39:00century, but it preserves some much older text.

39:04And so this poem, the song of Moses is probably much older than the rest of book of Deuteronomy.

39:10And then verses eight and nine are probably even older than that.

39:13Uh, but this statement in verse eight and nine is introduced with this saying, um, remember

39:18the days of old, consider the years long past, ask your father and he will inform you.

39:26Your elders and they will say to you, and then we have, quote, when the most high apportioned

39:32the nations, when he divided humanity, he set the boundaries of the people according to

39:38the number of the children of God.

39:41And Adonai's portion was his people, Jacob was his inherited share.

39:47Now in the Masoretic text and what many translations say is according to the number of the children

39:51of Israel, but we know this is a later change.

39:54We have the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation that actually reads angels of God, according

39:59to the number of the angels of God.

40:02And we've known for a long time, the Septuagint translators liked to translate angels of God

40:07when they found the Hebrew for children of God, Benelohim.

40:11And so a lot of scholars hypothesize that's probably what they had in front of them.

40:16And then we discovered a Dead Sea Scroll manuscript for Q Deuteronomy J that read precisely that

40:22according to the number of the children of God.

40:25And this tells us a couple of things.

40:28One, that they understood back then that each nation of the earth had been given to one

40:34of the children of God.

40:35And so these different patron deities were being represented as the children of the high

40:40God.

40:41And Adonai was also represented in this text as one of the children of the high God.

40:47And they are receiving as their inheritance, and Israel is referred to as the Lord's inheritance

40:52many times in the Hebrew Bible.

40:55They are receiving Israel as their inheritance.

40:57So Adonai in this early period is the deity only of Israel.

41:05And every other nation.

41:06So they would have understood, like you said, Khemosh was the God of Moab.

41:11So in the same sort of distribution of godly dominion, Khemosh gets this, Adonai gets that

41:25and there's just sort of a divvying out, sort of like King Lear at the beginning of

41:31King Lear.

41:32We know that we have divided in three our kingdom or whatever.

41:36Yeah, and you see deities associated with different regions throughout the Hebrew Bible.

41:42Ashera is referred to as the deity of the Sidonians.

41:46So Sidon up in Phoenicia.

41:48And Baal is the deity of Echron, which is probably not totally accurate.

41:53That would have been a, that would have been a Philistine city.

41:58So, but the idea is basically that every nation has their own deity.

42:03And we see this with Naaman in the book of Kings, who comes down and he's got a skin

42:09disease.

42:10It's referred to as leprosy in the Bible, but it wasn't leprosy.

42:13It was, it would have been a pretty harmless skin disease that would have caused skin

42:17to turn white, like bit of lago or something like that.

42:21But he comes down and he's healed.

42:23And he says, now I know that there is no deity or no god in all the earth except in Israel,

42:29which is not a monotheistic statement that, you know, this is the only god in the world.

42:35It is a statement that outside of Israel, there's no god, period.

42:39You've got to be inside Israel if you want there to be a god.

42:42And this is a rhetorical denigration of the, the other gods, but he says when he's back

42:46in Syria, he wants to be able to worship Adonai, the god of Israel.

42:50And so you can't worship this deity in another nation.

42:54So what is his response?

42:55He takes two cartloads of Israelite soil back to Syria with him.

42:59So the god who can only be worshiped on Israelite soil can now be worshiped in Israel because

43:04we took a bunch or now be worshiped in Syria because we took a bunch of Israelite soil

43:08with us.

43:09So God will love those, those godly loopholes.

43:12I mean, it makes sense.

43:14If you're working within that worldview, it makes sense.

43:17But so we see throughout the Hebrew Bible, this notion that the gods all have their patron

43:21deities and how are, how are these deities and their own sociality and the heavens organized?

43:28That brings us to the divine council.

43:30There was this idea and there are two different theories about what it's based on.

43:34And I think it probably was based on each of these to some degree in different times

43:38and in different places.

43:40But basically you had a council of the gods ruled over by the high deity.

43:45And we see this in the Eucharitic literature.

43:47This is a pre-Biblical text that were written in a city called Eugar at the city state up

43:54north in Syria in a language very closely related to Hebrew.

43:59But we have the council of the gods, the divine council that is referred to in that literature.

44:05And those gods are referred to as the 70 children of Athirat or Asherah and they're referred

44:11to as the children of El.

44:13And we have very similar statements in the Hebrew Bible, Psalm 82.

44:17And I'll get into that in a bit more detail in a moment, but it talks about Adonai standing

44:23within the Adat El is the Hebrew, the council or the assembly of El, or the divine council

44:31if you understand El, adjectively, which you can.

44:36And so it seems like the Hebrew Bible is reflecting a perspective very similar to what's going

44:41on in the Eucharitic literature.

44:43There is a divine council and there are two theories on how it's organized.

44:47According to Mark Smith and probably the theory that's more prominent, the divine council

44:52is patterned after the idea of the patriarchal household, where you have a patriarch who

44:57rules over this household that is composed of the patriarch's wife, the patriarch's

45:02children, servants, crafts, people, stuff like that that make the household work.

45:09And so the idea is that this divine council is an organization of this divine patriarchal

45:15household.

45:17Another theory is that it's patterned after the ancient Southwest Asian bureaucracy.

45:23So this high deity is like the king and the king has their queen, the king has princes

45:29who have responsibility over the affairs of the kingdom.

45:32And then the bureaucracy also has functional servants and craft people and stuff like that.

45:39So there's some overlap in the way these things are reconstructed.

45:42And the bureaucracy theory is attributed to Lowell K. Handy in a wonderful book called

45:48Among the Host of Heaven.

45:50But in short, they understood the world to be governed by patron deities who each had

45:57sovereignty over their own nation.

46:00And then they were organized within this hierarchy known as the divine council and Elion in Deuteronomy

46:0732, Elion means most high.

46:10So that would be the patriarchal high deity who would be the one who ruled over who sat

46:16on their throne, who exercised dominion over the other gods.

46:20And in Deuteronomy 32, 8, and 9, we have this very, very early view where Elion is distinct

46:25from Adonai.

46:26And Adonai is one of the Benelohim, one of the children of God.

46:30But elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, we see Adonai who is in that position of ruler over

46:36the divine council.

46:37So we have references to the council of Adonai.

46:42So for instance, Jeremiah 23, 18, Jeremiah is trying to suggest that these other prophets

46:47are not legitimate prophets and asks who has stood in the council of Adonai.

46:54And this is a way of saying, I'm a real prophet.

46:56I have stood in the council.

46:58I have heard the deliberations of the divine council.

47:01None of you have.

47:02You're not real prophets.

47:04And Isaiah in Isaiah 6, Isaiah sees God seated upon their throne.

47:11The seraphim and everything are flying all around.

47:15We have Makiah and 1 Kings 22 tells Ahab, I see the Lord seated upon the throne surrounded

47:22by the host of heaven.

47:24So this host of heaven is supposed to be all the other divine beings of the divine council.

47:31And I think the most explicit representation of the divine council is what we see in Psalm

47:3582.

47:36And I'm going to pull that up real quick, because I think it merits looking at.

47:42When, while you're doing that, let me ask you this really quickly, when, when Adonai

47:48becomes sort of ascends to the head of the council, do you think that there was a story

47:56behind that that we have now lost, you know, either, either L, you know, somehow loses

48:05that position or, or, or seeds it to Adonai?

48:08Or do you think they just sort of conflated L with Adonai and so at some point and it

48:13just be, they merged or something?

48:15I think the data indicate that they merge probably between around 1,900 BCE.

48:23You have Adonai originally comes in as a second tier deity who adopts this storm deity profile.

48:30And then I think you probably have a king who rises to the throne, who is a devotee

48:36of Adonai and doesn't want to have competition between Adonai and L, like everybody before

48:43him is an L devotee.

48:46And he wants Adonai to, he doesn't want to abandon Adonai.

48:50And so there's probably a campaign of conflation of identification that takes place.

48:55And so in this way, Adonai not only takes over L's rule over the pantheon, but Adonai

49:02also takes over L's consort, L's wife, Ashera, which is why Ashera is associated with Adonai

49:09and some of these inscriptions that we've discovered from around the year 800.

49:13We probably haven't talked about God's wife yet on the podcast.

49:16Well, we talked about it a little bit with Francesca Stavro Kupulu, but we probably

49:23need to get more into that, because it also sounds a little bit like she used to be his

49:28mom, which we're getting very editable now, but we'll move on from there.

49:36So Psalm 82.

49:38Psalm 82.

49:39Yeah.

49:40And one other thing I want to point out about the divine council is this exists from beginning

49:44to end in the Hebrew Bible, but though it's negotiated.

49:47And I'm going to talk about that a little bit in terms of Psalm 82.

49:51However, you can still see it even in places like second Isaiah.

49:55So Isaiah 40 through the end of Isaiah.

50:00There are scholars who suggest that this is the onset of monotheism, but you still have

50:06these references to the divine council.

50:08So in the Hebrew Bible, where you see God calling on people to witness or to testify

50:14or to bring their case or to do these things, this is a reference to the divine council.

50:22And you even see it at the beginning of Deuteronomy 32, usually you don't have the person referred

50:30to explicitly.

50:32It just says, give year or testify or something like that.

50:35In the beginning of Deuteronomy 32, it says something like, give year or earth or heavens

50:41and listen to earth.

50:43And so this is adopting this way to call upon the divine council to testify or to witness

50:52what's going on.

50:53But in Psalm 82, we have God, it says God has taken his place or taken his stand in the

51:00divine council in the midst of the gods, he holds judgment or he judges and then asks

51:08some questions.

51:09How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

51:13And here I'm, I'm kind of reading from the NRSV, but also editorializing.

51:18Give justice to the weak and the orphan, maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute,

51:22rescue the weak and the needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

51:26So we've got Adonai standing in the divine council, wagging their finger at the other

51:31gods of the divine council.

51:35They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk around in darkness, all the foundations

51:38of the earth are shaken.

51:40I have said, you are gods, children of the most high, all of you.

51:46And so here we have that reference to Deuteronomy 32, the most high El-Yon is separating out

51:50the nations to the children of God.

51:53You are children of the most high, all of you, nevertheless, you shall die like humans

51:57and fall like any prince.

51:59And then the last verse says, rise up, oh God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit

52:05all nations.

52:07And so we've got an interesting text here that is representing this divine council court

52:12scene.

52:13God is standing amidst the divine council and is judging them all for something.

52:18And we have these serial imperatives.

52:21So this repetition of commands and these serial imperatives are related to what they would

52:28have understood the responsibility of deities to do, which is to maintain social order.

52:35So we have, how long will you judge unjustly, show partiality of the wicked, give justice

52:40to the weekend of the orphan, maintain the right of the lowly in the destitute, rescue

52:44the weak, and then you deliver from the hand of the wicked.

52:47So basically, the gods of the nations are being condemned because they have failed to

52:52uphold social order.

52:55And I published a paper in the Journal of Biblical Literature in 2018 where I argue that

53:00this is most likely the God of Israel condemning the gods of the nations for allowing the exile

53:06to happen, for allowing Babylon to come in and destroy Israel, destroy the temple and

53:12cart off as captives, as to take the Judah heights into captivity into the exile.

53:22And so this is God's opportunity to condemn the gods of the nations who allowed that to

53:28happen.

53:29But there's a specific reason for this.

53:31And just so I'm keeping track of this correctly, at this point in this Psalm, when God says

53:38you are children of the most high, is he saying your children of me, or is he saying your

53:43children of my dad also?

53:47So that depends on how you date Psalm 82.

53:53And not in terms of where you take it to dinner, but what time period you believe it

53:57was composed in there are a lot of scholars who date this very, very early suggest this

54:02may predate the conflation of Adonai and Elle.

54:06And for instance, you have Adonai is standing in the divine council, but at the very last

54:10verse, the psalmist calls on Adonai to rise up, which suggests that God is seated.

54:17And so some scholars say the one on the throne is the high deity.

54:22Adonai is just one of the other deities who standing amidst the divine council.

54:26So that's one argument that's been so I when I when you read that, I read it as not the

54:33psalmist saying Adonai saying, you know, Lord, stand up, but as Adonai saying God to the

54:41high God, to the high God stand up and do the thing is that a possible reading or am

54:46I wrong?

54:47That is a reading that that has been proposed by scholars in the past.

54:50I don't think it's the most likely reading.

54:52I'll get to what I believe the most likely reading is in a moment.

54:55But all this depends on on where you place it chronologically.

55:00Now other people will say, no, Adonai and the most high and whoever is being called upon

55:06in the last verse, these are all the same deity.

55:10Now here's why I think we have to take this after the conflation of Adonai now.

55:16One, it makes the most sense as a reference to the exile, not only because this is what

55:24the gods of the nations have done most wrong throughout the entire Hebrew Bible, but also

55:29because the Psalms surrounding this passage or surrounding Psalm 82 are talking about

55:34the destruction of the temple or talking about the exile.

55:37And they keep pleading with God to do something about this.

55:42And there's one Psalm in particular, I believe it is the verse 21, I think it's in Psalm 76.

55:54And let me make sure I'm not mistaken there.

55:59No, maybe it's not 76, maybe it's 78, or 74, I don't remember where it is, but it's in

56:07my paper.

56:08I can get my paper.

56:09Pretty sure we got a paper.

56:11Yeah.

56:12And the paper is freely available.

56:14If you go to my link tree, you can find access to all the stuff I've published.

56:20We have this, there's only one other place in all the Hebrew Bible, where we have the

56:24exact same phrase we have in the last verse of Psalm 82, where the Psalm, where somebody

56:28says, rise up, oh God, kuma Elohim.

56:32This other Psalm says kuma Elohim after complaining about the, the exile, the Psalmist says kuma

56:39Elohim rise up, oh God, and plead your case.

56:44And so Psalm 82 is God rising up and pleading their case before the divine counsel.

56:51And then we have the Psalmist at the end of that saying, rise up, oh God, and judge the

56:56earth for you will inherit all nations.

56:59And this is right after they have condemned all the gods of the nations to mortality.

57:04So my reading is that this is coming from the post-exilic period.

57:08And this is the Psalmist talking about God condemning the gods of the nations for allowing

57:14the exile to happen, condemning them to mortality.

57:17You no longer gods, which means their seats on the divine counsel and their patronage

57:22over the nations now sit empty.

57:26And this is where the Psalmist says, rise up, judge the earth, you inherit all nations.

57:33And so whereas Israel is the is the Lord's inheritance throughout most of the Hebrew Bible,

57:39in the exile, they are like name and outside of the land of Israel.

57:43How can we sing the song of the Lord in a foreign land?

57:47They don't have access to the God.

57:49They did not think to bring to cartloads of Israelite soil with them to battle on us.

57:53They had just thought about some dirt, they could have, they would have gotten crowded.

57:57But the idea is the same that we are outside of the land on which our deity is sovereign.

58:04And just like how in Second Kings three, Adonai lost home court advantage and got ran off.

58:14When they're in Babylon, they have no access to their deity.

58:16But now with this psalm, we've condemned all the other deities of the divine counsel

58:21to mortality and therefore Adonai can rise up, can inherit all nations, can judge the

58:28earth, can take over rule of all the nations, which allows us wherever we are, wherever

58:33in the diaspora we happen to be found, but mostly in Babylon, allows us to now access

58:38this deity.

58:39And so this is in a sense a renegotiation of the divine counsel saying we were isolated

58:45to our own nations because we all had seats on this divine counsel as patron deities.

58:51And now I'm going to get rid of all the other gods of the divine counsel and I'm going to

58:54take over rule of all the earth.

58:56And this is a rhetorical device.

58:59The divine counsel didn't go away.

59:01Once we get into the Greco-Roman period, the divine counsel is still there.

59:05There are still deities over all the nations of the earth, but they get renegotiated and

59:11they change from gods into angels.

59:15And so interesting.

59:16There's an idea you see rising after the Greco-Roman period where every nation has a guardian angel.

59:25And this is reflected in the book of Daniel.

59:27We have Daniel talking about the prince of Persia and the prince of Greece and the head

59:33prince, the prince of Israel, the archangel is Michael.

59:37And it doesn't name the princes of Persia and Greece, but it's the same idea.

59:41Instead of patron deities, we've now squished all the other gods of the nations down into

59:46this servile bottom category of the pantheon.

59:52They're all now servile angels rather than second tier deities like they were earlier

59:57in the history of the divine counsel.

59:59So the organization, the hierarchy of the gods doesn't go away.

60:03We just renegotiated the positions so that our deity, the god of Israel, one can take

60:09over rule, direct rule of all the nations and so that we can access our deity outside

60:14the land of Israel and then two, we're going to exalt our deity so far above all the other

60:20gods that are still around by squishing them down and saying you are all demoted.

60:25You are all relegated to angelic status, angelic or demonic status depending on what text you're

60:34looking at.

60:35But once you get into the Dead Sea Scrolls and into the New Testament, you still have

60:38references to gods and the other gods and so there is still a sense that the divine council

60:46is still there but you have it thought of as god ruling over the host of heaven, the

60:53stars and the planets.

60:55This is the divine council and so Deuteronomy 4, 19 is kind of rereading Deuteronomy 32,

61:028, and 9 where Adonai has distributed the host of the heavens to the nations and this is

61:08reflecting that idea that they all have their deity ruling over them, but their deities

61:13are really just the stars and the planets and the sun and the moon.

61:18And Deuteronomy 4, 19 says don't go worship them, they're just the sun and the moon and

61:25the stars.

61:27So the divine council is there the whole time, it just gets renegotiated away to serve the

61:31rhetorical interests of these writers who are trying to protect Israel's access to their

61:37God and trying to elevate and exalt the God of Israel over and above the other gods of

61:42the nations so that God can say in Psalm 83, the next Psalm after Psalm 82 at the very

61:49end, God is called upon to humiliate the nations and the psalmist says so that they will know

61:56that you whose name alone is Adonai are most high over all the earth.

62:02So you're the one now you've taken over rule of all the nations.

62:06You have taken over the divine council.

62:09You are most high over all the earth and enter us.

62:13Yeah, it's a fascinating story.

62:15There are different depictions all throughout the Hebrew Bible, but I think we can weave

62:19a tale a narrative about how that divine council changes through time.

62:25I feel like the story of the divine council being then either sort of mostly disbanded

62:35or one of them rises up to all sort of universal power and the other ones are relegated to

62:43a much lower status.

62:45I think the Bible may have stolen that from the prequels of the Star Wars series, is that

62:51true?

62:52Well, it depends on what translation you're using because we could render that I could

62:59translate the Bible so that we have somebody saying there can be only one.

63:05Then we've got the Highlander series that is being that is being ripped off.

63:11But I feel like that reading is contradicted by Palpatine chapter three verse two.

63:17Anyway, I don't recognize that cannon.

63:23Everybody knows they made this up as they went along.

63:27Well, I mean, I will refrain from comment on that point.

63:33Thank you so much, Dan.

63:34That is super interesting stuff.

63:37And I think helpful as we read through the Bible to understand that because there's stuff

63:43that can be very confusing without that context and having it makes a lot of things make a

63:51lot more sense.

63:52I think so, including second Kings three, what's going on here?

63:55If we understand, hey, this nation is like, we got our God in charge of everything.

64:00We're going to march into this other nation and we're going to beat them up.

64:03Oh, no, their God is doing their own thing.

64:06So yeah, it contextualizes a lot that is otherwise mysterious or not clear that can

64:15easily be misappropriated, misinterpreted to serve our own ends these days.

64:21We can say, oh, well, this is what makes sense to us today.

64:24But the reality is there was something else that made it make sense to them.

64:28Anciently, and one of those things, one of the main things when it comes to geopolitics

64:32was the divine counsel.

64:33Yeah.

64:34All right.

64:35Well, there you go.

64:37Go forth and figure out who your, your God is.

64:41We'll talk to you again next week.

64:43Thanks so much.

64:44Bye, everybody.