Seder 161: Deuteronomy 32---A Pedagogical Song

 One of Moses' final actions was to teach the Israelites a special song.  Learning this song and heeding its message would be vital to their future (Dt 32:44-47).  

The song is recorded in Deuteronomy 32:1-43.  Its words are directed to the entire cosmos (verse 1).  Scholars have classified it as a "covenant lawsuit."  One of its purposes was to be a witness against the Israelites (Dt 31:19).  

It also has a pedagogical purpose. "May my teaching drop as the rain," Moses begins in verse 2.  One leading lesson of the song is that God is the Rock---strong, reliable, providing protection (vv 3-4).  

Human beings, on the other hand, are fickle.  Although the Israelites have and will receive many blessings, they have a tendency to forget the source of their blessings (vv 5-18).  

Chief among those blessings is the special place that Israel has among the nations.  When God set up the nations and directed them to spread out over the earth (Gen 10-11), he set members of his divine council over the other nations but decided to supervise Israel directly (vv 8-9).  

There is a textual question surrounding verse 8.  The NASB, reflecting the MT, translates it: "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, When He separated the sons of mankind, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel."

On the other hand, the ESV has "according to the number of the sons of God" instead of "according to the number of the sons of Israel," reflecting the LXX, DSS, and other witnesses.  The NLT clarifies with "according to the number in his heavenly court."  

What could "according to the number of the sons of Israel" mean in this context?  One tradition says that the number in view here is twelve.  In Gen 10:15-19, where the names of the Canaanite peoples are given (12 names in all if we count Canaan), boundaries of their territory are delineated carefully.  But the Canaanites, this tradition says, are just occupying this territory temporarily until it is time for the Israelites to take over.  It's to that fact, presumably, that the final phrase in Deuteronomy 32:8 refers.  

Another view says that the relevant number is 70, the number listed in Genesis 46 and the traditional number of the nations. In this reading, it's Israel mission to the nations that is referenced at the end of Deuteronomy 32:8.  

One problem with the "sons of Israel" version of verse 8, though, is that at Babel there weren't any Israelites yet.  The "heavenly court" version makes more sense in context, in addition to being well-attested textually.  

There are hints elsewhere in the Bible that back up the "heavenly court" version.  At Babel in Gen 11, God was working in consultation with the heavenly court.  We see this in Ge 11:7 when he tells then, "Come, let us go down and there confuse their language ...."  We also see it in Deut 29:26, with its warning about Israel's likelihood of worshiping "gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them."  The elohim referred to here are presumably members of the heavenly court that had been placed over other nations.

There are further hints that God had placed heavenly beings over the nations in Psalm 82, where those beings are reprimanded; and in Dan 10:13, with its reference to a heavenly "prince of the kingdom of Persia."

The arrangement described in verses 8-9, with God supervising Israel more directly and delegating the supervision of other nations to subordinates, has been called the "Deuteronomy 32 worldview" by Michael Heiser.  This view is prominent in both Jewish and Christian traditions.  Gerald McDermott demonstrates its prevalence in patristic thought in his book God's Rivals. 

The song goes on to relate that if Israel abandons God, he will allow them to suffer the covenant curses and go into exile.  However, to protect his reputation and not give other nations the wrong impression, he ultimately will bring about Israel's restoration.  In the end, all nations will worship him together. 

 Here is the song's conclusion in the LES:  " Delight, O heavens, with him and worship him, you sons of God. Delight, O nations, with his people and prevail with him, all you angels of God. For he will avenge the blood of his sons, and he will avenge and he will repay the enemies with vengeance, and he will repay those who hate, and the Lord will cleanse out the land of his people."

Paul quotes verse 43 in Rom 15:10 in discussing God's plan for all nations.  Deuteronomy 32 seems to have been a great help to Paul in understanding that plan.  He grieved the fact that a number of his fellow Jews were not receptive to the Gospel, but he was confident that God would ultimately bring many to faith in the Messiah, based on Deuteronomy 32.  In Romans 11:11, he declared, "So I ask, did they stumble in order that they might fall?  By no means!  Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous."  Here he alluded to Deuteronomy 32:21,  

Seder 9: Gen 11---The Rebellion at Babel

Genesis 11 describes a rebellion that took place at some point after the Flood.  If Gen 10:25 is a reference to this event, then according to the Masoretic Text, the rebellion took place a little over a hundred years after the Flood, but the Septuagint places it over 600 years after the flood.  (For more on the chronological issues here, see for example this link.)

People had been commanded to "fill the earth" after the Flood (Gen 9:1), but a group at Shinar resisted this command and united to build a structure traditionally known as the "tower of Babel".

Scholars today recognize this structure as a ziggurat.  A ziggurat was shaped like a pyramid and filled with dirt on the inside.  On the outside was a staircase, at the top of which food and a bed were provided for the god that they hoped to attract to come down to them.  Ziggurats were built next to temples for the worship of that particular god.  Behind their construction was the premise that gods had needs that people could meet, and then these gods could then be manipulated.  (For a good discussion of these things in Gen 11, see for example John Walton's commentary on the book of Genesis.)

In response, God says to his heavenly host,"Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech" (v 7).  At that point the nations are scattered (v 8).  Elsewhere, the Bible indicates that God delegated responsibility to supervise various nations to members of his heavenly host, reserving for himself the project of working through Abraham and the nation of Israel (Deut 32:8-9).  The description of that project begins in Gen 12.

Seder 8: Genesis 9-10---Ham and the Curse on Canaan

In Genesis 9 God stated his commitment to bless the whole earth, for all time, as symbolized by the sign of the rainbow.  He gave Noah and his family the task of repopulating the earth.  They carried out this task, as recorded in the table of nations in Gen 10.

The process of "replenishing the earth" was not an entirely smooth one, though.  Human sinfulness continued to be an impediment to human progress, and we see one example in Gen 9.

Genesis 9:18 reminds us of the names of Noah's sons:  "The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  (Ham was the father of Canaan.)"

Israelite readers would have taken note of the parenthetical mention of Canaan here.  The Israelites would later be charged with driving out the Canaanites from the Promised Land, and they were cautioned not to follow the practices of the Canaanites.  What was the background of these people?

We go on to read that Noah at one point drank too much wine and was passed out, naked, in his tent. Ham disrespectfully advertised this fact to Shem and Japheth, who were careful to cover up their father.  Noah later invoked a curse upon Canaan:  "Cursed be Canaan:  a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.''(v 25).

Two questions arise from this passage:  (1) What sin did Ham commit? (2) Why was Canaan singled out for a curse?

One possible answer is simply that Ham had disrespect for his father.  Noah had prophetic insight that Canaan was the son of Ham who would especially exhibit the sins of his father, and so he invoked a curse upon Canaan.

A second answer, popular among Jews and Christians in the early centuries AD, is that Ham castrated his father.  The rabbis, ever on the lookout for possibilities of measure for measure justice in the Bible, described it this way:  Ham prevented Noah from having a fourth son, so Noah invoked a curse upon Ham's fourth son (see Gen 10:4 for the sons of Ham). 

A weakness of this view is that there is nothing about castration in Genesis 9.  What the text does say is that Ham "saw the nakedness of his father'' (v 22). Elsewhere, in Lev 18 and 20, to "see the nakedness" of someone or to "uncover the nakedness" of someone refers to a sexual act---see Lev 20:17, which indicates these phrases are synonymous.  Significantly, the discussion of forbidden sexual unions in Lev 18 and 20 is prefaced with an admonition to avoid the sins of Egypt and Canaan (Lev 18:3).

Based on the connection with Lev18, 20, a number of interpreters propose that Ham's sin was a sexual act, either with Noah or with Noah's wife.  The latter possibility would give the best explanation of why Canaan was singled out.  If Ham committed incest with his mother, and Canaan was the product of that union, this could explain why Canaan was singled out for a curse.

This possibility fits with Lev 20:20-21, which refer to having sex with a man's wife as uncovering that man's nakedness (which, in turn, is synonymous with seeing the man's nakedness).  In this scenario, Ham is a precursor of Reuben (Gen 35:22).  Also, the Canaanites, like the Moabites and Ammonites, would have originated from an act of incest. 

In Ancient Near Eastern cultures, one way to assert dominance within a clan was to sleep with the clan leader's wife or wives.  Think, for example, of Absalom's behavior with the concubines of David (2 Sam 16).  Ham and Reuben may have had similar motives.  In this case, Noah invokes a curse upon Canaan because he does not want Ham's line through Canaan to be dominant.

For further discussion, listen to episode 158 of the Naked Bible Podcast and see the paper "Noah's Nakedness and the Curse on Canaan (Genesis 9:20-27) by  John Sietze Bergsma and  Scott Walker Hahn, Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 124, No. 1 (Spring, 2005), pp. 25-40.