Word of Encouragement (12/28/2022)
Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. 8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. 9 But the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. (Deut. 32:7-9)
The second point we want to reflect on is God’s special care for His people. But how we come to see it may be a bit surprising. We are told, “...when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” What did God have in mind when He allotted different places and portions for the nations of the world? I’m sure He did so according to their sizes and abilities (even though more factors were surely involved, which He alone knows). But we see here that there was another important factor—“according to the number of the sons of God.”
Who are “the sons of God”? The phrase often refers to the angels in heaven (Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7; Luke 20:36). It is difficult to see that that is the case here: I’m sure that the number of angels in heaven far exceeds the number of the nations of the world. “The sons of God” can also refer to human judges and rulers (Ps. 82:6; cf., John 10:35; also, Gen. 6:1-2). This is a possibility since these nations must have had leaders.
But there is another possibility. Pertinent to our passage is Deut. 4:19. There Moses warns Israel, "And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven." This passage warns Israel against worshipping the pagan idols made in the images of the heavenly bodies. But what does it say about these pagan idols? They are the “things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven!” (Incidentally, the Hebrew word for "allotted" is the same word used in "Jacob his allotted heritage" in v. 9.)
What is it saying? All the peoples were given pagan idols as their heritage! So then, the sons of God in v. 8 are not human rulers and kings. Nor are they the angels of heaven. Rather, they are some of the fallen angels (Michael S. Heiser, "Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God"), the devil and his demons who deceive the nations to worship them instead of the one and only true God. This is exactly what we read in vv. 16-17: "[The people of Israel] stirred [the LORD] to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded” (cf., v. 21). And how does Paul describe Satan? “The prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2)!
Why would God give the nations over to these demons? Consider what prompted God to divide mankind. When did God divide mankind? It was at the Tower of Babel. We read in Gen. 11:18, "So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city." Interestingly, the Hebrew word translated as “dispersed” there is the same word that is translated as “divided” in our passage. Just as Adam and Eve wanted to be like God in their own way, the people wanted to reach heaven with their own strength. God divided mankind as a punishment for their audacious, sinful attempt. God gave them over to the demons and idols as a punishment for their sin (cf., Rom. 1:22-25).
Do you see the contrast of this passage? God chose Israel to be His inheritance while He gave the nations over to “the [so-called] sons of God”—demons and pagan idols—as their inheritance! Israel was not to worship them because Israel was God's portion and heritage! As God's own portion and heritage, Israel was to worship the Lord and Him alone. But the other nations were given over to these pagan idols to worship them, which are not gods at all! How blessed we are to have God as our God and worship Him, the one and only true God, our Creator and Redeemer and Consummator! Let us renew our thanks to Him for this privilege and blessing!