The Nations &
The Divine Council

The Forgotten Jewish Texts

Gate I revealed a remarkable biblical picture: a division of the nations connected to the "sons of God" (Deut 32:8) and a divine council (Psalm 82). But did ancient Jewish readers understand it this way?

The answer is found in the extra-biblical texts of the Second Temple period. They preserved detailed traditions about what happened at Babel—passages where the unseen realm takes center stage.

The Book of Jubilees (2nd Century BC)

Jubilees makes the spiritual division of the earth explicit:

"And He sanctified it [Israel] and gathered it from amongst all the children of men... And over all He placed spirits in authority to lead them astray from Him. But over Israel He did not appoint any angel or spirit, for He alone is their ruler."
— Jubilees 15:31-32

The Wisdom of Sirach (Ben Sira, ~180 BC)

We find the exact same theology in the Wisdom of Sirach, connecting earthly borders to spiritual rulers:

"For every nation he appointed a ruler, but Israel is the Lord's portion."
— Sirach 17:17

1 Enoch and the 70 Shepherds

1 Enoch 89 describes a vision where God hands the flock (humanity and wandering Israel) over to "seventy shepherds" (angels). But these shepherds overstep their boundaries:

"And He called seventy shepherds, and cast off those sheep, that they might pasture them... But they handed them over to destruction... And I saw the shepherds pasturing in their season, and they began to slay and to destroy more than they were bidden."
— 1 Enoch 89:59-74 (Paraphrased)

These texts show that ancient readers believed the nations were literally handed over to subordinate heavenly beings—beings who then corrupted their rule.

The Gods of the Nations

With this Jewish worldview in mind, we turn to the surrounding civilizations.

Humanity was scattered.

The nations were divided.

Deuteronomy remembers a division connected, in an ancient textual tradition, with the sons of God.

Psalm 82 portrays God standing in a divine council.

Daniel speaks of heavenly princes associated with earthly kingdoms.

But the Bible was not written in a world without other stories.

All around ancient Israel, civilizations told their own stories about gods, heavenly councils, divine kings, territorial powers and conflicts in the heavens.

So now we ask a different question:

What did the nations themselves remember?

The Ancient Near East

Long before Greece and Rome reached their height, the civilizations surrounding ancient Israel possessed elaborate traditions about the divine realm.

Mesopotamian texts speak of assemblies of gods.

Divine beings deliberate. They assign authority. They rule different aspects of creation.

Cities and kingdoms could have particular patron deities.

Among the great names of Mesopotamia we encounter:

• • Anu
• • Enlil
• • Enki / Ea
• • Inanna / Ishtar
• • Marduk

These were not merely characters in isolated stories.

To the people who worshipped them, they belonged to the structure of reality itself.

Heaven and earth were connected.

Kingship could possess divine sanction.

Cities belonged beneath divine patronage.

And earthly events could reflect decisions made in the realm of the gods.

Ugarit — A Council of the Gods

An especially important discovery comes from ancient Ugarit, on the Syrian coast.

Texts discovered there preserve a Northwest Semitic religious world geographically and linguistically close to that of ancient Israel.

In the Ugaritic texts we encounter El, an aged high god presiding over a divine family or council.

We encounter Baal, the storm deity.

We encounter divine sons and assemblies of heavenly beings.

This does not mean that Israel simply copied Ugaritic religion. There are profound differences.

But the language and imagery help us understand something important:

A divine council was not a strange concept in the ancient world.

When biblical writers speak of a heavenly assembly, the original audience lived in a world where such imagery was readily understandable.

Yet Israel's Scriptures make a radical claim:

YHWH is not merely another national god sitting among equals. He is the Creator. He is the Most High. And He judges the heavenly powers themselves.

Babylon — Gods, Kingdoms and Nations

Babylonian religion also presents a structured divine world.

One of its greatest deities was Marduk, closely associated with Babylon.

As Babylon rose politically, Marduk's religious importance also increased.

This illustrates an ancient pattern that we will encounter repeatedly:

A nation or city could be closely associated with a particular divine power.

The political world and the spiritual world were not sharply separated in ancient thought.

A kingdom's victories could be interpreted as the triumph of its god. Its defeats could be interpreted spiritually as well.

This makes the biblical language concerning the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece especially intriguing.

But we will return to that connection in Gate III.

Egypt — A Land Filled With Gods

Egypt developed one of the richest religious traditions of the ancient world.

Its pantheon included figures such as:

• Ra — associated with the sun.
• Osiris — kingship, death and the afterlife.
• Isis — motherhood and divine power.
• Horus — kingship and the sky.
• Set — disorder, violence and the desert.
• Thoth — wisdom and writing.

Different Egyptian cities elevated different gods.

Divine families developed. Gods could merge or acquire new identities over centuries.

Pharaoh himself stood at the boundary between political and sacred authority.

Again we encounter the ancient idea that:

earthly kingdoms and heavenly powers belong to the same cosmic story.

And the Exodus deliberately confronts this worldview.

The God of Israel does not merely rescue slaves. He demonstrates His authority in the land of Egypt.

The biblical text even describes God's judgment as being directed against:
"all the gods of Egypt."
— Exodus 12:12

Whether understood as idols, spiritual beings, or both, the message of Exodus is unmistakable:

YHWH stands above Egypt and its gods.

Greece — The Olympians

Centuries later, Greek civilization preserves another famous assembly of gods.

Above the Olympians stands: Zeus.

Around him are figures such as:

Hera. Poseidon. Athena. Apollo. Artemis. Ares. Aphrodite. Hermes.

They possess different domains. They quarrel. They intervene in human affairs. They support individuals, cities and armies.

And Greek mythology contains something particularly interesting:

conflict between generations of divine beings.

The Titans precede the Olympians. War erupts in the divine realm. The old order is defeated and imprisoned. A new divine order emerges.

We should be careful.

This is not the biblical story of the Watchers. It is not proof that Greek mythology remembers the rebellion of Genesis 6.

But once again, an ancient civilization remembers a world in which:

heavenly beings rebel, fight, rule and become entangled with humanity.

The similarity deserves investigation. Not assumption.

Rome — The Gods Receive New Names

When Rome absorbed much of Greek culture, many Greek gods became closely identified with Roman counterparts.

This teaches us something important.

Religious traditions can travel. Gods can receive new names. Stories can merge. Different cultures can identify one divine figure with another.

A tradition may survive even while its language and appearance change.

That observation will become very important when we reach Gate III.

Persia — A Different Cosmic Order

Ancient Persian religion presents a different picture.

Here we must be particularly careful not to force every ancient religion into the same pattern.

In Zoroastrian tradition, Ahura Mazda occupies the supreme position.

The tradition also contains the Amesha Spentas, spiritual beings associated with aspects of divine order, alongside other spiritual beings and forces.

A profound cosmic struggle between truth/order and deception/destruction becomes central to Zoroastrian thought.

This system is not simply another version of the Greek pantheon.

Yet Persia becomes especially interesting because the Bible itself later speaks of:

"the prince of the kingdom of Persia."
— Daniel 10:13

What exactly Daniel means by this remains debated.

But Persia is one of the rare cases where Scripture itself appears to place an earthly empire alongside an unseen spiritual ruler.

The North — Odin and the Gods

Far from the ancient Near East, Germanic and later Norse traditions preserve yet another world populated by powerful supernatural beings.

We encounter: Odin. Thor. Tyr. Frigg. Freyr. Freyja. Loki.

• • There are different groups of gods.
• • There are giants.
• • There are supernatural conflicts.
• • There is forbidden or dangerous knowledge.
• • There are interactions between gods and humanity.

And ultimately there is Ragnarök — a catastrophic conflict involving gods, monsters, destruction and the renewal of the world.

These traditions were preserved much later than the ancient Near Eastern material and developed in a very different cultural environment.

Therefore we should resist easy equations such as: Odin = this biblical being, Zeus = that biblical being.

The evidence simply does not allow such certainty.

But their existence raises a larger historical question.

The Memory of Babel?

Genesis presents humanity as once united.

Then comes Babel. Languages are confused. People scatter. Nations emerge.

Imagine what such a story would imply if ancient traditions were carried with those peoples.

One story could become many stories. One name could become many names. One ancient memory could be retold differently in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece or elsewhere.

Over centuries:

history becomes tradition. Tradition becomes legend. Legend becomes mythology.

But does that mean all mythology began at Babel?

We cannot say. The ancient texts do not allow us to prove such a claim.

Yet Babel gives us an intriguing biblical framework within which the diversity of the ancient world can be examined.

Gods — Or Something Else?

And now we reach the question at the heart of this Journey.

Ancient people called these beings gods.

But what exactly were they?

Were they simply products of human imagination? Personifications of nature? Deified rulers and ancestors? Spiritual beings encountered and interpreted through different cultures? Distorted memories of older traditions? Or some combination of these?

The ancient texts alone cannot settle the question.

But Scripture has already given us another piece of the puzzle:

...the sons of God.
...the divine council.
...the gods of the nations.
...the princes of Persia and Greece.
...rulers and authorities in the unseen realm.

And now the two worlds stand beside each other. Not yet joined. But close enough to compare.