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LXX Deuteronomy

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 32

1 Attend, heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words out of my mouth. 2 Let my speech be looked for as the rain, and my words come down as dew, as the shower upon the herbage, and as snow upon the grass. 3 For I have called on the name of the Lord: assign greatness to our God. 4 As for God, his works are true, and all his ways are judgment: God is faithful, and there is no unrighteousness in him; just and holy is the Lord. 5 They have sinned, not pleasing him; spotted children, a crooked and perverse generation. 6 Do you thus repay the Lord? is the people thus foolish and unwise? did not he himself your father purchase you, and make you, and form you? 7 Remember the days of old, consider the years for past ages: ask your father, and he shall relate to you, your elders, and they shall tell you. 8 When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.⁠ 9 And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance. 10 He maintained him in the wilderness, in burning thirst and a dry land: he led him about and instructed him, and kept him as the apple of an eye. 11 As an eagle would watch over his brood, and yearns over his young, receives them having spread his wings, and takes them up on his back: 12 the Lord alone led them, there was no strange god with them. 13 He brought them up on the strength of the land; he fed them with the fruits of the fields; they sucked honey out of the rock, and oil out of the solid rock. 14 Butter of cows, and milk of sheep, with the fat of lambs and rams, of calves and kids, with fat of kidneys of wheat; and he drank wine, the blood of the grape. 15 So Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved one kicked; he grew fat, he became thick and broad:⁠ then he forsook the God that made him, and departed from God his Savior. 16 They provoked me to anger with strange gods; with their abominations they bitterly angered me. 17 They sacrificed to demons, and not to God; to gods whom they did not know:⁠ new and fresh gods came in, whom their fathers did not know. 18 You have forsaken God that fathered you, and forgotten God who feeds you. 19 And the Lord saw, and was jealous; and was provoked by the anger of his sons and daughters, 20 and said, I will turn away my face from them, and will show what shall happen to them in the last days; for it is a perverse generation, sons in whom is no faith. 21 They have provoked me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have exasperated me with their idols; and I will provoke them to jealousy with those who are no nation, I will anger them with a nation void of understanding. 22 For a fire has been kindled out of my fierce anger, it shall burn to hell below; it shall devour the land, and the fruits of it; it shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains. 23 I will gather evils upon them, and will fight with my weapons against them. 24 They shall be consumed with hunger and the devouring of birds, and there shall be irremediable destruction: I will send forth against them the teeth of wild beasts, with the rage of serpents creeping on the ground. 25 Without, the sword shall bereave them of children, and terror shall issue out of the secret chambers; the young man shall perish with the virgin, the suckling with him who has grown old. 26 I said, I will scatter them, and I will cause their memorial to cease from among men. 27 Were it not for the fierce anger of the enemy, for fear that they should live long, for fear that their enemies should combine against them; for fear that they should say, Our own high arm, and not the Lord, has done all these things. 28 It is a nation that has lost counsel, neither is there understanding in them. 29 They had not sense to understand: let them reserve these things against the time to come. 30 How should one pursue a thousand, and two rout tens of thousands, if God had not sold them, and the Lord delivered them up? 31 For their gods are not as our God, but our enemies are void of understanding. 32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their vine-branch of Gomorrah: their grape is a grape of gall, their cluster is one of bitterness. 33 Their wine is the rage of serpents, and the incurable rage of asps. 34 Look! are not these things stored up by me, and sealed among my treasures? 35 In the day of vengeance I will repay, whenever their foot shall be tripped up;⁠ for the day of their destruction is near to them, and the judgments at hand are close upon you. 36 For the Lord shall judge his people, and shall be comforted over his servants; for he saw that they were utterly weakened, and failed in the hostile invasion, and had become feeble: 37 and the Lord said, Where are their gods on whom they trusted? 38 the fat of whose sacrifices you ate, and you drank the wine of their drink-offerings? let them arise and help you, and be your protectors. 39 Look, see that I am he, and there is no god beside me: I kill, and I will make to live: I will strike, and I will heal; and there is none who shall deliver out of my hands. 40 For I will lift up my hand to heaven, and swear by my right hand, and I will say, I live for ever. 41 For I will sharpen my sword like lightning, and my hand shall take hold of judgment; and I will render judgment to my enemies, and will repay those who hate me. 42 I will make my weapons drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, it shall glut itself with the blood of the wounded, and from the captivity of the heads of their enemies that rule over them. 43 Rejoice, you heavens, with him, and let all the sons of God worship him;⁠ rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people,⁠ and let all the angels of God strengthen themselves in him; for he will avenge the blood of his sons, and he will render vengeance, and repay justly his enemies, and will reward those who hate him; and the Lord shall purge the land of his people. 44 And Moses wrote this song in that day, and taught it to the children of Israel; and Moses went in and spoke all the words of this law in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun. 45 And Moses finished speaking to all Israel. 46 And he said to them, Take heed with your heart to all these words, which I testify to you this day, which you shall command your sons, to observe and do all the words of this law. 47 For this is no vain word to you; for it is your life, and because of this word you shall live long upon the land, into which you go over Jordan to inherit it. 48 And the Lord spoke to Moses in this day, saying, 49 Go up to the mount Abarim, this mountain Nebo which is in the land of Moab over against Jericho, and look at the land of Canaan, which I give to the sons of Israel for a possession: 50 and die in the mount to which you go up, and be added to your people; as Aaron your brother died in mount Or, and was added to his people. 51 Because you disobeyed my word among the children of Israel, at the waters of strife of Kadesh in the wilderness of Sin; because you did not sanctify me among the sons of Israel. 52 You shall see the land before you, but you shall not enter into it.

Texts in conversation

Sons of God or Sons of Israel in Deuteronomy 32

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

Deuteronomy 32 says the nations were divided by the number of Israel, but the Greek Septuagint reads “angels of God,” reflecting an earlier version that says “sons of God.” This follows an ancient Near Eastern tradition where each was given a patron god.

Passages

Deuteronomy 32:8

Hebrew Bible
6 Is this how you repay the Lord, you foolish, unwise people? Is he not your father, your Creator? He has made you and established you. 7 Remember the ancient days; bear in mind the years of past generations. Ask your father and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you. 8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided up humankind, he set the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number of the heavenly assembly. 9 For the Lord’s allotment is his people, Jacob is his special possession. 10 The Lord found him in a desolate land, in an empty wasteland where animals howl. He continually guarded him and taught him; he continually protected him like the pupil of his eye.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

LXX Deuteronomy 32:8

Septuagint
6 Do you thus repay the Lord? is the people thus foolish and unwise? did not he himself your father purchase you, and make you, and form you? 7 Remember the days of old, consider the years for past ages: ask your father, and he shall relate to you, your elders, and they shall tell you. 8 When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. 9 And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance. 10 He maintained him in the wilderness, in burning thirst and a dry land: he led him about and instructed him, and kept him as the apple of an eye.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Deuteronomy

References

"... Here the [Samaritan Pentateuch] consonantal text is identical to that of the [Masoretic Text]. However, at the end of the verse the LXX reads: κατὰ ἀριθµὸν ἀγγέλων θεοῦ (according to the number of the angels of God) and 4QDeut reads: בני אלוהים (the sons of God). The Table of Nations of Genesis 10, descendants of Noah’s sons who were spread out over the earth after the flood, lists seventy different nations. Barthélemy shows how the number seventy was also familiar as the number of gods in the Ugaritic pantheon. These were the sons of the deity Asherah and each was given to be the deity of a particular nation. The reading בני אלוהים, found in 4QDeut (4Q37), seems to link Genesis 10 to this polytheistic world view, and the LXX supports this reading. Were this the original, it is understandable why monotheistic scribes thought it necessary to modify the Hebrew text ..."
Philip Mark Reid, “A Preliminary Investigation into the Samaritan Pentateuch as an Intralingual Translation” (MA diss., University of the Free State, 2021), 89–90.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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