“... Deuteronomy 29’s indictment of Israel points to a violation of the religious and cosmic boundaries drawn by Yahweh in Deut 4:19-20—the other gods, the host of heaven, are meant for the other nations, not Israel. This establishes that the host of heaven in Deut 4:19-20 refers not just to celestial phenomena but to other gods. This is in harmony with the scholarly studies of astronomical terminology in the Hebrew Bible that Israelite religion, like other ancient religions of Canaan and the Near East, understood celestial bodies to be divine beings.64 In fact, many canonical texts that identify stars as divine beings are late.65 It is also noteworthy that this same “host of heaven” appears in a classic divine council scene in Dtr, 1 Kgs 22:17-23. If a redactional campaign was waged during the exile in the name of intolerant monotheism, it was shockingly careless. ...” “... 65 See Job 38:7-8; 1 Kgs 22:19; Deut 17:3; Jer 8:2; 19:13; Dan 8:10-11; Neh 9:6. The idea survived into the first century C.E. as witnessed by Second Temple literature (see Chapter Eight) and was known in the New Testament (Luke 2:13; Acts 7:42-43: Rev 1:20; 12:1-4). For the Ugaritic corollary texts, see KTU 1.10:3-5: bn )l (“sons of Ilu/El”) || ph}r kkbm (“assembly of the stars”) || dr dt s\mm (“race of heaven”); KTU 1.19.IV:23-25, 29-31: )lm (“gods”) || s\mym (“celestial ones”) || kbkbm (“stars”). ...”