The Sons of Israel or God? – Deuteronomy 32:8
Published: August 24, 2023
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Last Updated: September 7, 2026
The anonymous poet speaks in the first person, and the Torah presents it as being recited by Moses.
MS 848 is an early papyrus, P. Fouad Inv. 266. Wevers daringly includes this reading in the critical text edition of the LXX: John William Wevers, Deuteronomium, Septuaginta, Vetus Testamentum graecum, auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum gottingensis editum, III.2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977).
The Greek rendering, “angels/messengers,” is the basis for the Old Latin’s “angelorum Dei.”
The LXX tradition (except for the Hexaplaric manuscripts) unanimously disagrees with MT in representing a variant בני (as in the Qumran reading), represented by either υἱῶν or ἀγγέλων. For a rendering resembling the main LXX tradition ἀγγέλων, see the LXX of Job 1:6 and 2:1 בני אלהים – οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ θεοῦ. Likewise, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan in Deut 32:8 explained בני ישראל as referring to both angels (cf. also Ibn Ezra ad loc.) and the number of the sons of Israel who left Canaan for Egypt.
Thus Jeffrey H. Tigay, The JPS Commentary: Deuteronomy (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 513–18 (514). See also Mark S. Smith, “What is a Scriptural Text in the Second Temple Period? (…),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls at 60, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman and Shani Tzoref, STDJ 89 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 271–298.
See the Ugaritic text KTU 1.4, VI.46 where seventy sons of (El and) Athirat are mentioned. See N. Wyatt, “The Seventy Sons of Athirat, the Nations of the World, Deuteronomy 32.6b,8–9, and the Myth of Divine Election,” in Reflection and Refraction: Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of A. Graeme Auld, ed. Robert Rezetko et al., VTSup 113 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 547–56. It is possible that בני אלוהים in 4QDeutj developed from an earlier בני אל, the more ancient term which envisions the god El as the father of the younger gods. This would also make the MT correction more parsimonious, just adding the letters ישר before אל. This possibility may be supported by the fragmentary text 1QHa 24 33–34 מבני אל שו[מעי ... מג]ב֯ולות עמים which clearly refers to this verse. As for the LXX, since it is in Greek, we do not know if it was rendered from either אלהים or אל.
For more on this, see Jonathan Ben-Dov, “Are There Gods, Angels, and Demons in Deuteronomy?” TheTorah (2018).
