sons of God

In Psalm 82, the psalmist describes the rebellious sons of God ruling unjustly over the nations (Ps 82:2–4) that Yahweh had allotted to them at Babel (Gen 10–11), which we read about in Deuteronomy 32:8 in the DSS and LXX.

When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.

Deuteronomy 32:8

We get a glimpse of this reality in Daniel 10, where Jesus and Michael, the prince of Israel (Dan 12:1), have a conflict with the prince of the Persian kingdom (Dan 10:13, 20) and the prince of Greece (Dan 10:20). These are real heavenly rulers who rule over real nations.

This reality was at play in the Exodus narrative when Yahweh promised to “bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt” (Exod 12:12; cf. 15:11; Num 33:4). These were not idols. They were demonic heavenly rulers empowering the Egyptian sorcerers and magicians (Exod 7:11–12, 22; 8:7) to perform miracles to rival the ones Moses performed.

Moses provides further insight into this relationship between the these evil heavenly rulers and the Gentile nations. Yahweh hadn’t given these gods to Israel (Deut 29:26); rather, he’d apportioned them to the other nations (Deut 4:19). The Psalmist identified these heavenly rulers as demons (Ps 96:5 [LXX]; 106:37; cf. Isa 13:21; 34:14; 65:3 [all in LXX]), and Moses said that those who sacrificed to them sacrificed to demons (Deut 32:17; cf. Lev 17:7), a point that Paul (1 Cor 10:20; cf. 1 Cor 8:4–6; Acts 17:18) and John (Rev 9:20) corroborated.