The Divine Council of God

The Divine Council of Yahweh

Job 1:⁶ Now there came a day when the sons of the elohim/created divine beings/gods came to present themselves before Yahweh. And the Shatan/Satan/adversary also came among them. ⁷ Yahweh said to the Shatan/Satan/adversary, “From where have you come?” The Shatan answered Yahweh, “From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it.” ⁸ And Yahweh said to the Shatan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him on the earth, a man who is blameless and upright, who fears God and turns away from evil.” ⁹ The Shatan replied to Yahweh, “Does Job fear God for no reason? ¹⁰ Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and all that he has on every side, and you have blessed the work of his hands and increased his possessions in the land. ¹¹ But stretch out Your hand and touch all that he owns and he will curse You to Your face.” ¹² So Yahweh told the Shatan, “Okay, all that he owns is in your hand. Only do not stretch out your hand against him personally.” So the Shatan went out from the presence of Yahweh.

Psalm 82:¹ God/Elohim has taken His place/stands in the council of God/the divine council. In the midst of the gods/elohim He holds judgment. ² How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked. ³ Give justice to the weak and the fatherless, maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. ⁴ Rescue the weak and needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked. ⁵ They have neither knowledge nor understanding. They walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. ⁶ I said, “You are elohim/gods, sons of the Most High, all of you. ⁷ Nevertheless, you shall die like men and fall like any prince.” ⁸ Arise, O God. Judge the earth. For you shall inherit all the nations.

Psalm 89:⁵ Let the heavens praise your wonders, Yahweh, your faithfulness in the assembly of your holy ones. ⁶ For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh? Who is like Yahweh among the sons of elohim/created divine beings/gods? ⁷ God/El is greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones and He is more awesome than all who are around Him. ⁸ Yahweh Elohim of hosts, who is mighty like you are, Yah, with your faithfulness all around you?

Jeremiah 23:¹⁶ Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with futile hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of Yahweh. ¹⁷ They say continually to those who despise the word of Yahweh, ‘It will be well with you,’ and to everyone who stubbornly follows their own hearts they say, ‘No disaster will come upon you.’ ¹⁸ For who among them has stood in the council of Yahweh to see and hear His word, or who has paid attention to His word and listened?”

1 Kings 22:¹⁹ Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of Yahweh. I saw Yahweh sitting on His throne and all the host of heaven standing beside him on His right hand and on his left, ²⁰ and Yahweh said, ‘Who will entice Ahab that he may go up in battle and fall at Ramoth-Gilead?’ And one said one thing and another said another. ²¹ Then a spirit came forward and stood before Yahweh, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And Yahweh said, ‘By what means?’  ²² And he said, ‘I will go out and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And He said, ‘You are to entice him, and you will succeed. Go out and do so.’”

Deuteronomy 32: ⁸ 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. ⁹ For Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.

God rules the world through a council (the Hebrew word sod is typically used). Yahweh is the supreme Elohim (though Elohim is plural it refers to Yahweh, often taking a singular verb as evidence that the one Elohim is intended), the supreme, uncreated God among the created gods (elohim[1]) or “sons of the gods” and “sons of the Most Hight,” “spirits” who are also referred to as “holy ones” because they serve in proximity to God. Sometimes they are called malakim or messengers, angels, in light of their function as God’s message bearers. Collectively they are the “host of heaven.”

There are ranks among them, some holding more authority than others. There are chief princes or archangels (Michael being named as such [Daniel 10:13,21; 12:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:16; Revelation 12:7]), cherubs (Isaiah 37:16), seraphs (Isaiah 6:1-6), and no doubt other ranks comprising the “thrones or powers or rulers or authorities” in the heavenly realm (Colossians 1:16). And there are fallen or rebellious spirits among them (Ephesians 6:12), including Satan, as well as the “elect angels” (1 Timothy 5:21), both of whom God still uses to accomplish His purposes. The adversary (the meaning of the word Shatan or Satan) actively opposes God his Creator, and has swayed a number of other elohim to follow him, and from the standpoint of his sway over humans is the god of this age on earth (2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2; 1 John 5:19), but he still is on the council and still ultimately subject to the will of Yahweh Elohim (Job 1:12; 2:6; Zechariah 3:2).[2]

Though Yahweh, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, does not need a council to rule the world, He has chosen to do such. He “is greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones and He is more awesome than all who are around Him” (Psalm 89:7). And He must sometimes judge the council members (Psalm 82:1-7). They may rule their nations (Daniel 10:12,13,20,21) wrongly. They may inspire worship of themselves as gods rather than Yahweh (Exodus 12:12; Numbers 33:4; Deuteronomy 12:31; 32:17 [they worshiped šēḏim, elohim they had never known]). One day He will punish the rebellious Satan and his angels with expulsion from the council and finally with consignment to the Lake of Fire (Revelation 12; 19; 20; Matthew 25:41).

Some humans have had access to the council. Yahweh’s prophets were given visions of the council and received Yahweh’s words or directions for His people, unlike the false prophets (Jeremiah 23:16-18). And occasionally, according to Psalm 25:14, “The sod, the counsel, of Yahweh is with those who fear Him,” so that even non-prophets can be made privy to Yahweh’s counsel (Proverbs 3:32, “the upright are in His sodo, his confidence”).

How Yahweh incorporates even those who are in rebellion against Him in His management of the nations is a mystery, even as is His use of fallen human beings in His purpose for the world. The division of the nations’ boundaries according to the number of the sons of the elohim (Deuteronomy 32:8) has elohim who oppose Yahweh overseeing nations like Persia, which was used by God to overthrow Babylon, and which showed favor to captured Israel, allowing them to return to their land, but which also worshiped false gods and opposed the messenger sent from Yahweh to Daniel. The messenger tells Daniel,

Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. ¹³ But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia… Soon I will return to fight against the prince of Persia, and when I go, the prince of Greece will come (Daniel 10:12,13,20)

The ”prince of Greece” is the angelic being who has charge of that nation and who, in some ways then, opposed to the angelic ruler of Persia, as well as, we may presume, Yahweh. But he is carrying out God’s will for him in the disposition of the nations. Yahweh Himself, with the assistance of His chief prince Michael, oversees Israel (Deuteronomy 32:9).

We see the machinations and maneuverings of the nations by Yahweh, and presumably, His council members assigned to these nations, Deuteronomy 2:

⁹ Then Yahweh said to me [Moses], “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.”

¹⁰ (The Emites used to live there—a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. ¹¹ Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaites, but the Moabites called them Emites. ¹² Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. They destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land Yahweh gave them as their possession.)

¹⁹ When you come to the Ammonites, do not harass them or provoke them to war, for I will not give you possession of any land belonging to the Ammonites. I have given it as a possession to the descendants of Lot.”

²⁰ (That too was considered a land of the Rephaites, who used to live there; but the Ammonites called them Zamzummites. ²¹ They were a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. Yahweh destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place. ²² Yahweh had done the same for the descendants of Esau, who lived in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites from before them. They drove them out and have lived in their place to this day. ²³ And as for the Avvites who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorites coming out from Caphtor destroyed them and settled in their place.) [Deuteronomy 2:9-12,19-23]

These council decisions are ultimately determined by the sovereign Yahweh, and even the rebellious actions of His council members are the decretive will of God, if not the preceptive.[3] Did God want Caphtor to conquer the Avvites, or just allow it? This is a secret of the Council.

The vision of heaven that John has in Revelation 4&5 most certainly includes the council of God while also including many more of the attendants of the court, with the four living creatures, the 24-elders, and thousands and thousands of angels. This may be the current Divine council or the future one, which will include, most likely, the twelve apostles of Jesus (Matthew 16:19; 1 Corinthians 6:3; Mark 10:35-45). They are certainly accorded great honor in the heavenly Jerusalem come to earth, as their names adorn the twelve foundations of the city (Revelation 21:14). The addition of humans to the divine council may be the intention of God at creation, with Adam and Eve being tested to see whether they would obey Yahweh or not.

[1] Cambridge Bible: The word Elohîm usually means God, but this is scarcely its meaning here. The angels are not called “sons of God” as if they had actually derived their nature from Him as a child from its father; nor in a less exact way, because though created they have received a nature similar to God’s, being spirits; nor yet as if on account of their stedfast holiness they had been adopted by grace into the family of God. These ideas are not found here. The name Elohim or sons (i. e. members of the race) of the Elohim is a name given directly to angels in contrast with men. The word means probably “powers,” “mights,” and the name is given to God and angels in common; He is the Elohim preeminently, they are Elohim in an inferior sense. The name describes their nature or standing in contrast to what is human; the name angels, that is, messengers, is descriptive of the duties which they fulfil. The same Beings are called “sons of Elîm,” Psalm 89:6 (“sons of the mighty”), and Psalm 29:1 (“ye mighty”), and there as here they stand in the temple or palace of the Lord, Psalm 29:9; Psalm 89:6-8… They are called the “holy ones,” Job 5:1; Job 15:15, where, however, “holy” is not a moral term, but means attending on God. Though pure like the heavens and all contained in its sphere, in contrast with God they are impure and unwise, Job 4:18; Job 15:15; Job 25:5.

[2] Cambridge Bible: God’s providence is over all; He doeth whatsoever is done in heaven or on earth. But He makes use of agents in His operations. Hence the same act, such as instigating David to number the people, may be in one place ascribed to God directly, 2 Samuel 24:1, and in another to Satan, 1 Chronicles 21:1. God’s purposes are usually beneficent and gracious, hence the angels are comprehensively designated as “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for the sake of them who shall be heirs of salvation,” Hebrews 1:14. But He has also purposes of judgment and chastisement, which are executed by those called the “destroyers,” Job 33:22; Exodus 12:23. In all these operations, whether of mercy or of judgment, the angels are simply servants. They do God’s behests.

[3] Decretive Will of God, also called God’s sovereign or hidden will, refers to what God ordains to happen, regardless of human actions. Preceptive Will of God, also known as God’s revealed or moral will, refers to what God commands us to do.