with the 'sons of the Elohim.' Separateness from human weakness, though not mediatorial ability[1] is equally, predicated of both. But neither the poet of Job, nor any of the psalmists, identifies the phrases in express terms;[2] a virtual identification (see above, and Ps. lxxxix. 7, 8) is all that they venture upon. There was a good reason for this—viz. their recollection of the physical and mythological origin of the phrase, 'the sons of the Elohim.' 'Angels' and 'sons of the Elohim' are indeed alike 'holy' and 'servants' of the supreme God, but not always so, according to Hebrew tradition, were the 'sons of the Elohim.' In support of this, we may refer, not only to Gen. vi. 4 (which the author of Job need not have known), but to the allusions in his poem (see above) to a war among the inhabitants of heaven. This war, I think, stands in connection not merely with the physical phenomena of light and darkness, but also with speculations of pious Jehovists, or worshippers of Jehovah, as to the basis and value of 'heathen' religions. According to Deut. xxxii. 8,[3] each of the nations of the world was allotted by the Most High (Elyōn) to some one of the 'sons of El' (the simplest name for God); of course we are to suppose that these 'sons of El' and their worshippers were meant to recognise the.) This passage explains Sirach xvii. 17.]
- ↑ Eliphaz apparently assumes that the 'holy ones' might plead for Job with Eloah (comp. xxxiii. 23). There is an analogy for this in Arabian religion. The Koreish (Qurais) tribe were willing to join Mohammed, if he would only admit their three idol-gods to be mediators with the supreme God, and for a time he consented. See Palmer's Korán, Introd., p. xxvii. This was equivalent to recognising these heathen deities as b'ur Elohim and also (Eliphaz would say) as Q'dōskīm or 'holy ones.'
- ↑ The Elohistic narrator in Gen. xxviii. 12, 17, xxxii. 2, 3 even appears to identify the terms 'angels of Elohim' (= God) and 'Elohim' (= divine powers). Beth 'elōhīm and makhani' 'elōhīm are more naturally rendered 'place, host, of divine powers' than 'place, host of God.'
- ↑ The 'Song of Moses' is placed by Ewald and Kamphausen in the Assyrian period of Israel's history. Ver. 8 runs, in a corrected version,
