Daddy,
I have a question about this verse:
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.” (ESV)
What does this mean? Are “sons of God” here just a way of saying “people”?
Bekah
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Hey, Bekah!
No, the phrase “sons of God” here, and in other places in Scripture, does not refer to humans but to heavenly beings. They are the “principalities and powers in high places” of which Paul spoke. Of course, when humans were admitted into the kingdom of God in the New Testament, we were granted the title, “sons of God”, too. But other than that, “sons of God” refers to heavenly beings who serve God.
In the verse from Deuteronomy that you sent me, “sons of God” is a reference to the spiritual powers to whom God gave authority over various nations of earth and/or smaller dominions, such as territories within nations, and perhaps even smaller areas, such as towns. We catch a glimpse of these “spiritual powers in high places” in the book of Daniel (10:12-13), where an angel tells Daniel that “the prince of the kingdom of Persia” opposed his coming to Daniel, and actually delayed his arrival for three weeks! (By the way, a “principality” is the area controlled by a prince.) This “prince of Persia” was one of the “sons of God” by whose number God determined the size of the world and the number of the nations in it. It seems obvious to me, since that “prince of Persia” withstood God’s messenger (until Michael the archangel came to help him overcome that “prince”), that he was among the foolish angels who were deceived by Satan and were eventually cast out of God’s kingdom.
The ancients were aware of the reality of spiritual powers in high places, but as with all other truth handed to them by Noah and others who preceded them, they perverted the truth and began to worship those powers as gods, inventing stories (myths) about the gods and the “heroes” to support their vain imagination.
Thanks for the question. It was a good one.
Daddy