Did God give the nations to the angels? Deuteronomy 32:7-9.

 I listened “briefly” to a speaker on YouTube as they stated that Deuteronomy 32, verse 8, in the Greek Septuagint, tells how God gave the nations to the angels of God.

It is statements like this that prompt me to dig into the scriptures to prove or disprove if what they say is true. If it is true, then what are we supposed to do with this information? By the way, most of us cannot read nor understand the Septuagint Greek and would, therefore, be out of the loop and incapable of proving that something like this assertion is true or false. I happen to have a lexicon on my Bible program and was able to struggle through it by making comparisons to the Strong's numbers.

Before we begin our commentary, let's summarize the biblical verses we'll be discussing. These verses have a significant association with Genesis 6 and the sons of God.

“Remember the days of old, Consider the years of all generations. Ask your father, and he will inform you, Your elders, and they will tell you. "When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, When He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the sons of Israel. "For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.”
Deuteronomy 32:7-9 NAS95

Let's consider several other translations of verse 8 before we move forward.

The New King James version reads like this:

“When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, When He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel.”
Deuteronomy 32:8 NKJV

An object of confusion is the interpretation of “ He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel.” The variety of renderings reads like this:

• “according to the number of the children of Israel.” WEBA

  Consider this. When God's people left Egypt we are told there were over a million people. It is sometime later that God calls them His people or the children of Israel. So the burning question is, are there over a million nations? Seems like it sometimes but the answer is no. On the practical side God tells Abraham that his descendants will be as uncountable as the sands of the sea but God never said they would all be nations with boundaries.

• “according to the number of the heavenly assembly.” NET Bible

  The NET Bible is touted to be one of the best  in its alignment with original translations. On that note, if we can compare the nations to angels in heaven, and though Satan managed to deceive and draw one-third of the heavenly angels to follow him to earth, where they are harassing and demonizing living humanity. Those left in heaven are two-thirds of a vast and innumerable number. Two-thirds still hold to their original purpose and plans; they are messengers of God, which is one of the themes we can see when we do a word study.

• “under the care of divine guardians.” The Message

  Written by Eugene Peterson, this takes the Bible to an understandable but simplistic level. Some of what he said brought me to tears, while most is too vague and distanced from original texts to be meaningful. Still, it is odd that Mr. Peterson found what few others found, the implication of divine guardians. Unfortunately, these guardians are not defined, therefore we can only assume what side of the heavenly war they were on.

• “By the number of the sons of God [or sons of Israel].” LSV

  Ah, this is peculiar, not because it is improbable, but because we lack explanation. Here is where we tie the Biblical character Job into the narrative, for in the book of Job, chapter one, we see “the sons of God,” angels, presenting themselves before God, and Satan came among them. Satan, too, was a son of God. This leaves the door open to God assigning fallen angels over apportioned boundaries assigned to the nations. 

• “He assigned to each nation a heavenly being.” GNB

  Here, we have merely another way of saying what I just talked about. A Google search produced this, “some estimates say there are 6,500 living languages today, while others say there are 7,117.” Certainly, there are more than enough angels to fill all of God's needs and still have a massive army.

• “He made as many nations as there are angels.” ERV

  I essentially covered this topic when I covered the NET Bible, so it is beyond imagination to think that God would make the number of nations equal to the armies of heaven.

• “according to Israel's population.” CJB

  Deuteronomy 32:8 tells us that God set the boundaries of the people. The people we see associated with the tower of Babel, whom God separated and moved across the continents with new languages, are the nations. To the Jews, these nations are anyone who is NOT a Jew; they are non-Jewish, and godless by Jewish standards. At the time Deuteronomy was written, Israel's population was somewhat constrained and countable. The Jewish people are scattered everywhere, and their numbers are uncountable.

Enough of this speculation, as you should be able to ascertain that the variety of possibilities is painfully large, and most of those leaning toward angelic involvement as a direct assignment from God are typically the least reliable translations. The context directs me to focus on Israel, so when it refers to some group called “their,” I can know that the verse is talking about the Jews and Israel. 

Other questions that arise pertain to:

• What did they inherit?

  I have to consider the Jewish people—Abraham's descendants and those of Ishmael and Esau's lineage.

• Who is He referring to when He says “the sons of Adam”?

  The reality is that all of us are sons of Adam, but a tighter definition could be those who follow after the righteousness of God. What makes this statement odd is that even Noah was not that righteous.

• What people group is He talking about when He speaks of the boundaries of the people?

  In general, boundaries are meant to corral and restrict, yet we don't see that happening now; why? (It's a rhetorical question that does not demand an answer. The people group leans more toward which group, descendants, became the perpetual enemies of Israel and the Jews? The answer is the Assyrians – Islamic Middle Easterners.

• What is the significance of this statement, “according to the number of the children of Israel?

  I will address these questions in depth below.

• “ Consider the years of all generations.” Why direct the listener to do this?

  - Because you can learn of the character of God and how He interacted with humanity.

  - Ignoring instructions like this leads the foolish to make statements about God, declaring Him to be evil and dangerous.

  - Your considerations may also paint the picture of successes and failures when mankind followed or did not follow God's leading.

  The writer goes on to say,

  “Ask your father and he will inform you.”

  “Your elders, they will tell you.”

  Perhaps the reason behind the need to ask is that the answers bring information that is life-changing.

The context of Deuteronomy 32:8, as given by God, has everything to do with the next two assertions, and they focus on a time when:

• “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,”

  The nations and the Gentiles are one and the same.

  Since the Gentiles include the descendants of Ishmael and Esau, and they are descendants of Abraham, what kind of inheritance did the Gentiles get? 

  Note that Abraham, out of human emotion and love for Ishmael, cries out for God to accept Ishmael. The answer is NO.

  And Abraham said to God, "Oh that Ishmael might live before You!" But God said, "No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. "As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. "But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season next year." Genesis 17:18-21 NASB

  Consider the Middle East. Is it one nation? The answer is NO. So then, what is the commonality? Islam and their hatred of Israel.

  Genesis 10 helps to define the nations being divided after the flood.

  Genesis 10:32 KJV  These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

  The King James version tells us that He divided the nations to their inheritance.

  This is a direct reference to Deuteronomy 32:8.

  “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, When He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the sons of Israel.” Deuteronomy 32:8 NAS95

  This highly significant event is given to us in Genesis 11.

“And Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of Adam had built. And Jehovah said, Behold, the people is one, and the lip one to all of them, and this they are beginning to do, and now all which they have purposed to do will not be restrained from them. Come, let Us go down and confuse their language so that they cannot understand one another's speech. And Jehovah scattered them from there, over the face of all the earth. And they stopped building the city. On account of this its name is called Babel, because Jehovah confused the language of all the earth there. And Jehovah scattered them abroad from there on the face of all the earth.” Genesis 11:5-9 LITV

Although Genesis 11 does not specifically say that He set boundaries, to some degree, these people stayed where they were put.

• And the time “When He separated the sons of man,”

  The sons of man are descendants of the first man, Adam. This also means that they are subsets of Noah's descendants. Within a few generations, they are deemed to be among those who built the tower of Babel, a symbol of evil.

  The logic behind all descendants being from Noah's descendants lies in the fact God had to destroy all of humanity, with a few exceptions because they were all genetically modified for evil. (This information is found in Genesis 6. The genetic modification aspect lies in the definitions of relatively simple Hebrew words.)  

  Many, like myself, make the religious assumption that Noah was a righteous man, following the Lord in every way. We continue our assumption by thinking that he would have taught his sons that following after the Lord was the right way to do things. Those instructions may not have been realized since all history was, for the longest time, orally preserved. Clearly, we can see that an oral history, which included the intimacy that Adam and Enoch had with God, was conveyed.

  Here is my religion interjecting itself in my attempts at Biblical understanding. After getting off the boat, we find a drunk Noah and Ham, one of the sons, taking some bizarre sexual advantage of his drunken father.

  Many of Ham's descendants end up in Egypt and the Northern African nations, but one stands out as evil and that is Nimrod.

  Japeth's offspring give us Gog or Magog, which play a role in several end times battles.

  Shem's progeny eventually produced the path to Jesus; however, some of Shem's offspring became enemies of God. One of those descendants is Elam. Elam is the name of a person, but in time, it becomes a place. A fascinating piece of information was uncovered when I looked up the Hebrew meaning of Elam. It means hidden or distant.  

  Read what Isaiah has to say about a future time for Israel.

  Isaiah 11:10-11 NKJV  "And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, Who shall stand as a banner to the people; For the Gentiles shall seek Him, And His resting place shall be glorious."  11  It shall come to pass in that day That the Lord shall set His hand again the second time To recover the remnant of His people who are left, From Assyria and Egypt, From Pathros and Cush, From Elam and Shinar, From Hamath and the islands of the sea.

  When the Root of Jesse, Jesus, finally stands as a banner to the people, Jew and Gentile will give Him honor. This can only happen during the millennial reign. The Jews today are still scattered among the nations.

  Try to imagine Noah and his family, with their wives and possibly children, stepping off the boat.

  How long did it take for their numbers began to become innumerable?

  Here is a chart that might help you.

  

  Soon you want warmer weather and room to move. It was during days like this that we got Genesis 11:5.

  “And Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of Adam had built.” Genesis 11:5 LITV

  
  
  Now, God separated the peoples here at the Tower because they all spoke the same language and were of the same mind.

  Allow me to show what that same mind looked like.

  “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
  Genesis 6:5 NASB

• “He set the boundaries of the people according to the number of the sons of Israel.”

  He may offer us an explanation in the next statement.

  "For the LORD'S portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.”
  Deuteronomy 32:9

  "How many of these people who are working anywhere near the tower were a part of “the Lord's portion?”

  The short answer is none.

  Why would I say that?

  We do not see any of Shem's or Japeth's descendants involved in Babel, but we do see Nimrod, one of Ham's descendants, there, and we know that Ham and his descendants were cursed.

  We can know from scripture that the fallen angels returned and interfered with humans. Consider how many stories you have heard, whether it was some mystery show on television or it was a documentary that spoke of something that appeared to have a 

  human shape.

  “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” Genesis 6:4 NIVHow do we explain the Titans of Greek Mythology?

  David, the shepherd, killed Goliath, a giant with an approximate height of 9 feet 9 inches. We are told of Og, who, “According to the Bible, King Og of Bashan had an iron bed that was nine cubits long, which is approximately 13.5 feet long.

  What do you think things like Bigfoot, commonly called Sasquatch and has many other versions and regions, are?

  If the techniques used in Genesis six to penetrate the human genome and make it useless for God's purposes were no longer practical, wouldn't it behoove the fallen angels to use an alternative approach?

  The things I mentioned above are clearly out there with no reasonable explanation short of fallen angel technology.

  Satan told Jesus that all the magnificence of earth's kingdoms and their riches were his to give. How would he have controlled them? Perhaps it is Satan who assigned fallen angels to have control over the nations.