Thoughts on Deuteronomy 32

Today’s reading: Deuteronomy 32; Luke 11

My thoughts on Deuteronomy 32 this morning are mostly a book recommendation. I’ve mentioned before that there are a couple books that have most impacted or changed the way I approach Scripture, and one of them is Dr. Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm.

While The Unseen Realm is certainly about much more than just Deuteronomy 32, verses 8 and 9 are an important part of the matrix of ideas that Heiser builds upon in the book.

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. 
But the Lord’s portion is his people, 
    Jacob his allotted heritage.

If you have read more than a couple of my posts, you have probably heard me talk about this before, but at Babel, in Genesis 11, we are told that God mixed up the people’s language and scattered them from being one people. Previously all of humanity belonged to Him. He created Adam and Eve in the garden and gave them the task of being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth and subduing it. All of humanity, descended from Adam and Eve, was God’s people, but as the people turned from Him and rebelled, we see in Deuteronomy 32:8-9 that God gave them up. What we see in Genesis 11 is God disinheriting the nations and handing them over to other elohim (other spiritual beings; members of God’s divine council) to be over those nations, but choosing Israel as His portion.

This book is about so much more than just this one idea, but this is certainly an important idea that underpins much of the content.

But I think that’s all I’m really going to say about it for this morning. You should pick up The Unseen Realm and give it a read. That, or Heiser’s book Supernatural. I have never personally read Supernatural but he has said that he wrote it as Unseen Realm-lite. As much as it is very worth it, The Unseen Realm is dense and has a lot to get through. Heiser is very systematic and thorough, so I don’t think you will have any trouble following along or keeping up, even if you don’t have much background with deeper bible study, but if The Unseen Realm is a little daunting, I suggest you at least give Supernatural a try.

After reading this book, I honestly feel like I understand so much of the Scriptures so much more clearly. It helps you understand the Scriptures through the worldview of the people who were writing and reading them rather than through our own modern, very non-supernatural worldview. I think the best way I have heard it described was by a woman who was studying the book with a group of women in her church who said they always say, “This changes nothing, but it changes everything.” It doesn’t change the gospel, the deity of Christ, or any other central truth or doctrine of Christianity, but it will change how you read and think about pretty much every passage of the Bible and to see those core truths and doctrines with maybe greater clarity than ever before.

All that to say, my thoughts on Deuteronomy 32 this morning are that you should go read Supernatural or The Unseen Realm. :D