Troublesome Topic: DISINHERITED NATIONS
According to Michael Heiser, the disinheriting of the nations happened at Babel as punishment for their rebellion. That is when God assigned them to the control of lesser gods. I cannot find a place in his book where Heiser specifically wrote that nations were placed under the control of the demons which were the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim, but it is implied, it is hinted at through various statements in which he called them “corrupt spirits”.
On Page 376 Heiser said that the spirits ruling the nations “became corrupted”, meaning that they were not corrupt when God placed the nations under their authority. However, if some of these spirits were the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim, we know they were corrupt long before they were given authority over nations. On page 115, when he described in detail the disinheriting of the nations, he wrote, “Those disinherited would be in spiritual bondage to the corrupt sons of God… The story of the Old Testament is about Israel versus the disinherited nations, and Yahweh versus the corrupt, rebel Elohim of those nations.” However, those statements do not have any specific mention of timing. It appears they were corrupt for most of the time they ruled over the nations. Then on page 116 we read, “We aren’t told how the Elohim Yahweh assigned to the nations became corrupt, only that they were.”
If he was giving a veiled reference to the spirits of the Nephilim, which it appears that he was, that is a problem because they had already shown themselves to be rebellious against God before they became disembodied spirits. If he did not have the spirits of the Nephilim in mind, then why did he bring them into the conversation and make such a big deal about them? He called Genesis 6:1-4 one of two passages “that fundamentally frame the history of Israel” (pg 109).
On page 114 Michael Heiser described God saying something like this to the rebellious nations “if you don’t want to obey me, I’m not interested in being your God – I’ll match you up with some other god.”
On page 169 Heiser wrote“the Most High God had chosen covenant relationship with Israel to the detriment of the other nations.”
REBUTTAL
Dt 32:8 does not mean that God abandoned the other nations and left them under the control of lesser Elohim.
Michael Heiser had the habit of only offering a few options for interpretating a passage while leaving other, usually more viable options, unmentioned.
For Example, regarding the Anakites being descendants of the Nephilim in Numb 13:33, the only options he offered were the flood was regional, or the angels of Genesis 6 came again and did the same thing after the flood (Pg. 189 and elsewhere). Really? Are those the only options?
But where else in the Bible do we see anything like the statements mentioned above about the disinheriting the nations? God is always very patient with sinners and wants all sinners to come to repentance (II Peter 3:9). The entire Bible portrays God as loving and kind; He will punish, but only after He has given ample time for repentance. Heiser’s theory about the nations being disinherited and placed under the controlling power and authority of lesser gods flies in the face of the rest of the Bible. The God we see in the Bible would not do that. Heiser was making an assumption here because the Babel account does not clearly state this, and Heiser had to jump through several hoops to get there. His conclusion that God disinherited the other nations at Babel is contrary to the character of God revealed in the rest of the Bible. Heiser admitted that God did not abandon them altogether, for there were a few exceptions, but the rest of the time he wrote about this abandonment with devastating descriptions.
The next lesson is THE PURPOSE OF THE CONQUEST OF THE PROMISED LAND.