Troublesome Topic: EXODUS 18 21 AND 22 ON HUMAN JUDGES AND ELOHIM

Let’s take a closer look at the passages in Exodus 18-22 that use the tern Elohim in a way that may refer to judges.

Ex 18:13          Moses sat to judge the people.

Ex 18:14          Jethro said,  “you sit alone [to judge]”

18:15               Moses:  “because the people come to me to inquire of God”

18:16               Moses contd: “they come, I judge between one and another and make know the statutes of haElohim (the Elohim) and his laws (plural noun with singular pronoun).

18:19               The word HaElohim (the Elohim, or the mighty one/ones), is used of God twice.

18:21               Moses was advised by Jethro to choose men who fear God, men of truth who hate covetousness, to serve as rulers over thousands, hundreds and tens.

18:22               “and let them judge the people.”

18:25               Moses chose men and made them heads/chiefs over the people, rulers …

18:26               so they judged the people.

Summary:  In Ex 18 the situation is definitely about Moses and then other humans serving as judges for the people. But they did this using the decrees and laws given them by God. People were inquiring of God and they heard the will of God through human judges that knew God’s statues well and could apply them to situations that may not have been mentioned specifically in the law.

Ex 21:22          It is the judges who determine what must be paid in that situation.

Ex 22:8  (The one claiming that someone else took the silver) must be brought to haElohim (the Elohim – the mighty one/ones), meaning either brought to God or brought to the judges. In a practical sense, both meanings require the same action – go to the judges or leaders who represent God, they will look at God’ s laws and render a decision. The English versions of the Bible are divided on how to translate this, some say “the person should go to “the judges”, some say “the person should go to God” (see below for more on how these two statements mean the same thing). But “to the gods” (i.e. “the divine council”), as Heiser insists, is not necessary and it complicates the issue significantly.

TWO MEANINGS IN ONE WORD

The context of this verse is an entire passage outlining what should be done in certain judicial cases. Here in verse 9 we have come to a situation where the guilt is not obvious so the individuals involved should present themselves before the Elohim for a ruling. There is at least one other word for judges and there are other names for God, so I think the use of Elohim here is intended to point to God and also his representatives, the judges that were appointed by Moses in chapter 18 of Exodus. This is an efficient way to communicate both the earthly and the heavenly entities involved. The judges had to know God’s will as expressed in the Law in order to represent Him well. Thus having those two people appear before the human judge was the same as them appearing before God.

Once again, the term “the mighty ones”, can refer to God or to His representative, the judges, magistrates, rulers or officials who apply God’s law or seek His will (probably through the priests) and then issue a verdict.

All the lexica I have seen say the word Elohim can refer to powerful humans because it means “mighty ones”. Or it can refer to God. The passages of Exodus 18-22 use it because it points to both the human element and to God. They were to take their inquiries to God by taking them to the human, God-ordained leaders who served as judges.

Heiser deals with Exodus chapter18-22 on his website www.moreunseenrealm.com, where he insists that they are divine beings that people go to instead of human judges. He says that the members of God’s council were active among the people of Israel and gave the answer to the inquiries instead of God.(This can be found in the part of his website that deals with the giving of the Law.)

This would mean that the people with questions would go to a medium who would practice divination on their behalf and hear a response from a god who is not YHVH (I use YHVH instead of HYWH). Such divination was emphatically forbidden by the Law of YHVH and its punishment was always the death penalty! It appears that, as a doctoral student, Michael Heiser put more time and energy into studying other religions than he did studying the Torah of Israel.

At various places in his book, Heiser insists that all the ancient Israelites would have known what he was talking about and shared his worldview which includes a council of gods alongside the Creator God. That is impossible. The faithful Israelites would have called Heiser an idolater!

The word “El” is used once in a way obviously or men – Job 24:22

In Judges 5:22 it can go either way.

It is also noteworthy that Jesus used the phrase “sons of God” in the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the mount (Mt 5:9). In all of the beatitudes Jesus is obviously talking about humans, not members of a divine council or entities that were part human and part gods.

Furthermore, in Deuteronomy 16:18, Moses told the people to “appoint judges”. This obviously refers to men, not gods of the divine council whom they would not have been able to appoint. In the standard method of interpretation where Exodus 18-22 refers to men, there is agreement between those passages in Exodus and this statement in Deuteronomy 16; in Heiser’s method of interpretation those is no such agreement.

The next lesson in this series is WHICH SET OF STATEMENTS ABOUT GOD NEEDS TO BE ADJUSTED?

However, the next lesson in the list of passages about the Nephilim and the council of the gods is NUMBERS 13:33.