Who are the "Sons of God" in Job?

Who are the "Sons of God" in the Book of Job?

When arguing for the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 being fallen angels, the only other passages that can be cited are Job 1:6, 2:1, and 38:7.

Job 38:7 is different-in-kind than 1:6 and 2:1 for a couple of reasons and will be dealt with later. First, we will deal with Job 1:6 and 2:1:

1:6: Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.

2:1: Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord.

The presupposition is made that these “sons of God” are angels. Where does that come from? There is nothing in the context to suggest it. Perhaps it is because God is thought of as, “in heaven” and so this must be a heavenly scene, therefore the “sons” are angels. Again, nothing in the context explicitly indicates a heavenly convocation, that must be presumed. Perhaps it is that Satan, who is believed to be a fallen angel, is part of the scene, therefore the “sons” must be angels. Perhaps the heavenly scenes from the Book of Revelation are read back into this scene in Job. All these strategies are presumptive and inferential.

When we look elsewhere in the Bible for instances of beings of one kind or another presenting themselves or appearing “before the Lord”, what do we find?

Exodus 23:17: Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.

Exodus 34:23: Thrice in the year shall all your men children appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.

Exodus 34:24: For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year.

Deuteronomy 16:16: Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty:

Deuteronomy 31:11: When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing.

Numbers 8:10: When you present the Levites before the Lord, the people of Israel shall lay their hands upon the Levites

Numbers 16:16: And Moses said to Korah, “Be present, you and all your company, before the Lord, you and they, and Aaron, tomorrow...”

1 Samuel 10:19: ...now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your tribes and by your thousands.

I said, “beings of one kind or another”. In fact, the beings who are instructed to “appear before the Lord” are human beings. Also, gifts and offerings are also said to be “presented before the Lord”, for example, “...but the goat on which the lot fell for Aza′zel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it...” (Leviticus 16:10)

Secondly, is there anyplace in the Bible where “sons of God” is used to explicitly refer to angels? No, there is not. The passages used for that purpose are Genesis 6:2, Job 1:6, 2:1, and 38:7. None of those passages explicitly equate “sons” with “angels”. The linkage is inferential.

Whenever the phrase “sons of God” is explicitly defined elsewhere in scripture it always refers to human beings. Here are a few examples out of many that could be cited:

Hosea 1:10: Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.

Hosea 11:1: When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 14:1-2: Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God, and the LORD hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth.

Exodus 4:22: And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:

Luke 3:38: Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

Romans 8:14 and MANY New Testament passages: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

Furthermore,

For to what angel did God ever say, “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”? (Hebrews 1:5)

The implied answer to this question is, “Never.” God has never called an angel, “My son.”

So we see that whenever the Bible calls anyone “son(s) of God” - and where the context happens to explicitly indicate who it's talking about - it always refers to a human being. And whenever the Bible speaks of anyone appearing or presenting themselves “before the Lord” - and the context happens to be explicit concerning who and where this occurs – it is always human beings appearing before the Lord at a specific place on earth - or offerings being brought “before the Lord” - by human beings, on earth.

So we should assume the same in contexts where those phrases are used and yet the immediate context is not explicit. If we assume otherwise we are disregarding – indeed going against – scriptural precedent.

The conclusion we are led to is that “the sons of God” in Job 1:6 and 2:1 are human beings, and the “present themselves before the Lord” occurs at a specific time and place on earth in accordance with Exodus 23:17, 34:23, Deuteronomy 31:11, & etc.

Job 38:7

The context of 38:7, unlike 1:6 and 2:1, is not narrative but is in poetic form and is full of Hebraic parallelisms:

5a: Who determined its measurements—surely you know!

b: Or who stretched the line upon it?

6a: On what were its bases sunk,

b: or who laid its cornerstone,

9a: when I made clouds its garment,

b: and thick darkness its swaddling band,

10a: and prescribed bounds for it,

b: and set bars and doors,

11a: and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther,

b: and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

12a: “Have you commanded the morning since your days began,

b: and caused the dawn to know its place,

14a: It is changed like clay under the seal,

b: and it is dyed like a garment.

15a: From the wicked their light is withheld,

b: and their uplifted arm is broken.

16a: Have you entered into the springs of the sea,

b: or walked in the recesses of the deep?

17a: Have the gates of death been revealed to you,

b: or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

18a: Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

b: Declare, if you know all this.

19a: Where is the way to the dwelling of light,

b: and where is the place of darkness,

20a: that you may take it to its territory

b: and that you may discern the paths to its home?

21a: You know, for you were born then,

b: and the number of your days is great!

The parallelisms continue through the rest of the chapter and through the whole of the following chapter – 30 verses of parallelisms in chapter 39 and into the first verse of chapter 40.

So wouldn't it make sense that 38:7 is also a parallelism?

7a: when the morning stars sang together,

b: and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

That means that the morning stars and the sons of God are the same thing. The question then becomes, are the “morning stars” angels? It is true that angels are sometimes referred to as stars (e.g. Revelation 1:20). Or are the “morning stars” part of the physical creation and figuratively said to be shouting for joy?

Look at the other examples in the context:

The earth has foundations, bases, and a cornerstone. The sea has doors and burst forth from the womb. Clouds are garments for the sea, and thick darkness is a swaddling band. The sea has bounds, bars, and doors. Its waves are proud. The dawn knows its place, the dawn takes hold of the skirts of the earth and shakes the wicked out of it. The dawn is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment. Death has gates, deep darkness has gates. Light has a dwelling place, darkness has territory and a home. Snow and hail have storehouses.

On and on it goes, all in Hebraic parallelisms, speaking of wind, rain, thunderbolt, grass, dew, ice. It speaks of the zodiacal stars in the heavens:

Can you bind the chains of the Plei′ades,

or loose the cords of Orion?

Can you lead forth the Maz′zaroth in their season,

or can you guide the Bear with its children?

Do you know the ordinances of the heavens?

Can you establish their rule on the earth?

Chapter 39 deals with the animal creation; mountain goats, the wild ass, the wild ostrich, the horse, the hawk, and the eagle. All presented in the poetic form of parallelism.

If "morning stars" are angels and not physical stars, what then is the "earth"? The "sea"? "Clouds"? "The dawn"? "Light"? "Darkness"? "Snow"? "Hail"? The Zodiac? "Mountain goats"? The "wild ass"? - Can you see the problem here? If "morning stars" are not literal but refer figuratively to angels, then the rest of the context is figurative. I don't see how that's tenable.

So...it's apparent that “the morning stars” of 38:7 are the literal, created, physical stars in the sky – along with the stars spoken of as Plei'des, Orion, Maz'zaroth, and the Bear in verses 31-33. Those morning stars are figuratively called “the sons of God”. But wait – there are alternative translational possibilities.

Translational Issues

I prefer to place translational arguments of a technical nature in a secondary position. It is easy to overwhelm with vast amounts of technical minutia, as well as being overwhelmed myself! Many times I have to reread these kinds of arguments several times to get the line of reasoning. The contextual arguments given above are compelling enough, in my opinion, and don't depend on arguments involving esoteric translational issues. Nevertheless, for those that are interested:

The Hebrew phrase translated “sons of God” in 1:6 and 2:1 is, bene ha'elohim. The Hebrew phrase translated “sons of God” in Job 38:7 is bene elohim – the definite article ha is missing. So the phrase in 1:6/2:1 is not linguistically the same as in 38:7. Why would the translators translate two different phrases in exactly the same way? There is no indication in the English that those two phrases are different in the Hebrew. I would solicit someone with more knowledge than me to answer this question.

The phrase is comprised of two words, bene and elohim. Elohim can indeed refer to angels. For example, Psalm 8:5, quoted in Hebrews 2:7, says that man is lower than the angels (elohim).

Elohim is also the word for a judge(s) as well (1 Sam. 2:25, “judge”=“elohim”). It can also mean “god” or “gods”. The word Elohim occurs more than 2500 times in the Hebrew Bible, with meanings ranging from "god" in a general sense (as in Exodus 12:12, where it describes "the gods of Egypt"), to a specific god (e.g., 1 Kings 11:33, where it describes Chemosh "the god of Moab", or the frequent references to Yahweh as the "elohim" of Israel), to demons, seraphim, and other supernatural beings, to the spirits of the dead brought up at the behest of King Saul in 1 Samuel 28:13, and even to kings and prophets (e.g., Exodus 4:16).

So there is a broad range of translational possibilities.

The same goes for bene. According to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (H1121), bene has the following meanings:

<H1129> (banah); a son (as a builder of the family name), in the widest sense (of literal and figurative relationship, including grandson, subject, nation, quality or condition, etc., [like <H1> ('ab), <H251> ('ach), etc.]) :- + afflicted, age, [Ahoh-] [Ammon-] [Hachmon-] [Lev-]ite, [anoint-]ed one, appointed to, (+) arrow, [Assyr-] [Babylon-] [Egypt-] [Grec-]ian, one born, bough, branch, breed, + (young) bullock, + (young) calf, × came up in, child, colt, × common, × corn, daughter, × of first, + firstborn, foal, + very fruitful, + postage, × in, + kid, + lamb, (+) man, meet, + mighty, + nephew, old, (+) people, + rebel, + robber, × servant born, × soldier, son, + spark, + steward, + stranger, × surely, them of, + tumultuous one, + valiant[-est], whelp, worthy, young (one), youth.

It is translated in the KJV, as "Young" 15 times; "First" 13 times; "Breed" 1 time; "Nephews" 1 time; "Men" 6 times; "Mighty" 1 time; "Appointed" 3 times; "Common" 1 time; and finally "Old" 1 time. Variants of this same word are also translated with other meanings as well. However, I will only present those alternate translated meanings that are of the same Hebrew word bene as specifically used in Job 38:7.

"Young" can be found in Lev. 1:14; 12:8; 14:22; 14:30; 15:14, 29; Num. 6:10; 28:11, 19, 27; 29:2, 8, 13, 17; and Jer. 31:12.

"First" can be found in Lev. 9:3; 23:19; Num. 7:87, 88; 28:3, 9; 29:17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 32, 36.

"Breed" can be found in Deut. 32:14.

"Nephews" can be found in Judges. 12:14.

"Men" can be found in 1Chr. 26:30, 32; 2Chr. 26:17; 28:6; Ps. 62:9; and Eze. 27:11.

"Mighty" can be found in Ps. 29:1.

"Appointed" can be found in Ps. 79:11; 102:20; Pr. 31:8.

"Common" can be found in Jer. 26:23.

"Old" can be found in Mic. 6:6.

Nowhere does bene mean, “angel”.

So...if elohim refers to angels, how should bene be understood? “Sons of angel(s)?” Good luck justifying that from scripture! Or maybe "first of angels"? That would certyainly be more explicit than "sons of God" and would support the understanding that I am arguing against. Why has nobody translated it that way?

When we start plugging the various meanings of bene into Job 38:7 in order to go through the possibilities, the most interesting one to me is “them of”.

This would have Job 38:7 translated as:

when the morning stars sang together,

and all them of God shouted for joy

Granted, the English is awkward. I wanted to be as close to the Hebrew as I could. We could say it something like,

when the morning stars sang together

and all of them, created by God, shouted for joy

The “morning stars” are the created morning stars and are anthropomorphically or figuratively said to be singing together. This is commensurate with the rest of the context where various aspects of creation (earth, morning, clouds, light, darkness, rain, snow, ice, wind, stars, etc.) are spoken of in figurative or anthropomorphic ways. The parallel phrase, “all them (bene) of God (elohim)”, that is, all those morning stars created by God, shouted for joy – an anthropomorphism totally consistent with the surrounding context, and maintaining the parallelism that is ubiqutous in that context.

Besides the fact that nowhere else in the Bible are angels called "sons of God", there is no contextual reason whatsoever for translating bene as “sons” in Job 38:7. The above “non-traditional” translation is nevertheless a correct, grammatical possibility as far as the Hebrew language is concerned, and has the added advantage of complete harmony with the context - unlike "first of angels" or the traditional "sons of God." It also removes the last leg to stand on for understanding “sons of God” as “angels”.

Even granting the traditional translation, "sons of God", the context doesn't support the understanding that they are angels. The context supports the idea that "the morning stars" is literal, and "the sons of God" is figurative language for the morning stars.

So once again we are led to the conclusion that nowhere in the Bible is the phrase, “sons of God” used to refer to angels – not Genesis 6:1, Job 1:6, 2:1, nor 38:7.