(According to Patrick Miller)
God’s council and its purpose
The rule of the cosmos is in the hands of Yahweh, but the context in which that rule takes place is the activity of the council where Yahweh’s decrees directing the human community and the divine world are set forth and through whom they are communicated or enacted.Patrick D. Miller, “Cosmology and World Order in the Old Testament The Divine Council as Cosmic-Political Symbol,” in Israelite Religion and Biblical Theology: Collected Essays, vol. 267, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 426.
-In many and complex ways, therefore, the maintenance of the social order and the direction of history is a result of the purposes of Yahweh as set forth, planned, and carried out through the divine assembly and its representatives, whether human or divine. Kings are raised up and put down, war is declared and carried out, judgment against peoples and cities is decreed and enacted, salvation and blessing are announced—all through the machinery of the divine council (Miller pg. 433).
Regarding Micaiah
-Then Micaiah said, ‘Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, “Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” And one said one thing, and one said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, “I will entice him”. And the Lord said to him, “By what means?” And he said, “I will go forth and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets”. And he said, “You are to entice him, and you will succeed; go forth and do so”. Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has spoken evil concerning you.’ (Miller pg. 431).
-Regarding Michaih=Herein is a very complex interaction of Yahweh’s control and the involvement of the council in developing the plan that the Lord commands. Yahweh’s direction and decree is the intent that comes to realization; the spirit is the agency of Yahweh’s purpose; the prophet is the messenger of the divine word, and the council is the place where all this is worked out (Miller pg. 431).
Regarding Isaiah’s vision
-In Isaiah’s call vision in Isa. 6:1–13, the call of the prophet takes place in the midst of the assembly gathered about the throne of the king Yahweh. Conversation goes on again in the assembly, but it is confined to the expression of praise to Yahweh until the Lord addresses the assembly and asks for a messenger to carry out its decree. Isaiah’s response not only creates a vocation for the prophet but sets under way the decree of the Lord in the council. The vision of the Lord of Hosts and the sense of the Lord’s holiness in contrast to the people’s sinfulness becomes definitive for Isaiah’s message (Miller pg. 431).
God’s council upholding Order/Righteousness
–Behold the human one has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now (we‘attāh), lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever … The text clearly has in mind the most fundamental relation and distinction in the created order, that between the human world and the divine world. The expression ‘one of us’ refers to the divine ones who make up the council of Yahweh and comes into the text as an implicit conversation within the council at the point where a possible breach in the relationship is present, where a human appropriation of the divine world is potential and the divine world must say no. The verse must be seen against 3:5, which also refers to the divine worlds, the gods: ‘And you will be like gods (kēlōhîm), knowing (yōde‘ê) good and evil.’ The judgment upon the human creature in the Yahwistic story arises out of the realization that the human creature brings about a kind of disorder in the universe in breaking through the boundary distinction between the divine world and the human world. That is confirmed in the other place where Yahweh addresses the divine council (Gen. 11:6–7): This is only the beginning of what they will do. Now therefore (we‘attah) nothing which they decide to do shall be out of their reach. Come let us go down and there confuse their language. As in Gen. 3:22, the building of the tower at Babel is a sin against God as an effort to move into the divine world, the divine domain. The threatened loss of creature limits (3:22a and 11:6–7) leads in both instances (we‘attāh) to the judging activity of God. In its judgment speech, Genesis 11, like 3:22, reflects a decree within the assembly to create human disorder for the sake of cosmic order, the confusion among humankind to inhibit the breakdown of the orderly relationship between divine and human worlds (Miller pg.435).
-YHWH created the world according to ṣedāqâ, ‘righteousness’, a principle of moral and cosmic orderliness similar to the Egyptian ma‘at. When ṣedāqā prevails, the world is at harmony, in a state of well-being, in šālôm. An act of sin in the religious sphere or injustice in the social sphere can inject discord and shatter šālôm. It then takes a decisive act of mišpāṭ, ‘justice’, to restore the šālôm and reestablish the ṣedāqâ. This mišpāṭ is not, as in our judicial system, an impartial judging between the violator and the injured party. Rather, it is an act of partiality which is not concerned simply to punish the guilty but to restore the victim to full participation in the community. Only when all deserving persons enjoy the fullness of life in community can ṣedāqâ reign. World order is thus not a static concept, an essence which exists impervious to all else. It is predicated directly on full moral behavior in the social world, and YHWH is perceived to be its protector par excellence. It is against this background that one must look at one of the texts in which the council of Yahweh is most explicitly present, Psalm 82. It takes place entirely in the world of the gods, although what is clear from the story is that that world is totally ruled and controlled by the Lord. The psalm depicts a meeting of the ‘divine council’ (v. 1) in which God rises and pronounces judgment on the gods. The reason for the verdict against them is spelled out in detail and unambiguous. The divine ones, the gods who are supposed to provide for order/righteousness among the peoples of the earth, have utterly failed to do so. They have shown partiality to the wicked and failed to maintain the right of the poor and the weak. The consequence of this is stated to be a shaking of the foundations of the world. The failure to maintain order, which in this instance is clearly seen to be the maintenance of righteousness in the moral sphere, the resistance to a disorder that does in the poor and gives the rich and the wicked control, is seen to be manifest in a kind of cosmic disorder. The cosmos comes apart when righteousness is not maintained. Yahweh as guarantor of the world’s order is also guarantor of the spheres of righteousness and justice. Indeed these are one and the same thing. The equation can be reversed and say the same thing. The text assumes that justice as the center of world order is a responsibility of the divine world as a whole. Failure to bring that about calls into question the divine world. Indeed its consequence is a decree against the divine world that relativizes it and renders the divine ones mortal (Miller pg. 438-439).
– If the maintenance of world order as the manifestation of righteousness is a responsibility of the divine assembly, it is not surprising that at the key point where the issue of the justice of God and the problem of undeserved suffering comes to the fore, the divine council is the setting or the occasion for the raising of the issue. That is seen of course in the prologue to the book of Job. There we encounter a formal gathering of the gods or the divine ones, who present themselves at what seems to be a set time (1:6 and 2:1). There ensues a conversation between the Lord and Satan who has been a kind of ‘roving investigator’ and is here to report and receive orders as the other members of the council. In these two scenes, we see ‘two heavenly councils in which Job’s fate is at stake’. (Miller pg.439-440).
-The concern for order in the cosmos as a function of the divine assembly under the rule of Yahweh is seen not only in the governance of Israel but also in the way in which the council is the context in which the relationship between humankind and the divine world is worked out, the nations and peoples of the earth are established and governed, and righteousness as the foundation of the cosmos is maintained. The case of Job is a particular one in which the integrity or ‘right’ of both Job (e.g. Job 27:1–6) and the Lord is at stake. His is literally a ‘test case’ arising out of the activity of the council in watching over the universe (Miller pg.443).
-The divine council is the locus of the rule of God. It is the principal symbolic form by which the sovereign work of God is set forth. The decrees and words of God go forth from heaven, from the deliberations of the divine assembly (Miller pg. 466).
-No earthly perspective comprehends the heavenly rule. (Miller pg. 467).