I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the Bible portrays the experience of other ‘gods’ besides YHWH. It’s been a subject of fascination for me, especially since I encountered the work of Michael Heiser, who sadly passed away earlier this year. Right now, I am mulling over the phrase “gods which you/your fathers have known” in Deuteronomy—I’m working on a paper for ETS in November and a book chapter due around the same time.

Why does it matter how we think about the portrayal of ‘other gods’ in the Bible, particularly the Old Testament? Well, for starters, it’s important for us to interpret the Bible correctly, on its own terms, so we understand how the Triune God, YHWH, speaks about himself and the other beings that he has created. This includes spiritual beings as well as human beings, and we as humans relate to those spiritual beings differently than we relate to other animals on earth. So it’s relevant for our lives.

In addition, correctly understanding other ‘gods’ and how the Bible speaks about them is helpful in eliminating conceptions of the one God that have been impoverished or warped by modernism. When one reads critical biblical scholarship, most scholars take a developmental approach to Israelite religion, hypothesizing a progression from polytheism, to henotheism and monolatry, to “pure monotheism.” I think there are many weaknesses in this model, and it needs to be challenged–but to do so, passages that speak about the existence of other ‘gods’ need to be addressed.

Case Study: Isaiah’s Vision of Seraphim, and the Egyptian Deity Wadjet

To illustrate this conceptual distinction, I share some reflections on Isaiah 6 in response to an excellent (and very concise) paper written by my student, Lea Münchinger, at LCC in Fall 2021. What precisely does Isaiah see, and how does he see it?

Before addressing the seraphim and any similarities to other ANE deities, we note in 6:1 that the first-person narrator (Isaiah) states, “I saw Adonai, sitting on the throne, lofty and exalted, the train of his robe filling the temple.” The claim is not that he saw a vision of the throne room, nor was he transported to some heavenly realm (like Ezekiel)—but that he saw the actual throne (and robe) of the deity in the temple.

With regard to the seraphim, the beings that fly above the deity’s throne: they are described as having six wings, and calling out the praises of YHWH of Armies to one another.

Two different etymologies have been proposed for the term seraph. The root *śrp̱ can mean “to burn,” so the term could mean “burning ones.” But elsewhere, these consonants can mean “serpent”–perhaps by association, a snake whose bite burns (but that connection is tenuous). (There is also a reference to a “flying seraph” in Isa 14:29, paralleled with nḥś and ṣp̱ꜥ, other words for snakes.)

Interestingly, as Lea highlights in her paper, there existed in the Egyptian pantheon a deity that is portrayed as a serpent with wings, called Wadjet. Wadjet was a protector of the Pharaoh, and a patron goddess of Lower Egypt.

Wadjet was known in Judah in the time that Isaiah would have been writing this passage, as there was trade and diplomatic relations between Egypt and Judah. Lederman, citing the work of Swanson, writes: “The Judean King Hezekiah used the winged uraeus imagery in his seals in the period before he surrendered to the Assyrian King Sennacherib, (701 B.C.E.), after which he expunged the Egyptian iconic winged-serpent from the Judahite elites’ repertoire.” This specific chronology of Hezekiah’s conversion might be reading more than the evidence would allow. Regardless of what one concludes about the reverence for Egyptian deity in Judah, the point is that this imagery was known in Judah during this time, and likely known to Isaiah, a priest.

Two Typical Explanations

What we observe, then, in Isaiah 6:2–7, is a description of beings in YHWH’s heavenly court that are very similar to the descriptions of an Egyptian goddess. There are at least two sorts of explanations for this fact, and I will propose a third.

First, there is what I would call the “methodological naturalism” explanation. In this view, religious expression is presumed to be a product of the human heart (or can only be studied as such, regardless of whether the supernatural is real). In this paradigm, the vision described in Isaiah 6 uses terms and symbols that are borrowed from other cults, as these would have been common images in the ANE. Whether or not Isaiah actually saw anything cannot be known–but the passage uses seraphim as a common image of a throne-room guardian divine being, just as the Egyptians had Wadjet to guard the Pharaoh (who was thought to be the incarnation of Re).

A second explanation would describe this similarity as “true revelation through divine condescension.” In this (believing) paradigm: YHWH, the true God, is indeed showing Isaiah a picture of a spiritual reality, but the seraphim are not necessarily what the throne-room spiritual beings look like—YHWH is choosing to show them to Isaiah using forms that he would have understood, given his context. YHWH’s presentation of these throne-room angels is a form of “voluntary condescension” (to use the language of WCF 7:1), just like speaking in human language: a simplification to make the divine realm comprehensible for Isaiah. This is the view that Mike Heiser himself expounds in this video on the seraphim and cherubim.

These views both express something valid about the passage and the presentation of seraphim, but from different angles and presuppositions (human description versus divine revelation). They both assume, however, that the reason that Isaiah 6 describes the throne-room guardians as seraphim, with their similarities to the Egyptian god Wadjet, is not because these guardians of YHWH’s heavenly throne room actually look like Wadjet, but because either YHWH or the author (or both) are adapting/adopting the Egyptian imagery that Isaiah and his audience would know.

Either of these views can take on a polemical dimension: either the author (first view) or YHWH (second view) intend to communicate that YHWH is superior to the Egyptian deity.

Another Perspective

I suggest that a third view is plausible, based on a divine-council understanding of the deities of the nations as fallen, rebellious divine beings created by YHWH originally to serve him.

In this view, what Isaiah sees is an actual window into the spiritual realm: the usually-invisible throne room of YHWH. The beings that he sees, called seraphim, actually appear in the spiritual realm as what humans would compare to winged serpents. Their job is to guard the throne room of YHWH and to proclaim his holiness perpetually.

The Egyptian conception of the deity Wadjet as a winged serpent may be explained not simply as a figment of human imagination. At some point in the Egyptian past (how distant, we cannot know for certain), a rebellious seraph who had abandoned its role in YHWH’s throne room appeared to some Egyptian people. Instead of directing the worship of the nations to YHWH as the gods were supposed to do with the nations “allotted” to them (Ps 82; Deut 32:8–9), this seraph (who came to be called Wadjet, or who called itself Wadjet) demanded that the Egyptians worship itself. This theophany (or demonophany?) was perhaps accompanied by some miraculous sign or wonder, which caused the Egyptians to fear and worship it.

The Egyptians then continued to perpetuate this image of Wadjet in descriptions and images, and they worshipped this rebellious seraph as a deity that guarded Egypt, the throne room of the Pharaoh, and the other gods of Egypt. Nevertheless, when Isaiah sees the throne room of YHWH in the 8th century BCE, he sees the actual beings of which “Wadjet” was just one within the ‘species’ of seraph.

Implications

Traditional readings from the perspective of “monotheism” often do not take full account of scriptural passages that assume that the ‘gods’ the nations worship actually exist as malevolent spiritual forces. The OT calls these elohim or ‘sons of elohim‘, and the NT refers to them variously as ‘demons’ (1 Cor 10:19–22) or as ‘powers and authorities in the heavenly places’ (Eph 3:10; 6:12; Col 3:15).

The traditional “true revelation through divine condescension” explanation of Isaiah 6 actually shares some suppositions with a modernist, naturalist view–in this case, the view that Isaiah 6:2 gives us no information about spiritual beings. I am not saying that such comparisons or the view of “divine condescension” are incorrect or always unhelpful. I am saying that they are not big enough to explain all the witness of the OT (namely, that other divine beings exist).

When the possibility that other ‘gods’ are active in the world is excluded, then it makes it difficult to provide a coherent explanation for passages like the “gods your ancestors have not known/were not assigned to them” verses in Deuteronomy (e.g. 11:28; 28:64; 29:26; 32:8–9, 17), or 2 Kings 3:26–27. When traditionalists (like myself) cannot provide compelling explanations for these passages, it leaves the door open for explanations from modernistic developmental models of ancient religion that, in my opinion, undermine the uniqueness of biblical religion.

This divine-council reading has implications for how we think about the other nations (and Israel) serving other gods: some of these gods are simply unresponsive idols, but others are actual spiritual forces that mislead and oppress. It matters for how we think about evangelism, and national pathologies that are threatened by the healing power of Christ in the gospel message. I’ve preached about this here, but there’s a lot more to say on the subject. It also matters for discipleship, especially what it means to be created in the image of God and “conformed to Christ’s image” (Rom 8:29; Col 3:10).

What do you think of this interpretation of Isaiah 6’s seraphim and points of contact with Egyptian religion? Let me know in the comments, or send me a message directly.