I’ve brought up Deuteronomy 32 a couple of times already. Part of that important Old Testament chapter refers back to the Tower of Babel incident where the earth was divided into the nations listed in Genesis 10. Deuteronomy 32:8 (cf. Deut. 4:19–20) tells us that God allotted the nations among the sons of God when he decided to punish the rebellion at Babel and divide the earth. Israel would thereafter be the Lord’s portion on earth (Deut. 32:9). Deuteronomy 4:19–20, a parallel passage, tells us these sons of God were the “host of heaven,” a term also used in 1 Kings 22:19. In 1 Kings, the host of heaven are the spiritual beings assembled before God who help decide wicked King Ahab’s fate.
We also saw earlier how this incident, as described in Deuteronomy 32:8–9, led to a cosmic-geographical worldview, where Israel was holy ground and all the other nations were under the dominion of hostile gods. The story of the Old Testament is basically Israel and its God against the nations and their gods. For ancient Israelites, these sons of God who presided over other nations were real entities. Spiritual warfare was the Israelites’ daily reality.
Another verse in Deuteronomy 32 drives home this point. Just after discussing how God divided up the nations and allotted them to lesser gods, Deuteronomy 32:15–17 has this sad refrain:
And Jeshurun grew fat, and he kicked;
you grew fat, you bloated, and you became obstinate;
and he abandoned God, his maker,
and he scoffed at the rock of his salvation.
They made him jealous with strange gods;
with detestable things they provoked him.
They sacrificed to the demons, not God,
to gods whom they had not known,
new gods who came from recent times;
their ancestors had not known them. (LEB)
Verse 17 tells us that, despite repeated warnings (Deut. 17:1–3; 29:24–26), Israel turned to idolatry—Israelites worshipped the gods of other nations. Notice that these entities are referred to as demons. The gods of the other nations are not mere idols; they are real spiritual entities hostile to God and his people.
Interestingly, Paul quotes Deuteronomy 32:17 in his discussion of eating food offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 10:19–22. But Paul doesn’t use only the word idols in his warning. He explains that there are spiritual entities behind and beyond idols—demons (1 Cor. 10:20–22). Biblical people believed in unseen spiritual conflict. It was real to them. Is it real to you?