And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, “AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM.” – Hebrews 1:6 NASB

This one had me scratching my head for a bit. All my cross reference for this quote from the Old Testament point me back to Deuteronomy 32:43. But, when I read it there it doesn’t seem to match up.

“Rejoice, O nations, with His people; For He will avenge the blood of His servants, And will render vengeance on His adversaries, And will atone for His land and His people.” – Deuteronomy 32:43

Bear with me while I Nerd up for a few minutes.

So I did a little more digging and found this article which explains that the cross-reference actually points to Deuteronomy 32:43 in the Septuagint, also known as the LXX. The LXX is a translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek that dates back to about 300 years before Jesus came on the scene, during those quiet years. Seventy Hebrew scholars collaborated to create this work, thus the name. See below for links to the article and more information on the LXX.

Here’s the verse from the LXX.

“Rejoice, O heavens, with him, and let all the sons of God worship him. Rejoice, O nations, with his people, let all the angels of God prevail for him, For He will avenge the blood of His sons, And will render vengeance on His adversaries, And will atone for His land and His people,” (Deuteronomy 32:43 LXX).

(Just a tad more nerdiness…)

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls netted the oldest existing Hebrew manuscript which actually agrees to a great extent with the LXX and our text in Hebrews,

“Rejoice, O heavens together with him; and bow down to him all you gods, for he will avenge the blood of his sons, and will recompense those who hate him, and will atone for the land and his people,” (Deuteronomy 32:43, 4 QDeutq, Dead Sea Scrolls).

It’s interesting here, the Hebrew word translated gods, and in our book of Hebrews, the word angels is the Hebrew word Elohim. In the KJV (where it’s easy to get stats) this word is translated God 2,346 times, god (little g) 244 times and similar god related words a few more times, but angels only once.

(OK – enough with the nerdy stuff)

All that aside, it is a good depiction of what Luke recorded on the night of the incarnation.

And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.” – Luke 2:13-14

Suffice it to say, Jesus crushes the angels when it comes to glory and wonderfulness.

Hate the nerdy stuff? Come back tomorrow. We’re talking angels.

Blessing

Worship Jesus

Ben

If you need to catch up (or just want to for that matter) you can get it all here.

Here’s a link to the site where I learned a lot of the info above.

https://carm.org/what-verse-hebrews-1-6-citing-why-not-in-my-old-testament

And here’s a link to an article about the LXX.

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2016/03/31/A-Brief-History-of-the-Septuagint.aspx?gclid=Cj0KCQjwsZ3kBRCnARIsAIuAV_SFDtiwNiBKkyjPa9BdDY0Cv2qZFVnSTqB7qeI0sdtk1HLB1D57F3oaAtYoEALw_wcB#Article