Scholar Says 'God Had A Wife'; Lds Writer Tresa Edmunds Says, 'Yeah. We Know.'

[smac97]

Here:

Scholar says 'God had a wife'; LDS writer Tresa Edmunds says, 'Yeah. We know.'

Published: Thursday, July 7, 2011 2:03 p.m. MDT

The theory that "God had a wife," presented strongly in a BBC documentary earlier this year, got support Wednesday from a Mormon writer for the UK Guardian.

One episode of the BBC documentary series "The Bible's Buried Secrets" was called, "Did God Have a Wife?" The episode chronicled the biblical research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who claims that ancient Jews may have believed God was married.

"Far more significant is the Bible's admission that the goddess Asherah was worshipped in Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem. In the Book Of Kings, we're told that a statue of Asherah was housed in the temple and that female temple personnel wove ritual textiles for her," Stavrakopoulou wrote in a recent article, according to the Daily Mail Online. "... Asherah was also the wife of El, the high god."

She also asked: "Might (Asherah) have played the role of a divine wife in ancient Israel too?"

It is clear from the documentary that Stavrakopoulou thinks so. While this idea has raised some eyebrows, others aren't surprised.

"After all, the idea of a married deity is philosophically no stranger than the idea of an unmarried or eternally single deity — right?" BBC blogger William Crawley wrote.

Tresa Edmunds, a California-based writer for the UK Guardian, linked Stavrakopoulou's ideas to the historically Mormon concept of a Heavenly Mother in a piece published Wednesday in the belief section of the British paper's website.

"A programme on BBC2 has made news for presenting scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou's theory that 'God had a wife,'" Edmunds wrote. "The reactions from the religious and academic world were varied, but for Mormons, it can best be summed up as, 'Yeah. We know.'"

Edmunds, a stay-at-home mother and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, outlined the origins of Mormonism's early ideas about a Heavenly Mother and its status in the faith today. "Much of the discussion about Heavenly Mother consists of references to the logic of the relationship," wrote Edmunds, who occasionally contributes to the Guardian's Comment is Free section of its website. "If God is the father of our spirits, as Mormons believe, then there would need to be a mother."

Edmunds' piece comes in the wake of an in-depth look at the historical Mormon teaching of Heavenly Mother. The article, published earlier this year in BYU Studies under the title "'A Mother There': A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven," was written by BYU philosophy professor David Paulsen and his student Martin Pulido.

Paulsen and Pulido noted that there are two official Church pronouncements on the doctrine. The most recent of these appears in the LDS Church's "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," which contains the following: "All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny." Much earlier, in 1909, The First Presidency of the Church declared: "All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother and are literally sons and daughters of Deity."

Beyond these official statements many have speculated about a Heavenly Mother but not much else has been said authoritatively. During a general church Relief Society meeting in 1991, President Gordon B. Hinckley, who at the time was a counselor in the church's First Presidency, discussed the doctrine.

"Logic and reason would certainly suggest that if we have a Father in Heaven, we have a Mother in Heaven. That doctrine rests well with me," President Hinckley said in the talk later published in the church's magazine, the Ensign. "However, in light of the instruction we have received from the Lord Himself, I regard it as inappropriate for anyone in the Church to pray to our Mother in Heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ set the pattern for our prayers. In the Sermon on the Mount, He declared: 'After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.' When the resurrected Lord appeared to the Nephites and taught them, He (also) said: 'After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.'"

[zerinus]

Here:

You can watch all of that BBC documentary on YouTube (split into four parts) here:

Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4.

My verdict on it is that what she is talking about is a load of nonsense. The essence of her thesis can be summarised as follows: Contrary to popular belief, the ancient Israelite religion was not initially monotheistic, but was polytheistic (witnessed by the fact that Baal worship was commonly practised by the Israelites as recorded in the Bible); and that the biblical text was altered by Jewish Rabbis and scribes after the Babylonian captivity (and as a consequence of that defeat) to portray Judaism as a monotheistic religion.

You don't have to be a "Hebrew scholar" to realize that that is rubbish. The fact that many (even most) of the Israelites for most of their history adopted the practices of their heathen neighbours to worship the various Idols of the land, instead of worshipping the one true God of Israel (contrary to the advice of Moses and all latter prophets, for which they were always punished) is well known and written all over the Bible. That does not mean that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and the rest of their prophets and seers were polytheists and Baal worshippers, or that that was the basis on which the religion was originally founded, or that monotheism in Judaism was a by-product of the Babylonian captivity.

Edited July 8, 2011 by zerinus

[Franktalk]

We know that Jesus has a special relationship with a few people. There are the beloved of God. It would not be out of character for Jesus or the Father or even the Holy Ghost at some past time while manifesting in physical form to have a special relationship with another spirit being in female form. I don't see this changing a thing about God but it would serve to give that unique experience to the powers in heaven.

[Ron Beron]

It is somewhat overly simplistic for Mormons to compare the archaeological evidence of a female consort to Israel's God with that of a modern revelatory Mother in Heaven. The ancient Jews saw the deity as a male/female dichotomy of God and worshiped her against the wishes of the Priestly class. Her worship in the temple alongside the nehushtan (Bronze serpent) was a corruption of the worship of YHWH not a commandment. Our belief that there is a mother in heaven is overly anthropomorphic at times because we tend to view this relationship in terms of humanity not in terms our Heavenly Father would. Perhaps this is why we keep it on a personal level and not publicizing our relative ignorance on the subject.

[Ron Beron]

That does not mean that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and the rest of their prophets and seers were polytheists and Baal worshippers, or that that was the basis on which the religion was originally founded, or that monotheism in Judaism was a by-product of the Babylonian captivity.

It doesn't mean they were strict monotheists either. While the ancient Jews worshiped God as a single entity they also incorporated many aspect of a multi-faceted God such as found in the Babylonian religious tapestry. For example, there is extensive discussion of a Lady Wisdom or Hokhma that was considered co-creator with God. This is mentioned in Proverbs and other books within the Bible including Matthew. The belief in a divine matron is consistent with the longing of humans to seek the comfort and succor of not only a Heavenly Father, but Mother as well. How we see that comfort takes on some very interesting facets.

[Kevin Christensen]

See Barker on Wisdom:

http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/WhereshallWisdombefound.pdf

And Von Feldt on Did God Have a Wife?

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=19&num=1&id=639

And Kevin Barney here:

http://www.fairlds.org/pubs/MotherInHeaven.pdf

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

Edited July 8, 2011 by Kevin Christensen

[zerinus]

According to this BBC documentary by the same presenter, there was no King David, no Goliath, and no Davidic Kingdom!

Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4

LOL! So much for the demand for an "archaeological proof" of the Book of Mormon!

Edited July 8, 2011 by zerinus

[maklelan]

You can watch all of that BBC documentary on YouTube (split into four parts) here:

Part1, Part2, Part3, Part4.

My verdict on it is that what she is talking about is a load of nonsense. The essence of her thesis can be summarised as follows: Contrary to popular belief, the ancient Israelite religion was not initially monotheistic, but was polytheistic (witnessed by the fact that Baal worship was commonly practised by the Israelites as recorded in the Bible); and that the biblical text was altered by Jewish Rabbis and scribes after the Babylonian captivity (and as a consequence of that defeat) to portray Judaism as a monotheistic religion.

You don't have to be a "Hebrew scholar" to realize that that is rubbish.

In fact, not being a Hebrew scholar is one of the most important contributors to realizing that. Stavrakopoulou's theory has been the academic consensus for 25 years (see here for one of the articles that contributed to the consensus).

The fact that many (even most) of the Israelites for most of their history adopted the practices of their heathen neighbours to worship the various Idols of the land, instead of worshipping the one true God of Israel (contrary to the advice of Moses and all latter prophets, for which they were always punished) is well known and written all over the Bible.

But there are a number of presuppositions you're asserting here. Most seriously, you presuppose Moses himself existed and wrote the portions of text attributed to him by much later tradition, and you assume polytheistic worship was borrowed from neighbors and not just indigenous to Israel. You can provide evidence of neither assumption, but there is plenty of evidence against both. For instance, there is no single statement anywhere in the Bible prior to the Deuteronomistic history (7th-6th century BCE) that mentions Asherah unfavorably, or restricts her worship. We also have archaeological evidence stretching from the 10th century BCE down to the 7th century BCE that shows that Israelites officially and privately worshipped Asherah. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that her worship was anything but normative prior to the 7th century BCE. In fact, the further back in time we go with the archaeological evidence for Israel, the more and more it resembles its Syro-Palestinian neighbors.

Regarding Moses and the Pentateuch, many of the stories ostensibly set in his day or shortly after mention memorials or other landmarks or objects that are said to have remained "unto this day." The sense is always that a significant amount of time has passed. Elsewhere the author presupposes an Israelite kingdom, which did not arise until centuries after Moses' death. Still elsewhere terminology is consistently used that is aligned with terminology appearing in only one other place: the Deuteronomistic history, written in the 7th to 6th centuries BCE. In other places ethnic groups are mentioned that we know for a fact did not exist until the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. There's much, much more that leads inescapably to the conclusion that much of what is attributed to Moses or his day comes from much, much later.

That does not mean that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and the rest of their prophets and seers were polytheists and Baal worshippers, or that that was the basis on which the religion was originally founded, or that monotheism in Judaism was a by-product of the Babylonian captivity.

Monotheism did not arise in Judaism until the Hellenistic period. See my most recent paper on the topic here.

[Doctor Steuss]

It doesn't mean they were strict monotheists either. While the ancient Jews worshiped God as a single entity they also incorporated many aspect of a multi-faceted God such as found in the Babylonian religious tapestry. For example, there is extensive discussion of a Lady Wisdom or Hokhma that was considered co-creator with God. This is mentioned in Proverbs and other books within the Bible including Matthew. The belief in a divine matron is consistent with the longing of humans to seek the comfort and succor of not only a Heavenly Father, but Mother as well. How we see that comfort takes on some very interesting facets.

Hi Ron,

I can't remember if it was you, but a while back someone recommended a book on Sophia for me, and I've since misplaced my list of book recommendations. If it was you (and/or you know of a good book(s) on Sopia), can you hook a brother up (again[?])?

Hope all is well,

Stu

Edited to add:

Dan, if you know if any (accessible to the laymen) books on Sophia, I would very much appreciate your recommendation(s) as well.

Edited July 8, 2011 by Doctor Steuss

[maklelan]

Hi Ron,

I can't remember if it was you, but a while back someone recommended a book on Sophia for me, and I've since misplaced my list of book recommendations. If it was you (and/or you know of a good book(s) on Sopia), can you hook a brother up (again[?])?

Hope all is well,

Stu

Edited to add:

Dan, if you know if any (accessible to the laymen) books on Sophia, I would very much appreciate your recommendation(s) as well.

A few I've heard of (but not yet read) are the following:

Wisdom Has Built Her House

In Search of Wisdom

The Personification of Wisdom

Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction

Wisdom in Ancient Israel

[cksalmon]

But there are a number of presuppositions you're asserting here. Most seriously, you presuppose Moses himself existed and wrote the portions of text attributed to him by much later tradition, and you assume polytheistic worship was borrowed from neighbors and not just indigenous to Israel. You can provide evidence of neither assumption, but there is plenty of evidence against both.

ZERINUS:

Now, I don't mind being labeled a 'fundamentalist' (though I'm not), since I generally like those folks, and am closer to them than I am distant, but I can't tell you how it warms the cockles of my heart to see McClellan school his fellow Saints (like you) in the ways of modern 'biblical scholarship.'

You're hopelessly naive if you think Moses himself existed and wrote the portions of text attributed to him by 'much later tradition.'

Sorry, buddy.

[zerinus]

ZERINUS:

Now, I don't mind being labeled a 'fundamentalist' (though I'm not), since I generally like those folks, and am closer to them than I am distant, but I can't tell you how it warms the cockles of my heart to see McClellan school his fellow Saints (like you) in the ways of modern 'biblical scholarship.'

You're hopelessly naive if you think Moses himself existed and wrote the portions of text attributed to him by 'much later tradition.'

Sorry, buddy.

LOL! I assure you I do, and I am not ashamed of it either. You people are hopelessly blinded and darkened in your minds. I see little hope for you guys unless you heed the warnings given in the Book of Mormon:

2 Nephi 9

:

28 O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

29 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.

2 Nephi 28

:

31 Cursed is he that putteth his trust in man, or maketh flesh his arm, or shall hearken unto the precepts of men, save their precepts shall be given by the power of the Holy Ghost.

[Ares]

Please stop the accusations of naivete and the counter charges of darkened minds.

We can do with less personal shots.

[cksalmon]

Please stop the accusations of naivete and the counter charges of darkened minds.

We can do with less personal shots.

Um, okay.... And here I thought I was having a comparatively-friendly discussion with Zerinus.

Did he cry out for your intervention on this thread, Ares? I rather doubt it.

Goodness, gracious.

Watch a romcom.

[cksalmon]

LOL! I assure you I do, and I am not ashamed of it either.

And, please note that I'm actually agreeing with you, Z. I do, too.

Goodness.

Edited July 9, 2011 by cksalmon

[Bernard Gui]

Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God.

Joseph F. Smith,

John R. Winder,

Anthon H. Lund,

First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

http://eyring.hplx.net/Eyring/faq/evolution/FP1909.html

Improvement Era, Vol. XIII, No. 1, pp. 75-81, November 1909.

Bernard

Edited July 9, 2011 by Bernard Gui

[Ron Beron]

Hi Ron,

I can't remember if it was you, but a while back someone recommended a book on Sophia for me, and I've since misplaced my list of book recommendations. If it was you (and/or you know of a good book(s) on Sopia), can you hook a brother up (again[?])?

Hope all is well,

Stu

Edited to add:

Dan, if you know if any (accessible to the laymen) books on Sophia, I would very much appreciate your recommendation(s) as well.

Sorry Doc, missed your post. Mak seems to have covered it, although let me put together some more.

[Ron Beron]

I have a further question relating to this. The author of the show states that in Deut. 33:2,

"The Lord came from Sinai

and revealed himself to Israel from Seir.

He appeared in splendor from Mount Paran,

and came forth with ten thousand holy ones.

With his right hand he gave a fiery law to them."

The Bible translates fiery law as אֵשְׁדָּת (’eshdat) but a commentary I read states it should read אֵשְׁהַת (’eshhat). The BBC author states this was a confusion with Asherah (אשרה).

Which is it?

One response I saw was this one:

So, I just got around to watching episode two of Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s TV programme (Bible’s Buried Secrets). Her first basic argument this week was that the ancient Israelites were polytheistic, only really tending towards monotheism after the Babylonian captivity (during the 6th century BCE), and secondly that there was Goddess worship going on in Israel (this Goddess being Yahweh’s wife, Asherah). I happen to agree with Francesca about the polytheism of Israel. However, when it comes to what the Biblical authors believed, this becomes a different matter. Certainly, there is a theological development throughout the Hebrew Bible, yet I would maintain that the status accorded Yahweh in the texts places him in a different position to those of the other gods (whose existence is not flatly denied in the Hebrew Bible).

Regarding Goddess worship, Francesca points to a text in the Hebrew Bible which apparently links Yahweh and Asherah. In Deuteronomy 33 the author writes down the blessing which Moses gives to the children of Israel before his death:

ויאמר יהוה מסיני בא וזרח משעיר למו הופיע מהר פארן ואתה מרבבת קדש מימינו אשדת למו

And he said “Yahweh came from Sinai and he rose for him (i.e. Israel) from Seir; he shone from the mount of Paran and he came from [the midst of] myriads of holy ones, from his right hand [came] eshdat for him (or his eshdat).”

The contentious word in the passage is אשדת (eshdat) which only appears once in the Bible. Francesca notes that the word may have originally read אשרה (asherah), where the resh (ר) and the hé (ה) were misread as daleth (ד) and taw (ת). If this were the case the Hebrew would have read:

Yahweh came from Sinai and he rose for him from Seir; he shone from the mount of Paran and he came from myriads of holy ones, from his right hand [came] his Asherah (or, his Asherah from his right hand)

There are two things to note about this interpretation. Firstly, if למו is to be read as ‘his’ instead of ‘for him’, the ‘asherah becomes an object, since names with possessive suffixes are not attested in Hebrew. As with the inscriptions at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom, the language of ‘his asherah’ would indicate a cultic object rather than a goddess who was worshipped (especially since the Khirbet el-Qom inscription invokes ‘Yahweh and his asherah’ but ascribes the effective outcome of the invocation to Yahweh alone).

Secondly, a brief nod to the goddess Asherah here would serve no immediate function. The context of Deut. 32-33 concerns Yahweh’s dealings with Israel. Deut. 32.12 highlights the primacy of Yahweh for Israel and this is carried through in Deut. 33, in which Yahweh’s giving of a law (torah, v. 4) and covenant is central. Indeed, Deut. 33.3 mentions the words of Yahweh received by Israel, and vv. 4, 10 speak of Yahweh’s law and judgements.

Given the immediate context (Deut. 33.3-4) which deals with law, it has been proposed that we should read אשדת as אש דת (separating the words without altering the written text, which would have originally been written without spaces). The meaning of אש דת is ‘[a] fire of decree’ (rendered in modern translations as ‘a fiery law’). Indeed, this is the reading which the Masoretic text proposes in its qere (‘spoken’) reading; that is, although it is written אשדת, it is to be read as אש דת (something Francesca does not point out in her programme).

Noting Moses’ statement begins with Sinai (Deut. 33.2a), where Yahweh originally gave his decrees, and the vocabulary of ‘command’ (צוה) and ‘law’ (תורה) in Deut. 33.4a, the translation ‘from his right hand [went] his fiery law (or, a fiery law for him) is far more probable.

The end of the programme saw Francesca bemoan the loss of the goddess from religion; yet in the case of Deut. 33, Francesca sets up a goddess where no goddess was, and would no doubt blame those pesky (male) editors for covering up her existence.

http://awhooker.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/day-six-asherah-at-his-right-hand-really-francesca/

BTW, the above blogger is a PhD candidate at the U. of Exeter where the BBC author is a senior lecturer. He is also writing his dissertation about Mormons and the Old Testament.

[David Bokovoy]

For a variety of reasons, I have stopped following discussion boards, but my friend Ron emailed me this question and given my interest in this subject, I'll share a quick response:

I have a further question relating to this. The author of the show states that in Deut. 33:2,

Deuteronomy 33:2 is an extremely fascinating, albeit complicated verse. Clearly the latter half of v. 2 contains multiple challenges and has probably suffered a similar textual tampering to that witnessed in Deut. 32:8. However, I do not believe that it conceals a reference to Yahweh’s Asherah/wife. Following the emendation proposal by Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman that the final two words are אשר אלם, I translate the passage in the following manner:

"He said, ‘Yahweh came from Sinai.

He beamed forth from his Seir.

He shone from Mount Paran.

With him were myriads of Holy Ones.

At his right hand proceeded the gods."

See Frank M. Cross and David Noel Freedman, "The Blessing of Moses," Journal of Biblical Literature 67, no. 3 (1948): 199, note 11; for an alternative perspective, see C.J. Labuschagne, "The Tribes in the Blessing of Moses," Oudtestamentische Studiën 19 (1974).

In terms of the phrase “from Seir,” I follow O’Connor’s proposal that the term למו functions as a periphrastic genitive, modifying the proper noun Yahweh which grammatically cannot take a suffix, see Michael Patrick O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1980), 208.

Concerning my opting for the English word "gods" for אלם, in light of the context and parallelism, I accept Richard Clifford’s proposal for the English word “gods," since no matter what the original form, the line certainly referred to the heavenly host; see Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament, 114; Cross renders the final term as "the divine ones;" see Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel, 101.

The Septuagint actually sustains this reading:

"And he said, ‘The Lord is come from Sina,

and appeared from Seir to us, and hasted

from mount Paran, with ten thousand

Kades; at his right hand angels with him.’"

While some of the grammatical details remain open for scholarly debate, beyond these difficulties lies the clear contextual representation of Yahweh and his divine assembly appearing in glory from their abode in the holy mount. As Bernard Levinson explains in his commentary,

"The Heb. can also be understood… as ‘with Him were thousands of holy ones,’ i.e., the divine council who accompany God into battle (32:8 n.; Pss. 68:18; 89:. This alternative translation, which only changes the vowels of one word in the MT, (from approached to ‘with Him,’) is to be preferred since it preserves the poem’s representation of God as Divine Warrior… God similarly ventures forth from Sinai, at the head of a divine host of ‘thousands upon thousands,’ to appear in theophany in Ps. 68:18." Bernard M. Levinson, "Deuteronomy," in The Jewish Study Bible (ed. Berlin; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 446, note 2.

Peace, love and happiness to all.

[Ron Beron]

For a variety of reasons, I have stopped following discussion boards, but my friend Ron emailed me this question and given my interest in this subject, I'll share a quick response:

Deuteronomy 33:2 is an extremely fascinating, albeit complicated verse. Clearly the latter half of v. 2 contains multiple challenges and has probably suffered a similar textual tampering to that witnessed in Deut. 32:8. However, I do not believe that it conceals a reference to Yahweh’s Asherah/wife. Following the emendation proposal by Frank Moore Cross and David Noel Freedman that the final two words are אשר אלם, I translate the passage in the following manner:

"He said, ‘Yahweh came from Sinai.

He beamed forth from his Seir.

He shone from Mount Paran.

With him were myriads of Holy Ones.

At his right hand proceeded the gods."

See Frank M. Cross and David Noel Freedman, "The Blessing of Moses," Journal of Biblical Literature 67, no. 3 (1948): 199, note 11; for an alternative perspective, see C.J. Labuschagne, "The Tribes in the Blessing of Moses," Oudtestamentische Studiën 19 (1974).

In terms of the phrase “from Seir,” I follow O’Connor’s proposal that the term למו functions as a periphrastic genitive, modifying the proper noun Yahweh which grammatically cannot take a suffix, see Michael Patrick O'Connor, Hebrew Verse Structure (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1980), 208.

Concerning my opting for the English word "gods" for אלם, in light of the context and parallelism, I accept Richard Clifford’s proposal for the English word “gods," since no matter what the original form, the line certainly referred to the heavenly host; see Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament, 114; Cross renders the final term as "the divine ones;" see Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel, 101.

The Septuagint actually sustains this reading:

"And he said, ‘The Lord is come from Sina,

and appeared from Seir to us, and hasted

from mount Paran, with ten thousand

Kades; at his right hand angels with him.’"

While some of the grammatical details remain open for scholarly debate, beyond these difficulties lies the clear contextual representation of Yahweh and his divine assembly appearing in glory from their abode in the holy mount. As Bernard Levinson explains in his commentary,

"The Heb. can also be understood… as ‘with Him were thousands of holy ones,’ i.e., the divine council who accompany God into battle (32:8 n.; Pss. 68:18; 89:. This alternative translation, which only changes the vowels of one word in the MT, (from approached to ‘with Him,’) is to be preferred since it preserves the poem’s representation of God as Divine Warrior… God similarly ventures forth from Sinai, at the head of a divine host of ‘thousands upon thousands,’ to appear in theophany in Ps. 68:18." Bernard M. Levinson, "Deuteronomy," in The Jewish Study Bible (ed. Berlin; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 446, note 2.

Peace, love and happiness to all.

Thanks David. Between you and Mak I understand the passage a lot better. It helps to know such erudite and intelligent people.