The Hebrew text most Bibles follow says God fixed the nations' borders "according to the number of the children of Israel", while a Dead Sea Scroll and the Septuagint read "sons of God" or "angels of God", which the textual critic Emanuel Tov and the scholars he cites judge the older reading, as do the Göttingen Septuagint and the NRSV and BSB translators. Jewish tradition (Rashi) reads the first as the seventy of Jacob's family; Christian interpreters have read the second as the angels set over the nations.
The verse
Text
BSBWhen the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.
KJVWhen the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
JPSWhen the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the borders of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.
Deuteronomy 32:8 · “the children of Israel / the sons of God / the angels of God”
MT בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (bənê yiśrāʾēl); 4QDeut-j בני אלוהים (bny ʾlwhym); LXX ἀγγέλων θεοῦ (most MSS), υἱῶν θεοῦ (papyrus 848 and MS 106 corrected)
The verse says the Most High (ʿElyon) set the boundaries of the peoples "according to the number of" someone, and verse 9 adds that the LORD's own portion is Jacob. The Masoretic Text reads "the sons of Israel". A Hebrew manuscript from Qumran, 4QDeut-j, reads "the sons of God" (bny ʾlwhym). The Septuagint also points to "sons of ...": most of its manuscripts have "angels of God", while the early papyrus 848 (P. Fouad 266) and the corrected MS 106 have "sons of God", the reading Wevers adopted in the Göttingen critical edition. Tov argues that the Qumran and Greek reading "makes perfect sense", each people being allotted its own divine being while Israel belongs to the LORD himself, a picture shared with Psalm 82 and 1 Kings 22:19, and that "sons of Israel" is "a conscious intervention in the text by a scribe uncomfortable with the polytheistic picture". The Masoretic reading has its own long tradition: Targum Onkelos follows it; Rashi explains it by the seventy souls of Jacob's family who went down to Egypt (Gen 46:27; Exod 1:5; Deut 10:22; the Septuagint counts seventy-five in the first two), matched to the seventy nations; Targum Pseudo-Jonathan combines both ideas, with God casting lots "among the seventy angels, the princes of the nations" and fixing the borders by "the seventy souls of Israel"; and Justin, about AD 160, already knew both readings, quoting "children of Israel" and adding that "the Seventy" have "angels of God". Translations differ: KJV, ASV, JPS 1917, Douay-Rheims (from the Vulgate), Darby, Geneva, YLT and WEB follow the Masoretic Text; BSB, the 1970 Catholic NAB and LSV read "sons of God"; Brenton "angels of God"; the NRSV "the gods"; JPS 2023 "Israel's numbers". The 1970 NAB explains its "sons of God" as the angels, "the various nations ... having their respective guardian angels" (cf. Dan 10:20–21). The manuscript evidence for "sons of God" is not in doubt; whether it is the original reading is a judgment. It is the judgment of Tov, of the scholars he cites, of the Göttingen editor and of the NRSV and BSB translators; this note does not survey the wider literature.1234567891011
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, New American Bible (1970 OT), Deuteronomy 32 with notes, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1970) — Text 'after the number of the sons of God'; note: 'The sons of God: the angels; cf Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Psalm 89:6-7. Here the various nations are portrayed as having their respective guardian angels. Cf Daniel 10:20-21; 12:1.'↩
Checked in this site's verse database: The Septuagint's count of Jacob's family↩How this was derivedverses (work_id='lxx-brenton-gr'): Gen.46.27 'ψυχαὶ ἑβδομηκονταπέντε'; Exod.1.5 'πέντε καὶ ἑβδομήκοντα'. WLC Exod.1.5 'שִׁבְעִים נָפֶשׁ'.
Source 1
Deuteronomy 32:8
8When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.
Emanuel Tov, “The Sons of Israel or God? – Deuteronomy 32:8”, TheTorah.com (2023) — Table of variants: 'MT (+SP, Pesh) ... 4QDeut j ... LXX 848, 106c ... LXX (most MSS)' with בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל / בני אלוהים / υἱῶν θεοῦ / ἀγγέλων θεοῦ. 'In contrast, the reading in 4QDeut j and LXX makes perfect sense: The Most High divided all the peoples of the world between the divine beings, with each people possessing their own deity.' 'The MT’s “sons of Israel” reflects a conscious intervention in the text by a scribe uncomfortable with the polytheistic picture of divine beings'. Note 2: 'MS 848 is an early papyrus, P. Fouad Inv. 266. Wevers daringly includes this reading in the critical text edition of the LXX'. Tov's n. 5 cites Jeffrey H. Tigay, The JPS Commentary: Deuteronomy (1996), 513–18 (514), and Mark S. Smith (2010) for the 'divine beings' reading; n. 4: 'The LXX tradition (except for the Hexaplaric manuscripts) unanimously disagrees with MT in representing a variant בני'. Tov's bio: 'editor of 33 volumes of Discoveries in the Judean Desert'. Published 24 Aug 2023.
Rashi, Rashi on Deuteronomy 32:8 (tr. M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann) — 'ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL — i.e. because of the number of the children of Israel that were in future to descend from Shem’s sons, and in accordance with the number of seventy souls of the children of Israel who went down to Egypt He firmly established ... seventy separate nations (cf. Sifrei Devarim 311:5).'
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 131 — 'He set the bounds of the nations according to the numbers of the children of Israel ... The Seventy have translated it, 'He set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.''
Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, New American Bible (1970 OT), Deuteronomy 32 with notes, Libreria Editrice Vaticana (1970) — Text 'after the number of the sons of God'; note: 'The sons of God: the angels; cf Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Psalm 89:6-7. Here the various nations are portrayed as having their respective guardian angels. Cf Daniel 10:20-21; 12:1.'
“The JPS Tanakh: Gender-Sensitive Edition (2023), Deuteronomy 32:8”, Sefaria — 'The boundaries of peoples were fixed / In relation to Israel’s numbers.'
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, Deuteronomy 32:8 (tr. J. W. Etheridge, 1862) — 'He cast the lot among the seventy angels, the princes of the nations with whom is the revelation to oversee the city, even at that time He established the limits of the nations according to the sum of the number of the seventy souls of Israel who went down into Mizraim.' Aramaic: 'עִם שׁוּבְעִין מַלְאָכַיָא רַבְרְבֵי עַמְמִין ... כִּסְכוּם מִנְיַין שׁוּבְעִין נַפְשָׁתָא דְיִשְרָאֵל'.