Where Was The Writer Of Hebrews Quoting From? (Hebrews 1:6)

Hebrews 1:6 ESV And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.”

In the Book of Hebrews, the writer quotes a sentence from the Old Testament and applies it to Jesus: “Let all God’s angels worship him.” You may search for this sentence in the Old Testament all you want and never find it. This is because most translations of the Old Testament are based on the Masoretic Text, which does not contain this sentence.

However, this sentence does appear in the Septuagint, a body of Greek translations of the Old Testament made by Jews in the third century BCE:

Deuteronomy 32:43 Septuagint Rejoice, heavens, along with him,
and let the sons of God worship him.
Rejoice, nations, with his people,
and be strengthened in him, all angels of God.
For he will avenge the blood of his sons,
and he will avenge and recompense justice to the enemies.
And he will repay the haters,
and the Lord will cleanse the land of his people.

This may indicate that the Septuagint translators were translating from a Hebrew text which did contain this sentence in Deuteronomy 32:43. This is very important because the Septuagint is much older than the Masoretic Text, and therefore its underlying Hebrew text may represent the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament better than the Masoretic Text.

However, we do not have the Hebrew text which the Septuagint translators were translating from, and we did not have a Hebrew text which contained this sentence until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were produced around the same time as the Septuagint. Manuscript 4Q44 contains Deuteronomy 32:43 with that missing sentence:

Rejoice, heavens, with him,
and worship him, all gods.
For he will avenge the blood of his sons,
and he will return vengeance to his enemies.
And he will repay the haters,
and cleanse the land of his people.

The Hebrew word for “gods” here is ʾĕlōhiym, which can also refer more broadly to spiritual beings like angels. The ancient independent agreement between the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls makes it more likely that the Masoretic Text is mistaken, and that the original Hebrew text of Deuteronomy 32:43 did indeed contain this sentence quoted by the writer of Hebrews.

In case you were wondering: Yes, this means that what Christians call “the Hebrew text of the Old Testament” is actually quite different from the biblical text found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Here is a comparison of Deuteronomy 32:43 between the three texts discussed in this article: