Elohim

Elohim (Hebrew: אֱלֹהִים) is a grammatically singular or plural noun for "god" or "gods" in both modern and ancient Hebrew language.
When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God. When used with plural verbs and adjectives elohim is usually plural, "gods" or "powers".Glinert Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar Routledge p14 section 13 "(b) Agreement of verbs Verbs agree with their subject, and not only in gender and number but also in person. Present tense verbs distinguish masculine from feminine and singular from plural:"Gesenius A Grammar of the Hebrew Language It is generally thought that Elohim is a formation from eloah, the latter being an expanded form of the Northwest Semitic noun il (, ʾēlK. van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter Willem van der Horst (eds), Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible (revised 2nd edition, Brill, 1999) ISBN 90-04-11119-0, p. 274, 352-3). It is usually translated as "God" in the Hebrew Bible, referring with singular verbs both to the one God of Israel, and also in a few examples to other singular pagan deities. With plural verbs the word is also used as a true plural with the meaning "gods". The related nouns eloah () and el () are used as proper names or as generics, in which case they are interchangeable with elohim.
Mark S. Smith said that the notion of divinity underwent radical changes throughout the period of early Israelite identity. Smith said that the ambiguity of the term Elohim is the result of such changes, cast in terms of "vertical translatability" by Smith (2008); i.e. the re-interpretation of the gods of the earliest recalled period as the national god of the monolatrism as it emerged in the 7th to 6th century BCE in the Kingdom of Judah and during the Babylonian captivity, and further in terms of monotheism by the emergence of Rabbinical Judaism in the 2nd century CE.Mark S. Smith, God in translation: deities in cross-cultural discourse in the biblical world, vol. 57 of "Forschungen zum Alten Testament", Mohr Siebeck, 2008, ISBN 978-3-16-149543-4, p. 19.;Smith, Mark S. (2002), "The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel" (Biblical Resource Series) A different version was produced by Morton Smith. Despite the -im ending common to many plural masculine nouns in Hebrew, the word when referring to the Name of God is grammatically singular, and takes a singular verb in the Hebrew Bible.
The word is identical to the usual plural of el meaning gods or magistrates, and is cognate to the 'l-h-m found in Ugaritic, where it is used for the pantheon of Canaanite gods, the children of El and conventionally vocalized as "Elohim". Most use of the term Elohim in the later Hebrew text imply a view that is at least monolatrist at the time of writing, and such usage (in the singular), as a proper title for the supreme deity, is generally not considered to be synonymous with the term elohim, "gods" (plural, simple noun). Hebrew grammar allows for this nominally-plural form to mean "He is the Power (singular) over powers (plural)", or roughly, "God of gods". Rabbinic scholar Maimonides wrote that the various other usages are commonly understood to be homonyms.
==Biblical Translation==
Names for God can be confusing in the King James Old Testament. Anciently the Jews avoided uttering the name of Jehovah (YHWH) out of reverence for the Lord. They use the substitutes, Adonai, signifying The Lord, or HaShem, which means the Name. This led the King James translators to use the following tradition when translating references to God in the old Testament:
 YHWH LORD
 YH YHWH LORD JEHOVAH
 Adoni YHWH Lord GOD
 YHWH Elohim LORD God
 Elohim God, god, (pagan) gods, or divine
It should be pointed out that in the Hebrew Old Testament as it stands today, the term Elohim was not used as the name of a separate individual. Rather it is simply the Hebrew word used to mean the generic term god and sometimes as an adjective meaning divine. This term is sometimes used for YHWH, as the God (Elohim) of the Old Testament (See Genesis 2 where it is used repeatedly to describe Jehovah), or for God the Father, or even to describe Pagan gods (See Joshua 24:2), sometimes the term elohim was even used as an adjective meaning "divine" or "mighty" (as an example, see the Ancher Bible Commentary's translation for Genesis 1:2). It is sometimes used to describe the Israelite King as a mighty or divinely mandated ruler (and thus as a type of Jesus Christ, the true divine king).
In Hebrew, masculine plural words end in 'im' much as plural words end in an 's' in English. Thus Elohim can be seen as a plural for the Canaanite word El or the Hebrew word Eloah, both of which mean God. El is used in many names like Bethel (house of God), Michael (who is like God), Daniel (a judge is God), and Israel (to prevail with God). Christ used the word El on the cross when he said, “Eloi” (Mark 15:34), which means “My God.” Just as there are many words in English that are not plural but which end in an s, so the word Elohim can at times be singular or plural. Luckily, verbs and adjectives agree in gender and number with the words they modify, so whether a given reference should be translated as singular or plural can be determined by the singular or plural verbs or adjectives that surround it. For example, in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God [in Hebrew, Elohim] created the heaven and the earth.” In this case we can tell that Elohim should be translated as a singular because the Hebrew word for create in this verse is masculine singular. Moses 2:1 follows this interpretation. However, in Abraham 4 (which was likely based on a different textual tradition) the term "gods" plural is used throughout the creation account. This seems to indicate that the doctrine of The Plurality of Gods is a true and revealed doctrine, we should be cautious in seeing that doctrine in every use of the Hebrew term Elohim.
==Modern LDS Usage==
The name Jehovah is today used to represent the premortal Jesus Christ who came to earth as a son of Mary while the term Elohim is used almost exclusively as a name for God the Father, although this is not the way it is used in the Old Testament as we now have it. It seems as if this LDS traditional usage began with the Endowment when Joseph Smith needed a distinct name for God the Father and chose to use the term Elohim to refer to Him. Although this name is appropriate for God the Father, it is important to not retroactively apply this usage to the Old Testament (For example, see Genesis 2:9 where the term Elohim is applied to Jehovah).
Although the Old Testament as we have it today does not use the term Elohim as the name of a distinct individual from Jehovah, Margaret Barker, a non-LDS Biblical scholar has proposed that the earliest Biblical traditions differentiated between El (the Father) and Jehovah (the Son).Margaret Barker, Temple Theology If she is correct, then the lack of distinction between Elohim and Jehovah evident in the Old Testament as it stands today is a deviation from an earlier tradition which matches with modern LDS usage.
==Etymology==
The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible defines "elohim" as a plural of eloah, an expanded form of the common Semitic noun "'il" (ʾēl). It contains an added heh as third radical to the biconsonantal root. Discussions of the etymology of elohim essentially concern this expansion. An exact cognate outside of Hebrew is found in Ugaritic ʾlhm, the family of El, the creator god and chief deity of the Canaanite pantheon, in Biblical Aramaic and later Syriac Alaha "God", and in Arabic ʾilāh "god, deity" (or Allah as " The [single] God").
"El" (the basis for the extended root ʾlh) is usually derived from a root meaning "to be strong" and/or "to be in front".
==Canaanite religion==
The word el (singular) is a standard term for "god" in other related Semitic languages including Ugaritic. The Canaanite pantheon of gods was known as the elohim (the gods [plural]). For instance, in the Ugaritic Baal cycle we read of "seventy sons of Asherah". Each "son of god" was held to be the originating deity for a particular people. (KTU2 1.4.VI.46).John Day Yahweh and the gods and goddesses of Canaan, p.23 A memory of this myth is contained in Genesis, describing the "sons of God" who lay with the "daughters of men". In post-exilic apocrypha these were identified as Nephelim, or fallen angels.
==Elohist==
Elohim occurs frequently throughout the received texts of the Torah. In some cases (e.g. Exodus 3:4, "... Elohim called unto him out of the midst of the bush ..."), it behaves like a singular noun in Hebrew grammar, and is then generally understood to denote the single God of Israel. In other cases, Elohim acts as an ordinary plural of the word Eloah, and refers to the polytheistic notion of multiple gods (for example, Exodus 20:3, "You shall have no other gods before me.").
The choices of words for God varies in the Hebrew Bible. According to the documentary hypothesis these variations are the products of different source texts: Elohim is used as the name of God in the Elohist (E) and Priestly (P) sources, while the name Yahweh is used in the Jahwist source. Form criticism postulates the differences of names may be the result of geographical origins; the P and E sources coming from the North and J from the South. There may be a theological point, that God did not reveal his name, Yahweh, before the time of Moses, though H.H. Schmid showed that the Jahwist was aware of the prophetic books from the 7th and 8th centuries BCE.H. H. Schmid, Der Sogenannte Jahwist
(Zurich: TVZ, 1976)
J presents Yahweh anthropomorphically. For example, walking through the Garden of Eden looking for Adam and Eve. The Elohist often presents Elohim as more distant and frequently involves angels. For example, it is the Elohist version of the tale of Jacob's ladder in which there is a ladder to the clouds, with angels climbing up and down, with Elohim at the top. In the Jahwist tale Yahweh is simply stationed in the sky, above the clouds without the ladder or angels. Likewise, the Elohist describes Jacob wrestling with an angel.
The classical documentary hypothesis, first developed in the late 19th century CE among literary scholars, shows that the Elohist portions of the Torah were composed in the 9th century BCE (i.e. during the early period of the Kingdom of Judah). This, however, is not universally accepted as later literary scholarship seems to show evidence of a later "Elohist redaction" (post-exilic) during the 5th century BCE which sometimes makes it difficult to determine whether a given passage is "Elohist" in origin, or the result of later editor.
==Hebrew Bible==
The word Elohim occurs more than 2500 times in the Hebrew Bible, with meanings ranging from "god" in a general sense (as in Exodus 12:12, where it describes "the gods of Egypt"), to a specific god (e.g., 1 Kings 11:33, where it describes Chemosh "the god of Moab", or the frequent references to Yahweh (Jehovah) as the "elohim" of Israel), to demons, seraphim, and other supernatural beings, to the spirits of the dead brought up at the behest of King Saul in 1 Samuel 28:13, and even to kings and prophets (e.g., Exodus 4:16). The phrase bene elohim, usually translated "sons of God", has an exact parallel in Ugaritic and Phoenician texts, referring to the council of the gods.
Elohim occupy the seventh rank of ten in the famous medieval Rabbinic scholar Maimonides' Jewish angelic hierarchy. Maimonides said: "I must premise that every Hebrew knows that the term Elohim is a homonym, and denotes God, angels, judges, and the rulers of countries, ...Moses Maimonides. "Guide for the Perplexed" (1904)
==Grammar – singular or plural==
In Hebrew the ending -im mainly indicates a masculine plural. However with Elohim the construction is grammatically singular (i.e. it governs a singular verb or adjective) when referring to the Hebrew God, but grammatically plural elohim (i.e. taking a plural verb or adjective) when used of pagan divinities (Psalms 96:5; 97:7). Similarly, the Quran uses alīha as the plural of īlah for pagan divinities, and occasionally uses "Allahum" (O God! - plural) for the sole god (as opposed to "Allah"). The exact equivalent, in modern Arabic, of Elohim as meaning plural gods would be Īlahīn (إلاهين), although it is rarely used in Arabic parlance. Note that human beings can also have names with plural endings, such as Ephraim, the son of Joseph.
===Plural "gods", with plural verb===
The noun elohim is used with a plural verb in . The witch of Endor told Saul that she saw "gods" (elohim) ascending (olim עֹלִים, plural verb) out of the earth.Brian B. Schmidt Israel's beneficent dead: ancestor cult and necromancy in ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 11 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1994). Page 217 "In spite of the fact that the MT plural noun 'elohim of v.13 is followed by a plural participle 'olim, a search for the antecedent to the singular pronominal suffix on mah-to'ro in v.14 what does he/it look like? has led interpreters to view the 'elohim . . . 'olim as a designation for the dead Samuel, "a god ascending." The same term 'elohim ... He, therefore, urgently requests verification of Samuel's identity, mah-to'"ro, "what does he/it look like?" The .... 32:1, 'elohim occurs with a plural finite verb and denotes multiple gods in this instance: 'elohim '"seryel'ku I fydnenu, "the gods who will go before us." Thus, the two occurrences of 'elohim in 1 Sam 28:13,15 — the first complimented by a plural ...28:13 manifests a complex textual history, then the 'elohim of v. 13 might represent not the deified dead, but those gods known to be summoned — some from the netherworld — to assist in the retrieval of the ghost.373 ...
===God of Israel, with singular verb===
In the Hebrew Bible Elohim, when meaning the God of Israel, is mostly grammatically singular. Even in Genesis 1:26 "Then God said (singular verb), 'Let us make (plural verb) man in our image, after our likeness'", Elohim is singular. Wilhelm Gesenius and other Hebrew grammarians traditionally described this as the pluralis excellentiae (plural of excellence), which is similar to the pluralis majestatis (plural of majesty, or "Royal we").Gesenius Hebrew Grammar: 124g, without article 125f, with article 126e, with the singular 145h, with plural 132h,145i"
Gesenius comments that Elohim singular is to be distinguished from elohim plural gods and remarks that:
There are a number of notable exceptions to the rule that Elohim is treated as singular when referring to the God of Israel, including Gen. 20:13, 35:7, 2 Sam. 7:23 and Ps. 58:11, and notably the epithet of the "Living God" (Deuteronomy 5:26 etc.), which is constructed with the plural adjective, Elohim Hayiym but still takes singular verbs.
In the Septuagint and New Testament translations Elohim has the singular even in these cases, and modern translations follow suit in giving "God" in the singular. The Samaritan Torah has edited out some of these exceptions.Richard N. Soulen, R. Kendall Soulen, Handbook of biblical criticism, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-664-22314-4, p. 166.
===Abraham's "the gods caused me"===
In Gen 20:13 Abraham, before the polytheistic Philistine king Abimelech, says that "the gods (elohim) caused (plural verb) me to wander".e.g. Gen. 20:13 (where is from "to err, wander, go astray, stagger", the causative plural "they caused to wander") The Greek Septuagint (LXX) and most English versions usually translate this "God caused", possibly to avoid the implication of Abraham deferring to Abimelech's polytheistic beliefs.LXX: ; KJV: "when God caused me to wander from my father's house"
===Angels and judges===
In a few cases in the Greek Septuagint (LXX), Hebrew elohim with a plural verb, or with implied plural context, was rendered either angeloi ("angels") or pros to kriterion tou Theou ("before the judgement of God").Brenton Septuagint Exodus 21:6 προσάξει αὐτὸν ὁ κύριος αὐτοῦ πρὸς τὸ κριτήριον τοῦ θεοῦ These passages then entered first the Latin Vulgate, then the English King James Version (KJV) as "angels" and "judges", respectively. From this came the result that James Strong, for example, listed "angels" and "judges" as possible meanings for elohim with a plural verb in his Strong's Concordance, and the same is true of many other 17th-20th century reference works. Both Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon and the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon list both angels and judges as possible alternative meanings of elohim with plural verbs and adjectives.
The reliability of the Septuagint translation in this matter has been questioned by Gesenius and Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg. In the case of Gesenius, he lists the meaning without agreeing with it.The Biblical Repositor p. 360 ed. Edward Robinson - 1838 "Gesenius denies that elohim ever means angels; and he refers in this denial particularly to Ps. 8: 5, and Ps. 97: 7; but he observes, that the term is so translated in the ancient versions." Hengstenberg stated that the Hebrew Bible text never uses elohim to refer to "angels", but that the Septuagint translators refused the references to "gods" in the verses they amended to "angels."Samuel Davidsohn An Introduction to the New Testament 3 1848 p282 "Hengstenberg, for example, affirms, that the usus loquendi is decisive against the direct reference to angels, because Elohim never signifies angels. He thinks that the Septuagint translator could not understand the representation ..."
The Greek New Testament (NT) quotes Psalm 8:4-6 in Hebrews 2:6b-8a, where the Greek NT has "ἀγγέλους" (angelos) in vs. 7, quoting Ps. 8:5 (8:6 in the LXX), which also has "ἀγγέλους" in a version of the Greek Septuagint. In the KJV, elohim (Strong's number H430) is translated as "angels" only in Psalm 8:5.
The KJV has elohim translated as "judges" in Exodus 21:6; Exodus 22:8; and twice in Exodus 22:9.
===Ambiguous readings===
Sometimes when elohim occurs as the referent or object (i.e. not subject) of a sentence, and without any accompanying verb or adjective to indicate plurality, it may be grammatically unclear whether gods plural or God singular is intended. An example is Psalm 8:5 where "Yet you have made him a little lower than the elohim" is ambiguous as to whether "lower than the gods" or "lower than God" is intended. The Septuagint read this as "gods" and then "corrected" the translation to "angels", which reading is taken up by the New Testament in Hebrews 2:9 "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man." ()
===Other plural-singulars in biblical Hebrew===
The Hebrew language has several nouns with -im (masculine plural) and -oth (feminine plural) endings which nevertheless take singular verbs, adjectives and pronouns. For example, Ba'alim "owner": "He is lord (singular) even over any of those things that he owns that are lordly (plural)."
===Jacob's ladder "gods were revealed" (plural)===
In the following verses Elohim was translated as God singular in the King James Version even though it was accompanied by plural verbs and other plural grammatical terms.
Here the Hebrew verb "revealed" is plural, hence: "the-gods were revealed". A NET Bible note claims that the Authorized Version wrongly translates: "God appeared unto him".NET Bible with Companion CD-ROM W. Hall Harris, 3rd, none - 2003 - "35:14 So Jacob set up a sacred stone pillar in the place where God spoke with him.30 He poured out a 20tn Heb "revealed themselves." The verb iVl] (niglu), translated "revealed himself," is plural, even though one expects the singular" This is one of several instances where the Bible uses plural verbs with the name elohim.Haggai and Malachi p36 Herbert Wolf - 1976 If both the noun and the verb are plural, the construction can refer to a person, just as the statement “God revealed Himself” in Genesis 35:7 has a plural noun and verb. But since the word God, “Elohim,” is plural in form,8 the verb ..."Psychology and the Bible: From Genesis to apocalyptic vision p243 J. Harold Ellens, Wayne G. Rollins - 2004 "Often the plural form Elohim, when used in reference to the biblical deity, takes a plural verb or adjective (Gen. 20:13, 35:7; Exod. 32:4, 8; 2 Sam. 7:23; Ps. 58:12),"
===The Divine Council of Elohim===
Marti Steussy, in Chalice Introduction to the Old Testament, discusses: “The first verse of Psalm 82: ‘Elohim has taken his place in the divine council.’ Here elohim has a singular verb and clearly refers to God. But in verse 6 of the Psalm, God says to the other members of the council, ‘You [plural] are elohim.’ Here elohim has to mean gods.”Steussy, Marti. "Chalice Introduction to the Old Testament"
Mark Smith, referring to this same Psalm, states in God in Translation “This psalm presents a scene of the gods meeting together in divine council...Elohim stands in the council of El. Among the elohim he pronounces judgment:...”Smith, Mark. "God in Translation:..."
In Hulsean Lectures for..., H. M. Stephenson discussed Jesus’ argument in concerning Psalm 82. (In answer to the charge of blasphemy Jesus replied:) "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods. If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" – "Now what is the force of this quotation 'I said ye are gods.' It is from the Asaph Psalm which begins 'Elohim hath taken His place in the mighty assembly. In the midst of the Elohim He is judging.'"Stephenson, H. M. (1890) Hulsean Lectures for... lecture 1, page 14
==Sons of God==
The Hebrew word for a son is ben; plural is bānim (with the construct state form being "benei"). The Hebrew term benei elohim ("sons of God" or "sons of the gods") in Genesis 6:2(e.g. Genesis 6:2, "... the sons of the Elohim (e-aleim) saw the daughters of men (e-adam, the adam) that they were fair; and they took them for wives..., " compares to the use of "sons of gods" (Ugaritic b'n il) sons of El in Ugaritic mythology.Marvin H. Pope El in the Ugaritic texts Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Vol. II Leiden, Brill, 1955. Pp. x—l-116, p49 Karel van der Toorn states that gods can be referred to collectively as bene elim, bene elyon, or bene elohim.
In Jewish tradition, the Torah verse, that was the battle-cry of the Maccabees ( Machabi, מקבים), "Mi chamocha ba'elim YHWH" ("Who is like You among the heavenly powers, YHWH"),Exodus 15:11 is an acronym for "Machabi" as well as an acronym for "Matityahu Kohen ben Yochanan".What does "Maccabee" mean? - Ask the Rabbi The correlating Torah verse, The song of Moses and the Children of Israel by the Sea, makes a reference to elim, but more with a mundane notion of natural forces, might, war and governmental powers.
==English Bible translations==
Hebrew elohim in English translations of the Bible is generally rendered as gods when occurring with a plural verb or referring to pagan deities, and as God when occurring with a singular verb or referring to the God of Israel.
grammar clarification
==See also==
* Elyon
* Genesis creation narrative
* Names of God
==Notes==
==References==
* Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament theology, vol. 1, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1995, ISBN 978-0-567-09735-4, 147–149.
==References==
Category:Creator gods
Category:Deities in the Hebrew Bible
Category:Hebrew Bible topics
Category:Hebrew words and phrases in the Hebrew Bible
Category:Names of God in Judaism
Category:Names of God in Christianity
Category:Christian terminology
Category:Latter Day Saint doctrines regarding deity
Category:The Godhead