[TruthTalk] 'Elohim' Sabbath Study

[Chris Barr]

\o/ !HALALU YAH! \o/ Greetings in the Matchless Name of YahShua!   Robert Brent Graves set forth almost three decades ago to assail and derail monotheism that teaches a singularly ONE Deity rather than a compound unity that is triune.  He held a B.A. in New Testament Greek, and an M.A. in Biblical languages from Abilene Christian University --- a church of Christ stronghold.  The c of C are about as rabidly anti-Oneness as they come.  His Ph.D. dissertation turned into a book as his opinion and intent were turned (?overturned?) by The WORD and The SPIRIT and leading to Graves also receiving the Baptism of The Holy Spirit in that old-fashioned, Scriptural, Apostolic (and decidedly ANTI c of C) way.   Graves book 'The God of Two Testaments' resulted from the above.  It is one of my very most favorite books (apart from Scripture).  On a previous TT subject regarding most influential books this would be on my list ... possibly among the top three if I were limited to that number.   "The God of Two Testaments" begins with a chapter on Elohim.  The beginning of that chapter follows: The creation … In the beginning there was chaos—like an ocean of seething oil—shapeless. At the command of the celestial deities, the god Izanagi and the goddess Izanami stood upon the Floating Bridge of Heaven and plunged a jewel-bedecked spear into the ocean of chaos. They stirred it until the liquid thickened and coagulated. Then they withdrew the spear and the drops that fell from its tip formed the tiny island of Onokoro, that nestled in the waves like an emerald. Pleased with their creation, they descended upon a rainbow to the newly formed island and made it the Central Pillar of earth! (Kojiki) Thus we have an account of the creation according to Japanese mythology. Whether we turn to Africa, Europe, South America, or the Far East, the mythologies of the nations have their dashing heroes and villains—both gods and goddesses. Such deities, we are told, are responsible for the creation of the world and everything in it. One famous version explains the heaven and the earth as being nothing less than the corpse of a goddess slain in battle! Small wonder that scholars commonly refer to the world’s mythologies as "the creation myths". For so they are. All the creation accounts of antiquity read like the inventions of demented minds with vivid imaginations. That is, all except one. One ancient version ranks far superior to the others—the account of the creation as it is found in the first chapter of Genesis. Unlike the pagan versions with their many gods and goddesses, the Bible simply states: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen. 1:1) In striking contrast to the world’s religions, the Bible informs us that there is but one God responsible for the creation. No divine villains here! No jealous deities here! No capricious gods and goddesses here! Only one God—the Creator. Commenting on the unique claim of the Old Testament, the Encyclopedia Judaica reminds: Completely new … was Israel’s idea of God. … Paganism is challenged in all its aspects. God is one; there is no other. (Deut. 6:4; Isa. 45:21, 46:9) [Vol. 7, p. 642, 1972]   LET US MAKE MAN Despite the testimony of Jewish scholarship, despite the consistent record from the Bible itself that "God is One: there is not other", some have stepped forward to offer a challenge. And they have turned to the first chapter of Genesis for the basis of that challenge: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness". (Gen. 1:26) According to some Christian writers, this verse indicates that God is one Being—but a Being composed of more than one divine person. In discussing the clause, "Let us make man", the commentator Matthew Henry suggested that "The three persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, consult about it and concur in it." [Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Vol. 1, p. 10) If this conjecture is accurate, then we have a serious challenge to the strict statements of other Old Testament Scriptures. But is the above conjecture accurate? And what does Hebrew scholarship say about Genesis 1:26? With regard to the latter question, Dr. Ephraim A. Speiser wrote that even though plural pronouns are used, a singular sense is meant. In his own words: "Here God refers to Himself, which may account for the more formal construction in the plural." [The Anchor Bible: Genesis, p. 7] The statement in Genesis could be a kind of "literary plural". And according to Dr. Speiser’s translation of the Hebrew idiom, we should have in the English: "Then God said, ‘I will make man in My image, after My likeness’." [ibid, p.4] There may be more merit for this rendering than some might think, for Speiser calls our attention to the fact that "the very next verse uses the singular throughout". Here is the next verse: So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God. He created them male and female. (Gen. 1:27) The literary plural very well could have been employed in Genesis 1:26 since in this verse God is quoted as the One speaking (hence the plural), whereas in the next verse God is not speaking (hence the singular). The literary plural (using "we" for "I") is a device used by speakers and writers in all languages. And that distinguished Greek scholar A. T. Robertson has noted that the apostle Paul utilized the literary plural on several occasions in his epistles. [A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, p. 407] The above explanation has been expanded by a responsible Hebrew source which comments: "The use of the plural, ‘Let us make man’, is the Hebrew idiomatic way of expressing deliberation as in xi:7; or it is the plural of Majesty, royal commands being conveyed in the first person plural, as in Ezra iv, 18." [J. H. Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, p. 5] And in addition to the reasonable testimony of Jewish scholarship, even Christian scholars have come forward to challenge the tritheistic interpretation. The popular Oxford Annotated Bible of the Revised Standard Version offers a very plausible possibility: "The plural us, our (3:22; 11:7) probably refers to the divine beings who surround God in His heavenly court (I Kings 22:19; Job. 1:6; Is. 6:8; compare Ps. 29:1) and in whose image man was made." [p. 2] This explanation of Genesis 1:26 is a logical one for two reasons: (1) One Spirit-Being called God has identified Himself as the Creator. And if the Creator was speaking to others, He was definitely speaking to others who were not God. For the verse states, "And God said …" (2) God could have been informing His angels of His intentions of the creation, because angelic beings do surround Him; according to the Bible, the angels are there. For example, a prophet of God once told of a vision which he had experienced. He related: I saw Yahweh sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside Him at His right hand and at His left. (I Kings 22:19) The use of the singular pronouns attests to the fact that the prophet saw One seated on the throne—with the angelic host in His presence. Likewise, a king of Israel is quotes as praying: O Yahweh the God of Israel, the One who is enthroned above the cherubim, You are God, even You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; You have made heaven and earth. (2 Kings 19:15) Thus we learn that King Hezekiah prayed to a God who was "One" enthroned above His cherubim. And the Bible informs us that Hezekiah’s prayer was answered in a mighty way by that God. [2 Kings 19:20-37]   THE HEBREW INTENSIVE PLURAL But many people appear to be confused about the Godhead question; and one thing which has led to that confusion is a misapplication of the Hebrew word Elohim, a regular term for "God" in the Old Testament Scriptures. Since Elohim is a plural form, some Christian authors have emphasized that the name signifies "The plurability of persons in the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost". [Henry, ibid, p. 2; see also Nathan Stone’s Names of God, pp. 11, 12; and V. E. Howard’s "The Godhead: One or Three?" Those writers who point to Elohim as a "plurality of persons in the Godhead" usually do not have very much to say about the Hebrew language itself—the language in which the word is found. And it should be stated that in Hebrew many words are found in the plural form—but which have a singular connotation. To give only a few examples, the Hebrew terms for "water", "life", "face", "heaven" are all found normally in the plural spelling--even though the meaning is singular! As with Elohim, these words have that masculine plural ending -im; and as with Elohim, the connotation is a singular one. The most comprehensive Hebrew-English lexicon which Christian scholarship has produced therefore explains that the plural form Elohim is simply the "plural intensive" [Florence Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, p. 43] with a singular force. In similar fashion, the highly respected Bible Dictionary by Dr. William Smith calls it "the plural of majesty". [Teacher’s Edition, p. 220] Jewish scholarship points out that "Elohim is a plural form, which is often used in Hebrew to denote plenitude of might". [Hertz, ibid, p. 2] Plenitude of might! Elohim can express "plenitude of might" because of the very nature of the word itself. Elohim is the plural spelling of Eloah; but El is the abbreviated singular form—and thus the root word. Basically, El signifies "strength", "power", "might"; therefore, Elohim definitely could denote, as one scholar has suggested, "the fullness of divine strength, the sum of powers displayed by God". [Smith, ibid, p. 20] Thus when the Hebrew writers referred to God in the Old Testament as either El or Elohim more than two thousand times, those writers were apparently thinking of Him as "Mighty God". The God of the Bible is the One who created the heavens and the earth out of nothingness. The God of Abraham is depicted as the One who guides and controls the course of mankind. This God upholds the laws of the universe—thus sustaining the order of His creation. Elohim—the Mighty God—is an appropriate appellation for the God of the Bible.   PAGAN TRINITIES? Whenever the authors of the Old Testament books used the term Elohim to refer to the God of Israel, they consistently utilized a singular verb. In Genesis 1:1 Elohim is the One doing the creating, with the Hebrew verb for "create" in the singular. In other words, the verb has a singular pronoun as a suffix—meaning He created. On the other hand, whenever the writers of the Old Testament discussed the many gods and goddesses of neighboring lands, they consistently utilized a plural verb in writing about the elohim, the gods of the nations. For then they were writing about polytheism. However, what is of particular interest is that the Hebrew Old Testament has the term also in reference to one specific pagan deity. For some time now certain authors have claimed that the use of Elohim shows that the God of the Bible is a trinity of three persons. Is this accurate? If the Elohim of Israel is a trinity of three persons, what about the elohim of the nations? In Judges 11:24 the pagan deity Chemosh is called elohim, "a god". In 8:33 of the same book reference is made to Baal-berith, who also is called elohim. That famous god of the Philistines, Dagon, is designated elohim in Judges 16:23. Baal-zebub was a god of Ekron, and in 2 Kings 1:2, 3 he is called elohim. Nisroch, a god of Assyria, is referred to as elohim in 2 King 19:37. In I Kings 11:5 the writer records that "Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians". This example is worthy of special note because the term "Ashtoreth" has the suffix -eth, the regular Hebrew ending for a singular feminine noun. And yet this goddess is called none other than elohim—a masculine plural noun in spelling! Here is our question. Were these pagan gods trinities? Chemosh was an elohim; but was he a trinity of three persons? Dagon was an elohim; was he a trinity? The goddess Ashtoreth was an elohim; was she a deity of three persons? Each individual pagan deity was known as an elohim, but it surely was not considered to be a trinity of three divine persons.   YAHWEH HIMSELF IS ELOHIM The Elohim of Israel identified Himself as possessing a special name. No one today can be absolutely certain of that name’s exact pronunciation since the written Hebrew did not utilize vowels in script. Vowel sounds existed only in the spoken language, and it was many centuries later when Jewish scholars added makeshift vowels to the Hebrew Bible. Even then no attempt was made to come up with the vowels of God’s own name, for it was (and still is) the devout Jew’s belief that to pronounce God’s name might mean taking that name "in vain"! We can perhaps reach an approximate rendering if we pronounce the Hebrew YHWH as Yahweh. In the Old Testament the name Yahweh is found more than six thousand times, and it carries a special connotation. The very name in the Hebrew language signifies existence. Consequently, it could very likely by a reference to God as "the Self-Existent One" or possibly "the Eternal", as Moffatt rendered in his translation. Because the term Yahweh is at least a very close approximation of the Hebrew, we have chosen to use this rendering, rather than "Jehovah" (which is neither a worthy transliteration nor an acceptable translation of the original). In this book the term "Jehovah" has been preserved only in quotations from other authors. If Yahweh is the God of the Old Testament, then it must follow that Yahweh Himself is Elohim. That is precisely the point of this section of our study. As God revealed Himself to His people, He did so by introducing Himself as Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel. When Yahweh appeared to Abraham as recorded in Genesis 17, He described Himself in these words: I am the Almighty God [El]; walk before Me and be perfect. (Gen. 17:1) And as Yahweh continued His dialogue with the patriarch, He promised him: I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you … to be God [Elohim] to you and to your descendants after you … I will be their God [Elohim]. (Gen. 17:7, 8) Two particular points should be observed from the above: (1) Yahweh introduces Himself as El: "I am the Almighty God" (v. 1); (2) then, He identifies Himself as Elohim! "I" [not "we"] will be their Elohim" (v. 8). Several years later Yahweh appeared to Abraham’s son, Isaac, and He announced: I am the Elohim of Abraham your father. (Gen. 26:24) Isaac’s son, Jacob, likewise had an encounter with Yahweh hearing His voice; that voice said: I am Yahweh the Elohim of Abraham your father, and the Elohim of Isaac. (Gen. 28:13) Several hundred years afterward, Yahweh God told Moses: I am Yahweh your Elohim. (Ex. 16:12) As the Ten Commandments were being thundered forth to the Hebrew nation, Yahweh reiterated: I am Yahweh your Elohim. (Ex. 20:2) The unity of His Being continued to be emphasized to those Israelites time and again: I am Yahweh your Elohim. (See Lev. 23 and 24 or Num. 10 and 15) In this regard, an extraordinary vision of Yahweh is described in the Book of Exodus; the scene is Mount Sinai: Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up. And they saw the Elohim of Israel; and under His feet [not "their feet"] as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. (Ex. 24:9, 10) And the prophets of Israel thereafter, from Moses to Malachi, were constantly proclaiming that Yahweh Himself is the only true Elohim. From Isaiah we read: Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel and its redeemer, Yahweh of Hosts: I am the First, and I am the Last. Beside Me there is no Elohim. (Isa. 44:6) Jeremiah expressed the same sentiment: But Yahweh is the true Elohim; He is the living Elohim and the eternal King. (Jer. 10:10) Throughout the first thirty chapters of Ezekiel, Yahweh consistently declared the very oneness of His nature. Here, as God spoke to His people through Ezekiel, He utilized the singular pronoun "I" literally hundreds of times in the Hebrew narrative. It is never "we"; it is always "I". And this same consistency is found from Genesis to Malachi. For Yahweh He is Elohim; and there is no other beside Him. (Deut. 4:35)   THERE IS ONE EL If the term Elohim would imply a plurality of persons in the Godhead, then that Godhead would be composed of more than one El—since El is the abbreviated singular form of Elohim. But the Scriptures show conclusively that there is but one El, Yahweh Himself. King David praised Yahweh by acknowledging that: The El of Israel … gives power and strength to His people. (Ps. 68:35) Several passages in Isaiah shine forth with the glory of El, the Mighty God of Israel. Through this prophet Yahweh proclaimed: Remember the former things of old; for I am El, and there is no other. (Isa. 46:9) Look unto Me and be saved. … For I am El, and there is no other. (Isa. 45:22) I am He. Before Me no El was formed; nor will there be any after Me. (Isa. 43:10) Clearly, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures is one Mighty God—and one El—not two or three.