Elohim ( ) is a Hebrew word meaning "gods" or "godhood". Although the word is plural in form (as an abstract noun referring to the concept of "divinity"), in the Hebrew Bible it most often takes singular verbal or pronominal agreement and refers to a single deity, particularly but not always the God of Judaism. In other verses it takes plural agreement and refers to gods in the plural. It is also the word used for judges.
Morphologically, the word is the plural form of the word () and is related to El ( ʾēl). It is cognate to the Ugaritic word (block script transliteration אלהם), which is used for the pantheon of Canaanite gods, the children of El, and conventionally vocalized as "Elohim". Most uses of the term ʾElohim 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 Deity, is distinct from generic usage as elohim, "gods" (plural, simple noun).
Grammar and etymology
The word is the plural of (, meaning "god", "diety"). Although the word elohim or 'elohiym () is a grammatically plural noun, Biblical Hebrew often treats it as singular in, e.g., judges. When referring to the Jewish/Israelite God, Elohim is usually understood to be grammatically singular (i.e., it governs a singular verb or adjective). In Modern Hebrew, it is often referred to in the singular despite the -im ending that denotes plural masculine nouns in Hebrew.Glinert, Modern Hebrew: An Essential Grammar, Routledge, p. 14, section 13 "(b) Agreement".Gesenius, A Grammar of the Hebrew Language.
The related nouns eloah () and el () are used as proper names or as generics, as proper names they are interchangeable with elohim. The term 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 ʼĔlāhā 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".
Rabbinic scholar Maimonides wrote that Elohim "Divinity" and elohim "gods" are commonly understood to be homonyms. One modern theory suggests that the term elohim originated from changes in the early period of the Semitic languages and the development of Biblical Hebrew. In this view, the Proto-Semitic *ʾilāh- originated as a broken plural of *ʾil-, but was reanalyzed as singular "god" due to the shape of its unsuffixed stem and the possibility of interpreting suffixed forms like *ʾilāh-ū-ka (literally: "your gods") as a polite way of saying "your god"; thus the morphologically plural form elohim would have also been considered a polite way of addressing the singular God of the Israelites.
Another theory, building on an idea by Gesenius, argues that even before Hebrew became a distinct language, the plural elohim had both a plural meaning of "gods" and an abstract meaning of "godhood" or "divinity", much as the plural of "father", avot, can mean either "fathers" or "fatherhood". Elohim then came to be used so frequently in reference to specific deities, both male and female, domestic and foreign (for instance, the goddess of the Sidonians in 1 Kings 11:33), that it came to be concretized from meaning "divinity" to meaning "deity", though still occasionally used adjectivally as "divine".
Canaanite religion
The word el (singular) is a standard term for "god" in Aramaic, paleo-Hebrew, and other related Semitic languages including Ugaritic. The Canaanite pantheon of gods was known as 'ilhm, the Ugaritic equivalent to elohim. For instance, the Ugaritic Baal Cycle mentions "seventy sons of Asherah". Each "son of god" was held to be the originating deity for a particular people (KTU 2 1.4.VI.46).
Hebrew Bible
Elohim occurs frequently throughout the Torah. In some cases (e.g., , "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, , "You shall have no other gods before me").
The word Elohim occurs more than 2500 times in the Hebrew Bible, with meanings ranging from "gods" in a general sense (as in , where it describes "the gods of Egypt"), to specific gods (the frequent references to Yahweh as the "elohim" of Israel), to seraphim, and other supernatural beings, to the spirits of the dead brought up at the behest of King Saul in , and even to kings and prophets (e.g., ). The phrase bene elohim, translated "sons of the Gods", has an exact parallel in Ugaritic and Phoenician texts, referring to the council of the gods.
With plural verb In the Hebrew Bible, , elohim is used with a plural verb. The witch of Endor tells Saul that she saw elohim ascending (olim , plural verb) out of the earth when she summoned the spirit of the Prophet Samuel at Saul's request.Brian B. Schmidt, "Israel's beneficent dead: ancestor cult and necromancy in ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition", Forschungen zum Alten Testament, N. 11 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr Siebeck, 1994), p. 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 complemented 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 ..." The word elohim, in this context, can refer to spirits as well as deities.Bill T. Arnold, Necromancy and Cleromancy in 1 and 2 Samuel, CBQ, 66:2, p.202 Some traditional Jewish sources say that the spirits of deceased human beings are being referred to. The Babylonian Talmud states: "olim indicates that there were two of them. One of them was Samuel, but the other, who was he? – Samuel went and brought Moses with him." Rashi gives this interpretation in his commentary on the verse. Regarding this, Sforno states that "every disembodied creature is known as elohim; this includes the soul of human beings known as [the] 'Image of God'."
In , Abraham, before the polytheistic Philistine king Abimelech, says that "Elohim (translated as 'God') caused (, plural verb) me to wander".e.g. : , where is from "to err, wander, go astray, stagger", the causative plural "they caused to wander". Whereas the Greek Septuagint (LXX) has a singular verb form (ἐξήγαγε(ν), aorist II), most English versions usually translate this as "God caused" (which does not distinguish between a singular and plural verb).LXX: ; KJV: "when God caused me to wander from my father's house". Regarding this, the Jerusalem Talmud states: "All Names written regarding our father Abraham are holy [i.e., referring to the one God] except one which is profane, it was when the gods made me err from my father's house. But some say this one also is holy, [i.e.,] 'were it not for God, they [humans] already would have made me err'." The same disagreement appears in Tractate Soferim, where Haninah ben Ahi R. Joshua maintained that the word is "holy". An alternative view (held by Onkelos, Bahya ben Asher, Jacob ben Asher, Sforno, and Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg) is that the word means "gods" and the verse means that Abraham's distaste for the idolatry of his father Terah led him to decide to wander far from home. Others, such as Chizkuni, interpret elohim as a reference to wicked rulers like Amraphel (often equated with Nimrod).
In , Jacob builds an altar at El-Bethel "because there elohim revealed himself [plural verb] to [Jacob]". The verb niglu ("revealed himself") is plural, even though one would expect the singular.NET Bible with Companion CD-ROM, W. Hall Harris, 3rd ed., 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 ..."J. Harold Ellens, Wayne G. Rollins, Psychology and the Bible: From Genesis to apocalyptic vision, 2004, p. 243: "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)." Some Jewish sources (e.g., Targum Jonathan, Ibn Ezra, add Chizkuni), seeking to explain the plural language of Genesis 35:7, translate elohim here as "angels", noting that in the story being referenced Jacob experiences a vision of malakhei elohim (angels of God) ascending and descending the ladder. Radak agrees that this is a reference to angels but also presents the alternative view that the plural form in the verse is a majestic plural, as seen in other verses such as and . Elohim can be seen used in reference to the angels in a variety of other cases, such as in and .
With singular verb Elohim, when meaning the God of Israel, is mostly grammatically singular, and is commonly translated as "God", and capitalised. For example, in , it is written: "Then Elohim (translated as God) said (singular verb), 'Let us (plural) make (plural verb) man in our (plural) image, after our (plural) likeness. In the traditional Jewish understanding of the verse, the plural refers to God taking council with His angels (who He had created by this point) before creating Adam. It should also be noted that in the following verse of Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them"; the singular verb בָּרָא (bārāʾ), meaning "He created" is used as it is elsewhere in all the acts of creation featured in Genesis. This shows us that the actual creation of man (and everything else) in Genesis was a singular act by God alone.
Wilhelm Gesenius and other Hebrew grammarians traditionally described this as the (plural of excellence), which is similar to the (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 the singular Hebrew term Elohim is to be distinguished from elohim used to refer to plural gods, and remarks that: