Use of the Word Elohim

USE OF THE WORD ELOHIM.

BY PROF. W. H. CHAMBERLIN, OP THE BRIGHAM YOUNG COLLEGE, LOGAN, UTAH.

Two words, El, of which Elim was the plural form, and Eloah, of which Elohim was the plural, were applied generally to Deity by the Hebrew people. All these forms are found in the other Semitic languages, and are, therefore, very ancient in origin. Under severest discipline the people of Israel were educated in the school of monotheism, in order that God's nature might be revealed to man, and in order that unity might be introduced into the moral life of man. Under this discipline, the people of Israel must have learned to apply the plural form Elohim, which their fathers had used of Deity, in speaking of the one God whom they had been taught to serve. The Hebrew language would allow them to do this, for a few nouns, when used by them in the plural, seemed to magnify the original idea. In such cases the plural form was treated gram- matically as singular. An example may be found in Job 40: 15, where the plural form behemoth is used to intensify the image of the animal there being described, as is shown by context. In the same verse, the behemoth is referred to by the singular pronoun he. But the use of Elohim, in this sense, by the later writers of Israel, is not necessarily opposed to the view that in the earliest documents or writings which the Hebrews possessed, it was applied to a plurality of Gods. The objection to this view has been made that, with the plural form Elohim, in Gen. i, the singular verb is used. Such a use of a singular predicate with a plural subject is, however, com-

26 IMPROVEMENT ERA,

mon in Hebrew. On page 1 1 1 of Harper's Hebrew Syntax we find the following rule covering the case, viz.: "When the predicate precedes the subject it may agree with the subject in number or it may assume the primary form, viz.: third masculine singular, whatever be the number of the following subject." So the plural form Elohim after a singular verb, the construction found in Gen. i, and elsewhere, is no proof that it is singular in any sense. Similar constructions are found with other words in Gen. i: 14, where the singular of the verb haya, be, isby the plural noun followed meoroth, lights; in Gen. xli:where the singular verb yul- 50, lodh, was born, is followed by the plural noun sheney banim, two sons; in Job xlii: 15, where the singular verb nimtsa, was found, is followed by the plural noun nashim, women. Many similar examples might be given to illustrate the rule. That Elohim was used in the plural sense in Gen. i, is shown in the 26th verse, where the Llohim in referring to themselves use the plural suffix, nu, our, twice; and they also use the plural form of the verb naaseh, let us make. Also in Gen. xi: 7, where nerd- hah, let us descend, and nabhlah, let us confuse, two verbs in the plural form, proceed from the mouth of God. In Gen. iii: 5, the plural construct participle, yodhe, knowers of, modifies the noun, Elohim, v/hich therefore is also plural. It is just possible that this

participle is predicated of the subject you, but the participle would then follow the finite verb, giving a very unusual construction for the eariy Hebrew writers. One such construction is, however, found in Gen. iv: 17, "he became (one) building a city." The thought of the possibility of God's having with him great associates was alive even to the time of Isaiah, as is shown in

Isaiah vi: 8, where Jehovah said, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Jehovah was a personal name applied to the Being who guided Israel, and afterwards lived on the earth as Jesus Christ. (Ill Nephi, XV 5, Doc and Gov. sec. 110.) : Probably few of the Jews were ever able to distinguish Jehovah from Elohim, as it was latterly used, i. e. in the singular sense, and so when late writers wrote down the portion of Genesis where the name of Jehovah began to be used, they placed next to it, for the same purpose for which we now place the marginal reading, the word Elohim. So we have in Gen. ii: 4; iii: 24, and in some other places, the

USE OF THE WORD ELOHIM. 27

expression Jehovah Elohim, translated the Lord God. The words were put together late in Israel'swhen Elohim had come history to be used in the singular; Jehovah Elohim meant Jehovah, i. e. God. Later the explanatory use of the word Elohim was for- gotten, and the two words combined to apply to God. (See page 219 of Brown's Hebrew Lexicon, the most authoritative lexicon in English, for the above explanation.) The use of the singular noun Eloah is almost confined to poetry. It is used in Psalm xviii and in Deut. xxxii. There is ground for saying that the Savior on the cross in crying out to His Father, used the singular form Eloah. In combining ^Zoa^ with the suffix i, meaning my, and expressing the result in Greek the h

would be dropped, for there is no letter h in the Greek alphabet. A, which was merely introduced to assist the Hebrew to pronounce the h, would als3 be dropped. The result would give us Eloi, the form given in the basic gospel, in Mark xv: 34. (See also Judges t: 5, of the Septuagint). In the year 1830, we find Joseph Smith, in the face of the tradi- tion of the whole world, daring to render the word Elohim in Gen. i, et seq., in the plural. It is one great evidence of the divinity

of the Church of Jesus Christ restored in these last days that its prophet said many things, in the day in which he lived, that a pro- gressive people are beginning to appreciate as true; and so we find learned men sympathizing with the daring position taken above. With reference to Gen. i: 26, and similar passages, we find as one explanation in the lexicon mentioned above, a lexicon based on the work of Gesenius, the great German Hebrew scholar, that God was in consultation with angels, our prophet's explanation exactly. In conclusion I shall quote the words of the great Biblical scholar, the Rev. A. B. Davidson of Edinburgh in explanation of the same: "The use of us' by the divine speaker (Gen. i: 26, iii: 22, xi: 17) is strange, but is perhaps due to his consciousness of being sur- rounded by other beings of a loftier order than men (Is. vi: 8). (See Easting's Dictionary oj the Bible, page 205 )