Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Elohim - "the gods is"

With a nervous feeling about my lack of Hebrew…

I don’t remember ever coming across this before:

Donald Macleod points out that the name most commonly used of God in the Old Testament, Elohim, is plural, although when used of God it is always used with singular verbs and adjectives. Macleod says it is as if we were to say, “The gods is”. Macleod argues that God had good reason for calling himself Elohim and that it “fits beautifully with the fact that in him there is a fullness of fellowship. The New Testament disclosure of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is the best, and possibly the only, explanation of God giving himself a plural name.” (p13)

Shared Life: The Trinity and the Fellowship of God’s People (Christian Focus, 1994)

Posted by Marc Lloyd at 11:53 am
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5 comments:

Marc Lloyd said...

I've just come across this interesting fact in Dr Field's Doctrine of God notes, but I think I had forgot it.

He says its usually a 'plural of majesty' and has a quotation from someone called Rose which says: "this plural should be understood in the sense of an intesnification and eventually as an absolutization: 'God od gods', 'the highest God', 'quintessence of divine powers', 'the only God who represents the divine in a compremensive and absolute way'".

Okey dokey, but couldn't we squeeze out a bit more interpretative maximalism here?

4:15 pm
Ros said...

I'd be wary of pushing this, Marc. The trinitarian understanding of God really isn't the only, and possibly not even the best, reason for the plural Elohim in the OT. There's the plural of majesty as you point out from Fieldy. But also, and perhaps more significantly, this noun just doesn't seem to have a singular form. Even when it's used for other gods, it's always in the plural form and sometimes (if I remember correctly) with a singular verb.

So yes, the plural form is a nice thing given the trinitarian nature of God revealed elsewhere in the bible. But it doesn't require or even necessarily suggest that God is trinitarian. There's much stronger evidence than this and I'd stick to that.

6:21 pm
Anonymous said...

The "basic" answer to this question given to us in BH1.1 was that there are several other Hebrew words which are plural even when the thing is singular (e.g. shamayim, "heavens, sky" and mayim, "water") so it's not right to draw conclusions from the fact that Elohim is also plural.

But of course, "all language teaching is lying" (Charles Anderson, paraphrased) and so it could be that the real answer is more complicated.

11:23 pm
Marc Lloyd said...

Oh you boring old lot. Well, accept for Charles Anderson who sounds very interesting - or perhaps that's you, Gerv.

No, seriously, thanks for your help.

I wasn't thinking of inflicting this on the good people of Holy Trinity. I am too ashamed to mention the Hebrew and I've already stolen my own thunder on this blog! :)

10:10 am
Glen said...

I'm with you Marc!

a) there is a singular form of Elohim (Eloha) which is used 49 times in the OT. It's used prominently in Job where it's very often in parallel with 'Almighty'. eg - Job 22:26 "Surely then you will find delight in the Almighty (Shadai) and will lift up your face to God (Eloha)."

b) shamayim and mayim are duals not plurals. (It's significant that Elohim is not a dual!). The only other plural that takes a singular verb that I know of is paniym - face. But I think that could be theologically loaded too!

c) if, grammatically, you wanted to communicate that God was a plurality who always works as a unity there is surely no better way than having a plural noun with a singular verb!

11:36 am

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