Why Is “Elohim” Plural?

追加: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Yeah. And this word, El-Elohim, Elohim is the most common um term for God, the God of Israel, I think in the Hebrew Bible. By the numbers, it's the most common term. It's a funky term to begin with because A, it's plural. It's It actually is the word gods. So, what's your take on that?

[00:00:15]I mean, you you do a lot in the ancient Near East and Egyptology and Yeah, so when, you know, you're teaching Hebrew class, you see come to Elohim, you've already taught probably maybe taught them that eem is the plural. So, it looks like a plural noun, but then it will take singular agreement. Right. So, the noun's singular, the adjective's singular, usually.

[00:00:32]Yes. Everything is usually in Hebrew. Um so, what's going on there is we have this sort of plurality being treated as a single being. I mean, I think some older scholars wanted to say, "Ah, this is like a a kind of like ancient polytheism that's sort of been papered over." But, it's a little bit too consistent for that to be totally convincing. And I actually like a sort of plural of majesty sort of explanation. Um that, you know, occasionally you have, like for instance, Behemoth in Job, who's this monster, it's just Behemoth, beast, sort of like pluralized, you know, so it's the mother of all beasts, right?