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Is “ELOHIM” Really

Uni-plural?

To present the word Elohim as a word like “family” is false and misleading.
Elohim designates a SINGLE Person -- NOT a group of Persons. Because of
this misinterpretation and misunderstanding, many Bible readers have been led
to believe that YEHOVAH God is really two or three Persons. Should not the
6,800 appearances of YEHOVAH as a singular word with singular pronouns
convince us that the one God is NEVER EVER to be thought of as plural?

Anthony Buzzard

T he opening words of the Bible introduce us Webster’s known to English speakers) states this
to the supreme majesty of the God of cre- fact with complete clarity. The fact is observable
ation. There is one who speaks with abso- -- and has been observed by countless lexicogra-
lute and unchallenged authority as Creator. He is phers -- in this way: The verbs which follow
from the beginning and in the beginning. “In the Elohim (the One God) are in the singular num-
beginning God created...” ber. And thousands and thousands of pronouns,
that is, substitutes for the noun, are in the singu-
It is one of the tragedies of Bible study lar. In addition, Elohim is said to be the same
that the meaning of the word God, Elohim, has person as El (God) and Yahweh [YEHOVAH]
suffered from the fatal tendency of man to em- (the personal God of Israel): “For who is El but
brace polytheism, the belief in more than one Yahweh [YEHOVAH]? And who is a rock ex-
God. Elohim is grammatically a plural form. cept our Elohim?” (II Samuel 22:32). Yahweh
Readers will know of the word cherubim, with [YEHOVAH], God’s personal name, is con-
the same ending, meaning cherubs (plural). But structed all of its 6,800 times with SINGULAR
Elohim when designating the One God of Israel verbs and accompanied by SINGULAR per-
and of the Bible is not plural in meaning. sonal pronouns.

An example from our own acquaintance “Elohim, though a plural form, can be
is this: Do you insist that the word news, because treated as a singular, in which case it means the
it has an “s” on the end, is plural? When did you One supreme Deity...and conveys the notion of
last say, “the news are good”? An elementary all that belongs to the concept of deity in contrast
knowledge of language is enough to understand to man (Numbers 23:19) and other created be-
the elementary fact about Elohim: that though it ings [angels]. It is appropriate to worldwide rela-
is plural in its form, it is singular in meaning tionships (Genesis 1:1), because there is only
when describing the God of biblical monotheism one supreme and true God, and He is a per-
(belief in One God). son...Strictly speaking Yahweh [YEHOVAH] is
the only name of God... Yahweh [YEHOVAH],
How do we know this? Any lexicon of therefore, in contrast with Elohim, is a proper
Hebrew (roughly the biblical equivalent of the noun, the name of a Person, though that person is

The Berean Voice July-August 2002