A further example of this usage is: “And the curse: If you do not hearken to the Commandments of HaShem, your God, and you stray from the Path that I command you Today, to go after gods ( אלהים) of others …” (Deuteronomy 11:28). Another example of this usage is: “For, he will cause your child to turn away from after Me, and they will worship gods ( אלהים) of others …” (Deuteronomy 7:4). One example of this usage is: “You shall not have other gods ( אלהים) in My Presence” (Exodus 20:3). Strengthening this assertion is the fact that the Hebrew Bible does, indeed, sometimes employ the word אלהים as a plural noun in order to describe, inter alia, the many gods of the pagan World. ![]() Consequently, the Name of God אלהים would appear to be the masculine plural form of the Name of God אלוה (first appearing in Deuteronomy 32:15), traditionally pronounced as Eloah. The basis for this assertion is that, although God is beyond gender, the Hebrew-language suffix ים, pronounced as im, is indeed the plural suffix for (virtually all) masculine (and some feminine) nouns in the Hebrew language. The diacritical symbols that the Masoretes added to the Name of God אלהים rendered this Name as אֱלֹהִים, which dictated that this Name be pronounced as Elohim.Īlthough, in Genesis 1:1, the Name of God אלהים, traditionally pronounced as Elohim, is the grammatical subject of the past tense, third person, singular form of the verb “to create”, there are those who, for very different reasons, have historically denigrated the singular and unitary Nature of the God of Israel by asserting that His Name אלהים is plural. During the Islamic Occupation of the Land of Israel (which began in the 7th Century CE), a group of resident Jewish scholars, known as the Masoretes, created and added diacritical symbols to the text of the Hebrew Bible, so that all issues with respect to pronunciation and meaning would be settled and, thereafter, be beyond disputation. This, in turn, led to differences of opinion as to the proper pronunciation of certain words in the Hebrew Bible that were susceptible of variant pronunciations and sometimes, on account thereof, of disparate meanings. However, once increasing numbers of the Jewish people, under successive foreign Occupations, began to use a series of foreign languages (e.g., Aramaic, Farsi, Greek, Latin, and Arabic) amongst themselves in place of Hebrew, the vast majority of them eventually lost their inherent and intimate familiarity with the Hebrew language. , which is traditionally transliterated and pronounced as: Bereshit bara Elohim et HaShamayim v'et HaAretz, and which is traditionally translated as: “In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth.” (Genesis 1:1).Īlthough neither the Torah nor the remainder of the Hebrew Bible was written with diacritical symbols to represent vowels, disputes over pronunciation and meaning were originally nonexistent because, for generations thereafter, the Jewish people continued to read, write and converse with each other - on an everyday basis - in the Hebrew language. The very first Name employed by God to identify Himself to the Jewish people and to the World is revealed in the very first sentence of the Hebrew Bible: The First and Second Names of God By Mark Rosenblit
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