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the short and frequently used word El. The ques

tion of the derivation and significance of Elohim

must take into consideration these related words.

For a long time the derivation of Elohim received

with the most deserved approval was that of Flei

acher (in Delitzach's Genesis, Leipaic, 1872, 57-58)

from a root alihd not current in Hebrew but found

in Arabic, signifying " to be amazed, to fear."

This derivation does not satisfy because it does not

account f or the singular form El, and the Arabic word

is itself probably a secondary formation from the

word for God (cf. Dillmann, Alttestamentliche The

dogie, Leipsic, 1895, 210). H. Schultz

Etymol- (Altteatamentliehe Theologie, GSttingen,

ogy. 1896, 405, note 10) derives El from ul

" to be strong." El signifies then

"the strong," "the mighty," and is conceived as

a verbal noun. Many objections can be brought

to this derivation both in regard to the significance

of the name and with respect to the original short

ness of the a in El (cf. Dillmann, ut sup. Theodor

Noldeke derives El from a verbal stem ul or il

signifying " to be in front" (Monatsberichte der

Berliner Akademie, 1880, 760 aqq.). God is then to

be thought of as " the leader," " the foremost

one." This derivation demands the long a in El

and is not satisfactory to the scholarship of to

day. Lagarde (Uebersicht fiber die Nominalbildung,

Giittingen, 1889, 170; cf. G. Kerber, Hebrdische

Eigennamen, Freiburg, 1897, 83; Bathgen, Bei

trage zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, Berlin,

1889, 272 aqq.) has sought to derive the word from

the root slab to which the preposition el, " to," be

longs. El =God would then indicate "the end of

all human seeking " and " the object of all human

striving." This receives some support from analo

gous usage in the Assyrian. But the idea is too

abstract to express the original first impressions of

divinity among any people. The authority of the

philologist has very little weight either in the history

or philosophy of religion. It is not safe to build

historical or philosophical theories concerning the

original conception of divinity on etymological

speculations. Nevertheless one can not deny that

the concept of " might," or " mighty one," has a con-

tent which, on the one hand, bears in it the essential mark of the concept of divinity, and, on the other, is sufficiently concrete to serve as a foundation for a root so ancient and original as El. If it be possible to remove the objections to the derivation from slab, " to be strong," this etymology will be the moat probable.

The next question concerns the relationship of Eloah and Elohim to El, and scholars are virtually agreed that Elohim is an old plural of El, while Eloah is a secondary formation from Elohim. As to the significance of this plural the main question is, does it now or did it originally signify plurality of divine being? The data are confined to the Old Testament and the text in several instances is not beyond question (cf. Strack's Genesis, 68). If one looks at the instances where Elohim must be plural, because it signifies a plurality of (heathen) gods, there yet remain a great and preponderating number of passages where it can mean only the (one)

God of Israel. In these instances, it is Use in the rule that Elohim, where it is aubSingular ject and where it has an attribute,

and Plural. takes the singular of the predicate as well as of the attribute. But there are not lacking cases in which this rule will not apply in which Elohim takes both the attribute and the verbal predicate in the plural. The moat apparent explanation is that these are traces of a previous general manner of expression and consequently a proof of an old Israelitic polytheism (Baudissin, Stttdien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, Leipsic, 1876, 55-56; Meyer, Geschichte des Alterthums, i., Stuttgart, 1884, 376). But this argument is offset by the fact that the Hebrews used this manner of expression in later times where, considering all circumstances, polytheism can not be implied. The Hebrews used many collective nouns and many plural formations which referred to one person, the plural signifying a mesa of abstractions collected from single phenomena of like character. If the Hebrew writer wished to indicate his feeling of unity in the plural, he would express it by means of the singular of the attribute or predicate. If exceptions to this rule occur, they are exceptions and not remains of an old rule. The singular of the predicate or attribute along with a plural subject is absolute proof for the monotheistic view, while the plural of the attribute and predicate is not in the same manner a proof for the polytheistic view. A plural subject with a singular predicate or attribute could only be chosen by a decision consciously made to depart from grammatical rules of speech, but if the speaker thought of God as one being, singular attributes and predicates could easily come into usage because it would be understood that the plural subject was really a collective singular.

Extra-Biblical sources afford no help. The analogy of the Phenician which possesses a plural word for a unitary God, is not significant because no Phenician document reaches back to Old-Testament times. There is the possibility that the plural Elohim has come in early times from the experience of many divine beings (Smith, Rel. of Sem., 445), but this is not more than an abstract possibility. It may be claimed that the experience of many reve-