The Third Commandment: God & Elohim

 Hebrew
The Hebrew word for God is Elohim. Elohim is a non-specific word. It is used 2,600 times in the Old Testament. Elohim means the following: rulers, judges, divine ones, angels, gods, god, goddess, works or special possessions or the true God. The word “God” is first used in Genesis 1:1. All of chapter one of Genesis uses only God to describe the Creator of the universe. In Genesis 2:4, it changes to LORD God. From Genesis 2:4 onward, the word “God” begins to take on many forms and is used for many gods.

When Jacob, Leah, Rachel and their families flee from Laban, Rachel steals her father’s idols. We see in the text below, the word translated as “gods” in English is the Hebrew word “elohim”.

 And Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban with his kinsmen camped in the hill country of Gilead. 26 Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done by deceiving me and carrying away my daughters like captives of the sword? 27 Why did you flee secretly and deceive me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you away with joy and with songs, with tambourine and with lyre; 28 and did not allow me to kiss my grandchildren and my daughters? Now you have done foolishly. 29 It is in my power to do you harm, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful not to speak either good or bad to Jacob.’ 30 Now you have indeed gone away because you longed greatly for your father’s house; but why did you steal my gods?” 31 Then Jacob replied to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought that you would take your daughters from me by force. 32 The one with whom you find your gods shall not live; in the presence of our relatives point out what is yours among my belongings and take it for yourself.” Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them. (Genesis 31:25-32)

In fact, since there is no differentiation between a pagan god and the God who Created the universe, the word elohim (which can mean God or gods) is sometimes mistranslated in our Bibles.

During the Golden Calf incident, most Bibles read as follows:
When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”

2 Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.” 3 So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. 4 He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
5 When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” 6 So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.
7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’ (Exodus 32:1-8)
 

There is an issue with the text. Translating the word elohim as “gods” means there would be multiple idols. However, we clearly see in the text, there is only one idol. The translators messed up. The word elohim in the Hebrew text is referring to God, the Creator of the universe. The children of Israel where trying to make a physical representation of the LORD God. There were not trying to make a pagan god. Since they did not know what God looked like, they created Him as an ox, which is derived from the ancient Hebrew. Ancient Hebrew used pictures. One of the pictures used to write God’s name in Ancient Hebrew was an ox head.

A repeat of the text is seen in Nehemiah chapter 9. In the Book of Nehemiah, the text is correctly translated:


“You came down on Mount Sinai; you spoke to them from heaven. You gave them regulations and laws that are just and right, and decrees and commands that are good. 14 You made known to them your holy Sabbath and gave them commands, decrees and laws through your servant Moses. 15 In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them.
16 “But they, our ancestors, became arrogant and stiff-necked, and they did not obey your commands. 17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the miracles you performed among them. They became stiff-necked and in their rebellion appointed a leader in order to return to their slavery. But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Therefore you did not desert them, 18 even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your god, who brought you up out of Egypt,’ or when they committed awful blasphemies. (Nehemiah 9:13-18)

If you were God, would you have a name which is common and can be confused with man-made deities?


The answer would be no. We do this even in our culture today. Names we give to children are combined with surnames to avoid confusion. If we only called people by a first name, the person’s identity would be lost. I know about 20 people called Michelle. If someone refers to “Michelle” I often have no idea which Michelle the person is referencing. Using a surname helps clarify the person identity. However, even with using last names, many people have the same name. Growing up, I had two Mike Millers in my class. Their identities were sometimes mixed up. To help keep track of who was who, they used a middle initial to differentiate between the two boys.

Today, the trend in baby names is to have something unique. People spell common names using extra letters (Ashley is spelled Asheleigh) or unique names are used such as Soleil and Kauai. Parents do not want their child’s name to be confused with anyone else’s.

God is the same way. He does not want His name to be confused with any other deity. He has a special name which only applies to Him.