Troublesome Topic: WHAT ABOUT THE TIME ELOHIM HAS AN ARTICLE (THE ELOHIM)

Elohim is plural, and yet it is usually rendered as a singular, “God”.

What about the times that it appears with an article, “the Elohim”? Should those instances be translated “the gods”?

The use of an article in front of Elohim (making it “the Elohim”), should not shock us or make us wonder if it is referring to other gods. Such use of the article was actually quite common.

I checked the first three chapters of Exodus and found the following: The word “God” in English is used 27 times in those three chapters, all of them are either Elohim, or a different grammatical form of the word Elohim. Eight of those times the word Elohim appears with an article “the Elohim”. In six of those eight, Elohim is preceded by a preposition (unto,upon or of) and the other two have to do with people who “feared God.” What I am saying is that certain grammatical settings, such as after a preposition, call for the article in Hebrew. It is still referring to the one true God of Creation that we know as Elohim; it is not a reference to many gods. The article does not change that.

One more thing to consider is that, although Elohim is a plural noun, the verbs used describe the action taken by Elohim are almost always singular verbs; I know of only five exceptions. Of those five times, two of them are statements made to pagans (Gen 20:13 and Gen 31:53), and the other three are statements made by pagans (one of them being Jezebel) (I Sam 4:8, I Kings 19:2 & I Kings 20:10). Likewise, the adjectives used to describe Elohim are almost always singular, I have read of only one exception, Joshua 24:19, where the adjective agrees grammatically with the noun.

With all his knowledge of Hebrew, Dr. Michael Heiser surely knew that Elohim with the article is a common occurrence in the Old Testament, and that the verbs and adjectives used to describe Him, or His actions, are almost always in a singular form.