Names of God (biblestudy)

The first big three:

El-

Elohim

Yahweh

Genesis 1:1 AV

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

In the beginning Elohim created the heaven and the earth. From the very onset, the Prophet Moses establishes the very basis of scripture by saying that all that was created in heaven, the heavenly abodes, the angels, every heavenly thing, the earth, the planets, the sun, the stars, the universe, the galaxies were created by Elohim.

We must understand that the word Elohim is translated God in the scriptures a total of 2,062 times in the Old Testament. Therefore in most instances when you see God written in the Old Testament it could refer to Elohim.

Every name has a purpose and a meaning, whether it is your name, a pet name, and in the case of scripture, God’s name or the name of those who are written throughout scriptures.

What does Elohim mean?

First off, the word Elohim is a group of words to refer to God and or other deities. The word elohim is plural in meaning but used in a singular standpoint to refer to the one and only God of Israel. Regionally, elohim was used to refer to deities of a polytheistic belief:

Question: what does polytheistic mean? What does monotheistic mean?

If elohim was used to refer to deities of a polytheistic belief, then the question is now asked: Why does Moses use Elohim in Genesis 1 to refer to the one true God?

Ans:

Historically, all of the polytheistic religions have mistakenly declared that a group of gods were responsible for creation.

Example:

Moses he was raised in the house of Pharoah had extensive knowledge of the Egyptian religious system of Egypt.

Ra- was considered to be the sun god.

Khons- was considered to be the moon god

Geb was considered to be the god of the earth.

The egyptians had sky gods, mother and daddy gods, gods of water, gods of sky, gods of the underworld, etc.

Moses establishes at the onset the true originator of the creator of the heavens and earth which is Elohim (singular). Elohim, in the fulness of his majesty, God in all his totality, God singularly and by himself, is responsible for the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the waters above the earth (sky), the waters beneath the earth, the plants, the animals, and humans itself. All of creation was created by this singular deity and the word Elohim even though it is plural in form signifies the greatness of God, it focuses on great power.....so powerful that all He had to do was speak and it came to pass.

Elohim is considered to be a generic name and not a proper name of God. Because of this we can understand how Moses (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) writes and begins the story of God by writing Elohim instead of God’s proper name. We will get to the proper name shortly.

If Elohim is plural, then it should be needful to know what the singular word is for God.

The second generic word for God is Eloah. The term Eloah is found 57 times in the Old Testament, most of which occurs in the book of Job.

The third term for God is “El” which means “a god” it occurs 238 times in the Bible. This was a common semitic word for deity in ancient near eastern cultures. Unfortunately, the surrounding nations around them also used the word El and to the Israelites downfall, they began to assimilate the Canaanite use of El with their use of El and began to mix Israelite religious observances with Canaanite observances that provoked the wrath of God because of their idolatrous practices.