Thus the God of the Old Testament is from the beginning the God who stands apart from nature and rules over it. In addition to being God's supreme witnesses in the world, human beings are also his representatives to bring the natural world into the service of God ("Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground, " Gen 1:28 ). On the other hand, the creation narratives of Genesis 1-2, which are best understood as depicting twenty-four-hour days, establish the theological premise that God is distinct from nature, that he brought nature into existence, and that he controls nature. The gods of Canaan represented natural forces there was no clear dividing line between nature and the divine. So when God offers Abraham the land of Canaan, it is his right to give it because he created the world. Moreover, the fact that he is the Creator means that the world belongs to him. Rather, the universe is the affidavit of his existence. The Bible makes no attempt to prove that God exists. The phrase "heavens and earth" is a merismus, which means that everything in the universe as we know it was created by God. It is significant that the first impression of God the Bible gives is God as Creator of the heavens and earth ( Gen 1:1 ).
For example, the creation narrative of Genesis 1 employs Elohim since the creation of the universe is in view and God is acting in his sovereign role, but the parallel narrative of Genesis 2 introduces the dual name Yahweh God (Lord God), in view of Yahweh's personal involvement in the creation of man and woman. Elohim seems more appropriate for contexts that require a universal view of the deity, or contexts that connote his power and omnipotence, while Yahweh may be more appropriate for those contexts that deal with Israel and Israel's historical experience, or the deity's personal presence and involvement in Israel and the world. This name, according to Genesis 4:26, was known in the prepatriarchal era, but Exodus 3:14 leads us to the conclusion that it assumed a new and more distinctive meaning in the Mosaic era.Īs a general rule, the literary context has a great deal to do with which of the terms ( Elohim or Yahweh) the text used to designate Israel's God. In the course of time, however, God revealed his distinctive divine name, Yahweh, by which Israel should know him.
However, based on the Book of Genesis and the story of the revelation of the divine name in Exodus 3:14, we suspect that elohim, along with other terms, was widely used by the Israelites from the earliest times as a designation for God. Precisely when and why the Israelites took this title for their God, rather than the singular el or eloh, is not known. Some have taken the plural form as a plural of intensity, representing the indescribable, or as an abstract plural, corresponding to our words "Godhead" or "divinity, " and there is justification for both views. This development is lost in obscurity, but the evidence from ancient literature contemporary with the Old Testament attests to the use of the plural form in other cultures around Israel as the designation of a single deity that embodies the entirety of divine life. In the Old Testament the plural form elohim became the favored generic term for God. Bible Dictionaries - Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - God God
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