“We’re lost! Who will rescue us from
the power of these mighty gods?
These are the gods that completely
overthrew the Egyptians in the desert.”
-1 Samuel 4:8
Here’s a neat little tip for you when studying the Hebrew Bible.
Notice how in 1 Samuel 4 the Philistines kept referring to Israel’s God in the plural?
Well, the original word here is ELOHIM…
And most of the time, it is NOT translated in the plural.
It’s usually translated in the singular as God.
So why did the author decide to translate it as “gods” and not God in this case?
It all depends on the context homies.
If a gentile who does not know Israel’s God uses the term ELOHIM, it’s assumed he’s speaking in a way common to all polytheistic pagans and thus the word is translated in the plural form as “gods”.
However, when an Israelite is speaking about his God and uses the word ELOHIM, then we consider the word to have taken the grammatical form known as the “plural of majesty” and thus means only one “God”.
However, this brings up an interesting question.
Why in the world would the Philistines refer to Israel’s God in the plural?
One might think that’s because they were pagans.
So they just assumed every nation worshipped more than one god.
That seems to make sense, doesn’t it?
However, that answer overlooks something important.
The Philistines had been in close contact with Israel for a long time by now.
So it should have been common knowledge that Israel only worshipped one God even if they found the notion laughable or unique.
I mean for sure they’d heard what Israel’s God had done to the Egyptian gods during the Exodus.
That story was famous throughout the region.
Plus, even though it was highly discouraged, intermarriage did occur between the Philistines and the Israelites.
So there was plenty of opportunity for the Philistines to know that Israel only paid homage to one God.
So why wasn’t this understanding reflected in their general speech?
Why did the Philistines refer to Israel’s deity as “gods”?
Well the answer to that question has profound theological implications even in our day.
So we’ll get into that topic the next time we meet.
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