Elohim

Let us start with one of the ancient Hebrew words for God. The first word we will examine is Elohim (אֱלֹהִים). To understand Elohim, we must break it down and look at its components. 

An interesting thing about Ancient Hebrew is that it is a very complex language with specific religious meaning built into the syllables and letters.  As few things to also remember when examining Hebrew is that you read from right to left and that ancient Hebrew did not have vowels, so when examining Hebrew we have to remind ourselves that often the original text may have used different vowels than what has been currently attributed. 

The first component of Elohim is the Hebrew 'El'  אל, which means God or diety and is synonymous to might and strength as well as leadership. The next component is 'hay' or 'oh' ה, which denotes goodness, grace, mercy, and also a feminine quality. The final part is 'im' ים which denotes  a masculine plural quality. So embedded in this Hebrew word for God are some interesting and descriptive qualities. It describes a being that is powerful, possesses authority, goodness, righteousness, virtue, mercy, justice, strength, femininity, and masculinity. 

Many biblical scholars will insist that the plural form doesn't mean anything because the word is used in a singular sense, or they will call it a plural of majesty, a way of referring to a singular as a plural to signify importance. But I believe the ancient scholars and scribes said what they meant and meant what they said. If the Hebrew God was a singular bring as the modern scholars insist, they could have called Him 'El' or 'Eloah'. That would denote Him as a singular being. In fact this is how the Muslim "Allah" came to be. 

On an additional note, I believe this representation of God as both masculine and feminine is important in its own right, and I will get to that in an upcoming article.