Gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God ; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates ; and sometimes as a superlative
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אֱלֹהִים is the most frequently occurring divine title in the Hebrew Bible, the local index currently counts about 2,600 occurrences from Genesis to Malachi. Its grammatical form is plural — built from a root related to power, might, or strength — yet in the vast majority of its uses it takes singular verbs and carries singular referential force.
Reader summary
Full entry for אֱלֹהִים (H430) · Open the biblical lexicon
אֱלֹהִים is the most frequently occurring divine title in the Hebrew Bible, the local index currently counts about 2,600 occurrences from Genesis to Malachi. Its grammatical form is plural — built from a root related to power, might, or strength — yet in the vast majority of its uses it takes singular verbs and carries singular referential force.
The BSB source-word alignment has 2,600 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include your God (455), God (419), of God (297), the God (271), our God (130).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 1:1. Its strongest book concentrations include Deuteronomy (374), Psalms (365), Genesis (219), 2 Chronicles (203).
אֱלֹהִים is the most frequently occurring divine title in the Hebrew Bible, the local index currently counts about 2,600 occurrences from Genesis to Malachi. Its grammatical form is plural — built from a root related to power, might, or strength — yet in the vast majority of its uses it takes singular verbs and carries singular referential force. This is not a theological accident. It is one of the most significant grammatical facts in all of Scripture: the fullness, majesty, and comprehensive supremacy of the one God exceeds anything that singular human categories can contain. The plural form is not a polytheistic residue. It is the language of transcendence — what older exegetes called a plural of majesty or plural of fullness, a form that stretches to hold the inexhaustible reality of the divine Being.
אֱלֹהִים names God as the one who creates, commands, covenants, and rules. When Genesis 1 opens with אֱלֹהִים as its subject, the text is not introducing one deity among many. It is presenting the sovereign source of all reality, the one whose word brings light out of darkness, order out of chaos, and life out of nothing. Every subsequent use of the word in Scripture inherits this inaugural weight. To invoke אֱלֹהִים is to stand before the Creator.
The word also has range. It occasionally describes the gods of the nations — the powers Israel was commanded not to follow. It is used at times for magistrates or judges, beings who exercise a derived, delegated authority under God's own governance. It appears in Psalm 82 as a stark address to those who hold power and have abused it. That range does not dilute the word's primary force; it heightens it. Every other use of אֱלֹהִים is defined in relation to the one true God who created, sustains, redeems, and judges.
Where YHWH is the covenant name — the personal, particular, redemptive identity God revealed to Israel — אֱלֹהִים is the universal title. It is the name by which every nation can encounter the claim of the one God. It is the title that stands over creation before a single covenant is formed, over all human history before Israel existed, and over every power that presumes authority not received from above. The pastoral weight of אֱלֹהִים is immense: this God is not domesticated, not tribal, not regional. He is the one before whom all things exist, to whom all things answer, and in whom all meaning is grounded.
Gen.1.1 — 'In the beginning, God (אֱלֹהִים) created the heavens and the earth.' The first word used to identify the divine actor in all of Scripture is אֱלֹהִים, establishing immediately that this God is the uncreated Creator of all that is.
אֱלֹהִים enters Scripture without introduction. Genesis 1 does not explain who this God is or defend his existence. It simply begins: 'In the beginning, God created.' The word carries its own weight. The text assumes that its first audience knows the referent, and it immediately shows who this God is by what he does — he creates, he speaks, he sees, he separates, he blesses, he names. The title is doing more than labeling a character. It is establishing the ontological foundation on which all of Scripture will build. There is one who precedes all things, who made all things, and to whom all things are answerable.
As the Torah unfolds, אֱלֹהִים becomes the title that joins universal lordship with covenant particularity. The God who creates in Genesis 1 is the same God who calls Abraham, wrestles with Jacob, commissions Moses, and gives the law at Sinai. The Shema — 'YHWH our God is one' — is the canonical crystallization of this truth: the personal covenant name (YHWH) and the universal divine title (אֱלֹהִים) belong to the same, singular, undivided Being. Israel's exclusive devotion is not tribal religion. It is the only response appropriate to the one who is the source and sovereign of all things.
The Psalms and the Prophets probe the edges of the title's range and come back to the same center. Psalm 82 shows the cosmic scope of God's justice: even those called 'gods' for their delegated authority are called to account and found mortal before the true God. Isaiah 44–45 builds the most sustained prophetic case for exclusive monotheism in the canon: the gods of the nations are nothing; idol-making is self-deception; YHWH alone is God. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Deutero-Isaiah tradition all return to אֱלֹהִים as the title that grounds both the indictment of idolatry and the hope of restoration. The God who formed creation is the God who can reform a shattered people.
In the exile literature — Daniel, Nehemiah, Ezra — the title takes on a confessional, penitential weight. 'The great and awesome God who keeps covenant and lovingkindness': this is not the language of a nation at peace. It is the language of people who have failed their covenant obligations and who are crying out to the God who, despite their failure, is still God — still sovereign, still faithful, still able to hear. The pastoral weight of אֱלֹהִים here is enormous: this title holds together divine transcendence and divine mercy in a way that sustains prayer even when all human confidence has collapsed.
The LXX translates אֱלֹהִים as θεός throughout, and this bridge carries the entire OT theological inheritance into the New Testament. When the NT speaks of God as the Father of Jesus Christ, as the Creator, as the Judge of all the earth, as the one who raised Jesus from the dead — it is drawing on the full weight of the אֱלֹהִים tradition. Jesus' own practice of addressing God as Father does not set aside the universal sovereignty named in this title; it opens the intimacy of the covenant relationship to all who are united to the Son. The gospel does not replace אֱלֹהִים — it reveals who this God truly is in the face of Jesus Christ.
The trajectory of אֱלֹהִים moves from creation to covenant, from universal sovereignty to particular redemption, from the transcendent source of all things to the God who hears prayers in exile and keeps promises across generations. In the LXX, אֱלֹהִים is rendered overwhelmingly as θεός (G2316), which becomes the primary NT term for God. The entire NT witness to the Father of Jesus Christ, the God who raised him from the dead, and the Spirit who forms the church stands in direct continuity with this OT title.
Every NT claim about God assumes the monotheistic foundation laid by אֱלֹהִים in Genesis 1, refined in the Shema, defended by the prophets, and confessed in the prayers of the exile. The connection is direct and foundational.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Plural form persistently denotes the singular God of Israel; signals transcendent power and authority in every application.
Plural form persistently denotes the singular God of Israel; signals transcendent power and authority in every application.
gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates; and sometimes as a superlative BDB: rulers Usage: angels, × exceeding, God (gods) (-dess, -ly), × (very) great, judges, × mighty.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 5 selected witnesses from 2,600 lexical occurrence verses.
אֱלֹהִים is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
This word opens the congregation's imagination to the sheer weight and scale of who God is before any covenant, before any redemption story, before Israel or the church. It allows the preacher to establish the theological foundation beneath every other claim: that the God we are speaking about is not a regional deity, not a private religious preference, not a theological concept, but the one who made all things and to whom all things answer.
From that foundation, every subsequent word about grace, redemption, covenant, and gospel stands on solid ground.
It corrects the domestication of God — the tendency to reduce the divine to a helpful spiritual resource, a therapeutic presence, or a being whose primary function is to meet our felt needs. אֱלֹהִים is not defined by human need. He is defined by his own nature as Creator and Sovereign. It also corrects functional polytheism in the congregation: the assumption that other powers — money, status, national identity, personal autonomy — have a legitimate share of ultimate authority.
The title insists that all authority is derivative and all claims to ultimacy are accountable.
Begin with the congregation's actual question, not the Hebrew grammar. People carry a functional picture of God shaped by experience, culture, and hurt. Start there: 'The God we are speaking about is not a God we invented, improved, or chose. He is the one who was there before anything else existed, who spoke and creation came into being, and who speaks still.'
Then, when the word is ready, introduce it: 'The Hebrew word the Old Testament uses for this God — אֱלֹהִים — is itself a theological statement. It uses a plural form for a singular reality, as if to say: no single human category is large enough to hold him.' Let the form of the word open the congregation's imagination rather than closing it with grammar.
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