The Name of God - El

This is the third and last in our Name of God lessons (which were very good and helpful =D )

El:

• basically means 'God'
• was used of the idols of other nations as well ('gods'), not just our God
• but it can also have meanings of 'strength,' 'mighty' and 'Almighty'
• translated as 'God', 'goodly', 'idol', 'mighty one' and others

Elohim

• it comes from 'El'
• a kind of simplified version of the meaning would be 'mighty ones' but it is so often used with a singular verb that it doesn't give the impression that it is many gods, or god as many (eg the Trinity..)

To solve this problem, we looked at another word, 'chaiyah' (spelling?), that has a plural that is often really meaning singular. i guess 'sheep' is an english word that is kind of the same - it can be singular or plural.

We concluded that this probably meant that 'Elohim', rather than being 'mighty ones', means 'might' - again if we looked at 'chaiyah' we could get that kind of association between what the singular means and what the plural means => 'Chaiyah' means 'living one', often 'beast.' The plural ('chaiyim') can sometimes be translated 'lives', but more often 'life.' That helps us to understand how 'elohim' is used in the Bible. Confusing, I know!

So, from this, we reckoned that translating elohim as 'Almighty' is probably a very good way.

El is a word that, in Bible, is often used with other words to give lots of different sides to God's character and being. Dad thought about a kind of football prism shape with something inside - if you look in the different 'windows' you get lots of different views of God's character.

Some examples of these different views of El were:

• The One God (El Echad)
• The Faithful God (El Hanne'eman)
• The God of Truth (El Emet)
• The Righteous God (El Tsaddik)
• The All-Sufficient God (El Shaddai)
• The Most High God (El Elyon)
• The Everlasting God (El Olam)
• The God who Sees Me (El Roi)
• The God of Jeshurun (El Yeshurun)
• The Mighty God (El Gibbor)
• The God of Knowledge (El De'ot)
• The Great God (El Haggadol)
• The God of Glory (El Hakkavod)
• The Holy God (El Hakkadosh)
• The God of the Heavens (El Hashamayim)
• The God of My Life (El Chaiyai)
• The Gracious God (El-Channun)
• The God of Israel (El Yisrael)
• The God of Patience and Consolation (El Erekh Apayim avi ha-tanchumim)
• The God of Compassion (El Rachum)
• All Merciful God (El malei Rachamim)
• The God of my Salvation (El Yeshuati)
• The God of our Salvation (El Yeshuatenu)
• The Jealous God (El-Kanno)
• God with us (Immanuel)
• The Awesome God (El Hannora)
• and apparently this isn't all - the list goes on =)

We each chose one of these to take a look at (these are from a site called 'Hebrew for Christians'), one that we wanted to find out a bit more about.

Kirsty chose the The God of Jeshurun because I don't think any of us understood it. The site tells us that Jeshurun means the 'righteous people'. The references for it were Deut 32:15 and 33:5,26. The first one we found quite understand, but its about how even the upright can be swerved by prosperance (is that a word?) - 'Jeshurun grew fat and kicked'. Being too wordly through dependence on riches can lead you to do what the righteous did then - 'he forsook God who made him, adn scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation.' Our lesson is never to presume that because we believe in God we're ok, and fine where we are, thankyou very much. The second reference took us to the phrase God of Jeshurun, in v26 - 'There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides the heavens to help you, and in His excellency on the clouds'. That's amazing - God is both loftyand all powerful AND cares for the righteous, those who have faith, US, although He doesn't have to - he is literally way above our station! It tell us that he is helping the righteous, His arms are wrapped protectively round them -v27 'And underneath are the everlasting arms'. Look at Is44:2

Jamie wanted to look at The Everlasting God. We looked at Isa26:4, which gives us a double description of God - LORD (Yahweh) and everlasting. We can learn from our previous lessons that this telling us that God's glory is everlasting - and will always be =). Next was Ps90:1-3. v1 starts us off with our 'Elohim', once more using his 'might' to protect us. v2 has everlasting god - his protection for us is everlasting =) Our next verse was Gen 21:33 - where Abraham plants a tree and 'there called on the nme of the LORD, the Everlasting God' - again it couples Yahweh (and our picture of God being manifest in a multitude of people) with God's everlastingness - gives us a picture of the Kingdom. Ps 93:2 gives us much the same picture.

I wanted to consider The God of My Life in Ps 42:8. And again Yahweh is used with El - almost as if to classify which El they're talking about - the God of Israel, whose glory will be manifest in a multitude of people. God is of our life, and we can make it that way by using our time to singing praises to Him. In v9 we once more have the Rock idea - that God is a our solid foundation =).

We also considered The One God. This is Mal2:10. It talks about 'we all have one Father' and how 'one God created us' and goes on to rebuke Israel for 'dealing treacherously with one another by profaning the convenant of the fathers.' This emphasizes how God is single, loyal and faithful to His chosen nation, (of which we can become a part). And how ONE God created us (like El Shaddai - the mighty creator).

There's a huge amount of lessons we got from looking at El - if I have missed any please comment or if I've just got it wrong =) Please comment anyways =)