When God Speaks of Himself as “Us”

by John B. Metzger
Ariel Ministries Magazine – Spring 2019

The concept of the triune nature of the God of Israel has traditionally been the hardest thing for Jewish people to believe and accept. Any attempt to explain the mystery of the triune God to a Jewish person must be based on the Hebrew Scriptures. One of the points that may be made pertains to the plural pronouns God chose to use in reference to Himself. This article sheds light on these pronouns. It is based on a chapter of John B. Metzger’s excellent book Discovering the Mystery of the Unity of God.

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When God Speaks of Himself as “Us”

by John B. Metzger

God is One alone and yet a plurality, for He refers to Himself in the context of plurality by using plural pronouns. In the Hebrew Scriptures, there are four references to plural personal pronouns when God used them of Himself to indicate plurality. Of these four references, three are found in Genesis:  in the creation account (Gen. 1:26), the fall of man (Gen. 3:22), and the confusing of the language at the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:7). The remaining plural pronoun is found in Isaiah 6:8. The interesting thing is that in these verses, God’s names are used in different combinations. In Genesis 1:26, it is Elohim, the plural name of God, who is speaking. In Genesis 3:22, we find Yahweh Elohim, the first name being singular and the second name being a plural term. In Genesis 11:7, only Yahweh is mentioned, and in Isaiah 6:8, it is Adonai, another plural name for God. The major names of God are all used with the personal plural pronoun “us,” and so, the personal plural pronouns as well as the names of God support the plural unity of God.

The greatest controversy regarding the plural pronouns swirls around Genesis 1:26. Often, authors refer to this verse when dealing with the other three passages on plural pronouns.

In Genesis 1:26, God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on the earth.” God used the words “us” and “our” in relation to Himself, which obviously refer to two or more persons. In Hebrew, the name used in this verse for God is Elohim, a plural term. The pronoun “us” describes Elohim when He was about to create man in His image and His likeness. The two Hebrew words translated as “in our image” and “in our likeness” have plural suffixes.[1] The words “image” (selem) and “likeness” (demut) are in the singular.[2] Clearly, the uniqueness of the plural personal pronouns in Genesis 1:26 draws attention to Elohim’s choice of specific words to indicate specific actions. The pronoun “our” is tied to the two singular words “image” and “likeness,” showing the One speaking as being plural while at the same time confirming His unity.

Jewish scholars and a number of Christian scholars seek to discredit the plural personal pronouns by using one or more of four different lines of argument: The first line of argument is that when God used the words “us” and “our,” He was referring to His “heavenly court,” which included angels, sons of God, and seraphim; the second is “plural of majesty”; the third is the “plural of deliberation” argument; and the fourth is that God was referring to the earth which He had just created to assist Him.

Heavenly Court

The first line of argument is reflected by the following comments in the Jewish interpretation of the plural personal pronoun “us” in the Tanakh. The biblical scholar and author Nahum Sarna (1923-2005) refers to Elohim and the pronoun “us” by saying: “This is an Israelite version of the polytheistic assemblies of the pantheon monotheized and depaganized.”[3] Sarna gives his resistance to the plural personal pronouns by noting: “Elohim is a comprehensive term for supernatural beings and is often employed for angels.”[4] He asserts that in Genesis 35:7 angels are seen as divine beings.[5]

There is another Jewish response by Israel Wolf Slotki (1884-1973), in the Soncino series, whose sources of authority are Rabbis Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092-1167) and David Kimchi (1160-1235).[6] Slotki states that the “us” of Isaiah 6:8 represents the angelic host.

According to the famous medieval rabbi Rashi (1040-1105), God was being polite or showing good manners and humility by asking permission of the lower beings (angels) to create man in their image:

We will make man – Although they did not assist Him in forming him and although this [use of the plural] may give the heretics an occasion to rebel, yet the passage does not refrain from teaching proper conduct and the virtue of humbleness, namely, that the greater should consult, and take permission from the smaller; for had it been written, “I shall make man,” we could not, then, have learned that He spoke to His judicial council but to Himself. And as a refutation of the heretics it is written immediately after this verse “And God created the man,” and it is not written “and they created.”[7]

Rashi’s whole statement is an assumption that he makes with absolutely no precedent in the Tanakh of Elohim showing humbleness by consulting the lesser (angels) before He created man. Bishop Herbert E. Ryle (1856-1925) adds this statement in connection to Genesis 1:26:

In the thought of the devout Israelite, God was one, but not isolated. He was surrounded by the heavenly host (I Kgs 22:19), attended by the Seraphim (Isa 6:1-6), holding His court with “the sons of God (Job 1:6).”[8]

Among Christian scholars, the Canadian-American theologian Victor P. Hamilton replicates the Jewish argument that the pantheon of gods was replaced by the heavenly court concept:

In the biblical adaptation of the story the pantheon concept was replaced with the heavenly court concept. Thus, it is not other gods, but to the angelic host, the “sons of God,” that God speaks.[9]

The German Old Testament theologian Claus Westermann (1909-2000) speaks of Genesis 3:22 and states that many modern scholars refer to the heavenly court as polytheistic in intent:

Namely whether the phrase ‘like one of us’ means ‘the higher spiritual beings,’ or the heavenly court (H. Gunkel and the majority of recent interpreters), or whether God includes the other gods with himself, the phrase being actually polytheistic in intent.[10]

Driver uses ancient Babylonian accounts to support his argument that the biblical account rose out of a pantheon of gods in a pre-Israelite background:

There is force in these considerations; and probably the ultimate explanation has to be sought in a pre-Israelite stage of the tradition (such as is represented by the Babylonian account; where a polytheistic view of man’s origin found expression). This would naturally be replaced in a Hebrew recession by the idea of a heavenly council of angels, as in 1 Kings 22; Job 1:38; Daniel 4:14; 7:10.[11]

Opinions like these are clearly contradicted by true biblical scholars, such as Andrew B. Davidson (1831-1902), who are convinced that God’s plurality is not represented by pagan polytheism. God is representing Himself as a true plurality in unity, as Isaiah 6:8 and Genesis 1:26 affirm:

There is no vagueness or obscurity in either of the passages referred to. If God, who speaks in these passages, uses the word “us” of Himself, there is a perfectly clear statement to the effect that the Godhead is a Plurality.[12]

It is clear to this author that when the plain sense of Scripture is used and left to speak for itself, there is no problem with the understanding of  Genesis 1:26, 3:22, 11:7, and Isaiah 6:8. The danger of perverting the text occurs when a person has a preconceived belief and cannot see the plurality of God. As Creator of the universe, God was always a plurality and is understood in the New Covenant as a tri-unity. Scholars, both Jewish and Christian, are taking liberties with the Scripture in an attempt to understand it, but in reality, they are perverting it. The reality is that God, in the presentation of His Son to Israel as their Messiah and to mankind as the Savior from sin, would not present a new doctrine of plurality or tri-unity. God would not, in the middle of His redemptive plan for Israel and the world, present the central figure of Scripture without a foundation being laid in the Tanakh. The Tanakh minimally presents the plural unity of Elohim.

Plural of Majesty

The second line of argument is the view of “plural of majesty.” This argument given by both Jewish and Christian scholars contends that God was speaking as a western monarch—as the Queen of England, for example, would speak to her subjects. In speaking of Genesis 3:22, the Haftorah refers to the “us” as a plural of majesty, and as a consequence of the fall, man became “as one of the angels” or “us” in a plural of majesty.[13] Rabbi Hertz (1872-1946), editor of the Haftorah, follows the logic to its natural conclusion:

Man is become as God – omniscient. Man, having through disobedience secured the faculty of unlimited knowledge, there was real danger that his knowledge would outstrip his sense of obedience to Divine Law.[14]

That interpretation of “us” as a plural of majesty puts Elohim in the same class of beings that are ministering spirits (angels) to man. The rabbis say that Elohim is speaking like a Western monarch who uses the royal “we.”[15] Authors such as Ryle, Hamilton, and Westermann cite others who raise the possibility that these arguments of “plural of majesty” and “heavenly court” could be a reference to a pantheon of gods with a polytheistic reference to God. What is notable is that frequently “plural of majesty” and “heavenly court” are linked to a pantheon of gods or a survival of polytheism, as it relates to these four plural personal pronoun texts.

Plural of Deliberation

The third line of reasoning is the argument of “plural of deliberation,” meaning the speaker is conferring or consulting with himself. William Reyburn and Euan McG. Fry refer to Isaiah 6:8 as an example of God consulting Himself before acting.[16] Westermann uses grammar to further his argument in pressing for “plural of deliberation”:

The grammatical construction is a plural of deliberation. In favor of a plural of deliberation in [Genesis] 1:26 is the fact that in Isaiah 6:8 the plural and the singular are used in the same sentence with the same meaning; similarly in 2 Samuel 24:14 where it is a question of one and the same conclusion: “. . . Let us fall into the hand of the Lord . . . but let me not fall into the hand of man.” . . . A clear example of this type of deliberation occurs in Genesis 11:7; “Come let us go down . . .,” has shown that this usage perseveres right down to the present day.[17]

But Westermann misses the point of his own examples. When David says “us,” he means the nation. However, when Yahweh (singular) says “let us go down,” it is the one God who expresses His plurality. The Haftorah, which refers to Genesis 1:26, states that the “Scripture represents God as deliberating over the making of the human species.” The phrase “Let us make man” is a “Hebrew idiomatic way of expressing deliberation as in 11:7; or, it is the ‘plural of majesty,’ royal commands, being conveyed in the first person plural.”[18]

It is highly improbable that an all-knowing and all-powerful Yahweh Elohim would talk with Himself; rather, Elohim is to be understood minimally as a plurality. Both Jewish and Christian scholars seem to be forcing an interpretation on the text that is not there. God is not deliberating with Himself. There is no need to, because He is plural, yet a unity of one, indivisible.

The Earth

The fourth line of argument is that Elohim is referring to the earth that He had just created. Rabbi Maimonides (also known by the acronym Rambam; ca. 1135-1204) says of Genesis 1:26 that the phrase “let us make in our image” refers to “the aforementioned earth,”[19] for the earth supplied the body of man and Elohim provided the soul of man.[20] Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman (commonly known as Nachmanides; 1195-1270) gives the following reason for the usage of the earth in the creation of man:

The correct explanation of na’aseh (let us make) [which is in the plural form when it should have been in the singular] is as follows: It has been shown to you that G-d created something from nothing only on the first day, and afterwards He formed and made things from those created elements. Thus when He gave the water the power of bringing forth a

living soul, the command concerning them was Let the water swarm. The command concerning cattle was Let the earth bring forth. But in the case of man he said, Let us make, that is, I and the afore-mentioned earth, let us make man, the earth to bring forth the body from its elements as it did with the cattle and beasts, as it is written, and the Eternal G-d formed man of the dust of the ground, and He, blessed be He, to give the spirit from His mouth, the Supreme One, as it is written, And He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And He said, In our image, and after our likeness, as man will then be similar to both. In the capacity of his body, he will be similar to the earth from which he was taken, and in spirit he will be similar to the higher beings, because it [the spirit] is not a body and will not die. In the second verse [Genesis 1:27], He says, In the image of G-d He created them, in order to relate the distinction by which man is distinguished from the rest of created beings.[21]

One of the major problems with his interpretation is that in verses 3, 6, 9, 14, 20 and 24 of Genesis 1, there is not a plural personal pronoun in connection to the “Let the” or “Let there” as on the other days of creation. Only in verse 26, with the creation of man, is there a plural personal pronoun. Nachmanides uses a logical argument except when he includes the earth as a partner in the creation of man. That is not a rational statement. Material things do not have intelligence to understand or emotion to feel, let alone a will to make a choice. The earth is there simply because God placed it there. The only thing that the rabbis can point to is the statement that if they do not obey the law (Deut. 4:26, 30:19, 31:28), God promises to call heaven and earth to witness against them. Furthermore, Isaiah 40:13 is quite clear that God does not have to be informed by any counselor, whether it be the material earth or created beings.

Conclusion

The plurality of God does have an impact on witnessing to Jewish people. Mankind and Jewish people, according to Romans 1, stand before God in judgment, condemned. Jewish people were worshipping the one true God, not idols, but they still missed their Messiah (God incarnate) because they did not recognize the plurality of God in the Tanakh. Yet, God did give ample testimony of His plurality in Genesis 1 of the Torah, as well as the rest of the Tanakh. It is important to study the relevant passages and be able to explain them to whoever is willing to listen and hear.

 

Citations

1 John Joseph Owens, Analytical Key to the Old Testament, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 1:5.
2 Paul A. Miller, Gramcord (Vancouver, Wash: Gramcord Institute, 1999), www.gramcord.org.
3 Nahum M Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary, Genesis (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989),
4 Ibid., 25.
5 Ibid., 241.
6 I. W. Slotki, Isaiah (New York: Soncino Press, 1983), 30.
7 Eugene H. Merrill, “Rashi, Nicholas De Lyra, and the Christian Exegesis,” WTJ 38 (1975): 66-79.
8 Herbert E. Ryle, Cambridge Bible: The Book of Genesis (London: Cambridge University, 1914), 19.
9 Victor P. Hamilton, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Genesis Chapters 1-17, 20 Vol. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 1:133.
10 Claus Westermann, Genesis 1-11: A Continental Commentary (Translated by John J. Scullion. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 272-273.
11 S. R. Driver, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1930), 31.
12 A. B. Davidson, The Theology of the Old Testament, 129.
13 Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary on Genesis, 13.
14 Joseph Herman Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (London: Soncino Press, 1952), 13.
15 For more information on “plural of majesty” refer back to Elohim in chapter 2.
16 William D. Reyburn and Euan McG. Fry, A Handbook on Genesis (New York: United Bible Societies, 1997), 50.
17 Westermann, Genesis 1-11, A Continental Commentary, 145. See also Laurence A. Turner, Genesis (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 23; Ryle, Cambridge Bible, the Book of Genesis, 148; Hamilton, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament: Genesis Chapters 1-17, 208.
18 J. H. Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs (London: Soncino Press, 1952), 5.
19 Moshe ben Nachman, Ramban (Nachmanides), Commentary on the Torah – Genesis (trans. Charles B. Chavel: New York: Shilo Publishing House, Inc., 1999), 52.
20 Payne Smith, The Handy Commentary: Genesis, ed. Charles John Ellicott (London: Cassell & Co, n.d.),79.
21 Nachman, Commentary on the Torah – Genesis, 52-53.