|
 Our
quote this month is from "Getting Acquainted with
God," by Hugo McCord; Dehoff Publications, 1965.
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"The
first O.T. description of deity is in Gen. 1:1: In the beginning
‘Elohim, God, created the heavens and the earth... Some
have thought that the words "God" and "good"
are related. Certainly in their English spelling, the words are
quite similar... When one is thinking of the God of the Bible,
it is understandable how the word "God" might be
equated with goodness, for the Bible God is the essence of
goodness.... But the word which Moses employed in Genesis 1:1, ‘Elohim,
has no relation to the word for "good." The latter is
from the Hebrew word tobh, as found in Gen. 1:4; ‘Elohim,
God, saw the light, that it was tobh, good.
The
word "god" means an object of worship. The English
dictionary trace word "god" to a root meaning to
invoke, to worship; a god, then, is an object of worship.
Similarly, the most probable derivation of ‘Elohim is
the verb 'alah (cf. Islam's "Allah"), which
means to go to and fro in fear, and came to mean worship.
The
fright originally contained in the word "fear"
disappeared in the feeling of awe and reverence toward the great
worshipful being, with the result that in context to say that
one fears God is to say that one worships God. Moses wrote,
"Thou shalt fear Jehovah thy God" (Deut. 6:13), but
when Jesus quoted Moses' statement, he interpreted the word
"fear" with its proper contextual meaning, saying,
"Thou shalt worship the Lord thy
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God" (Matt. 4:10). Since the word
"God" is derived from the word for fear, and since the
word "fear" was used in the sense of worship, a
definite relation therefore exists between the word
"God" and the idea of worship. (Ft. note ... the word
came to be used also of angels (Ps. 8:5; Heb. 2: 7), of human
judges (Ex. 22:8,9,28; 1 Sam. 28:13), and of human beings (Ps.
82:6; Jn. 10:34).) ....
As
used in Gen. 1:1, the word refers not merely to a worshipful
being, but to the only one to be worshipped. The exclusiveness
of the special deity referred to in Gen. 1:1 as the only being
to be worshipped was later written out in the first of the ten
commandments: "Thou shalt have no other gods besides
me" (Ex. 20:3). In the statement of Moses, "Thou shalt
fear Jehovah thy God; and him shalt thou serve," Jesus
considered that the word "only" was understood, and he
supplied that which was implied, saying, "Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve."
... (Beginning with Gen. 1:1 only one God is considered as the
creator and controller of the whole universe and of all men
(Gen. 14:19; 18:25; 24:3). Monotheism is taken for granted, just
as theism is taken for granted; neither one is argued....
Hundreds of years later, when idolatry was popular, the
carefully written record specifies that Enoch walked with ha’Elohim,
the one true and living God (Gen. 5:22,24), thus setting Enoch
apart from those who served many gods. But the use of ha’Elohim
in Gen. 1:1 would have been belaboring a point not in
question."
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