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For when Saul fails to find his father's asses, his servant says to him Behold, there is in this city a man of Elohim, and he is a man that is held in honour; all that he saith cometh surely to pass; now let us go thither; peradventure, he can tell us concerning our journey whereon we go.
The ghost comes from, and depends on, the animistic theory; the Supreme Being, as originally thought of, does not. All Gods are Elohim, kalou, wakan; all Elohim, kalou, wakan are not Gods. A ghost-god should receive food or libation. Mr. Huxley says that Tá-li-y-Tooboo did so.
The conception involved in the name "Elohim" no intelligent man denies; whereas many deny the conception of Jhvh, because prophecy is an unusual occurrence even among individuals, not to speak of a nation. He knew "Elohim," but not Jhvh, that is a God who reveals himself to man.
There are, however, a few passages which speak of subordinate superhuman beings other than the Mal'akh Yahweh or Elohim. There are the cherubim who guard Eden. In Gen. xviii., xix. At Bethel, Jacob sees the angels of God on the ladder, and later on they appear to him at Mahanaim. In all these cases the angels, like the Mal'akh Yahweh, are connected with or represent a theophany.
This condition the Elohim contemplated for a time: and they had their choice, to wait for those eons, in which the field would again have become clear, and space would be left them for a new creation; or, if they would, to seize upon that which existed already, and supply the want, according to their own eternity.
The characteristics of the gods in Tongan theology are exactly those of men whose shape they are supposed to possess, only they have more intelligence and greater power. The Tongan belief that, after death, the human Atua more readily distinguishes good from evil, runs parallel with the old Israelitic conception of Elohim expressed in Genesis, "Ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good from evil."
Although particular persons adopted the profession of media between men and Elohim, there was no limitation of the power, in the view of ancient Israel, to any special class of the population. David seems to do the same.
Thus M. Renan derives the name of Jehovah from Assyria, from 'Aramaised Chaldaeanism. In that case the name was long anterior to the residence in Egypt. But again, perhaps Jehovah was a local god of Sinai, or a provincial deity in Palestine. He was known to very ancient sages, who preferred such names as El Shaddai and Elohim. In short, we have no certainty on the subject.
It may be added that this use of ilâni, "the gods", forms an interesting linguistic parallel to the plural of the Hebrew divine title Elohim. It will be remembered that in the Sumerian Version the account of Creation is not given in full, only such episodes being included as were directly related to the Deluge story.
Distinct deities could no more be intended by such names as these than by those under which God is spoken of in the Hebrew Scriptures, several of them identical with the Phoenician names El or Elohim, "great;" Jehovah, "existing;" Adonai, "my Lord;" Shaddai, "strong;" El Eliun, "the supreme Great One."
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