Elohim

What it means

Elohim looks like a plural noun — it ends the way Hebrew plurals do — but it is used constantly with singular verbs to mean the one God of Israel. That is its most common job: naming the God who made the world and spoke to Abraham. But the same word, unchanged, can mean a foreign god (Chemosh is called the elohim of Moab), a whole pantheon of gods, or even human judges and rulers acting with unusual authority.

So the word carries a category more than a name. It marks something as belonging to the realm of gods, or wielding god-like power, without telling you on its own whether that thing is real, false, singular, or plural. Hebrew leans on context, verb agreement, and other divine names like YHWH to sort out which sense is meant in a given sentence.

What English does with it

English mostly reaches for "God" with a capital G when Elohim refers to Israel's God, and lowercase "god" or "gods" when it refers to others — a distinction Hebrew spelling doesn't make. In Psalm 82 some translations render it "judges" or "rulers," a defensible guess that still buries the word's stranger, more literal sense of beings who share in divine authority.

The common mistake

A popular but mistaken word-study argues that Elohim's plural form proves the Trinity, since Genesis uses it for the one God. Hebrew regularly uses plural nouns for majesty or intensity without implying multiple persons — the same grammar sits behind words for "master" and "lord." The form tells you about Hebrew grammar, not about God's inner nature.