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are compounds: and some maintain, that even

[El] is a derivative.

According to Hutchinson

and his followers,

אָלָה meaning] אלה Elohim is derived from אלהים

Alah] to swear, to curse.

They maintain that [Eloah] means, "The accursed one"-" the "second person in the Trinity, the Son of God, "who was made a curse for us." They make □ [Elohim] a plural-" The denouncers of a curse: a name (says Parkhurst) usually given "to the ever-blessed Trinity, by which they represent themselves as under the obligation "of an oath to perform certain conditions; and "as having denounced a curse upon all men and "devils who do not conform to them."

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To this derivation Michaelis, with great reason, objects, that it is more natural to conceive the verb [Alah, he sware] as designating the one who has affirmed by [E], than as being itself a root.. There are other and strong reasons against such a derivation. The Hutchinsonians assume [Eloah] to be a participle passive, “accursed,”—but, as remarked by Dr. Sharp,' there is no participle passive of x [Alah] to be met with in all the bible; and, as observed by another learned writer, Dr. Hales," "the word

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2 Dissert. on the principal Prophecies, p. 134.

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mb [Eloah], in the sense accursed,' does not ઠંડ once occur throughout the whole Hebrew Scriptures, though often employed as a name "of the Deity." And, farther, it may be remarked, that if Elohim mean those who are "under the obligation of an oath," then it will follow, that the witnesses in a court of law, and all who take oaths of office, are in fact Elohim. And, farther, in opposition to the Hutchinsonian doctrine, it may be remarked, that those who perform whatever obligation they come under by an oath, are, in the very nature of things, exempted from the punishment, or penalty, or execration; for this can only fall on him who violates his engagement. But who would be so hardy as to predicate this of the HOLY ONE who fulfilled all righteousness?-of him who suffered, THE JUST for THE UNJUST, when he bare our sins in his own body on the tree. Because of this death he is said to have been " made a curse for us;" and the Apostle, to prevent himself from being misunderstood, immediately adds, "for it is written, "Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." The curse denounced against sin was death: Christ

then died that he might redeem us from this curse, and thithhere the species of death which he suffered was that us from which the law called accursed. The Apostle is tar it here explaining law phrases, which have no relaGroidest.

af de tion to the etymological derivation of a name.

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It is a perversion, an absolute abuse of Scripture language, to apply the term "accursed," to the Son of God. "No one speaking by the Spirit of "God calleth Jesus accursed." [1 Cor. xii. 3]. By him, who is the first born from the dead, ALL THINGS WERE CREATED [Col. i. 16. 18]; and THE CREATOR is BLESSED FOR EVER, [Rom. i. 25.]—Jesus Christ, THE BLESSED and only potentate [1 Tim. vi. 15], GOD BLESSED FOR EVER [Rom. ix. 5].

Even were m [Eloah], allowed to be a derivative from [Alah], it might be, not from the verb in Kal, but, from the Hiphil conjugation, and so would signify those who adjure or cause others to swear, and not those who swear or bind themselves by the oath. Accordingly, some, before Hutchinson, held [Eloah], to mean a Judge,

אלה the Hiphil of האלה deriving the word from

[Alah].

Despairing to find the root in the Hebrew, some etymologists have had recourse to the Arabic, originally the same language as that spoken by the common parent of Isaac and Ishmael, in which the Deity is designated by ALAH, and, with the prefixed article, ALALAH,-by contraction, ALLAH. Michaelis adopts the Arabic verb ALAH as the root, in the sense of benefacere alicui-benevolus fuit, from the Arabic noun ALI "good."

Dr. Geddes would prefer the noun ALI itself, if he could derive [Eloah] from any single root. In this case he would call x [E] not the root, but the abbreviation of [Alah] and [Elohim]: but he hesitates whether to prefer this etymon, or the first compound one to be noticed hereafter.

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Latterly, the learned Dr. A. Clark, asserting that the root of Elohim "does not appear in the "Hebrew bible," has derived the word from the Arabic root "ALAHA, he worshipped, adored, was struck with astonishment, fear or terror;" "hence ILAHON, fear, veneration:"-True; but shall we add, "hence also the object of religious "fear, the Deity?" Is not Alaha an epithet more applicable to the worshipper than to the worshipped?

A priori, it is not very reasonable to suppose that the Hebrew scriptures do not exhibit, in its simplest form, the name, or epithet, by which the Creator was originally designated and it is still less credible, that he can have a name derived from the acts or passions of creatures, who derive their powers,,-their very existence, from himself. Were it even undeniable that his name imported the object of fear or terror, it would not follow that the noun was derived from the verb; for the converse is the order of Nature,

though Lexicographers have too generally inverted the process.

It has been somewhere remarked by Sir William Jones, that probably the elements of all the sciences may be found in the scriptures. This is strictly true respecting language. According to Moses, “Adam gave NAMES to all cattle, and "to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the "field"-" Whatever Adam CALLED every living "creature, that became ITS NAME," and this before he had a companion of his own species with whom he could converse. The commencement of speech was with nouns.-[On this subject see Dr. Hales, Dissert. vi. On the Primi- vide tive Names of the Deity.]

We shall see, hereafter, that the Penman of the Apocalypse has defined the sense in which sòs is to be understood in his prophecy, and, consequently, throughout the New Testament. None of the foregoing modes of derivation yield a sense agreeing with his definition; and, for this reason, none of them can be received as exhibiting the true etymology of Elohim.

Let us now briefly examine whether such philologists as make the word a compound, have been more successful than those who hold it to be a derivative.

The greater part of the former admit [El] to be one of the elements of which D [Elohim]

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