My friend handed me his Hebrew Bible, open to Psalm 82. He said simply, “Here, read that … look at it closely.” The first verse hit me like a bolt of lightning: God [elohim] stands in the divine assembly; he administers judgment in the midst of the gods [elohim].1 I’ve indicated the Hebrew wording that caught my eye and put my heart in my throat. The word elohim occurs twice in this short verse. Other than the covenant name, Yahweh, it’s the most common word in the Old Testament for God. And the first use of the word in this verse worked fine. But since I knew my Hebrew grammar, I saw
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