“You who would have additional evidence from the Scriptures relative to the truths presented in this chapter, we ask to follow the connection in which the word Elohim is used throughout the Scriptures, and also its use in combination with the name Yahveh – Yahveh Elohim; we think enough has been said to give you a light to illumine your search in this direction. Some very satisfactory Scriptural evidence as to the unity of the body of the Elohim has been given by Henry Proctor, in a paper which appeared in The American Antiquarian for January and February 1905. We quote:
“When the great Moses Maimonides wrote the thirteen articles of the Jewish faith which gave an absolute sense to the unity of the Godhead, which before had been understood in a compound sense, he departed altogether from the teaching of the Hebrew Bible on this point; for it is certain that the unity so strongly affirmed there can be nothing else than a compound unity. If we take these very words, which Jewish children are most carefully taught in order to guard them from believing in the Christian Trinity, viz.: Shema Yisrael Adonai Elohim Adonai echad, we find that even here it is certainly a compound unity that is expressed by the word echad, one; for this word is derived from the root yachad, to unite, and occurs with a compound meaning hundreds of times in the Tanach or Hebrew Bible; as in Numbers 13:23, ‘A branch with one cluster of grapes’; many grapes in one cluster, a compound unity.
“In Judges 20:1, 8, 11, ‘The congregation assembled as one man’; ‘all the people arose as one man’; ‘knit together as one man.’ In all these passages echad denotes a compound unity, as also in Genesis 2:24, basar echad, ‘one flesh.’ On the other hand, yacheed, which represents an absolute unity, as in Genesis 22:2, 12, 16, ‘Only son’, Judges 11:34, ‘Only daughter’, is never used to express the unity of God. And not only was Elohim used with a plural signification, but Yahveh also, as in Genesis 21:7, ‘And Yahveh said Let Us go down, and let Us confound.’ And not only so, but the Messiah is distinctly affirmed to be the son of Yahveh in Psalms 2:2, 7; for in verse seven He says to ‘His Messiah,’ Beni attah, ‘My Son, Thou art.’ In Proverbs 20:4, His Son is again mentioned. And the earlier books abound with narratives of the visits of Melech-Yahveh, who is recognized as being Himself, Yahveh, or as the Jews say, ‘Adonai Elohim.’
“In a fuller sense, the term ‘Elohim’ included not only the Son, the Messiah, but also the angels, for in the 82nd Psalm, the Supreme God is closely distinguished as Elyon, the Most High (verse 6), and He is represented as standing in the congregation of the Gods, En sunagogue Theon, and charging the angelic rulers of this world – that is, Satan and his angels – ‘with folly.’ Again in Psalm 97:9, cal-Elohim, ‘all the Gods’, are commanded to worship the Messiah. This is rendered from the Septuagint in Hebrews 1:6, Pantes aggeloi Theou, ‘All the angels of God.’ In Psalm 8:5, ‘A little lower than Elohim’, is rendered, Brachu ti par aggelous, a ‘little lower than angels’. So that in the fuller concept of the Godhead, the Melechim, or Aggeloi, were included in One Divine Unity; so that the Christian idea of the Godhead, is far nearer to that taught by Moses, and in the whole Hebrew Tanach, than the Jewish conception of the present day.
“Delitsch, in his ‘Babel and Bible’, says that the Old North Semitic tribes who settled in Babylon, about B. C. 2500, worshipped ‘Yahwe, the existing enduring one, the one devoid of all change’, and that this Yahwe was the spiritual possession of those same nomad tribes out of which, after a thousand years, the Israelites were to emerge. This Being, they called ‘El’, which means ‘the goal’, to which the eyes of man looking heavenward are turned, ‘on whom hangs the gaze of every man.’ From this he thought that the Hebrew idea of God was evolved. But this may be regarded as one evidence among many, of the existence of a primeval worship of El Elyon, the Supreme God, which has been identified with the Ilu Siru of the of Hammurabi.
“The Biblical conception of God is sometimes stigmatized as anthropomorphic, but this objection is the outcome of ignorance, for although every appearance of celestial beings is described as being in the form of man, yet it is clear, also, that they believed in an Omnipresent, all-pervading, all-sustaining Spirit, corresponding to the teaching of Paul on Mars Hill, that ‘He giveth to all, life and breath and all things’, for ‘in Him we live and move and have our being’; and to that of John that ‘God is Spirit’, and that ‘no man hath seen God at any time.’ So that the Biblical conception of God is that of an all-pervading Spirit, who is everywhere, fills all space, fills all things, is the life and intelligence of all things, and the motive power of all things; and that the Messiah and all His messengers are ‘His offspring’ (genus), ‘Sons of the Most High’ (Benai El-Elyon); that all were called ‘Elohim’, but over them all, the Messiah is supreme; and to Him, as one with El Elyon, the worship of all is due.””
Hiram Butler
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 