It serves, indeed, as a key to that language; for it is not only allied to the Hebrew, but is at the same time so copious, as to contain the roots of almost all the words in the Hebrew Bible.” If this be true, it is evident that the Arabian language may be of the greatest use in the translating of the Scriptures; though the Arabian version of them, in consequence of its having been made from the Greek Septuagint or some other Greek version, (if such be the fact,) instead of the original, may be of no great value. And if I understand his Lordship rightly, and it be true, that the Arabic contains the roots of the Hebrew, it must be a more ancient language than the Hebrew. But, after all, if the two languages be dialects of the same, it is nonsense to talk of one being derived from the other.
In the first verse of Genesis the word Aleim is found without any particle before it, and, therefore, ought to be literally translated Gods formed; but in the second chapter of Exodus and 23d verse, the emphatic article ה e is found, and therefore it ought to be translated, that “their cry came up to the Gods,” or the Aleim. In the same manner the first verse of the third chapter ought to have the mountain of the Gods, or of the Aleim, even to Horeb, instead of the mountain of God. Mr. Bellamy has observed that we cannot say Gods he created, but we can say Gods or Aleim created; and the fact, as we see above, of the word Aleim being sometimes preceded by the emphatic article ה e shews, that where it is omitted the English article ought to be omitted, and where it is added the English article ought to be added.
Perhaps the word Septuagint may be more similar to the word Aleim. But if there be no idiom in our language, or the Latin, or the Greek, exactly similar to the Hebrew, this is no way surprising.
3. Persons who have not given much consideration to these subjects will be apt to wonder that any people should be found to offer adoration to the evil principle; but they do not consider that, in all these recondite systems, the evil principle, or the destroyer, or Lord of Death, was at the same time the regenerator. He could not destroy, but to reproduce. And it was probably not till this principle began to be forgotten, that the evil being, per se, arose; for in some nations this effect seems to have taken place. Thus Baal-Zebub is in Iberno Celtic, Baal Lord, and Zab Death, Lord of Death; but he is also called Aleim, the same as the God of the Israelites;[1] and this is right, because he was one of the Trimurti or Trinity.
If I be correct respecting the word Aleim being feminine, we here see the Lord of Death of the feminine gender; but the Goddess Ashtaroth or Astarte, the Eoster of the Germans,[2] was also called Aleim.[3] Here again Aleim is feminine, which shews that I am right in making Aleim the plural feminine. Thus we have distinctly found Aleim the Creator, (Gen. i. 1,) Aleim the Preserver, and Aleim the Destroyer, and this not by inference, but literally expressed. We have also the Apis or Bull of Egypt expressly called Aleim, and its plurality admitted on authority not easily disputed. Aaron says, אלה אלהיך ale aleik, these are thy Aleim who brought thee out of the land of Egypt.[4]
Mr. Maurice says,[5] Moses himself uses this word Elohim, with verbs and adjectives in the plural. Of this usage Dr. Allix enumerates two, among many other glaring instances, that might be brought from the Pentateuch; the former in Genesis xx. 13, Quando errare fecerunt me Deus; the latter in Gen. xxxv. 7, Quia ibi revelati sunt ad eum Deus; and by other writers in various parts of the Old Testament. But particularly he brings in evidence the following texts: Job xxxv. 10; Josh. xxiv. 19; Psa. cxix. 1.
The 26th verse of the first chapter of Genesis completely establishes the plurality of the word
