298 THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY vill 



margin. Reuss renders the word by " spectre," 

 remarking in a note that it is not quite exact ; 

 but that the word Elohim expresses "something 

 divine, that is to say, superhuman, commanding 

 respect and terror" ("Histoire des Israelites," 

 p. 321). Tuch, in his commentary on Genesis, and 

 Thenius, in his commentary on Samuel, express 

 substantially the same opinion. Dr. Alexander 

 (in Kitto's " Cyclopaedia " s. v. " God ") has the 

 following instructive remarks : 



[Elohim is] sometimes used vaguely to describe unseen powers 

 or superhuman beings that are not properly thought of as 

 divine. Thus the witch of Endor saw "Elohim ascending out 

 of the earth" (1 Sam. xxviii. 13), meaning thereby some beings 

 of an unearthly, superhuman character. So also in Zechariah 

 xii. 8, it is said "the house of David shall be as Elohim, as the 

 angel of the Lord," where, as the transition from Elohim to tho 

 angel of the Lord is a minori ad majus, we must regard the 

 former as a vague designation of supernatural powers. 



Dr. Alexander speaks here of " beings " ; but 

 there is no reason to suppose that the wise woman 

 of Endor referred to anything but a solitary 

 spectre ; and it is quite clear that Saul under- 

 stood her in this sense, for he asks " What form 

 is HE of ? " 



This fact, that the name of Elohim is applied 

 to a ghost, or disembodied soul, conceived as the 

 image of the body in which it once dwelt, is of no 

 Little importance. For it is & well known that 

 the same term was employed to denote the gods 



