Day 9 Devotion – Image of God

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26

Picture: Michelangelo's Creation of Man on the Sistine Chapel.

There is some strange grammar in this verse. Why is it worded in the plural “Let Us make man in Our image”? Some scholars interpret this as the first picture of the Trinity. The word for God here is a plural noun but it is used with a singular verb. God is singular in some ways and plural in others. The Hebrew word for God used in Genesis one is Elohim. Hebrew words that end in “im” are plural so Elohim is the plural of El. Jewish scholars have always been bothered by this since they are such strict monotheists. Other historians say that this is seen in some other ancient texts from Babylon and Assyria. Kings would often refer to themselves in the plural to emphasize their power. This is called the “majestic plural”. They would say the author is only trying to use grammatical license to show how powerful God is as creator. I believe there is probably a double meaning here and that double meanings are common in the Bible so both can be true at the same time.

Next, I would like to address the issue of dominion. Christians fall into two major camps on this word. One group says that God gave us control over the earth and we have a right to do what we want with it. They have no problem with progressing as quickly as possible and using the world’s recourses for profit. Another group would look at the earth as a gift to us from God that we are to be stewards of and manage wisely. They would be environmentally friendly and even participate in recycling without being fanatical about it. I personally fall into the second group. Many environmentalists try to attach moral and ethical attributes to the environmental cause and argue that we as humans are just another animal and we have no right to overexploit the earth to the point that we cause harm to other creatures, they have the same right to exist that we do. I say conserve resources for future generations.