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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 the 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 understood 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 of the
heathen, who were thought to have definite quasi-corporeal forms
and to be as much real entities as any other Elohim.<5> The
difference which was supposed to exist between the different
Elohim was one of degree, not one of kind. Elohim was, in
logical terminology, the genus of which ghosts, Chemosh, Dagon,
Baal, and Jahveh were species. The Israelite believed Jahveh to
be immeasurably superior to all other kinds of Elohim. The
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