What does the word "God" mean?

[WesleyF]

What is the meaning of the word “God” as used in the Old Testament and the New?

 

[ckempston]

What is the meaning of the word “God” as used in the Old Testament and the New?

God has a lot of titles in the Old Testament, so this answer will be somewhat incomplete.

Elohim - the word typically simply translated as God comes from a word that means “mighty one”

YHWH - comes from the verb “to be”, i.e. God is “the existing one”

There are a lot of other combinations of these, and other titles for God (e.g. El Shaddai).

In Greek “theos” (divinity/god/gods) is always used for God, “kurios” is used where Jehovah/YHWH appears in the OT and means master. As far as I know the etymology of theos is not really known. I think it’s simply taken for granted that when someone said “theos” everyone knew what they were talking about by the context.

 

[Verbum]

Hi Wesley,

The Hebrew word for God is El. You also find ir in combinations such as Isra-el, Emmanuel, Gabri-el, Micha-el etc.

El means “might, power, strength”. For a thorough analysis of El, see hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/El/el.html

Verbum

 

[StrawberryJam]

What is the meaning of the word “God” as used in the Old Testament and the New?

From what I can tell, either testament it means you must believe in and worship him or go to hell. That’s all you need to know really.

 

[WesleyF]

Hi Wesley,

The Hebrew word for God is El. You also find ir in combinations such as Isra-el, Emmanuel, Gabri-el, Micha-el etc.

El means “might, power, strength”. For a thorough analysis of El, see hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/El/el.html

Verbum

Thanks so much for this!! Now I can understand what Jesus means when he refers to the Father as “My God”.

 

[Zea_mays]

Good Old Dude