H433 — אֱלוֹהַּ (ʼĕlôwahh / eloah)¶

Core Data¶

Strong's: H433
Original: אֱלוֹהַּ (also shortened אֱלֹהַּ ʼĕlôahh)
Transliteration: eloah (ʼĕlôwahh)
Pronunciation: el-o'-ahh
Part of Speech: Masculine noun (singular)
Root: Probably a prolonged (emphatic) form of אֵל (ʼel, H410) — "strength, mighty one"
Morphological Relatives:
H410 אֵל (ʼel) — shortened singular, "God, mighty one"
H430 אֱלֹהִים (ʼelohim) — plural of H433 (-im masculine plural ending on the eloah stem)
H426 אֱלָהּ (ʼelah) — Aramaic cognate, used in Daniel/Ezra
Occurrences: 58 unique verses (62 tokens) across 9 books
First Occurrence: Deut 32:15 — "Then he forsook God (eloah) which made him"
Hapax Legomenon: No

Lexicon Definition¶

Probably prolonged (emphatic) from אֵל (H410); a deity or the Deity: — God, god. Rarely shortened to אֱלֹהַּ. The plural form is אֱלֹהִים (H430).

Eloah is the singular absolute form lying behind the ubiquitous plural elohim. Where elohim appears 2,600+ times in the OT, eloah appears only 58 times — overwhelmingly in poetic and archaic material.

Translation Distribution (KJV)¶

Translation	Verses	%
God	33	56.9%
of God	9	15.5%
god (pagan deity)	3	5.2%
a God	2	3.4%
my God	2	3.4%
the God	2	3.4%
Other prepositional/compound ("to God", "upon God", "than God", "O God", "on God's behalf", "yet God", "and a god", etc.)	7	12.1%

Virtually every occurrence renders the deity/Deity; only Dan 11:37–39 refer to a foreign/pagan "god."

Distribution by Book¶

Book	Count	Per 100 Verses
Job	41	3.8
Habakkuk	1	1.8
Daniel	3	0.8
Psalms	7	0.3
Deuteronomy	2	0.2
Nehemiah	1	0.2
2 Chronicles	1	0.1
Isaiah	1	0.1
Proverbs	1	0.1

Pattern: Eloah is concentrated overwhelmingly in Job (41 of 58 = 71%). It is otherwise scattered through poetic/archaic texts: the Song of Moses (Deut 32), Habakkuk's theophany (Hab 3), select Psalms, and a handful of wisdom/prophetic passages. The form is absent from the Torah narrative, the Former Prophets, and virtually all non-poetic material — consistent with a high-register/archaic lexical item preserved chiefly in poetry.

Semantic Categories¶

1. The Deity addressed/described in dialogue (Job)¶

Job 3:4 — "let not God (eloah) regard it from above"
Job 5:17 — "happy is the man whom God (eloah) correcteth"
Job 11:7 — "Canst thou by searching find out God (eloah)?"
Job 19:26 — "yet in my flesh shall I see God (eloah)"

The dominant usage. In Job, eloah is the standard poetic designation for the one true God, frequently paired with Shaddai ("the Almighty"; see Collocations).

2. God as Maker / Creator / Sustainer¶

Job 4:17 — "shall a man be more pure than his maker (ʻoseh, parallel to eloah)"
Job 35:10 — "Where is God (eloah) my maker, who giveth songs in the night"
Job 36:3 — context: ascribe righteousness to my Maker
Prov 30:5 — "Every word of God (eloah) is pure"

3. God as covenant object forsaken / forgotten¶

Deut 32:15 — "he forsook God (eloah) which made him"
Ps 50:22 — "ye that forget God (eloah), lest I tear you in pieces"
Ps 18:31 — "who is God (eloah) save the LORD?"

4. God in theophany / cosmic appearance¶

Hab 3:3 — "God (eloah) came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran"
Ps 114:7 — "Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord... the God (eloah) of Jacob"
Job 37:22 — "with God (eloah) is terrible majesty"

5. Foreign / pagan "god" (rare, only Daniel 11)¶

Dan 11:37 — "Neither shall he regard the God (elohe, of his fathers)... nor regard any god (eloah)"
Dan 11:38 — "he honour the God (eloah) of forces (ma'uzzim): and a god (eloah) whom his fathers knew not"
Dan 11:39 — "with a strange god (eloah), whom he shall acknowledge"

The only OT passages where eloah denotes non-Yahwistic deities — a deliberate and unusual choice, possibly archaizing.

6. Direct address ("my God" / "O God")¶

Ps 139:19 — "Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God (eloah)"
Ps 143:10 — "thou art my God (eloah): thy spirit is good"
Ps 145:1 — "I will extol thee, my God (elohay), O king"

Common Collocations¶

Word	Strong's	Co-occurrences	Typical Pattern
לֹא (lo')	H3808	13x (22%)	"no / not" — frequent in Job's rhetorical negations about God
עַל (ʻal)	H5921	11x (19%)	"upon / against / concerning" — prepositional framing
יָדַע (yadaʻ)	H3045	9x (16%)	"know" — "canst thou find out… / God knoweth"
שַׁדַּי (Shaddai)	H7706	7x (12%)	Eloah // Shaddai — the characteristic Joban poetic parallel
עָשָׂה (ʻasah)	H6213	6x (10%)	"do / make" — God as maker/doer
נָתַן (nathan)	H5414	5x (9%)	"give" — God gives/grants
אָב (ʼab)	H1	4x (7%)	"father" — only in Dan 11:37 + Job (fathers' God)
אֱלֹהִים (elohim)	H430	4x (7%)	eloah and elohim standing side by side in the same verse
אֱנוֹשׁ (ʼenosh)	H582	4x (7%)	"mortal man" — Job's "can mortal man be more just than God"
צוּר (tsur)	H6697	4x (7%)	"rock" — eloah as the Rock (Deut 32; Ps 18)
רוּחַ (ruach)	H7307	4x (7%)	"spirit/breath" — "spirit of God" / "breath of Eloah"

The Eloah–Shaddai pairing is the single most characteristic collocation and marks Joban/archaic-poetic register.

Word Family / Cognates¶

H410 אֵל (ʼel) — shortened singular form; "God, mighty one." Occurs ~238x.
H430 אֱלֹהִים (ʼelohim) — the standard plural form of H433. ~2,600x. The plural is formed by adding the masculine plural suffix -im to the eloah stem (elo(h) + im → elohim).
H426 אֱלָהּ (ʼelah) — Aramaic cognate of eloah; used ~95x in Daniel/Ezra.
H433 H430 morphology: that eloah (singular) actually exists in the Hebrew lexicon is grammatically decisive: it shows elohim is a morphologically regular plural of an attested singular noun, not a frozen pluralis-tantum or loanword.

Morphological Note — Plurality of Elohim¶

The coexistence of H410 (el, sg.), H433 (eloah, sg.), and H430 (elohim, pl.) is the key grammatical data point for the "plural of majesty" vs. "numerical plural" debate:

Numerical plural ("gods"): attested — e.g., "other gods" (elohim acherim), Dan 11:37 "any god (eloah)" in juxtaposition with plural idols.
Plural of majesty / intensive plural: when elohim refers to the one God of Israel, it regularly takes singular verbs and singular adjectives (e.g., Gen 1:1 bara' sg.), which is the standard grammatical signal that a morphological plural is being used with singular reference.
Singular forms remain available: Hebrew did not need to drift into plural-only usage. The singular eloah is not obsolete — it continues in use through Job, Psalms, Habakkuk, Daniel. Writers who wanted an unambiguously singular "God" had eloah or el at hand and used them.
Implication: the elohim-singular-verb pattern cannot be explained as a lexical accident (i.e., "Hebrew lost the singular"). The singular was preserved and actively used. The plural form's pairing with singular verbs is therefore a grammatical choice, not a lexical necessity — a standard data point in the majestic/intensive-plural analysis.

Synonyms¶

H113 אָדוֹן (ʼâdôn) — "lord, master"; overlapping reverential title for God.
H6697 צוּר (tsûr) — "rock"; poetic divine epithet that frequently stands near Eloah language.
H6918 קָדוֹשׁ (qâdôwsh) — "holy one"; exalted divine descriptor in poetic/theophanic contexts.
H7706 שַׁדַּי (Shadday) — "the Almighty"; the characteristic Joban parallel title beside Eloah.

Easily Confused Words¶

Word	Strong's	Shared Translation	Key Difference
אֵל (ʼel)	H410	"God" (134v), "a God" (14v), "my God" (9v)	Shorter singular of the same root; far more common in narrative; often in compound names (El-Shaddai, El-Elyon); lacks the poetic/Joban flavor of eloah
אֱלֹהִים (ʼelohim)	H430	"God" (699v), "of God" (301v)	Morphological plural of eloah; standard prose word for God; takes singular verbs when referring to Yahweh
אֱלָהּ (ʼelah, Aramaic)	H426	"God" (17v), "of God" (18v)	Aramaic cognate of eloah; confined to Ezra/Daniel Aramaic sections
יְהֹוָה (YHWH)	H3068	"God" (rare, 4v)	Personal covenant name; usually rendered "LORD"
יְהֹוִה (Yehovih)	H3069	"God" (290v; after Adonai)	Vocalization-variant of YHWH used after Adonai

Antonyms¶

H582 אֱנוֹשׁ (ʼĕnôwsh) — mortal man; a standard Joban contrast with Eloah's transcendence (e.g., Job 4:17).
בֶּן־אָדָם — son of man, highlighting creaturely humanity over against deity.
H1397 גֶּבֶר (geber) — strong man/warrior; human strength contrasted with God's absolute power.
H7700 שֵׁד (shêd) — demon/false spiritual power, a rival claimant rather than the true God.

UBS Semantic Domains¶

Code	Domain Label	Notes
001001001	Deities	Core field for Eloah as the singular poetic term "God/god."

LXX Mapping¶

Greek Equivalent	Strong's	Co-occ	PMI	Notes
θεός (theos)	G2316	25	1.88	Primary rendering — the standard LXX word for God
παντοκράτωρ (pantokratōr)	G3841	3	3.05	"Almighty" — reflects eloah's frequent pairing with Shaddai in Job
ἔναντι (enanti)	G1725	4	2.96	"before, in the presence of" (prepositional contexts)
σοφία (sophia)	G4678	3	3.11	"wisdom" — Joban contexts where God and wisdom are paralleled
διδάσκω (didaskō)	G1321	3	3.95	"teach" — Job 35–36 on divine instruction
πείθω (peithō)	G3982	3	3.27	"persuade, trust"
ὑψόω (hupsoō)	G5312	3	2.93	"exalt"
ἀφικνέομαι (aphikneomai)	G864	3	7.20	"arrive, reach" — high-PMI but low-volume

Theos is the overwhelmingly dominant LXX equivalent, confirming that eloah was understood as a straightforward designation for "God" rather than a technical or unique term.

Key Verses¶

Deut 32:15 — first occurrence; "he forsook God (eloah) which made him"
Job 11:7 — "Canst thou by searching find out God (eloah)?"
Job 19:26 — "in my flesh shall I see God (eloah)"
Ps 18:31 — "who is God (eloah) save the LORD?"
Prov 30:5 — "Every word of God (eloah) is pure"
Isa 44:8 — "is there a God (eloah) beside me? yea, there is no God (tsur)"
Hab 3:3 — "God (eloah) came from Teman, and the Holy One from mount Paran"
Dan 11:37–39 — pagan/strange "god" usage, the only such cluster