Eliyahu writes:
And "eyn od" means "nothing more", what would be together with the "melewado", meaning "besides him" in decent English: Nothing else besides Him
right, except that it's not saying אין מלבד יהוה אלהים "there is nothing besides yahweh god", it says, יהוה הוא האלהים "yahweh, he is the the god" with אין עוד
clearly referring back to האלהים. that is, "yahweh is god; there are no other gods".
in fact, you could probably even quibble about the meaning of מלבדו in the social and historical context: are there other gods, but none are "beside" yahweh in rank? are there other gods, but none should be "beside" yahweh in the eyes of israel? or does the text mean that there is only one god?
because when you skip ahead a bit and look at the septuagint (because the masoretic makes no sense for this verse) of deuteronomy 32:8-9, it says,
quote:
ὅτε διεμέριζεν ὁ ὕψιστος ἔθνη ὡς διέσπειρεν υἱοὺς Αδαμ ἔστησεν ὅρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων θεοῦ. καὶ ἐγενήθη μερὶς κυρίου λαὸς αὐτοῦ Ιακωβ σχοίνισμα κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ Ισραηλ
and that seems to imply that κυρίου ("the lord" or יהוה) is only one of the sons of the most high god (עליון), and that israel/jacob was his division.
so i might argue that the author of detueronomy didn't even think that yahweh was the only god.
Edited by arachnophilia, : no smileys dammit
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