It is another indication of this main purpose of these histories that the plural form of the Name of God--_Elohîm_--does not once occur in chaps. ii.-vi. It is used in i. 2, 9, 17; but not again till the ninth chapter, where it occurs twelve times; once in the tenth (x. 12); and twice of God in the eleventh chapter (xi. 32, 37). In the prophetic section (vii. 18, 22, 25, 27) we have "Most High" in the plural (_'elionîn_);[139] but with reference only to the One God (see vii. 25). But in all cases where the heathen are addressed this plural becomes the singular (_ehlleh_, אֵלֶּה), as throughout the first six chapters. This avoidance of so common a word as the plural _Elohîm_ for God, because the plural form might conceivably have been misunderstood by the heathen, shows the elaborate construction of the Book.[140] God is called _Eloah_ Shamaîn, "God of heaven," in the second and third chapters; but in later chapters we have the common post-exilic phrase in the plural.[141]
In the fourth and fifth chapters we have God's Holiness first brought before us, chiefly on its avenging side; and it is not till we have witnessed the proof of His Unity, Wisdom, Omnipotence, and Justice, which it is the mission of Israel to make manifest among the heathen, that all is summed up in the edict of Darius to all people, nations, and languages.
The omission of any express recognition of God's tender compassion is due to the structure of these chapters; for it would hardly be possible for heathen potentates to recognise that attribute in the immediate presence of His judgments. It is somewhat remarkable that the name "Jehovah" is avoided.[142] As the Jews purposely pronounced it with wrong vowels, and the LXX. render it by κύριος, the Samaritan by שימה, and the Rabbis by "the Name," so we find in the Book of Daniel a similar avoidance of the awful Tetragrammaton.