Echad One and Not Two

“Echad” (Hebrew: “one”) is a numerical adjective which appears 650 times in the Old Testament, and at no time does this word itself carry the idea of plurality. While it is true that “echad” is sometimes found modifying a collective noun — one family, one herd, one bunch, etc. — the sense of plurality actually resides in the compound noun, and not in the word “echad”! Echad appears in translation as the numeral “one”, and also as “only”, “alone”, “undivided”, and “single.” Its normal meaning is “one and not two”, as we find in Ecclesiastes 4:8. Abraham was “only one man” (“echad”) in the NIV’s rendition of Ezekiel 33:24, and he was “alone” (“echad”) in the KJV translation of Isaiah 51:2.

Koehler and Baumgartner’s Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (1967) clearly states that the fundamental definition of “echad” is “one single.”

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Author: George Booker

Keywords: echad, god is one, monotheism, trinity, Tri-unity, Oneness, LORD is one, One God, trinitarian, three persons one god, three persons, doctrine trinity, compound unity, plural pronoun, royal we, Shema

Bible reference(s): Genesis 3:22, Deuteronomy 6:4, Zechariah 14:9, Mark 12:29, Ephesians 4:5

Source: “The Shema,” The Agora.

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