Why does God speak in the plural in Genesis 1:26 and 3:22?
God speaks about Himself here in the first person plural — "let us," "our image," "one of us" — while everywhere else Scripture insists there is one God. Commentators read these words as the earliest hint of what the New Testament states openly: that the one God exists in more than one Person.
The Plural Name Behind the Plural Pronoun
The strangeness starts before verse 26. The Hebrew word for God in Genesis 1 is itself plural, yet it takes a singular verb — a detail that troubled the copyists who preserved the text.
A. J. PollockA Hebrew scribe used to wipe his pen every time he wrote the most blessed and most awesome word we know — GOD. How puzzled he must have been to find the word in the plural — not the singular, which means one, nor the dual, which means two, but the plural, which in Hebrew means three or more. And this followed by the verb "said" in the singular! A plural noun governing a singular verb... yet such was the scribe's reverence for the Scriptures that he would not alter a jot, the smallest letter in Hebrew, or a tittle, its smallest mark. And here was an apparent grammatical error repeated nine times in the opening verses of Genesis.
The singular verb is not a leftover. It carries its own weight.
Samuel RidoutWhile the noun "Elohim" is plural, the verb is singular. The action is one. The divine work accomplished by the word of the Creator stands alone, and yet it is carried out by the Persons who make up that divine unity. So in the simplest way God makes known to us two related truths: that He is One — a unity into which the highest created intelligence cannot intrude, a gulf of infinity between the Creator and His whole universe; and yet that within that unspeakable infinity there is a holy companionship... where divine Persons find their joy and delight in One Another.
Is It Simply a Royal "We"?
Commentators differ on how much weight the plural name can bear. Some treat it as a form of speech: one reference work calls Elohim "the plural of majesty or excellency," and Edward Dennett notes that the reason for the plural "is variously explained," with some holding it to be a plural of excellence and others holding that it sets forth the Trinity. Others find that explanation too small for God.
Samuel RidoutIt is called "the plural of majesty and pre-eminence," much as a king would speak of himself as "we." But such a use seems unworthy of Him who is above all need of exalting Himself, who could not multiply His greatness, for it is infinite already. His majesty needs no such device to display it. There must be something more than this. A plurality of Persons is suggested here.
Man Made After a Consultation
Nothing else in the six days is introduced this way. The plural marks man out as the subject of deliberation before he exists.
F. B. HoleVerse 26 shows us that from the very start man was the subject of divine consultation, or counsel. That God should say "Let US" is worth noting... In the Old Testament the three Persons in the Godhead are not revealed, but now that They are revealed we can see that the language of our chapter, inspired by God, agrees with it perfectly. All that man would turn out to be was present to the divine mind, and he was brought into existence only after this consultation within the Godhead Himself. In verse 26 it is "Our image"; in verse 27 it is "His image." There is no inconsistency, for it is the eternal "Three in One" who speaks.
The plural is not a committee of unequal voices. It answers a question the singular could not.
Samuel RidoutWith whom could He take counsel as an equal, except with the One who — with the eternal Spirit — was always with Him and His delight, and who, blessed be His name, had His delights with the sons of men?
"One of Us" After the Fall
Genesis 3:22 repeats the pattern at the opposite end of the story — no longer in blessing, but in judgment.
L. M. GrantVerse 22 gives further witness to the truth of the Trinity, the Lord God speaking of Himself as "Us." Since, as He says, the man had become "like one of Us" in knowing good and evil, He was concerned that the man might eat of the tree of life and live forever in the condition he had chosen for himself. For now he knew good and evil (and only in this way was he like God), yet, unlike God, he was inclined to choose the evil rather than the good. How tragic to live forever in such a state!
William Kelly warns against re-reading the verse to make "one of us" point back to Genesis 1:26 rather than forward from the serpent's promise. He argues that "one of us" plainly answers the serpent's words in verse 5 — in the older translation, "you will be as gods" — and that any other rendering "separates the knowledge of good and evil from being as Elohim, with which it is inseparably joined in verses 5 and 22." (source) Darby notes a further shade: in 1:26 there is consultation, "not of doubt, but together," while in 3:22 the words are a statement of fact made "in community of thought with others called 'us'." (source)
A Hint, Not Yet a Full Revelation
These verses do not teach the doctrine; they leave a door open that the New Testament walks through.
J. Wilson SmithIn the very first chapter of Genesis we have a hint of the plurality of the Persons in the Godhead... The statement is significant, even though we are given nothing beyond the fact of plurality. But here and there in the Old Testament — which teaches the unity of the Godhead rather than its trinity — we find those three divine Persons who are explicitly, deliberately and fully revealed to us in the New Testament.
Summary
- Name. The word for God in Genesis 1 is plural, but its verb is singular — plurality and unity held together in a single line.
- Counsel. "Let us" marks man alone as made after deliberation within God, so verse 26 can say "our image" and verse 27 "His image" without contradiction.
- Companionship. Several writers reject the "royal we" reading: God has no need to inflate His majesty, so the plural points instead to Persons who delight in One Another.
- Consistency. Genesis 3:22 uses the same "us" in judgment — man has gained the knowledge of good and evil, but with a bent toward evil, so he is shut out from the tree of life.
- Culmination. The Old Testament gives the fact of plurality; the New Testament names the Persons.