who is God talking to here?

[© tweed]

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

[12th Doctor]

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

Jesus.

[12th Doctor]

John 1

1
    1 2 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2
    He was in the beginning with God.
3
    3 All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be
4
    through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race;
5
    4 the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

[Rob]

God has multiple-personality disorder. He thinks he's three entities at the same time!

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

the only verse like this I have found is Isa 6:1-8:

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So, who is the "us" God is referring to in Isa 6:8?  Isaiah only saw God and the angels surrounding him, so I would have to assume God is talking to his surrounding angels.
 

[True Democrat]

I think what he's trying to get at is that there was no "royal We" in ancient Hebrew.

[Yamor]

Interestingly, what Jmfcst says is how Rashi explains the verse here, bringing the Talmud which says that from this verse we see the humility of God, that he consulted the angels, even though He, of course, knows best. Rashi adds, that God specifically did it here to pacify the angels who could get 'jealous' of humans. Rashi goes on to say that the next verse specifically is written in singular form to show that God, and only God actually created man (to counteract the possibility for heretics to say there's more then one God).
The Rashbam (a grandson of Rashi) actually brings the verse jmfcst brought from Isaiah, as well as a couple of other examples.

There is another explanation said by other early Jewish commentators, that the 'us' is referring to to God together with the earth. That is, if you look at the earlier verses about fish and animals, the Bible uses phrases like 'the water/land should bring forth'. Here, by man, God is saying that man too comes from earth (i.e. man is made from basic mundane elements found on earth), but man has an extra component put inside him by God, his soul, and spirituality. Therefore the verse says let 'us' (i.e. God and the land) create man.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Interestingly, what Jmfcst says is how Rashi explains the verse here, bringing the Talmud which says that from this verse we see the humility of God, that he consulted the angels, even though He, of course, knows best. Rashi adds, that God specifically did it here to pacify the angels who could get 'jealous' of humans. Rashi goes on to say that the next verse specifically is written in singular form to show that God, and only God actually created man (to counteract the possibility for heretics to say there's more then one God).
The Rashbam (a grandson of Rashi) actually brings the verse jmfcst brought from Isaiah, as well as a couple of other examples.

Please list the other examples.  Isa 6:1-8 is the only passage that has caught my attention while reading the bible, but I am sure there are more that I over looked.

[Yamor]

Sorry, I just looked at the Rashbam again, and I see the only verse clearly parallel to here in Genesis is the one in Isa. The other two verses he brings are just examples of where we see others interact with God in a way not accepted as being possible (at least in Judaism). One is Kings I, 22:19 where we see God surrounded on His left and right, which doesn't make sense according to the Jewish understanding of God. The second one is Job 1:6 where we again see interaction with God that isn't possible.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Sorry, I just looked at the Rashbam again, and I see the only verse clearly parallel to here in Genesis is the one in Isa. The other two verses he brings are just examples of where we see others interact with God in a way not accepted as being possible (at least in Judaism). One is Kings I, 22:19 where we see God surrounded on His left and right, which doesn't make sense according to the Jewish understanding of God. The second one is Job 1:6 where we again see interaction with God that isn't possible.

why is the following interaction with God not possible under the Jewish understanding?

Job 1:6 "One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them."

1Kings 22:19  Micaiah continued, "Therefore hear the word of the LORD : I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left."

[Yamor]

The left and right in kings isn't possible because God isn't somewhere that he can be surrounded on His left and right.
The verse in Job, in it's context, and by the Hebrew wording used, is understood by most Jewish commentators as referring to them coming to argue with God.

[anvi]

One thing that might help answer this is to look at the next two verses after Genesis 1:26 while keeping something about the grammatical form of the the Hebrew word for God, elohim, in mind.  I think all these things indicate that, in this case, we are talking about a Hebrew Royal We.

"And God said: Let us make man in our image after our likeness...
So God created a man in his own image, in the image of God he created him."
from Gen 1:26-7 ff.

The generic Hebrew word used for God here is elohim, which is composed of the stem "el" and the singular "eloah" and a plural ending "im".  In a technical sense then, elohim is a noun in a plural form, and in some places in the Hebrew Bible it is used to refer to the false "gods" of non-Jews (for example, in Exodus 20:3 "you shall have no other gods (elohim) before me," Psalms 96:4-5 "he is to be feared beyond all gods (elohim), nothingness, all the gods (elohim) of the nation," Pslams 97:7 "Shame on them who...worship images, take pride in their idols, bow down as he passes, all you gods (elohim)" ).  But, when it is used in the Hebrew Bible to refer to the one true God, even though it is a grammatical plural noun, it takes singluar verbs, note the singular verb in the beginning of Genesis 1:26 above, "And God said (elohim amer).  Notice also that after God says in Gen 1:26, "let us make man in our image..." the next several verses, starting with 1:27 attribute the creation of man to God and no one else, as in "So God created man..."  These verses following 1:26 show that, despite the fact that God says in 1:26 "Let us...in our image," human beings were made by God and God alone, it was not a collaborative effort.  This usage follows the very first words of the Bible in Hebrew, bresh**t bara elohim "In the beginiing, created (bara as a singular verb, not the plural bar'u) God (elohim)...".  Now, grammatical plural nouns are often used in the Bible to express a superlative quality or an essence of the noun, as in the title of the book "Song of Songs" (shir ha-shirim) which does not mean "a song about other songs" but "the greatest song," the "song like no other song,"  I think that, grammatically at least, elohim, when it refers to the one true God in the Hebrew Bible, can be translated as "the Divinity" or "the Godhead," but not understood in a polytheistic or a trinitarian sense (ancient Jewish authors would not have conceived of God as a trinity) , but in a sense of consumate divinity or divine essence  All this, at least in terms of the Hebrew grammar of the verse, leads me to believe that the plural words "us" and "our" in 1:26 are used in what is called the voluntative mood, which is often used in both Hebrew and English expressions when a person talks to themself, saying "let's play some football" or "let's take a vacation" or when a person living alone, claiming ownership of his home says to himself "this is our house!"  This is the Hebrew version of the Royal We usage.  In Genisis 1:26, I think that God is talking to himself.

[Yamor]

You are mixing together two completely different points: 1) referencing God (or other nouns) in the plural, and 2) God (or anyone for that matter) speaking in the plural. These two things have nothing to do with each other.
Nowhere in the OT except for here and the example jmfcst brought do we find this second type, which leads me to completely disagree with you. I have studied in Hebrew all my life, and have never come across a royal we in any Jewish text. Even if you would be correct, why out of the whole OT is this the one place where this grammatical form is used? Nope.

[anvi]

Yamor, I brought up these two issues because in Gen 1:26, it looks like God is addressing someone else when he says "let us make man in our image," but the next several verses claim that God did the creating by himself, and no one else is said by the text to be present in the scene, no angels are in the text during the creation narrative of the first six days and they make no appearance in this creation story, which, it looks to me, runs from 1:1 to 2:4.  So, one thing to look at, I thought, was the term elohim, which is a grammatical plural noun, and since the grammatical plural elohim is used as a plural in other passages in the Bible, I wanted to rule out any reading that would suggest that "gods" or "divine beings" were conducting the creation in a cooperative effort or as a result of conferring with one another, or that any different personages within God (as in for instance, Trinitarian theology) were speaking with one another.  So, with no angels mentioned in the narrative, and with no pluralistic conception of the divine being suggested by the term elohim, I was trying to eliminate possibilities.  If there is no one else present then, it seemed to me that God was speaking to himself. 

But after writing the post earlier, I looked at James Martin's "Davidson's Introductory Hebrew Grammar" and found that the mood of the words "us" and our" is not really voluntative but cohortative, and so it does suggest that God is giving a sort of imperative command to those present with him.  So, the verse does suggest that God is talking to someone else, but the text itself doesn't tell us whom he is talking to.

Sorry, my mistake.     

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

1Kings 22:19  Micaiah continued, "Therefore hear the word of the LORD : I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left."

The left and right in kings isn't possible because God isn't somewhere that he can be surrounded on His left and right.

I completely agree!  God is an infinite spirit and is omnipresent, filling the entire universe, so he can NOT be surrounded; while created beings (e.g. angels) are finite in space and time (even if it’s in the spiritual realm and not the physical realm).

BUT…since finite beings (e.g. angels, man) can NOT comprehend an infinite being, God does make his presence discernable within a limited space:

Exo 29:11 “Slaughter it in the LORD's presence at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.”

Now, from my own experience, sometimes this presence is manifest within, sometimes it fills a room, and sometimes it is manifest within a distinct location within a room (not that you have to be in that exact location of the room to discern his spirit, rather that you simply discern that the God is in that location of the room.)

So, the language of 1Kings 22:19 doesn’t have to mean angels surrounded all of God’s existence, rather it simply means they surrounded the manifestation he provided of himself.

---

Job 1:6 "One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them."

The verse in Job, in it's context, and by the Hebrew wording used, is understood by most Jewish commentators as referring to them coming to argue with God.

Not sure I understand why it would be impossible to argue with God.  Certainly unwise, but not impossible.

Other than pointing out that Job is referenced elsewhere within the Old Testament (Eze 14:14 and 14:20), I don’t have much to add, other than to point out that if a verse doesn’t fit a sect’s doctrine, then maybe the doctrine is incomplete.

[Yamor]

There's no way that verse doesn't fit into Jewish understanding. Let me just clarify that I'm quoting an early Jewish commentator, who when explaining the verse in Genesis brings the verse you brought from Isaiah as a similar example, and goes on to bring the two other verses I've mentioned. It could be I'm completely wrong as to why he says those two other verses have anything to do with this verse in Genesis.

[7,052,770]

I believe it has to do with the way Elohim in the plural in Hebrew.

[JSojourner]

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit were all present and active in creation (whether it was via the evolutionary process or something else is uknown to me for certain, though I lean toward evolution.)

I am sure Jmfcst knows or can cite the exact passage.  But the New Testament is unequivocal (as was the Council of Nicea) that Jesus was both present and active in the creation of the world/universe. Through Him...all things came to be....

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit were all present and active in creation (whether it was via the evolutionary process or something else is uknown to me for certain, though I lean toward evolution.)

I am sure Jmfcst knows or can cite the exact passage.  But the New Testament is unequivocal (as was the Council of Nicea) that Jesus was both present and active in the creation of the world/universe. Through Him...all things came to be....

Well, you've put me in a bind because I do not believe God is a tag-team of three entities.  I believe God is a single entity and is an omnipresent spirit filling the whole universe.  The Holy Spirit is the manifestation, for the purpose of discernability to his finite creation, of his spiritual presence.  And Jesus was the manifestation of that very same spirit wrapped inside human flesh....so that "in the body of Jesus Christ dwelt the entire Godhead" (Col 2:9).

As Yamor correctly stated:  there is no right hand or left hand of God, for God is an invisible spirit without flesh who fills the whole universe. 

Isa 6:8 is NOT to be interpreted that he literally saw God.  "No one has seen God, but God the One and Only" (John 1:18).  God is invisible and fills the whole universe, he can not be visibly seen.  Rather Isaiah simply saw a manifestation of God, given by God to Isaiah for Isaiah's edification.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I've always thought it was G-d talking to the angels.  That's the way I read the verse, at least.

[Lief 🗽]

He's talking to other, lesser gods/deities/angelic beings/whatever you want to call them. Genesis is based in large part on the Enuma Elis and other Mesopotamian and Near East creation myths, which also had a central God, but many lesser deities as well.