Plural Hebrew words with a Singular Meaning

Here are some words that are plural in form, but can be singular (at times in meaning). This is obviously not an exhaustive list:

• Heaven (shah’mah’yim)
• Life (chaim)
• Water (mayim)
• Face (panim)
• Holy One (kedoshim)
• Teacher (morim)
• Maker (osim)
• Husband (baalim)
• Most High (elyonin, Aramaic).

The word Behemoth is the feminine plural of behemah, the common word for cattle or wild animals. 

The great multi-headed sea serpent Leviathan is also known as Tanninim or Tannim (plurals; Gen 1:21; Isa 51:9; Ezek 32:2; Ps 74:13; Job 7:12).

Physical things like "water" or "sky/heaven" or a human "face" are said to be plural in Hebrew because they have several dimensions to them, because they are not inherently static and always moving; their expressions are constantly shifting or altering; changing facets. There are different kinds of waters (mayim) and sky (shamayim).  And your face (panim) can convey numerous moods, intensities or frames of mind. Life (lives) is also a plural (chayim).

Some nouns which denote actions, when viewed as a series of activities, are also spoken of in plural terms. For example, the words "deliverance/salvation" (yeshuah), "parental love" (racham), or "steadfast love" (hesed) at times appear as yeshuot (feminine plural), rachamim, and hasadim. These are attributes of the boundless works of God that are done on behalf of his people.

God is One Person, the Father.

The One God, the Father, One Man Messiah Translation 

by Anthony F. Buzzard

“The Lord our God is one Lord” (as read from the NT Greek, citing the LXX, Greek version of the OT). This is a unitary monotheistic and certainly not a Trinitarian creed. “One” is a quantifier, a simple, mathematical numeral, and God is defined here, as innumerable times in the Hebrew Bible and the NT, as one single divine Lord, one Person, one divine Self, one Yahweh. He is so described by thousands of singular personal pronouns, which as we all know designate a single person. Malachi 2:10 encapsulates with delightful simplicity the totality of the Bible’s view of God as one Person: “Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God created us?”

Mark 12.32: The man replied, “Exactly right, Teacher. It is true as you said that God is one Person,[1] and there is no other but He.[2]

Romans 3.30: There is only one God, who is only One Person,[3]

James 2.19: You believe that God is one Person;[4] you are doing well. Even the demons believe that, and they shudder.

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[1]A plain statement that Jesus was a unitarian and not a Trinitarian! 

[2]Neither Jesus nor the scribe could possibly have imagined God as a Trinity of three Persons. The concept of a triune God contradicts Jesus at the most fundamental level and disobeys him, substituting a definition of God which Jesus would never approve. 1300 occurrences of the word GOD to mean the Father in the NT simply confirm the easy concept that GOD is a single Person, the Father (cp. Mal. 2:10; 1 Cor. 8:4-6 where the one God of monotheism is the Father and Jesus is the one lord Messiah based on Ps. 110:1, where the second lord (adoni) is never in all 195 occurrences a title of Deity).

[3]God is one, eis in Greek. In the masculine gender this is the equivalent in English of “one person.” Dr. James Dunn’s remark is highly revealing: “‘God is one’ is certainly intended as an evocation of the basic creed of Jewish monotheism, ‘The Lord our God is one Lord’ (Deut. 6:4). Paul takes it up again in 1 Cor. 8:6; cp. Mark 12:29 = Deut. 6:4; James 2:19, ‘God is one.’” Dunn apparently sees no difficulty with the fact that this admitted Jewish monotheism is not that of the Church. How is it that the Church has abandoned the Jewish unitary non-Trinitarian monotheism of Israel and of Jesus?

[4]James speaks for the whole of NT Christianity, including Jesus in Mark 12:29. The NT church did not believe in the Trinity but in the one-Person GOD, the Father, so named as God 1300 times in the NT. The Father is named as God about every 6^th verse in the NT. This is massive evidence for unitary monotheism. Jesus affirmed the unitary monotheistic Shema (Hear, O Israel) of Mark 12, which was the oath of allegiance for all Jews including Jesus, whose faith and belief is our model. Our definition of God must be the definition of God which Jesus taught.