The word Elohim is a general term, employed, it may be presumed, originally, with reference only to the Supreme Being, but subsequently appropriated to imaginary deities. In the Hebrew Scriptures it occurs in several forms, as El, Elohe, Eloah, Elohim, referring sometimes to the Divine Being absolutely, sometimes definitely to the Father, sometimes to the Holy Spirit, but commonly to the Son; as is the case with corresponding and equivalent designations in the New Testament. The radical idea of this word, in its simplest form, is, according to some Hebrew lexicographers, that of interposer, intervener, mediator; derived from the intervention of air and light between all bodies in space, and indicating the universal agency of the Divine Person, primarily designated as interposer or mediator. And undoubtedly the scope of numerous passages implies this special reference, though not always apparent, without reference to other scriptures; as in Psalm xlv. 6: "Thy throne, Elohim, is for ever and ever;" and cii. 24: "I said, El, [with the suffix for my, and rendered O my God,] take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish," &c. These passages are quoted, Heb. i., as having referred expressly to Christ. Hengstenberg, in his Christology, p. 160, vol I., introduces his investigation respecting the character of the Angel or Messenger, in which he designs to show that the alleged essential oneness of the Messiah with the Jehovah does not contradict the Old Testament doctrine of the unity, by observing, "that the New Testament makes us acquainted with God, the Father of Jesus Christ, as a Spirit, who, being every where equally present, never manifests himself in a sensible form. But besides this concealed God, it makes known to us also a revealed God, associated with him by the oneness of their nature; the Son or Logos, who has constantly filled up the infinite distance between the Creator and the creation, and been the Mediator in all the relations of God to the world and the human race; who, even before he became man in the person of Christ, was in all ages the light of the world, and to whom especially the whole direction of the visible Theocracy belonged. Although this doctrine was first unfolded with perfect clearness in the New Testament, yet we find an essential distinction between the unrevealed and the revealed God, even in the writings of the Old Testament."