Od

Smith's Bible Dictionary

God. (good). Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, two chief names are used for the one true divine Being - Elohim , commonly translated God in our version, and Jehovah , translated Lord . Elohim is the plural of Eloah , (in Arabic, Allah ); it is often used in the short form, El , (a word signifying strength , as in El-Shaddai , God Almighty , the name by which God was specially known to the patriarchs.  Genesis 17:1;  Genesis 28:3;  Exodus 6:3.

The etymology is uncertain, but it is generally agreed that the primary idea is that of strength , power of effect , and that it properly describes God in that character in which he is exhibited to all men in his works, as the creator, sustainer and supreme governor of the world.

The plural form of Elohim has given rise to much discussion. The fanciful idea that it referred to the trinity of persons in the Godhead hardly finds now a supporter among scholars. It is either what grammarians call the plural of majesty , or it denotes the fullness of divine strength, the sum of the powers displayed by God.

Jehovah denotes specifically the one true God , whose people the Jews were, and who made them the guardians of his truth. The name is never applied to a false god, nor to any other being except one, the Angel-Jehovah who is, thereby, marked as one with God, and who appears again, in the New Covenant, as "God manifested in the flesh."

Thus much is clear; but all else is beset with difficulties. At a time too early to be traced, the Jews abstained from pronouncing the name, for fear of its irreverent use. The custom is said to have been founded on a strained interpretation of  Leviticus 24:16, and the phrase there used, "The Name" , (Shema ), is substituted by the rabbis for the unutterable word. In reading the Scriptures, they substituted for it the word Adonai , (Lord ), from the translation of which by Kurios , in the Septuagint (Lxx) followed by the Vulgate, which uses Dominus , we have the Lord of our version. The substitution of the word Lord is most unhappy, for it in no way represents the meaning of the sacred name.

The key to the meaning of the name is unquestionably given in God's revelation of himself to Moses by the phrase '''"I Am that I Am"''' ,  Exodus 3:14;  Exodus 6:3. We must connect the name Jehovah with the Hebrew substantive verb to be , with the inference that it expresses the essential, eternal, unchangeable being of Jehovah . But more, it is not the expression only, or chiefly, of an absolute truth: it is a practical revelation of God, in his essential, unchangeable relation to this chosen people, the basis of his covenant .

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( a. & n.) Good.

(2): ( n.) A being conceived of as possessing supernatural power, and to be propitiated by sacrifice, worship, etc.; a divinity; a deity; an object of worship; an idol.

(3): ( n.) The Supreme Being; the eternal and infinite Spirit, the Creator, and the Sovereign of the universe; Jehovah.

(4): ( n.) Figuratively applied to one who wields great or despotic power.

(5): ( v. t.) To treat as a god; to idolize.

(6): ( n.) A person or thing deified and honored as the chief good; an object of supreme regard.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

(from the same root as Odin and supposed to mean all-pervading), the name given by baron Reichenbach to a peculiar physical force which he thought he had discovered. This force, according to him, pervades all nature, and manifests itself as a flickering flame or luminous appearance at the poles of magnets, at the poles of crystals, and wherever chemical action is going on. This would account for the luminous figures said to be sometimes seen over recent graves. The od force has positive and negative poles, like magnetism. The human body is od-positive on the left side, and od-negative on the right. Certain persons, called "sensitives," can see the odic radiation like a luminous vapor in the dark, and can feel it by the touch like a breath. As the meeting of like odic poles causes a disagreeable sensation, while the pairing of unlike poles causes a pleasant sensation, we have thus a sufficient cause for those likings and antipathies hitherto held' unaccountable. Some sensitive persons cannot sleep on ‘ their left side (in the northern hemisphere), because the north pole of the earth, which is od- negative, affects unpleasantly the od-negative left side. All motion generates od; why, then, may not a stream running underground affect a sensitive waterfinder, so that the divining-rod in his or her hand shall move without, it may be, any conscious effort of will? All the phenomena of mesmerism are ascribed to the workings of this od-force. Reichenbach does not pretend to have had the evidence of his own senses for any of those manifestations of his assumed od-force; the whole theory rests on the revelations made to him by "sensitives." It may be added that few if any really scientific men have any belief in the existence of such a force. Those curious in such matters are referred for the details of the subject to Reichenbach's large work, translated into English by Dr. Ashburner, under the title of The Dynamics of Magnetism, or to a briefer account in his Odisch — Magnetische Briefe (Stutt. 1852). See also Lond. Qu. Rev. Oct. 1871, p. 162. (See Odylism).

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

Name given to a physical force recently surmised and believed to pervade all nature, and as manifesting itself chiefly in connection with mesmeric phenomena.