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Explainer / Tanakh

Genesis 1:26

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ

Hebrew
What we did

We kept the ASV's wording, in modern English: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness."

Why

  1. The plurals are in the Hebrew

    נַעֲשֶׂה is a first person plural verb, "let us make." בְּצַלְמֵנוּ and כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ carry the plural suffix "our": "in our image," "after our likeness." The English keeps them plural.

  2. The same kind of speech elsewhere

    God speaks with "us" also in Gen 3:22 ("the man has become like one of us") and Isa 6:8 ("who will go for us?").

  3. The next verse

    uses the singular: וַיִּבְרָא, "and he created," and "in his own image" (1:27).

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    The English keeps that singular as well.

  4. "God," not "gods."

    אֱלֹהִים is plural in form, but it takes singular verbs when it names the God of Israel (1:1, בָּרָא, singular; 1:26, וַיֹּאמֶר, singular).

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    The same plural form is used of one person or one god (Moses in Exod 7:1; Chemosh in 1 Kgs 11:33), so it is rendered "God."

Read Genesis 1:26 in context