§ 44 . In comparison with the discussion which the instrumental has elicited, very little has been written on the problem of number in the Gāthās. The difficulty here lies in the fact that the inflected words which agree with the word indicating Ahura are sometimes singular, sometimes plural. The use of the singular, per se, is in no way peculiar, but is in accord with the ordinary principles of agreement found in all the Indo-European dialects. It is in the use of the plural that the crux of the problem lies 1 . Haug 2 thought that Zarathushtra used the plural in speaking of the deity, the better to be understood by a people accustomed to polytheism. He said also 3 : ‘Spitama Zarathushtra's conception of Ahuramazda as the Supreme Being is perfectly identical with the notion of Elohim (God) or Jehovah, which we find in the books of the Old Testament’. Tiele 4 , also, saw a similarity between the Jewish use of Elohim and the Avestan plurals agreeing with, or referring to, Ahura. Now Elohim 5 has been variously explained as a plural of majesty, or of rank, or of abstraction, or of magnitude. Its etymology is uncertain, but it seems to have been an original plural form for which no singular counterpart at first existed. It was probably a generic term for deity which could become the proper name only ofthat God who combined in him all the attributes of deity,
A Sun, study studied this question.