And said ’ĕ·lō·hîm: “Let there be ’ō·wr”. (Genesis 1:3)
The word ELOHIM (אֱלֹהִ֖ים) comes from the Plural of ELOAH (אֱלוֹהַּ).
The word ELOAH (אֱלוֹהַּ) comes from the singular word EL (אֵל):
I would venture that EL (אֵל) (pronounced like “ale”) probably came from Sumerian AL (𒀠) / MAH₂ (𒀠) “hoe; pickaxe” / “(to be) great” and thus came the meaning of “God, god, God's, gods, mighty, Mighty One, power, strong.” A god is all these things, and through this reverence, AL as ILU (𒀭) came to be linked with AN (𒀭) via Akkadian ILU (𒀭) / Assyrian allallu / allallû after the advent of astronomy / astrology.
The development and refinement of Paleolithic stone tools through the Neolithic separated Homo sapiens from lesser hominids. The gap in capability--of the capacity to work, i.e. power--between tool-using hominids from that of savages was godlike. This prerequisite technology preceded astronomy and mathematics, which likely expanded the association of AL as ILU.
The word for “dawn” I suspect may be a metaphor for the development of the first human cities as hubs of learning. In the wake of the darkness of primitive ignorance, cities would represent the light of human reason and centers for the cultivation of knowledge.
AOR (א֑וֹר): “dawn; daylight” A (א) O (ו) R (ר)
Compare with UR (𒌶𒆠, 𒋀𒀕𒆠, or 𒋀𒀊𒆠 / Urim; Akkadian: 𒋀𒀕𒆠 Uru; Arabic: أُوْر, romanized: ʾūr; and Hebrew: אוּר, romanized: ʾūr, which possesses identical written form.
AOR (א֑וֹר): “dawn; daylight” ʾŪR (אוּר): “Ur (of the Chaldeans)”
AOR (א֑וֹר) = ʾŪR (אוּר)
Genesis is not talking about a cosmic creation of the physical manifestation of light in the electromagnetic spectrum. It speaks of the evolution of humanity through urbanization—enlightenment. As such, the Elohim are none other than our early human ancestors who developed high civilizations. 300,000+ years of being biologically / anatomically modern Homo sapiens and then suddenly 4,000-8,000 years ago mathematics, architecture, accounting, astronomy, agriculture? Something sounds fishy there.
Furthermore, I venture that AOR (א֑וֹר): “dawn; daylight” and ʾŪR (אוּר): “Ur (of the Chaldeans)” are the selfsame “dawn” spoken of in Polynesian mythology as AO “light” and the ”head of a chief”, which is also referred to as URU / ULU, another form of “city” word written with ERI (𒌷) / IRI (𒌷) / URU (𒌷). Cities represented capitals of a culture. And the chiefs (ALI’I) ruled as the heads (URU) of a city (URU), and their heads stood as symbols of state through synecdoche.
So, when the creator Tagaloa-a-Lagi in “‘O Le Solo o Le Vā o Le Foafoaga o Le Lalolagi”, “The Chant about the Divisions of Time and Space of the Quarried Rocks (Creation) of the Underheaven (Earth)”, calls out to Heaven for some pebbles (“Tagi i Lagi sina ‘ili’ili”) perhaps he was really calling upon Lagi for the foundation stones of a Marae to establish a sacred space upon each island, the hub of civic activities, not literally stones to deposit in the sea and thereby raise up islands. Rather the islands were already there, but the stones would establish a ritually cleared area for religious purposes just as the Tahitian definition of “marae” reveals. The Hawaiian definition of ”’ili’ili” as “to pile; to overlap” and the “ho’o-‘ili’ili” form “to collect; collection” describes the basic logistical process of quarrying materials for the construction of a malae (hō-‘ili / “to collect”) as well as the basic technique of piling rocks upon a surface (‘ili / “surface, area, skin, rind, bark”).
Perhaps then in this sense Polynesian ‘ILI and ‘IRI align with the cuneiform IRI (𒌷) as “city; town” and more broadly “settlement”. Furthermore, new settlements occur organically as the original breaks apart or divides, and so we discover the underlying notion of 'ILI as one meaning "division". This is evident in the Samoan word 'ILILUA, or "to divide in two". LUA means "two", which reveals that the sense of "division" resides in the word 'ILI. In the act of creating Sāmoa, then, Tagaloa-a-Lagi, the high god of the ancient Samoan people was calling down from "heaven" for divisions of people as well as fragments of rock for raising up the various marae of each island colony.
One last note: UR the ancient city-state of the Chaldeans, was according to the Sumerians’ own legendary accounts said to have existed before the worldwide flood. It therefore also belongs to the dawn of time and human memory as preserved in baked, clay tablets which have survived the travail of millenniums.
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