To a few commentators, “us” and “our” in 1:26
do not refer to the divine assembly. Umberto Cassuto explains the plural in
“let us make man” as the plural of self-exhortation. Claus Westermann
interprets “let us make” in 1:26 and “let us go down” in 11:7 as “plurals of
deliberation.” In his opinion, an assembly “is not necessary for the
explanation and P could not have intended it be so.” Westermann’s reasoning is
curiously modern: “But it is impossible that P should have understood the
plural in this way, not only because he was unfamiliar with the idea of a
heavenly court, but also because of his insistence on the uniqueness of Yahweh
besides whom there could be no other heavenly beings.” It is hard to believe,
however, that the learned Priestly author would be ignorant of so common a
feature of ancient religion, and so naïve as to think the uniqueness of God
required a heaven empty of servants. (Richard J. Clifford, "The Divine
Assembly in Genesis 1-11," in Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John
Collins at Seventy, ed. Joel Baden, Hindy Najman, and Eibert Tigghelaar, 2
vols. [Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 175; Leiden: Brill,
2017], 1:279)
