nd
short-lived as is man, he forgets too easily that in the sight of God "a
thousand years are as a single day," world-epochs like "watches in the
night," and that the mills of divine justice grind on, "slowly but
exceeding small." But one belief illumines the darkness of destiny, and
that is that God stands ever at the helm, steering through every storm and
tempest toward His sublime goal. In the moral striving of man we can but
realize that our every victory contributes toward the majestic work of
God.(530)

Chapter XXX. God and the Angels

1. Judaism insists with unrelenting severity on the absolute unity and
incomparability of God, so that no other being can be placed beside Him.
Consequently, every mention of divine beings (_Elohim_ or _B'ne Elohim_)
in either the Bible or post-Biblical literature refers to subordinate
beings only. These spirits constitute the celestial court for the King of
the World.(531) All the forces of the universe are His servants,
fulfilling His commands. Hence both the Hebrew and Greek terms for angel,
_Malak_ and _angelos_, mean "messenger." These beings derive their
existence from God; some of them are merely temporary, so that without Him
they dissolve into nothing. Although Scripture uses the terms, "God of
gods" and "King of kings," still we cannot attribute any independent
existence to subordinate divine beings. In fact, Maimonides in his sixth
article of faith holds that worship of such beings is prohibited as
idolatry by the second commandment.(532) Thus the unity of God lifts Him
above comparison with any other divine being. This is most emphatically
expressed in Deuteronomy: "Know this day, and lay it to thy heart, that
the Lord He is God in heaven above, and upon the earth beneath; there is
none else,"(533) and "See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god
with Me; I kill and make alive; I have wounded and I heal, and there is
none that can deliver out of My hand."(534) The same attitude is found in
Isaiah: "I am the Lord that maketh all things, that stretched forth the
heavens alone, that spread abroad the earth by Myself" "I am the Lord and
there is none else; beside Me there is no god."(535) Such conceptions
allow no place for angels or spirits.

2. It was certainly not easy for prophet, lawgiver, or sage to dispel the
popular belief in divine beings or powers, which primitive Judaism shared
with other ancient faiths. No sharp line was drawn at first between God