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Section 6. I have found some of them interpreting 'The Lord created me at the beginning of His way' (Prov. 8:22) to mean that God has an eternal Word that never ceased to exist alongside Him and that creates;
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but this is a matter I have already once refuted against those who applied it to spiritual beings, and demonstrated that the word 'qanani' means 'created'; I also showed that that attribute is the attribute of Wisdom —
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and it does not mean He created things by means of Wisdom as an instrument, but rather that He created them wisely — so that whoever sees them testifies that a wise Maker made them.
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I have also found others holding fast to God's saying 'Let us make man in our image' (Gen. 1:26) and claiming this phrasing alludes to a plurality. These are more ignorant than the first group, for they
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...they did not know that the usage of the children of Israel permits the exalted one to say 'we will do' and 'we will make' even when he is alone — as Balak said: 'Perhaps I will be able to strike him' [using first-person plural in the Hebrew];
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and Daniel said: 'Let us tell the dream and its interpretation before the king' (Dan. 2:36); and Manoah said: 'Let us detain you and make before you a kid of the goats' (Judg. 13:15) — and what resembles this.
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Others imagine, from the passage 'The Lord appeared to him at the Oaks of Mamre' (Gen. 18:1), that the manifestation that appeared to Abraham by that name was three — because the text then explains: 'And behold, three men standing over him' (Gen. 18:2).
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I will demonstrate that these are the most ignorant of all — for they did not wait to read to the end of the narrative;
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for had they waited until they heard: 'And the men turned from there and went to Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the Lord' (Gen. 18:22), they would have known that the men had departed and the divine light remained with Abraham, with Abraham standing in its presence;
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and it is therefore impossible that He was they. Rather, the divine light appeared to Abraham first so that through it he would infer that the men were honored angels — and therefore he said to them: 'My lord, if I have found favor in your eyes' (Gen. 18:3);
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meaning: 'the angels of God' or 'the emissaries of God' — in accordance with the implicit attribution found in the language of the children of Israel and in other languages, as in: 'The sword of the Lord and of Gideon' (Judg. 7:20);
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and: 'they said to the Gazites saying' — with an implicit subject — 'it was told to the Gazites' (Judg. 16:2); and: 'Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite' — with implicit subject — 'he took Ahithophel' (2 Sam. 15:12); and what is similar to this.