In some cases it bears some similarity to the pluralis maiestatis or "royal plural".
It is thus closely related to the plurals of amplification, treated under e, which are mostly found in poetry.
"Hebrew distinguishes grammatical number by endings in nouns, verbs and adjectives.
A grammatical phenomenon occurs with a small number of Hebrew nouns, such as elohim 'great god' and behemoth 'giant beast', whereby a grammatically redundant plural ending (-im, usually masculine plural, or -oth, usually feminine plural) is attached to a noun, but the noun nevertheless continues to take singular verbs and adjectives.
Examples of the singular include Against this are objections such as that of the Hebrew grammarian and Messianic Jewish missionary C. W. H. Pauli (1863) that Gesenius had misunderstood the grammar and perpetuated a hoax.
[7] Pauli writes, "Such a pluralis excellentiæ was, however, a thing unknown to Moses and the prophets.