1 Samuel 28:13
1 Samuel 28:1313“Do not be afraid,” the king replied. “What do you see?” “I see a god coming up out of the earth,” the woman answered.
is rarely highlighted in Watchtower Christology discussions, but the verse is a useful index of the elohim category. The medium at En-dor, seeing Samuel brought up from the ground, says "I see an elohim coming up out of the earth" — using the same Hebrew word the Watchtower reads as "a god" when it appears for Jesus in . The Insight on the Scriptures entry on "gods" tacitly acknowledges that elohim can refer to several kinds of spirit-realm beings, but the broader argument the Watchtower builds from Psalm 82 treats "a god" as a safely generic category.
is a small but telling data point in the elohim- category conversation. The word elohim in the Old Testament is not restricted to Jehovah: it is used for loyal divine council beings (), for rebel divine beings judged for receiving worship (), for angels, for the spirits of the dead (), and for Jehovah himself. That semantic range means "a god" in 's NWT rendering does not settle the question — it only opens the question, "which kind?" Every elohim other than Jehovah either refuses worship (loyal angels, ) or is judged for accepting it (). Jesus accepts commanded worship (, quoting LXX, a passage about worshipping Yahweh). Use to widen the category Jesus is being placed in: if he is "a god" who is neither a loyal angel refusing worship nor a rebel elohim judged for accepting it, then the only remaining slot is Yahweh himself. That is the elohim-category closure.