Compound Name
El Elyon and the El names
'El 'Elyon
אֵל עֶלְיוֹן
- Meaning
- 'God Most High'. Related compounds: El Olam ('Everlasting God'), El Roi ('God who sees me'), El Berith, El Elohe Israel.
- Occurrences
- Elyon ~53 times; El ~230 times standing alone
- First occurrence
- Genesis 14:18
- Languages
- Biblical Hebrew
Pronunciation
el el-YOHN
Origin
El is the common Northwest Semitic word for 'god' and the proper name of the chief god of the Ugaritic pantheon. Israel absorbed the term and applied it to YHWH, often with a qualifier drawn from a specific encounter — El Roi is named by Hagar, El Olam at Beersheba.
Usage & scribal practice
Melchizedek, a non-Israelite priest, blesses Abram by El Elyon (Genesis 14) — a key text in debates about pre-Israelite monotheism.
Cross-references
Genesis 14:18–20
Melchizedek, 'priest of El Elyon'.
Genesis 16:13
Hagar names God El Roi — 'the God who sees me'.
Genesis 21:33
Abraham calls on El Olam, 'the Everlasting God'.
Deuteronomy 32:8–9
'When Elyon apportioned the nations…' — the DSS reading differs from the Masoretic.
How translations render it
Theories, myths & conspiracy claims
Each claim is stated as its proponents state it, then assessed against the manuscript and linguistic evidence.
Deuteronomy 32:8 and the divine council
The claim: 4QDeut and the LXX read 'according to the number of the sons of God', while the Masoretic Text reads 'sons of Israel'.
Assessment: A real and important textual variant, visible in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Most critics judge the Qumran/LXX reading original and the Masoretic reading a later theological smoothing.
YHWH was originally a son of El
The claim: Reading Deuteronomy 32:8–9 as Elyon assigning Israel to a subordinate YHWH.
Assessment: A defensible reconstruction of pre-exilic religion held by some scholars, but not the plain reading of the received text, where Elyon and YHWH are identified.