When a certain sect of people separated from the Canaanite civilization and went into a monotheistic style of worship from polytheism, Elyon was used as a formulation name of their god and later associated with Yahweh..
Elyon (Biblical Hebrew עליון; Masoretic ʿElyōn) is an epithet of the God of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible. ʾĒl ʿElyōn is usually rendered in English as "God Most High", and similarly in the Septuagint as ὁ Θεός ὁ ὕψιστος ("God the highest").
The term also has mundane uses, such as "upper" (where the ending in both roots is a locative, not superlative or comparative), "top", or "uppermost", referring simply to the position of objects (e.g. applied to a basket in Genesis 40.17 or to a chamber in Ezekiel 42.5).
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Hebrew Bible[edit]
The compound ʼĒl ʻElyōn[edit]
The compound name ʼĒl ʻElyōn 'God Most High' occurs in Genesis 14:18–20 as the God whose priest was Melchizedek, king of Salem. The form appears again almost immediately in verse 22, used by Abraham in an oath to the king of Sodom. In this verse the name of God also occurs in apposition to ʼĒl ʻElyōn in the Masoretic Text but is absent in the Samaritan version, in the Septuagint translation, and in Symmachus.[citation needed]
Its occurrence here was one foundation of a theory first espoused by Julius Wellhausen that ʼĒl ʻElyōn was an ancient god of Salem (for other reasons understood here to mean Jerusalem), later equated with God.[citation needed]
The only other occurrence of the compound expression is in Psalms 78:35: "And they remembered that God [ʼĒlōhīm] was their rock, and the high God [ʼĒl ʻElyōn] their redeemer."
The name is repeated later in the chapter, but with a variation: verse fifty-six says ʼElohim ʻElyōn.
It has been suggested that the reference to "ʼĒl ʻElyōn, maker of heaven and earth" in Genesis 14:19 and 22 reflects a Canaanite background. The phrasing in Genesis resembles a retelling of Canaanite religious traditions in Philo of Byblos's account of Phoenician history, in which ʻElyōn was the progenitor of Ouranos ("Sky") and Gaia ("Earth").[1]
ʽElyōn standing alone[edit]
The name ʽElyōn 'Most High' standing alone is found in many poetic passages, especially in the Psalms.
It appears in Balaam's verse oracle in Numbers 24:16 as a separate name parallel to Ēl.
It appears in Moses' final song in Deuteronomy 32:8 (a much discussed verse). A translation of the Masoretic text:
When the Most High (ʽElyōn) divided nations,
he separated the sons of man (Ādām);
he set the bounds of the massesaccording to the number of the sons of Israel
Many Septuagint manuscripts have in place of "sons of Israel", angelōn theou 'angels of God' and a few have huiōn theou 'sons of God'. The Dead Sea Scrolls fragment 4QDeutj reads bny ’lwhm 'sons of God' ('sons of ’Elohim'). The New Revised Standard Version translates this as "he fixed the boundaries … according to the number of the gods".[2]
This passage appears to identify ʽElyōn with ’Elohim, but not necessarily with Yahweh. It can be read to mean that ʽElyōn separated mankind into 70 nations according to his 70 sons (the 70 sons of Ēl being mentioned in the Ugaritic texts), each of these sons to be the tutelary deity over one of the 70 nations, one of them being the god of Israel, Yahweh. Alternatively, it may mean that ʽElyōn, having given the other nations to his sons, now takes Israel for himself under the name of the Tetragrammaton. Both interpretations have supporters.[citation needed]
In Isaiah 14:13–14 ʽElyōn is used in a very mystical context in the passage providing the basis for later speculation on the fall of Satan where the rebellious prince of Babylon is pictured as boasting:
I shall be enthroned in the mount of the council in the farthest north [or farthest Zaphon]
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will be like the Most High.
But ’Elyōn is in other places firmly identified with Yahweh, as in 2 Samuel 22:14:
The Lord [YHWH] thundered from heaven,
and the Most High [ʽElyōn] uttered his voice.
Also Psalm 97:9: "For you, Lord [YHWH], are Most High [ʽelyōn] over all the earth; you are raised high over all the gods."
