Elyon

Elyon is an epithet of the God of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible. ??l ?Ely?n is usually rendered in English as "God Most High", and similarly in the Septuagint as ? ???? ? ??????? . The term also has mundane uses, such as "upper" , "top", or "uppermost", referring simply to the position of objects . The compound name ??l ?Ely?n 'God Most High' occurs in Genesis 14:18–20 as the God whose priest was Melchizedek, king of Salem. In this verse the name of God also occurs in apposition to ??l ?Ely?n in the Masoretic Text but is absent in the Samaritan version, in the Septuagint translation, and in Symmachus. Its occurrence here was one foundation of a theory first espoused by Julius Wellhausen that ??l ?Ely?n was an ancient god of Salem , later equated with God. The only other occurrence of the compound expression is in Psalms 78:35: "And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer." The name is repeated later in the chapter, but with a variation: verse fifty-six says ?Elohim ?Ely?n. It has been suggested that the reference to "??l ?Ely?n, 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 ?Ely?n was the progenitor of Ouranos and Gaia . Genesis 14:18–20 The name ?Ely?n '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 ?l. It appears in Moses' final song in Deuteronomy 32:8 . A translation of the Masoretic text: When the Most High divided nations, he separated the sons of man ; he set the bounds of the masses according to the number of the sons of Israel Many Septuagint manuscripts have in place of "sons of Israel", angel?n theou 'angels of God' and a few have hui?n theou 'sons of God'. It can be read to mean that ?Ely?n separated mankind into 70 nations according to his 70 sons , each of these sons to be the tutelary deity over one of the 70 nations, one of them being the God of Israel, Yahweh. Both interpretations have supporters. In Isaiah 14:13–14 ?Ely?n 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 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. But ’Ely?n is in other places firmly identified with Yahweh, as in 2 Samuel 22:14: The Lord thundered from heaven, and the Most High uttered his voice. Also Psalm 97:9: "For you, Lord , are Most High over all the earth; you are raised high over all the gods." Outside of the Biblical texts the term "Most High" occurs seldom. The most controversial is in the earliest of three Aramaic treaty inscriptions found at al-Safirah 16 miles southeast of Aleppo. The "Sefire I" inscription , which dates to about 750 BCE, lists the major patron deities of each side, all of them in pairs coupled by "and", in each case a male god and the god's spouse when the names are known. Then, after a gap comes ’l w?lyn Frank Moore Cross accepts all three interpretations as possibilities. In Eusebius' account of Philo of Byblos record of Sanchuniathon's euhemeristic account of the Phoenician deities, Elioun, whom he calls Hypsistos 'the highest' and who is therefore possibly ?Ely?n, is quite separate from his Elus/Cronus who is the supreme god ?l. Sanchuniathon tells only: In their time is born a certain Elioun called "the Most High," and a female named Beruth, and these dwelt in the neighbourhood of Byblos. And from them is born Epigeius or Autochthon, whom they afterwards called Sky; so that from him they named the element above us Sky because of the excellence of its beauty. And he has a sister born of the aforesaid parents, who was called Earth, and from her, he says, because of her beauty, they called the earth by the same name.