El
Ancient Israelite religion / Yahwism · deity · Ancient Israelite religion / Yahwism traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
El is the high god of the Canaanite pantheon inherited by early Israel, an aged and beneficent creator who presides over the assembly of the gods on his mountain and apportions the nations among them. He is remembered in the patriarchal names of the deity, El Elyon, El Shaddai, El Olam and El Roi, and in the name Israel itself. The Song of Moses preserves an archaic scheme in which El Elyon distributes the peoples to the sons of God and assigns Israel to Yahweh; in the mainstream religion El and Yahweh are fully merged, so that El's epithets, his creator role and his council all become Yahweh's. In the older West Semitic background his consort is the goddess Athirat, the Asherah later paired with Yahweh in Israelite inscriptions.
Children
Domains
- high god
- creation
- divine council
Powers
- presides over the assembly of the gods
- allots the peoples to the gods of the council
Epithets
- אֵל עֶלְיוֹן — God Most HighHebrew Bible, Genesis 14:18 (primary)
- אֵל עוֹלָם — Everlasting God / God of EternityHebrew Bible, Genesis 21:33 (primary)
- אֲבִי שָׁנִים — the Ancient One (Father of Years)Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973) (secondary)
Relations
- child: YahwehIn the archaic council theology Yahweh receives Israel as his inheritance from El Elyon; the later tradition identifies the two gods outright.Hebrew Bible, Deuteronomy 32:8-9 (4QDeut/LXX) (primary)
- spouse: AsherahIn the Ugaritic and older West Semitic background Athirat/Asherah is the consort of El; her pairing with Yahweh in the inscriptions is understood as an inheritance of that relationship.John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (2000) (secondary); Judith M. Hadley, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah (2000) (secondary)
Sources
- El is the high creator-god of the Canaanite and early Israelite pantheon, presiding over the divine council, and is progressively identified with Yahweh.: Hebrew Bible, Genesis 14:18-22; Psalm 82; Deuteronomy 32:8-9 (primary); Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973) (secondary)
- The very name Israel (yiśrāʾēl) is an El-name, marking El as the ancestral god of the people.: Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God (2nd ed., 2002) (secondary)