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: 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. 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.
This passage appears to identify ʽElyōn with ’Elohim, but not necessarily with Yahweh. The New Revised Standard Version translates this as "he fixed the boundaries . The Dead Sea Scrolls fragment 4QDeut j reads bny ’lwhm ' sons of God' ('sons of ’Elohim'). Many Septuagint manuscripts have in place of "sons of Israel", angelōn theou 'angels of God' and a few have huiōn theou 'sons of God'. When the Most High ( ʽElyōn) divided nations,Īccording to the number of the sons of Israel It appears in Moses' final song in Deuteronomy 32:8 (a much discussed verse). It appears in Balaam's verse oracle in Numbers 24:16 as a separate name parallel to Ēl. The name ʽElyōn 'Most High' standing alone is found in many poetic passages, especially in the Psalms. 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").
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 name is repeated later in the chapter, but with a variation: verse fifty-six says ʼElohim ʻElyōn. 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." 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. 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. The form appears again almost immediately in verse 22, used by Abraham in an oath to the king of Sodom. The compound name ʼĒl ʻElyōn 'God Most High' occurs in Genesis 14:18–20 as the God whose priest was Melchizedek, king of Salem. This is also spelled as ' Elliyoun' and spelled in Arabic and Farsi as علیون applied to a basket in Genesis 40:17 or to a chamber in Ezekiel 42:5). 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. ʾĒl ʿElyōn is usually rendered in English as "God Most High", and similarly in the Septuagint as ὁ Θεός ὁ ὕψιστος ("God the highest"). Elyon ( Hebrew: עֶלְיוֹן ʿElyōn) is an epithet of the God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible.
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