El (god)
'l (
אל) is a northwest
Semitic word and name translated into English as either 'god' or 'God' or left untranslated as
El, depending on the context.
In the
Levant as a whole, El or Il was the supreme god, the father of mankind and all creatures and the husband of the Goddess
Asherah as attested in the tablets of
Ugarit.
The word
El was found at the top of a list of gods as the Ancient of Gods or the Father of all Gods, in the ruins of the Royal Library of the
Ebla civilization, in the archaeological site of
Tell Mardikh in Syria dated to 2300 BC. He may have been a desert god at some point, as the myths say that he had two wives and built a sanctuary with them and his new children in the desert. El had fathered many gods, but most important were
Hadad,
Yaw and
Mot, each of whom has similar attributes to the Greco-Roman gods
Zeus,
Ophion and
Thanatos respectively. Ancient Greek mythographers identified El with
Cronus (not
Chronos).
Cognate forms are found throughout the Semitic languages with the exception of the ancient
Ge'ez language of
Ethiopia. Forms include
Ugaritic il, pl. lm; Phoenician
l pl. lm, Hebrew
"l, pl. ⁏lîm;
Aramaic l, Arabic Al; Akkadian ilu, pl. ilāti. The original meaning may have been 'strength, power'. In northwest Semitic usage l was both a generic word of any 'god' and the special name or title of a particular god who was distinguished from other gods as being
the god, or even in our modern sense
God. 'l is listed at the head of many pantheons. El was the father god among the
canaanites. But because the word sometimes refers to a god other than the great god 'l it is often difficult to be certain whether 'l followed by another name means the great god 'l with a particular epithet applied or refers to another god entirely. For example, in the Ugaritic texts
il mlk is understood to mean ''l the King' but il hd means 'the god
Hadad'. We know this only from context.
In Ugaritic an alternate plural form meaning 'gods' is
ilhm, equivalent to Hebrew 'elōhîm 'gods'. But in Hebrew this word is also used for singular 'God' or 'god', is indeed by the most normal word for 'god' or 'God' in the singular (as well as for 'gods').
The stem l is found prominently in the earliest strata of east Semitic, northwest Semitic and south Semitic groups. Personal names including the stem
l are found with similar patterns both in Amorite and South Arabic which indicates that probably already in Proto-Semitic l was both a generic term for 'god' and the common name or title of a single particular 'god' or 'God'.
The
Hebrew form (אל) appears in Latin letters in
Standard Hebrew transcription as
El and in
Tiberian Hebrew transcription as
ʾ'l.
In the
Tanakh 'elōhîm is the normal word for a god or the great god (or gods). But the form
"l also appears, mostly in poetic passages and in the patriarchal narratives attributed to the P source according the documentary hypothesis. It occurs 217 times in the Masoretic text: 73 times in the Psalms and 55 times in the Book of Job, and otherwise mostly in poetic passages or passages written in elevated prose. It occasionally appears with the definite article as hā''l 'the God' (for example in 2 Samuel 22.31,33–48).
There are also places where "l specifically refers to a foreign god as in
Psalms 44.20;81.9 (Hebrew 44.21;81.10), in
Deuteronomy 32.12 and in
Malachi 2.11.
The theological position of the Tanakh is that the names
'l,
'"lōhîm when used in the singular to mean the supreme and active 'God' refers to the same being as does
Yahweh. All three refer to the one supreme god who is also the god of Israel, beside whom other supposed gods are either non-existent or insignificant. Whether this was a longstanding belief or a relatively new one has long been the subject of inconclusive scholarly debate about the prehistory of the sources of the Tanakh and about the prehistory of Israelite religion. In the P strand
Yahweh claims in
Exodus 6.2–3:
I revealed myself to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as 'l Shaddāi, but was not known to them by my name Yahweh.
The identity of Yahweh with either 'l in his aspect Shaddāi or with a god called Shaddāi is affirmed. Also affirmed is that the name Yahweh is a more recent revelation. One scholarly position is that the identification of Yahweh with 'l is late, that Yahweh was earlier thought of as only one of many gods and not normally identified with 'l. In some places, especially in Psalm 29, Yahweh is clearly envisioned as a storm god, something not true of 'l so far as we know. (Noted Parallel: El is derived from Sumerian
Enlil, God of Wind) It is Yahweh who fights
Leviathan in
Isaiah 27.1; Psalm 74.14; Job 3.8;40.25, a deed attributed both to Ba'al/Hadad and ‘Anat in the Ugaritic texts, but not to 'l. Such mythological motifs are variously seen as late survivals from a period when Yahweh held a place in theology comparable to that of Hadad at Ugarit; or as late
henotheistic/monotheistic applications to Yahweh of deeds more commonly attributed to Hadad; or simply as examples of eclectic application of the same motifs and imagery to various different gods. Similarly it is argued inconclusively whether 'l Shaddāi, 'l ‘"lām, 'l ‘Elyôn and so forth were originally understood as separate divinities.
Albrecht Alt presented his theories on the original differences of such gods in
Der Gott der Väter in
1929. But others have argued that from patriarchal times these different names were indeed generally understood to refer to the same single great god 'l. This is the position of
Frank Moore Cross (1973). What is certain is that the form '"l does appear in Israelite names from every period including the name
Yiśrā'"l 'Israel', meaning '"l strives' or 'God strives'.
The apparent plural form
'lîm or 'lim 'gods' occurs only four times in the Tanakh. Psalm 29, understood as an enthronement psalm, begins:
A Psalm of David.
Ascribe to Yahweh, sons of gods (bənê ''lîm),
Ascribe to Yahweh, glory and strength
Psalm 89:6 (verse 7 in Hebrew) has:
For who in the skies compares to Yahweh,
who can be likened to Yahweh among the sons of gods (bənê ''lîm).
Traditionally
bənê '"lîm has been interpreted as 'sons of the mighty', 'mighty ones', for, indeed
"l can mean 'mighty', though such use may be metaphorical (compare the English expression God-awful). It is possible also that the expression "lîm in both places descends from an archaic stock phrase in which
'lm was a singular form with the
m-enclitic and therefore to be translated as 'sons of 'l'. The
m-enclitic appears elsewhere in the Tanakh and in other Semitic languages. Its meaning is unknown, possibly simply emphasis. It appears in similar contexts in Ugaritic texts where the expression
bn 'il alternates with
bn 'ilm, but both must mean 'sons of 'l'. That phrase with
m-enclictic also appears in Phoenician inscriptions as late as the
5th century BCE.
One of the other two occurrences in the Tanakh is in the "Song of Moses",
Exodus 15.11a:
Who is like you among the gods ('"lim), Yahweh?
The final occurrence is in
Daniel 11.35:
And the king will do according to his pleasure; and he will exalt himself and magnify himself over every god ("l), and against the God of gods ("l '"lîm) he will speak outrageous things, and will prosper until the indignation is accomplished: for that which is decided will be done.
There are a few cases in the Tanakh where some think
'"l referring to the great god 'l is not equated with Yahweh. One is in
Ezekiel 28.2 in the oracle against
Tyre:
Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: "Thus says the Lord Yahweh: 'Because your heart is proud and you have said: "I am "l, in the seat of elōhîm (God or gods), I am enthroned in the middle of the seas." Yet you are man and not "l even though you have made your heart like the heart of elōhîm ('God' or 'gods').'"
Here
"l might refer to a generic god, not necessarily the high god 'l and if it does so refer, the King of Tyre is certainly not thinking specifically of Yahweh.
In Judges 9.46 we find 'l B
ərît 'God of the Covenant', seemingly the same as the
Ba‘al Bərît 'Lord of the Covenant' whose worship has been condemned a few verses earlier. See
Baal for a discussion of this passage.
Psalm 82.1 says:
elōhîm ('God') stands in the council of "l
he judges among the gods (elohim).
This could mean that God, that is Yahweh, judges along with many other gods as one of the council of the high god 'l. However it can also mean that God, that is Yahweh, stands in the divine council (generally known as the Council of 'l), as 'l judging among the other members of the Council. The following verses in which God condemns those to whom he say were he had previousl named
gods (
elohim) and
sons of the Most High suggest God is here indeed 'l judging the lesser gods.
An archaic phrase appears in Isaiah 14.13,
kôkkəbê '"l 'stars of God', referring to the circumpolar stars that never set, possibly especially to the seven stars of
Ursa Major. The phrase also occurs in the Pyrgi Inscription as
hkkbm 'l (preceded by the definite article
h and followed by the
m-enclitic). Two other apparent fossilized expressions are
arzê-'"l 'cedars of God' (generally translated something like 'mighty cedars', 'goodly cedars') in Psalm 80.10 (in Hebrew verse 11) and
kəharrê-'"l 'mountains of God' (generally translated something like 'great mountains', 'mighty mountains') in Psalm 36.7 (in Hebrew verse 6).
For the reference in some texts of Deuteronomy 32.8 to 70 sons of God corresponding to the 70 sons of 'l in the Ugaritic texts see
'Elyôn.
According to
patristic tradition, El was the first Hebrew name of God.
Dante Alighieri in his
De vulgari eloquentia suggests that the name was the first sound emitted by
Adam: While the first utterance of humans after birth is a cry of pain, Dante assumed that Adam could only have made an exclamation of joy, which at the same time was addressing his creator. In the
Divina commedia, however, Dante contradicts this by saying that God was called
I in the language of Adam, and only named
El in later Hebrew, but already before the
confusion of tongues (
Paradiso, 24.134).
Amorite inscriptions from Zinčirli refer to numerous gods, sometimes by name, sometimes by title, especially by such titles as
ilabrat 'god of the people'(?),
il abīka 'god of your father',
il abīni 'god of our father' and so forth. Various family gods are recorded, divine names listed as belong to a particular family or clan, sometimes by title and sometimes by name, including the name Il 'god'. In Amorite personal names the most common divine elements are Il ('God'),
Hadad/
Adad, and
Dagan. It is likely that Il is also very often the god called in Akkadian texts
Amurru or
Il Amurru.
For the
Canaanites,
El or
Il was the supreme god, the father of mankind and all creatures. He may have been a desert god at some point as the myths say that he had two wives and built a sanctuary with them and his new children in the desert. El had fathered many gods, but most important were
Hadad,
Yaw and
Mot, each share similar attributes to the Roman-Greco gods:
Zeus,
Poseidon and
Hades respectively.
Three pantheon lists found at
Ugarit begin with the four gods
il-'ib (which according to Cross [1973; p. 14] is the name of a generic kind of deity, perhaps the divine ancestor of the people), 'l, Dagnu (that is Dagon), and Ba'l Ṣapān (that is the god Haddu or Hadad). Though Ugarit had a large temple dedicated to Dagon and another to Hadad, there was no temple dedicated to 'l.
'l is called again and again Tôru ‘'l 'Bull 'l' or 'the bull god'. He is bātnyu binwāti 'Creator of creatures', abū banī 'ili 'father of the gods', and
‘abū ‘adami 'father of man'. He is
qāniyunu ‘ôlam creator eternal (the epithet
‘ôlam appearing in Hebrew form in the Hebrew name of God
"l ‘ôlam 'God Eternal' in Genesis 21.23). He is ḥātikuka your patriarch. 'l is the grey-bearded ancient one, full of wisdom, malku 'king', 'abū šamīma 'father of years', '"l gibbōr ''l the warrior'. He is also named lṭpn of unknown meaning, variously rendered as Latpan, Latipan, or Lutpani.
The mysterious Ugaritic text "Shachar and Shalim" tells how (perhaps near the beginning of all things) 'l came to shores of the sea and saw two woman who bobbed up and down. 'l was sexually aroused and took the two with him, killed a bird by throwing a staff at it and roasted it over a fire. He asked the women to tell him when the bird is fully cooked, and to then address him either as husband or as father, for he would thenceforward behave to them as they call him. They salute him as husband. He lies with them and they gave birth to Shachar 'Dawn' and Shalim 'Dusk'. Again 'l lies with his wives and the wives give birth to the gracious gods, cleavers of the sea, children of the sea. The names of these wives are not explicitly provided, but some confusing rubrics at the beginning of the account mention the goddess Athirat who is otherwise 'l's chief wife and the goddess Rahmay 'Merciful', otherwise unknown.
In the Ugaritic Ba‘al cycle 'l is introduced dwelling on (or in) Mount Lel (Lel possibly meaning 'Night') at the fountains of the two rivers at the spring of the two deeps. He dwells in a tent according to some interpretations of the text which may explain why he had no temple in Ugarit. As to the rivers and the spring of the two deeps, these might refer real streams, or to the mythological sources of the salt water ocean and the fresh water souces under the earth, or to the waters above the heavens and the waters beneath the earth.
In the episode of the "Palace of Ba‘al", the god Ba‘al/Hadad invites the "70 sons of Athirat" to a feast in his new palace. Presumably these sons have been fathered on Athirat by 'l in following passages they seem be the gods (ilm) in general or at least a large portion of them. The only sons of 'l named individually in the Ugaritic texts are Yamm 'Sea',
Mot 'Death', and ‘Ashtar, who may be the chief and leader of most of the sons of 'l. Ba‘al/Hadad is a few times called 'l's son rather than the son of Dagan as he is normally called, probably because 'l is in the position of a clan-father to all the gods.
The fragmentary text RS 24.258 describes a banquet to which 'l invites the other gods and then disgraces himself by becoming outrageously drunk and passing out after confronting an otherwise unknown Hubbay, "he with the horns and tail". The text ends with an incanation for the cure of some disease, possibly hangover.
A proto-Sinaitic mine inscription from Mount Sinai reads
ld‘lm understood to be vocalized as il
dū ‘ôlmi, ''l Eternal' or 'God Eternal'.
The Egyptian god
Ptah is given the title
dū gitti 'Lord of
Gath' in a prism from
Lachish which has on its opposite face the name of
Amenhotep II (c.
1435–
1420 BCE) The title
dū gitti is also found in Serābitṭ text 353. Cross (1973, p. 19) points out that Ptah is often called
the lord (or one) of eternity and thinks it may be this identification of 'l with Ptah that lead to the epithet
'olam 'eternal' being applied to 'l so early and so consistently. (However in the Ugaritic texts Ptah is seemingly identified instead with the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis.)
A
Phoenician inscribed amulet of the
7th century BCE from Arslan Tash may refer to 'l. Rosenthal (1969, p. 658) translated the text:
An eternal bond has been established for us. Ashshur has established (it) for us, and all the divine beings and the majority of the group of all the holy ones, through the bond of heaven and earth for ever, ...
However the text is translated by Cross (1973, p. 17):
The Eternal One (‘Olam) has made a covenant oath with us,
Asherah has made (a pact) with us.
And all the sons of El,
And the great council of all the Holy Ones.
With oaths of Heaven and Ancient Earth.
In some inscriptions the name
'l qōne 'arṣ ''l creator of Earth' appears, even including a late inscription at Leptis Magna in Tripolitania dating to 100s (KAI. 129). In Hittite texts the expression becomes the single name Ilkunirsa, this Ilkunirsa appearing as the husband of Asherdu (Asherah) and father of 77 or 88 sons.
In an Hurrian hymn to 'l (published in Ugaritica V, text RS 24.278) he is called il brt and
'il dn which Cross (p. 39) takes as ''l of the covenant' and ''l the judge' respectively.
See
Ba‘al Hammon for the possibility that 'l was identical with Ba‘al Hammon who was worshipped as the supreme god in
Carthage.
In the
euhemeristic account of
Sanchuniathon 'l (rendered
Elus or called by his standard
Greek counterpart
Cronus) is not the creator god or first god. 'l is rather the son of Sky and Earth. Sky and Earth are themselves children of
‘Elyôn 'Most High'. 'l is brother to the god
Bethel, to
Dagon, and to an unknown god equated with the Greek
Atlas, and to the goddesses
Aphrodite/
'Ashtart,
Rhea (presumably
Asherah, and
Dione (equated with
Ba'alat Gebal. 'l is father of
Persephone who dies (presumably an otherwise unknown Semitic goddess of the dead) and of
Athene (presumably the goddess
‘Anat).Sky and Earth have separated from one another in hostility, but Sky insists on continuing to force himself on Earth and attempts to destroy the children born of such unions until at last 'l, son of Sky and Earth, with the advice of the god
Thoth and 'l's daughter
Athene attacks his father Sky with a sickle and spear of iron and drives him off for ever. So he and his allies the
Eloim gain Sky's kingdom. In a later passage it is explained that 'l castrated Sky. But one of Sky's concubines who was given to 'l's brother Dagon was already pregnant by Sky and the son who is born of this union, called by Sanchuniathon Demarûs or Zeus, but once called by him Adodus, is obviously Hadad, the Ba‘al of the Ugaritic texts who now becomes an ally of his grandfather Sky and begins to make war on 'l.
'l has three wives, his sisters or half-sisters Aphrodite/Astarte (‘Ashtart), Rhea (presumably Asherah, and Dione (identified by Sanchuniathon with Ba‘alat Gebal the tutelary goddess of
Byblos, a city which Sanchuniathon says that 'l founded.
Unfortunately
Eusebius of Caesarea, through whom Sanchuniathon is preserved, is not interested in setting the work forth completely or in order. But we are told that 'l slew his own son Sadidus (a name that some commentators think might be a corrupton of
Shaddai, one of the epithets of the Biblical 'l) and that 'l also beheaded one of his daughters. Later, perhaps referring to this same death of Sadidus we are told:
But on the occurrence of a pestilence and mortality Cronus offers his only begotten son as a whole burnt-offering to his father Sky and circumcises himself, compelling his allies also to do the same.
A fuller account of the sacrifice appears later:
It was a custom of the ancients in great crises of danger for the rulers of a city or nation, in order to avert the common ruin, to give up the most beloved of their children for sacrifice as a ransom to the avenging daemons; and those who were thus given up were sacrificed with mystic rites. Cronus then, whom the Phoenicians call Elus, who was king of the country and subsequently, after his decease, was deified as the star Saturn, had by a nymph of the country named Anobret an only begotten son, whom they on this account called Iedud, the only begotten being still so called among the Phoenicians; and when very great dangers from war had beset the country, he arrayed his son in royal apparel, and prepared an altar, and sacrificed him.
The account also relates that
Thoth:
... also devised for Cronus as insignia of royalty four eyes in front and behind ... but two of them quietly closed, and upon his shoulders four wings, two as spread for flying, and two as folded. And the symbol meant that Cronus could see when asleep, and sleep while waking: and similarly in the case of the wings, that he flew while at rest, and was at rest when flying. But to each of the other gods he gave two wings upon the shoulders, as meaning that they accompanied Cronus in his flight. And to Cronus himself again he gave two wings upon his head, one representing the all-ruling mind, and one sensation.
This is the form under which 'l/Cronus appears on coins from Byblos from the reign of
Antiochus IV (
175–
164 BCE) four spread wings and two folded wings, leaning on a staff. Such images continued to appear on coins until after the time of
Augustus.
A bilingual inscription from
Palmyra (
KAI. 11, p. 43) dated to the
1st century equates
'l-Creator-of-the-Earth with the
Greek god
Poseidon. Going back to the
9th century BCE the bilingual inscription at Karatepe in the
Taurus Mountains equates
'l-Creator-of-the-Earth to Luwian hieroglyphs read as
da-a-ś, this being the Luwian form of the name of the
Babylonian water god
Ea, lord of the abyss of water under the earth. (This inscription lists 'l in second place in the local pantheon, following
Ba‘al Shamim and preceding the
Eternal Sun.
Poseidon is known to have been worshipped in
Beirut, his image appearing on coins from that city. Poseidon of Beirut was also worshipped at
Delos where there was an association of merchants, shipmasters and warehousmen called the Poseidoniastae of Berytus founded in
110 or
109 BCE. Three of the four chapels at its headquarters on the hill northwest of the Sacred Lake were dedicated to Poseidon, the
Tyche of the city equated with Astarte (that is ‘Ashtart), and to
Eshmun.
Also at Delos that association of Tyrians, though mostly devoted to
Heracles-
Melqart, elected a member to bear a crown every year when sacrifices to Poseidon took place. A banker name Philostratus donated two altars, one to Palaistine Aphrodite Urania (‘Ashtart) and one to Poseidon "of
Ascalon".
Though Sanchuniathon distinguises Poseidon from his Elus/Cronus, this might be a splitting off of a particular aspect of 'l in an euhemeristic account. Identification of an aspect of 'l with Poseidon rather than with Cronus might have been felt to better fit with Hellenistic religious practice, if indeed this Phoenician Poseidon really is 'l who dwells at the source of the two deeps in Ugaritic texts. More information is needed to be certain.
A proto-Sinaitic mine inscription from Mount Sinai reads
ld‘lm understood to be vocalized as il
dū ‘ôlmi, ''l Eternal' or 'God Eternal'.
The Egyptian god
Ptah is given the title
dū gitti 'Lord of
Gath' in a prism from
Lachish which has on its opposite face the name of
Amenhotep II (c.
1435"
1420 BCE) The title
dū gitti is also found in Serābitṭ text 353. Cross (1973, p. 19) points out that Ptah is often called
the lord (or one) of eternity and thinks it may be this identification of 'l with Ptah that lead to the epithet
'olam 'eternal' being applied to 'l so early and so consistently. (However in the Ugaritic texts Ptah is seemingly identified instead with the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis.)
A
Phoenician inscribed amulet of the
7th century BCE from Arslan Tash may refer to 'l. Rosenthal (1969, p. 658) translated the text:
An eternal bond has been established for us. Ashshur has established (it) for us, and all the divine beings and the majority of the group of all the holy ones, through the bond of heaven and earth for ever, ...
However the text is translated by Cross (1973, p. 17):
The Eternal One (‘Olam) has made a covenant oath with us,
Asherah has made (a pact) with us.
And all the sons of El,
And the great council of all the Holy Ones.
With oaths of Heaven and Ancient Earth.
In some inscriptions the name
'l qōne 'arṣ ''l creator of Earth' appears, even including a late inscription at Leptis Magna in Tripolitania dating to 2nd century (KAI. 129). In Hittite texts the expression becomes the single name Ilkunirsa, this Ilkunirsa appearing as the husband of Asherdu (Asherah) and father of 77 or 88 sons.
In an Hurrian hymn to 'l (published in Ugaritica V, text RS 24.278) he is called il brt and
'il dn which Cross (p. 39) takes as ''l of the covenant' and ''l the judge' respectively.
See
Ba‘al Hammon for the possibility that 'l was identical with Ba‘al Hammon who was worshipped as the supreme god in
Carthage.
Some Muslim scholars contend that
El should be pronounced 'AL' since the first letter of El is 'alef, which is pronounced A always. Unless there is a hidden vowel after it is
E, like in when Hebrew Elohim means Gods or a God. Some Muslim scholars assert that the second letter could be pronounced double L, and that all semitic civilizations never wrote vowels and then the A after L is also not pronounced. Also the H in Allah is not written at the end of words in Arabic and Hebrew.They contend thus that the word EL found in Antiquity as far as Ebla civilization ( destroyed in 2300 BC) is actually non other than Allah when pronounced according to the tradition of Semitic languages as explained. They bring a proof that the mail sent by Muhammad to the rulers of that period had the word Allah written as AL only. Such letters are available to view on the internet.)
*
The names of God in Judaism*
List of names referring to El* Bruneau, P. (1970).
Recherches sur les cultes de Délos à l'époque hellénistique et à l'époque imperiale. Paris: E. de Broccard.
* Cross, Frank Moore (1973).
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674091760.
* Rosenthal, Franz (1969). "The Amulet from Arslan Tash". Trans. in
Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 3rd ed. with Supplement, p. 658. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691035032.
* Teixidor, James (1977).
The Pagan God Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691072205
*
Bartleby: American Heritage Dictionary: Semitic Roots: ʾl*
The Divine Council: "Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God", by Michael S. Heiser (PDF.)
*
The tablets of Pyrgi*
The Rise of God*
Biblaridion magazine: Bene-ha-elohim: Deuteronomistic theology as an interpretive model for the ‘Sons of God' in Genesis 6:1-4
