Church 12

Who Is the Most High?

A Title Before an Identity

Hey sweeties, pull up a chair. I've have a harsh confession to make. This chapter almost didn't exist. I decided it was time to evolve this blog as back when these notes were written my POV was differn't. The best way to see my logic is to show how I got to where I am. So...

When I first started this investigation, I thought I already knew the answer. I heard it ALL my life... I had my theory, a stack of books, and what I was sure was a pretty solid trail of evidence. Then Genesis 14 quietly walked into the room and politely wrecked my entire timeline. Isn't that great? It's becoming a pattern. I love patterns...

Every time I think I've figured something out, the Bible smiles, hands me another clue, and reminds me that history is rarely tidy and always complex. It is NEVER one sided... So, if you've joined me hoping I'm about to prove my theory beyond all doubt, I should disappoint you right now.

That's not what we're doing. We're still investigating and it's a long road of foundation knowledge. Sometimes the evidence strengthens an idea. Sometimes it exposes its weak spots. Sometimes it forces us to build a better theory altogether.

To me that's the fun part. I get to show you a special interest of mine that I have spent a lot of my life on and show you my errors and my findings... Maybe you can offer insight to help my journy or maybe I can help yours.

Well... fun if you're the sort of person who thinks spending your Friday night reading Bronze Age treaty tablets counts as a good time like I do if I don't have work... (If that's you, welcome. You're among friends or family 😉.)

Investigation Log

Question

Who is עֶלְיוֹן (ʿElyôn) "the Most High"and how would the earliest audience have understood that title?

Evidence Collected So Far

Genesis presents humanity as one family before the nations emerge.

Babel explains the scattering of the peoples.

Ancient inheritance was about identity, family, and responsibility and not simply land.

Deuteronomy 32 describes the Most High dividing the nations and assigning inheritances.

Still Unknown Data

• Is Elyon a title, a name, or both?

• Does every biblical author use the title in exactly the same way?

• Did later biblical writers understand it differently than earlier ones?

• What assumptions am I bringing to the text that an ancient Israelite never would have?

Those are the questions we will start with. Notice what's missing from those right now? Answers. We'll earn those later if you choose to follow along at home.

Time Machine

Before we open Genesis, let's leave the twenty-first century for a moment. We have gone a lon way sonce then have we not? Imagine you're living nearly four thousand years ago. By then the pyramids of Egypt are already ancient and been a little looted. Stonehenge has been standing for many centuries. Writing exists, but only a tiny percentage of people across the word can actually read.

There is no Bible. No synagogue. No church. No New Testament. No rabbi explaining difficult passages to you. No pastor with a sermon series teaching you a moral lesson. No YouTube channel titled "Five Things You Missed in Genesis." Nada... Just mostly oral stories...

You're living in a world of caravans, kings, tribal alliances, and city-states. Harsh times by modern standards. If you travel a few hundred miles, you may hear a completely different language, worship different gods, and live under an entirely different king. Crazy, right. I know most Americans don't even leave their state so this probably blows some minds...

Every city has its own identity. Every kingdom has its own stories.Every people group believes they understand how heaven and earth fit together. All of that matters and I will show you... You see the Bible wasn't written into our world. They had no internent or smartphones...

It was written into theirs.

If we want to understand what the biblical authors were communicating, one of the best things we can do is temporarily remove our modern glasses and step into the ancient world while we examine what we read. Not because ancient people were primitive. Far from it IMO. In fact, I will show you many ways they were superior we just let information be lost to history.

Just look at a history book... They built civilizations that still amaze us. They developed legal systems, mathematics, astronomy, architecture, international diplomacy, and trade networks stretching thousands of miles but we forget they organized their entire reality differently than you and I.

Modern people tend to think in terms of countries while ancient people thought in terms of families. We think in terms of governments while they thought in terms of kings. We think in terms of private ownership and they thought in terms of inheritance. Those differences matter more than we often realize and I will show you why...

Why This Question Matters

The title "Most High" appears throughout the Bible. (The title "Most High" appears over 110 times in the RSV, 31 times as "Elyon" in the OT, and 9 times in the NT.)(

Most of us read it without ever slowing down. We assume we know who it's referring to. The danger of assumptions isn't that they're always wrong. It's that they often stop us from noticing what's actually sitting in the text. Every assumption we bring to the text becomes another pair of glasses, and sometimes the hardest thing to see is the lens we're looking through.

Maybe we do. Maybe we don't. Assumptions are funny things especially with the English language. The older I get, the more I realize they often do the reading for us. This investigation isn't about creating doubt where none exists. It's simply about replacing assumptions with evidence. One of the best pieces of advice I ever heard was this:

Don't ask what a passage means until you've first asked what it says.

That sounds obvious doesn't it. However, Twitter has taught me it isn't. Most of us have spent years hearing sermons, reading study notes, watching videos/TV or learning theology before we've ever carefully examined the text for ourselves with our own POV first. There's nothing wrong with learning from others. That isn't what I am saying my lovely lot.

I've learned an enormous amount from scholars whose names you'll meet throughout this journey but eventually, every investigator has to return to the primary sources and not just use the work of others. Assumptions are shortcuts. Sometimes they're helpful. Other times they quietly answer questions we never stopped to ask. That's why good investigations begin with observation, not assumption.

That's what we're going to do on this blog if you stick atound. I mean it's free and I will do the reveal slowly so you can look at other sources along the way. Use your own brain. Think for yourself and remember I can make mistakes and have. That's why I will show them here...

We'll read the Hebrew. We'll compare manuscripts. We'll look at archaeology. We'll explore the cultures surrounding ancient Israel. We'll ask how the original audience might have heard these words.

And then... Only then... We'll begin asking what they might mean. We need a base foundation to understand the context of the words. Good investigations don't start with conclusions. They start with curiosity and an open mind. Please have both...

The First Appearance

If we're going to investigate the title "Most High," we shouldn't begin in Deuteronomy rather, we should begin where the title first walks onto the stage.

That's Genesis 14.

Now here's something I completely missed for years.

Genesis 14 isn't primarily about Melchizedek. Heck, it isn't even primarily about Abram.

It's about a rescue mission. Abram has just chased down a coalition of kings to rescue his nephew, Lot. After the battle, two very different kings come out to meet him.

One is the king of Sodom.

The other is Melchizedek.

One offers wealth. The other offers a blessing. That contrast alone deserves its own blog post someday but today we're following a different clue. How is Melchizedek introduced? (We will talk him A lot)

Genesis 14:18–20

Hebrew

וּמַלְכִּי־צֶדֶק מֶלֶךְ שָׁלֵם הוֹצִיא לֶחֶם וָיָיִן וְהוּא כֹהֵן לְאֵל עֶלְיוֹן׃

וַיְבָרְכֵהוּ וַיֹּאמַר

בָּרוּךְ אַבְרָם לְאֵל עֶלְיוֹן

קֹנֵה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ׃

Transliteration

Û-Malkî-Ṣedeq melekh Šālēm hôṣîʾ leḥem wāyayin, wehûʾ kōhēn leʾEl ʿElyôn.

Wayəḇārăḵēhû wayyōʾmar:

Bārûḵ ʾAḇrām leʾEl ʿElyôn, qōnê šāmayim wāʾāreṣ.

Literal Translation

"And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of El Most High.

He blessed Abram and said,

'Blessed be Abram by El Most High, possessor of heaven and earth.'"

Slow down. Don't interpret it yet. Just notice it. Read it AGAIN!!!

Melchizedek is not introduced as a priest of YHWH.

He's introduced as a priest of El Elyon. Whether that's significant is exactly what we're investigating.

Why Melchizedek Is Such a Strange Character (We get back to him)

At first glance, nothing about Melchizedek seems unusual to the reader. I mean he's a king. He's a priest. The ancient world had plenty of both.

Long before Israel existed, Egypt had priests. Midian had priests. Mesopotamia had priests. Nearly every civilization in the ancient Near East had people who served as mediators between humanity and the divine.

One Last Thing Before We Leave Melchizedek...

I promised myself I wasn't going to disappear down every rabbit hole in this post. This is one of them for now at least... So I'm just going to leave a few breadcrumbs for later.

First...

After blessing Abram, Melchizedek receives a tenth of the spoils of war and that detail is easy to read past. In the ancient world, victories weren't seen as the achievement of human strength alone. Kings regularly credited their gods for success in battle, and offerings from the spoils often acknowledged that the victory ultimately belonged to the deity they served.

Genesis doesn't stop to explain Abram's gift tt simply records that he gave Melchizedek a tenth. (God's portion?) Why? That's a question worth remembering.

Second...

If Salem is correctly identified with what would later become Jerusalem as many scholars now believe then Melchizedek wasn't just a mysterious priest was he?... He was the ruler of a city that would eventually stand at the heart of Israel's story. Centuries later, David would make Jerusalem his capital. Solomon would build the Temple there. The Ark of the Covenant would be brought there. History has a remarkable way of returning to the same places.

And then there's one more connection.

Genesis later tells us that Abraham was commanded to offer Isaac in the land of Moriah.

According to 2 Chronicles 3:1, Solomon built the Temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.

If those traditions belong together and many readers through history have believed they do it means Abraham's greatest act of faith may have taken place in the same region ruled by Melchizedek.... Is that a coincidence? Literary design? Historical memory? That's exactly the kind of question we're going to investigate in a little bit.

Not today because if I chase every rabbit now, this blog post will turn into a small book and I am boring enogh.... We'll come back. I promise.

One thing I'm learning is that the Bible loves to plant seeds long before they bloom. Melchizedek may only appear for a handful of verses. But his shadow stretches from BEFORE Abraham... ...to David... ...to the Temple... ...to the book of Hebrews and even Ur.

Whenever a character shows up that briefly yet keeps reappearing across a thousand years of biblical history and you can prove historically I've learned not to dismiss him too quickly. The Bible usually has a reason.

Wait...

Here's the part that stopped me when I reread. Abram doesn't seem confused here at all. He doesn't ask,

"Who's El Elyon?"

He doesn't ask for clarification.

He doesn't say,

"I've never heard that title before."

The conversation simply continues. That should make us pause and ask why.

Either the title was already understood...or the author expects the audience to understand it. Either way, the text doesn't treat it as strange. That's just an observation. Not a conclusion.

You gotta ask how did a young man from Ur know the name? You see before Abram met Melchizedek... Before the covenant. Before circumcision. Before Isaac. Before he was known as Abraham.

He was simply a man from a city called Ur named Abram.

If the traditional identification is correct, Ur was one of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia. It wasn't a collection of tents in the middle of nowhere. It was a thriving center of trade, mathematics, astronomy, writing, law, and religion. Towering over the city stood massive temple complexes dedicated to the moon god Nanna (Sin), reminding everyone who was believed to rule the heavens.

According to Genesis, Abram's family eventually left Ur and settled for a time in Haran before continuing into Canaan. The biblical text tells us that they left, but says surprisingly little about why.

That silence invited later generations to wonder.

One of the most fascinating windows into that curiosity is the Book of Jubilees, a Jewish work written during the Second Temple period, probably in the second century BC. It retells much of Genesis and Exodus, often expanding stories that the Hebrew Bible tells only briefly.

In Jubilees, Abram isn't simply a man who receives a call. He's a young man wrestling with the religion of his homeland. He questions idols. He observes the heavens. He searches for the Creator behind creation.

He even clashes with the beliefs of his father's household before eventually leaving that world behind. Jubilees paints a fascinating picture.

Rather than portraying Abram as someone who simply woke up one day and followed God, it imagines a long journey of questioning the religion he inherited from his family.

According to this later Jewish tradition, Abram rejected the idols of his father's household and even burned them. The story takes a tragic turn when his brother Haran dies in the resulting fire. Whether this preserves an older tradition or reflects the imagination of later Jewish writers remains debated but for me it raises some interesting questions.

Was Abram's departure from Ur simply another family migration or was there something deeper? Had his rejection of idolatry created tension within his own household? Was he a wanted man? Did family tragedy play a role? Or are these details simply part of how later Jews imagined the birth of Abraham's faith?

Genesis doesn't answer those questions. Jubilees offers one possibility. We will talk a few more later.

Whether it's historically reliable is another investigation entirely and one we'll return to later.

For now, it's enough to recognize that long before modern readers began asking why Abram left Ur, ancient Jewish readers were asking the very same question. Can we treat Jubilees as an eyewitness account of Abraham's life? No, because it was written many centuries after the events it describes. That's not why it's valuable. Jubilees it gives us something else. Names, dates, locations, distance, famlies... It lets us peek inside the minds of Jewish readers before the time of Jesus. It shows us the kinds of questions they were asking and how they imagined Abraham's journey toward faith.

We'll spend much more time with Jubilees later. For now, I simply want you to picture Abram differently. Not as a man who appeared out of nowhere with perfect theology. Rather as someone raised in one of the most sophisticated civilizations on earth, surrounded by temples, priests, and competing claims about the divine.

That makes his meeting with Melchizedek even more intriguing IMO I am not sure if you see it yet...

When these two men meet... Neither one seems surprised by the title El Elyon. For me at least this is where the mystery really begins and a clue... 

Let's Slow Down the Hebrew

The phrase is remarkably simple.

אֵל עֶלְיוֹן

Transliteration

El ʿElyôn.

Literally:

God Most High or El Most High.

Let's look at each word separately.

אֵל (ʾEl)

This is one of the oldest Semitic words for "god."

It can refer to:

• God in a general sense.

• The God of Israel.

• Or, depending on the context, function as a proper divine name or title.

This is where people often get into trouble and assume the word always means exactly the same thing. However, languages don't usually work that way. As you probably know the English word "lord" can refer to God, a king, a nobleman, or simply someone in authority. Context has to do the heavy lifting when we read.

Hebrew is no different.

עֶלְיוֹן (ʿElyôn)

The word comes from the Hebrew root עלה (ʿ-l-h), meaning "to go up," "to ascend," or "to be high."

As a title, it means:

• Most High.

• Highest.

• Exalted.

Notice what it doesn't tell us. It doesn't identify the person rather it describes rank. Think about titles we still use today.

President.

King.

Judge.

Professor.

Those titles tell you something about someone's role in life but they don't automatically tell you who they are. That's why I want to be careful and resist answering the identity question too quickly before you have foundation. The title comes first. Identity comes later.

Removing Our Modern Glasses

When we hear the phrase "Most High," many of us immediately think of a theological title because it was how we were told... I feel someone living in the Bronze Age may have first heard something different.

Supreme authority.

The highest ruler.

The one above every other power.

Remember, this was a world of kings.

Every city had one.

Every kingdom had one.

Power flowed downward.

So when someone was described as "Most High," the title carried political weight as well as religious significance. It was the one in charge of all others. The ancient people didn't separate those categories the way we often do.

Religion.

Government.

Law.

Family.

Land.

They were all woven together into one...

A Historical Rabbit Hole

Here's something I found fascinating while learning. Melchizedek is introduced as both a king and a priest. That wasn't unusual in the ancient Near East. In many early city-states, rulers often carried both political and religious authority. What is unusual is how little Genesis tells us about him.

No genealogy.

No origin story.

He appears almost out of nowhere.

Blesses Abram.

Then quietly disappears.

For someone with only a handful of verses, Melchizedek casts an incredibly long shadow that we will talk a lot about later...

The author of Psalm 110 mentions him. The writers at Qumran wrote about him. The author of Hebrews builds an entire theological argument around him. History has a funny habit of hiding enormous ideas inside very small stories. Hide big things in plain sight... Sometimes the shortest characters leave the longest footprints.

Dig Deeper

If you'd like to investigate this section yourself, these are excellent places to begin:

• Genesis 14 in Hebrew: STEP Bible — https://www.stepbible.org/

• Compare English and Hebrew: Sefaria — https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.14

• Melchizedek overview: Bible Odyssey (Society of Biblical Literature) — https://www.bibleodyssey.org/

• Ancient Jerusalem and Salem: Encyclopaedia Britannica — https://www.britannica.com/

• Hebrew lexicons: HALOT, BDB, and the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (recommended print references)

Remember... The goal of this isn't to collect opinions. It's to collect evidence and see where it goes... That's how good investigations begin.

Before Abram Met Melchizedek...

Let's zoom out for a minute. It's easy to meet Abram in Genesis 14 and forget that he's already lived a remarkable life. Genesis tells us Abram came from Ur of the Chaldeans before his family eventually settled in Haran and later journeyed into Canaan.

That's a lot of miles on foot. Just to appreciate the scale of Abram's journey... For perspective the trip from Ur to Haran was roughly 600–650 miles (965–1,045 km) as the crow flies, but an actual walking route following rivers, trade roads, and safe terrain would have been closer to 900 miles (1,450 km).

From there, the journey into Canaan added another 300 or so miles, making the entire migration roughly 1,100–1,200 miles (1,770–1,930 km) on foot. Not car or plane... Foot... That's not a weekend road trip.

That's months of walking with family, livestock, possessions, and no GPS back then. They just had the sky, landmarks and well-worn trade routes. Abram wasn't just changing addresses. He was leaving one world behind and stepping into another.

More importantly, it's a journey across cultures.

Abram didn't grow up in Israel. Israel didn't even exist yet. There was no Sinai. No Tabernacle. No Temple. No Torah. No nation called Israel.

He was a man living in the world of the ancient Near East... a world of bustling trade routes, powerful city-states, temples that dominated skylines, and people who believed the gods were deeply involved in every part of life.

If you had stood in Ur during Abram's lifetime, you would have found one of the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia. Archaeology reveals a sophisticated urban center with organized commerce, skilled craftsmen, long-distance trade, mathematics, writing, astronomy, and religion.

The city was dominated by a massive ziggurat a stepped temple dedicated to the moon god Nanna (Sin). It wasn't simply a place of worship. It symbolized the close relationship between religion, government, and daily life in Mesopotamia.

Writing had already been practiced in Mesopotamia for well over a thousand years. Scribes recorded contracts, business transactions, taxes, treaties, court cases, and literature on clay tablets using cuneiform.

Mesopotamian mathematics and astronomy were among the most advanced in the ancient world, influencing later civilizations for centuries.

Merchants carried goods along trade routes connecting Mesopotamia with Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt, the Persian Gulf, and beyond.

Abram wasn't raised in a primitive world is my point... We forget that part. He was raised in one of the most advanced civilizations on earth at the time. That makes his story even more remarkable. Abram wasn't raised in a cultural vacuum. He was raised in one of the most sophisticated civilizations on earth. That makes his story even more interesting to me and someone we must look into...

Centuries later, Jewish writers became just as curious about Abram's early life as we are today. One of those works is the Book of Jubilees, written during the Second Temple period, probably in the second century BC.

Jubilees retells much of Genesis and Exodus, often filling in details the biblical text leaves unsaid. It imagines Abram questioning idols, wrestling with the beliefs of his homeland, and beginning a search for the true God long before the covenant is formally established.

We'll return to Jubilees later in our journey. For now, I simply want you to remember something easy to overlook.

When Abram meets Melchizedek, he isn't meeting him as a man who has only known one culture.

He's a traveler.

A migrant.

A man who has walked through different kingdoms, heard different languages, and lived among people with very different ideas about heaven, earth, kings, and gods. Perhaps that makes him the perfect person to recognize a title like El Elyon without the text needing to stop and explain it.

A King With No Introduction

Now my lovely lot, here's something that should bother us. Genesis loves introductions. The boring stuff...

"This is the family line of..."

"These are the generations of..."

"So-and-so was the father of..."

The Bible usually tells us where people came from but then along comes Melchizedek. No parents. No genealogy. No explanation. No backstory.

He simply walks onto the stage carrying bread and wine, blesses Abram, and walks back off again... It's almost as if the author expects everyone already knows who he is.

Except... The problem is most of us don't. At least not by that name...

That's one of the dangers of reading an ancient book with modern eyes. The original audience probably knew things the author didn't need to explain. We're the ones arriving almost four thousand years late asking everyone to catch us up.

Salem A City Before Jerusalem

Genesis calls Melchizedek the King of Salem. Most scholars identify Salem with the city that would later become Jerusalem, although the identification is not beyond debate.

Psalm 76:2 later poetically parallels Salem with Zion, which is one reason many scholars connect the two so if that identification is correct, then this tiny meeting happens in a place that will later become one of the most important cities in the Bible.

But don't imagine David's Jerusalem and don't imagine Solomon's Temple for our POV here those don't exist yet. Instead, picture a fortified Bronze Age hill town. It will have stone walls. Narrow streets. Mudbrick homes. Livestock wandering nearby. Smell really bad. Smoke rising from cooking fires. A local ruler governing a relatively small population.

History has a strange sense of humor and it is so cool that the places that later change the world begin as little more than dots on a map.

What Kind of King Was Melchizedek?

Today we separate religion from government but the ancient people usually didn't. The king you see often represented the people before the gods. The priest represented the gods before the people. Sometimes those roles belonged to different individuals. Sometimes they belonged to the same person.

Melchizedek is introduced as both.

King.

Priest.

That wouldn't have shocked someone living in the Bronze Age. Across Canaan and Mesopotamia, city rulers frequently carried religious responsibilities alongside political authority. The temple wasn't simply a place of worship. It was often the economic heart of the city. The most important spot... Grain was stored there. Records were kept there. Taxes were collected there. Priests advised kings. Kings funded temples. Religion wasn't a department of society. It was all parts of society nd once you see that, the Bible starts feeling much less foreign.

Removing Our Modern Glasses

When we hear the word "priest," we usually picture someone leading a religious service or the movies like Davinci Code or TV like Father Brown. An ancient Israelite would have heard something much bigger. To them a priest maintained sacred space. Oversaw sacrifices to God. Protected ritual purity and the moral right. Preserved traditions. Acted as a mediator.

In many cultures, priests also served as scribes, judges, astronomers, physicians, or royal advisors. Knowledge itself often lived inside the temple as they were the most educated of the population. That's one reason temples became libraries.

If you wanted to preserve history, contracts, laws, or astronomical observations, the temple was often the safest place to do it.That little detail will become surprisingly important later when we begin talking more about the Ark of the Covenant again and why covenant documents were stored where they were.

See? It's weird, right? The Bible has a habit of planting ideas long before it explains them.

History Happening at the Same Time

Let's zoom out again for POV. While Abram is walking through Canaan... Egypt has already experienced centuries of monumental building. Mesopotamian scribes are writing in cuneiform on clay tablets. Trade caravans are moving tin, copper, spices, textiles, and precious stones across the Fertile Crescent.

Legal traditions have existed for generations. Kings make treaties. Families negotiate marriages. Merchants cross deserts guided by the stars so don't underestimate these people... This isn't a primitive world rather an interconnected one. The Bible doesn't emerge outside history... I feel it emerges right in the middle of it.

Archaeology Corner

Excavations throughout the ancient Near East have uncovered thousands of clay tablets from cities such as Mari, Ebla, Nuzi, and Ugarit.

These tablets record everything from royal correspondence to business contracts, adoption agreements, inheritance disputes, and diplomatic treaties. They paint us an amazing picture of a remarkably organized world. People worried about taxes just like us... Inheritance. Property. Politics. Trade. Family drama.

In other words...

Human beings haven't changed nearly as much as we'd like to think it's just the technology is different. I bet the arguments at the dinner table probably weren't.

Wait...

Here's another question.

Why does Genesis spend only a few verses introducing someone who later becomes so important?

Psalm 110 mentions him. The Book of Jubilees remembers Abraham's world. The Dead Sea Scrolls expand Melchizedek's role dramatically. The author of Hebrews builds an entire theological argument around him.

It's almost as if Genesis plants a tiny seed and then quietly walks away.

That happens a lot in Scripture. The Bible often whispers first. Later books turn up the volume.

Dig Deeper

If you'd like to explore this world further:

Ancient Jerusalem and its history

• Encyclopaedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/place/Jerusalem

Archaeology of the ancient Near East

• Penn Museum: https://www.penn.museum

• The Oriental Institute (University of Chicago): https://oi.uchicago.edu

The world of Mari and ancient diplomacy

• Penn Museum collections and research on Mari archives.

Bible background articles

• Bible Odyssey (Society of Biblical Literature): https://www.bibleodyssey.org

One thing I've learned through this investigation is that archaeology rarely proves the Bible and that's asking archaeology to do the wrong job. What archaeology does wonderfully is rebuild the world the Bible assumes you already know. And once you begin living in that world... The text starts asking different questions than you expected.

Rabbit Hole: The Ancient World Wasn't Primitive

Let's bust one of the biggest myths about the ancient world. When many of us picture Abraham, we imagine someone wandering through empty deserts surrounded by little villages and tents.

Reality was far more interesting.

Abraham likely grew up in one of the greatest civilizations on earth.

If Ur is correctly identified with the great Sumerian city in southern Mesopotamia, then he came from a place with multi-story homes, paved streets in some districts, advanced mathematics, organized government, long-distance trade, written contracts, and one of the largest temple complexes of its day.

That's a far cry from the image most of us carry around.

Did You Know?

People were signing legal contracts over 4,000 years ago.

Archaeologists have uncovered thousands of clay tablets recording marriages, business deals, property sales, inheritance disputes, loans, and even complaints between neighbors.

Apparently, arguing over property lines is one of humanity's oldest hobbies.

---

Temples were much more than churches.

Today we think of a temple as a place of worship. In much of the ancient Near East, temples also functioned as:

• banks

• libraries

• schools

• government offices

• warehouses

• law courts

• centers for collecting taxes and distributing food

Religion, politics, economics, and education all lived under the same roof. That's one reason the Ark of the Covenant will become so important later in our investigation and we talked it earlier. It wasn't placed inside Israel's holiest space by accident.

Writing was already ancient.

When Abraham was alive, writing itself had already existed for well over a thousand years. Scribes trained for years to master cuneiform. That stuff is so tiny... Imagine spending your childhood learning hundreds of wedge-shaped symbols just to become the office administrator. Suddenly your spelling test doesn't seem so bad now does it? 

 The world was surprisingly connected.

Trade routes linked Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Levant, and beyond. Tin from one region became bronze in another. Luxury goods crossed hundreds of miles. Ideas traveled with merchants.

So did stories. The ancient world wasn't isolated. It was networked only more slowly than ours.

Some cities had libraries centuries before classical Greece.

At places like Ebla, Mari, and later Nineveh, archaeologists discovered thousands upon thousands of tablets. These weren't only religious texts. No, they included diplomatic letters, treaties, school exercises, inventories, court cases, tax records, and international correspondence.

People have always loved paperwork. Some things never change.

Kings didn't simply rule by force.

Long before Israel entered Canaan, kingdoms were already making formal treaties with one another. These agreements established loyalty, obligations, witnesses, blessings, curses, and procedures for preserving the treaty document.

If that sounds familiar...

It should.

We'll eventually discover that many of those same structural patterns appear in the covenant at Sinai so keep in mind the Bible wasn't written outside history. It was written into history so understanding that history doesn't make Scripture less remarkable. In my experience, it makes it far more remarkable cause now the stories aren't floating in some mythical past.

They're unfolding in a world we can actually begin to reconstruct through archaeology, ancient texts, and careful historical investigation. That's one of the reasons I keep wandering down these rabbit holes and every time I do, the Bible starts feeling a little less like a distant religious book... ...and a little more like a window into a real world filled with real people trying to make sense of God, power, family, and life... Linda IDK... like we are.

Before We Ask Who, Let's Ask What

Here's a mistake I make all the time.I see a familiar word and immediately assign it a familiar meaning. Then I started learning Hebrew. Hebrew has a funny way of slowing you down.

Words often carry a range of meaning, and context does most of the work. Think about the English word rock.

It could mean the thing in your garden. A style of music. Someone dependable. Or the actor formerly known as a wrestler that wanted you to smell what he was cooking.

Same word.

Very different meanings. Hebrew works much the same way.

So before we ask, "Who is the Most High?" we should first ask a much simpler question. Am I right? We need to know...

What does "Most High" actually mean?

Following the Word

The Hebrew title is:

עֶלְיוֹן

Transliteration

ʿElyôn

It comes from the Hebrew root:

עלה

ʿalah

Meaning:

• to go up

• to ascend

• to rise

From that simple idea comes an entire family of words describing height.

Physical height.

Social status.

Honor.

Exaltation.

Supremacy.

When the Bible calls someone ʿElyon, it is describing someone who occupies the highest place and if you think that sounds simple that's because it is. For us though simple doesn't mean unimportant.

Notice something.

The word itself doesn't tell us who the person is. It tells us their position. It's a title. Think about our own world. If someone says,

"The President."

You immediately know the office. But not always the individual.

In another country...

In another century...

"The President" could refer to someone completely different.

Titles travel. People change. That's why historians are careful to make assumptions.

How the Bible Uses Titles

One thing that surprised me during this investigation is how comfortable the Bible is using multiple titles for the same figure.

YHWH.

Elohim.

El.

Adonai.

El Shaddai.

El Olam.

Rock.

King.

Shepherd.

Redeemer.

Father.

Judge.

Holy One.

Lord of Hosts.

Ancient people weren't trying to build systematic theology textbooks back then. No, they were describing different aspects of God's relationship with His people. A shepherd isn't less of a king because he's also called a shepherd. A judge isn't less of a father because he's also called a father. 

Titles reveal function. Functions reveal relationships. That's an important pattern for us to watch throughout this investigation.

Removing Our Modern Glasses

Today, we often think names are fixed labels. Ancient people often thought names and titles revealed character, authority, reputation, or purpose. Someone could receive a new name after a life-changing event.

Think about it: Abram becomes Abraham. Jacob becomes Israel. Hoshea becomes Joshua. Simon becomes Peter. The name tells part of the story. The title tells another part.

That's one reason I want to be careful not to flatten every divine title into exactly the same thing. The biblical authors seem comfortable using different language to emphasize different aspects of God's work. Our job here is to notice those patterns before deciding what they mean.

Looking Beyond Israel

This is where comparative history becomes helpful to us... Not because we're trying to prove Israel borrowed its beliefs but because we're asking a different question.

What world were the biblical authors speaking into?

Across the ancient Near East, exalted titles were common. In the Ugaritic texts discovered at Ras Shamra, the high god El is portrayed as the elder of the divine council. He is associated with wisdom, kingship, and authority. Egyptian pharaohs adopted lofty titles emphasizing universal rule and divine favor. Mesopotamian kings described themselves as rulers appointed by the highest gods.

The language of height...

Supremacy...

Rule...

Authority...

Was everywhere.

That doesn't make these traditions identical. Far from it actually. The similarities simply help us understand the cultural language. The differences reveal Israel's unique theological voice at the time and that's why comparison is valuable. Not because it erases differences but because it helps us see them more clearly.

Three Ways Historians Read This

This is where the investigation thus far gets interesting. Not everyone understands El Elyon the same way.

Model One

YHWH and El Elyon have always been understood as identical.

This is the traditional reading held by many Jewish and Christian interpreters. I mean Genesis 14 and later biblical passages identify the titles with one another.

Strengths:

• Fits the final form of the biblical text.

• Reflects the way many later biblical authors speak.

Questions:

• How should we understand passages like Deuteronomy 32 that appear to distinguish roles?

• Are we reading later theology back into earlier texts?

Model Two

Earlier traditions were later brought together.

Some scholars have argued that Israel's understanding of God developed over time and that older traditions may have been mixed together in the biblical text.

Strengths:

• Takes literary and historical development seriously.

• Attempts to explain difficult passages without ignoring them.

Questions:

• Which traditions are actually earlier?

• Can literary development always be demonstrated, or is some of it reconstructed?

Model Three

The title emphasizes function more than identity.

Some scholars suggest the better question isn't "Who is El Elyon?"

Instead:

"What role is being emphasized?"

Creator.

King.

Judge.

Covenant Lord.

Titles can highlight different aspects of the same figure without requiring every passage to answer every theological question.

Strengths:

• Allows titles to remain flexible.

• Fits the way ancient literature often uses royal language.

Questions:

• Are some passages inviting readers to distinguish figures?

• Or are they simply highlighting different functions?

At this point... I'm not planting my flag on any hill yet. This is a journey... I'm still gathering evidence and sharing my thinking and even mistakes in logic...

My Investigation So Far

Here's what has changed for me.

I used to think the first question should be:

"Who is Elyon?"

Now I think that's the second question.

The first question is:

Why does the biblical author use this title here instead of another one?

Authors choose words for reasons and sometimes those reasons are theological. Sometimes literary. Sometimes historical and sometimes all three. If we skip that question, we may miss what the author is trying to emphasize.

Case File Update Thus Far

Observations

ʿElyon means "Most High."

It is a title describing supreme rank.

 Ancient cultures also used exalted titles for kings and deities.

The Bible regularly uses multiple titles for God.

Titles often emphasize function rather than replacing names.

Still Under Investigation 🤔

• Does every biblical writer use ʿElyon in exactly the same way?

• Is Genesis using the title differently than Deuteronomy?

• How should literary development affect our reading?

• Does the title reveal identity, function, or both?

Those questions are still open for now... And that's okay. We are on a journey and some of the best discoveries happen after we become comfortable admitting what we don't yet know.

Dig Deeper

If you'd like to explore these ideas yourself:

Hebrew Word Studies

• STEP Bible: https://www.stepbible.org/

• Sefaria Hebrew Bible: https://www.sefaria.org/

Ancient Near Eastern Context

• The Oriental Institute (University of Chicago): https://oi.uchicago.edu

• Penn Museum: https://www.penn.museum

Scholarly Background

• Bible Odyssey (Society of Biblical Literature): https://www.bibleodyssey.org

• Encyclopaedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com

One thing this investigation keeps teaching me is that history is rarely as simple as we'd like. However, the good news about that?Simple answers aren't nearly as interesting as good questions.

Then Abram Says Something I Couldn't Ignore

This is the moment that forced me to slow down. After Melchizedek blesses Abram in the name of El Elyon, the king of Sodom offers Abram the spoils of war.

Abram refuses.

But listen carefully to how he answers.

Genesis 14:22

Hebrew

וַיֹּאמֶר אַבְרָם אֶל־מֶלֶךְ סְדֹם

הֲרִמֹתִי יָדִי אֶל־יְהוָה

אֵל עֶלְיוֹן

קֹנֵה שָׁמַיִם וָאָרֶץ׃

Transliteration

Wayyōmer ʾAḇrām el-meleḵ Səḏōm:

Harimōtî yādî el-YHWH,

ʾEl ʿElyôn,

qōnê šāmayim wāʾāreṣ.

Literal Translation

"And Abram said to the king of Sodom,

'I have lifted up my hand to YHWH,

El Most High,

Possessor of heaven and earth.'"

Take a breath. Don't explain it yet. Just notice it.

Melchizedek blesses Abram in the name of El Elyon and Abram responds by saying YHWH, El Elyon.

The final form of Genesis deliberately places those titles together and that observation isn't controversial. It's simply what the text says.

What it means... What it means though is that's where the discussion begins.

This Is Where My Theory Hit a Wall Back Then

When I began this investigation, I thought I had a fairly straightforward idea. If Deuteronomy 32 appears to distinguish between the Most High and YHWH, perhaps the earliest biblical tradition did the same.

Then I came back to Genesis 14 and Genesis politely refused to cooperate. I love moments like that. Not because they're convenient but because they're honest and make you think.

A theory that never encounters difficult evidence isn't much of a theory now is it?... It's usually just an opinion looking for confirmation. Good investigations however don't avoid the hard passages. They stop. Read them again. Then ask better questions.

So... What Are the Possibilities?

Rather than forcing one answer, let's lay the evidence thus far on the table.

Possibility One

Genesis is intentionally identifying YHWH with El Elyon. Many Jewish and Christian interpreters have understood the passage this way for centuries. It's a perfectly reasonable reading of the text as we have it. You can make it fit kinda.

Possibility Two

Genesis preserves older traditions that have been brought together into a unified narrative. Some scholars argue that the biblical authors and editors faithfully preserved ancient traditions while also presenting a coherent theological story. If that's the case, Genesis 14 may preserve traces of both....

Possibility Three

The distinction we're trying to make is a modern one. Ancient readers may have been far more comfortable moving between names and titles without feeling the need to define every relationship with philosophical precision. That possibility is worth considering too. History has a habit of reminding us that ancient people weren't secretly waiting for us to categorize everything.

If I Had Lived Then...

This has become one of my favorite exercises in my head while reading... Imagine I'm standing beside Abram. I don't know how Genesis ends. I haven't read Exodus. I know nothing about Sinai. There are no Biblical prophets yet. No Psalms. No Isaiah. No New Testament.

I'm simply watching a weary Abram after fleeing a place after his actions led to his brothers death because he has sworn an oath to the God he serves. Would I immediately start asking whether YHWH and El Elyon are identical?

Honestly... Probably not. I'd be struck by something much simpler.

Abram trusted this God enough to walk away from riches. That tells me something before I've solved any theological puzzle. Sometimes character reveals more than titles.

What Changed?

When this series began, my working hypothesis was relatively simple if you recall... It will change and narrow a few times... Now it's becoming more careful. To me that's progress. So instead of asking:

"Is YHWH the Creator God or only Israel's covenant God?"

Here I'm beginning to ask:

"How does the biblical story present YHWH across different periods, authors, and literary settings?"

That's a much better historical question I think... It allows Genesis to speak. It allows Deuteronomy to speak. It allows Isaiah to speak.So if they create tension... Good. Tension often tells us we're asking worthwhile questions.

Case File Update

Evidence We Have

Genesis introduces the title El Elyon through Melchizedek.

Abram later speaks of YHWH, El Elyon.

The title describes supreme authority.

Ancient cultures commonly used exalted titles for rulers and deities.

The biblical authors are comfortable using multiple titles for God.

Questions Still Open

• Is Genesis making an explicit theological identification?

• Is it preserving older language within a later literary framework?

• How does this compare with Deuteronomy 32?

• How did later Jewish readers understand these passages?

Notice something here? ... Our list of observations keeps growing and so does our list of questions. That's exactly how a proper investigation should work.

One Final Observation

If you've made it this far, thank you. Seriously. This isn't everyone's cup of tea. I get it is nerdy and boring.... I know this isn't the kind of topic most people discuss over coffee well unless you have very unusual friends (Looking at you Owen). But here's what keeps drawing me back.

The Bible has survived thousands of years of copying, translation, debate, archaeology, and scholarship. It has been questioned by believers. Questioned by skeptics. Questioned by historians. Questioned by kings. And yet somehow... It keeps inviting us to read one more page. Not because every question has an easy answer but because every careful reading seems to reveal another layer.

That doesn't weaken my faith. It deepens my respect for the Hebrew text. Maybe that's the greatest surprise of this entire journey. The more questions I ask... The more fascinating the Bible becomes.

---

The God Heist: A Magical Little Mystery Ride

If Genesis were the only passage that mentioned the Most High, our investigation might end here.

It doesn't.

One of the oldest poems in the Hebrew Bible takes us back to the division of the nations.

There we find the Most High dividing humanity into inheritances...

...and YHWH receiving Jacob as His portion.

To make matters even more interesting, some of our oldest biblical manuscripts don't all preserve the same wording.

Before we ask what the poem means, we'll do what we've done from the beginning.

We'll slow down.

We'll read the Hebrew.

We'll compare the manuscripts.

We'll let history speak before theology.

Because if this investigation has taught me anything, it's this:

The smallest textual differences sometimes open the biggest historical questions.

And that's exactly where we're headed next.