Obviously a tremendous question arises here as to how a story should be found in Genesis xiv. about Melchizedek, which as a proper name really occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible,[2] and the mystery is increased by the absence of any allusion to such a personage in Jesus Ben Sira’s enumeration of “famous men” (Ecclus. xliv.), or elsewhere. It almost looks as if Jesus Ben Sira had not read, or else had cancelled as spurious, the strange passage in Genesis—which is as follows:
“And Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine; and he was priest of El-Elyôn. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram of El-Elyôn, purchaser of heaven and earth; and blessed be El-Elyôn, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he (Abram) gave him a tenth of all.”
Professor Max Müller, in his third lecture on the “Science of Religion,” gives some useful information concerning this peculiar name, “El-Elyôn,” after consulting his contemporaries at Oxford and in Germany:
“One of the oldest names of the deity among the ancestors of the Semitic nations was El. It meant Strong. It occurs in the Babylonian inscriptions as Ilu, God, and in the very name of Bab-il, the gate or temple of Il.... The same El was worshipped at Byblus by the Phœnicians, and he was called there the Son of Heaven and Earth. His father was the son of Eliun, the most high God, who had been killed by wild animals. The Son of Eliun, who succeeded him, was dethroned, and at last slain by his own son, El, whom Philo identifies with the Greek Kronos, and represents as the presiding deity of the planet Saturn.... Elyôn, which, in Hebrew, means the Highest is used in the Old Testament as a predicate of God.... It occurs in the Phœnician cosmogony as Eliun, the highest God, the Father of Heaven, who was the father of El.”
According to Sanchunvaton (Euseb. Prœp. i. 10) the Phœnicians called God Ελιοῦν.
The combination El Elyôn occurs in but two chapters in the Bible,—Genesis xiv. and Psalm lxxviii. (The Revisers translate it in Genesis, “God Most High,” but in the Psalm (verse 35), “Most High God.”) That the name was imported from the earlier into the later chapter is suggested by a similar association of each with the idea of purchase or redemption: “God Most High, purchaser of heaven and earth” (Genesis), “God Most High, their redeemer” (Psalm). But which is the earlier? Probably the Psalm; for it is a long résumé of the traditional history of Israel, but contains no allusion to Abraham. Had its unique name, “El Elyôn,” been derived from any such traditional source surely some mention of Abraham would have been made.
The Psalm is Elohistic. Possibly the Phœnician name for God, Elioun, was used in order to set “El” above it. Or it may be that as Solomon had been declared “Elyôn of Kings” (Psalm lxxxix. 27) it was important to recall that he at the same time said, “My Elohim,” and to place “El” before his title. This conjecture is warranted by the fact that in both of the Psalms, and in the corresponding passages, God is spoken of as a “Rock.” There are other resemblances between the two Psalms, one very striking:
Psalm lxxviii. 70—“He chose David also, his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds.”
Psalm lxxxix. 19, 20—“I have raised one elected out of the people; I have discovered David, my servant.”
The Psalm in which the Septuagint personalises malki’-tzedek (cx.) into “Melchizedek” is a fragmentary little piece, with two incomprehensible verses at the end which seem to allude to some legend or folklore now lost. These verses (6 and 7) are incongruous with the preceding ones and must be detached, and perhaps verse 5 also, as this seems an anti-climax. These closing verses look as if they may have been added by some admirer of Joshua’s slaughter of kings, and it is probable that the legend of Joshua’s making his captains tread on the necks of the five kings (Joshua x.) was developed out of the opening verse of this Psalm: