El (deity)
El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning 'god' or 'deity', or referring to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ila, represents the predicate form in the Old Akkadian and Amorite languages. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-.
Originally a Canaanite deity known as El, Al or Il was the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in the Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia. Among the Hittites, El was known as Elkunirša. Although El gained different appearances and meanings in different languages over time, it continues to exist as El-, -il or -el in compound proper noun phrases such as Elizabeth, Ishmael, Israel, Samuel, Daniel, Michael, Gabriel, and Bethel.
El is often described as the father of the gods and the creator of humanity. El had many epithets, including "Bull El," "El the King," and "Father of Mankind," reflecting his authority, wisdom, and paternal role. Over time, in Israelite religion, Yahweh absorbed many of El’s characteristics, gradually merging their identities through a process scholars such as Francesca Stavrakopoulou call "pantheon reduction".
In Ugaritic and Levantine mythology, El presided over a council of gods and fathered major deities like Baal, Yam, and Mot. He was depicted as wise and kingly, yet occasionally vulnerable, complementing Baal's role as a sustaining warrior. Archaeological texts show El's association with eternity, creation, and divine authority, often with a consort similar to Asherah. Later sources, including Phoenician and Hellenistic writings, sometimes equated El with other deities such as Cronus or Poseidon.
Linguistic forms and meanings
forms of El are found throughout the Semitic languages. They include Ugaritic, pl. ; Phoenician pl. ; Hebrew, pl. ; Aramaic ; Akkadian, pl..In Northwest Semitic use, ʼel was a generic word for any god as well as the special name or title of a particular god who was distinguished from other gods as being "the god". El is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, El played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both.
However, because the word el sometimes refers to a god other than the great god El, it is frequently ambiguous as to whether El followed by another name means the great god El with a particular epithet applied or refers to another god entirely. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, is understood to mean "El the King" but as "the god Hadad".
The Semitic root ʾlh may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning 'gods' is, equivalent to Hebrew 'powers'. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for "god" by biblical commentators. However, according to the documentary hypothesis, at least four different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and Priestly sources – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. These sources were joined together at various points in time by a series of editors or "redactors". Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.
The stem ʾl is found prominently in the earliest strata of east Semitic, northwest Semitic, and south Semitic groups. Personal names including the stem ʾl are found with similar patterns in both the Amorite and Sabaic languages.
Historical development
There is evidence that the Canaanite/Phoenician and Aramean conception of El is essentially the same as the Amorite conception of El, which was popularized in the 18th century BCE but has origins in the pre-Sargonic period. Any "changes" in El's status can be explained by the randomness of available data. Tribal organizations in West Semitic culture also influenced El's portrayal as a "treaty partner" in covenants, where the clan is seen as the "kin" of the deity.Eventually, El's cult became central to the ethnogenesis of the Iron Age Israelites, but so far, scholars are unable to determine how much of the population were El worshippers. It is more likely that different locales held different views of El.
Francesca Stavrakopoulou has argued that Yahweh was originally a storm‑warrior deity operating under the authority of the patriarch-god El, and traces how, through a process she terms "pantheon reduction," Yahweh gradually assumed El’s status and characteristics within Israelite religion, rather than immediately replacing him in a sudden shift to monotheism. Drawing on Near Eastern archaeological and textual parallels, Stavrakopoulou argues that the biblical Yahweh was originally depicted in early texts with a fully anthropomorphic, sexualised, and sometimes bull-horned body—including feet, limbs, torso, face, and genitals—before later Greek‑Platonic influence recast the deity as immaterial and disembodied. She further highlights inscriptions referencing "Yahweh and his Asherah", indicating a former divine consort akin to El's spouse—an element later removed during proto‑monotheistic reforms.
Proto-Sinaitic, Phoenician, Aramaic, and Hittite texts
The Egyptian god Ptah is given the title 'Lord of Gath' in a prism from Tel Lachish which has on its opposite face the name of Amenhotep II. The title is also found in Serābitṭ text 353. Frank Moore Cross points out that Ptah is often called the Lord of eternity and thinks it may be this identification of El with Ptah that led to the epithet ʿolam 'eternal' being applied to El so early and so consistently. Yet another connection is seen with the Mandaean angel Ptahil, whose name combines both the terms Ptah and Il. Wyatt, however, notes that in Ugaritic texts, Ptah is seemingly identified with the craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis, not El.In an inscription in the Proto-Sinaitic script, William F. Albright transcribed the phrase ʾL Ḏ ʿLM, which he translated as the appellation "El, of eternity".
The name Raphael or Rapha-El, meaning 'God has healed' in Ugarit, is attested to in approximately 1350 BCE in one of the Amarna Letters EA333, found in Tell-el-Hesi from the ruler of Lachish to 'The Great One'
A Phoenician inscribed amulet of the 7th century BCE from Arslan Tash may refer to El. The text was translated by Rosenthal as follows:
However, Cross translated the text as follows:
In some inscriptions, the name ʾĒl qōne ʾarṣ meaning 'El creator of Earth' appears, even including a late inscription at Leptis Magna in Tripolitania dating to the 2nd century. In Hittite texts, the expression becomes the single name, this Ilkunirsa appearing as the husband of Asherdu and father of 77 or 88 sons.
In a Hurrian hymn to El, he is called and, which Cross takes as 'El of the covenant' and 'El the judge' respectively.
Ugarit and the Levant
For the Canaanites and the ancient Levantine region as a whole, ʼĒl or ʼIl was the supreme god, the father of humankind and all creatures. He also fathered many gods, most importantly Baal, Yam, and Mot, each sharing similar attributes to the Greco-Roman gods Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades respectively.As recorded on the clay tablets of Ugarit, El is the husband of the goddess Asherah. Three pantheon lists found at Ugarit begin with the four gods ʾil-ʾib, El, Dagnu, and Ba'l Ṣapān. Although Ugarit had a large temple dedicated to Dagon and another to Hadad, there was no temple dedicated to El.
El had a variety of epithets and forms. He is repeatedly referred to as ṯr il and ʾil milk. He is bny bnwt, abū banī 'ili, and ʾab ʾadm. The appellations of "eternal", "creator" and "eternal" or "ancient creator" are "characteristic designations of 'El in Canaanite myths and liturgies". He is ḥātikuka. El is the grey-bearded ancient one, full of wisdom, malku, ʾab šnm, ʾEl gibbōr. He is also called lṭpn ʾil d pʾid and lṭpn wqdš.
El and his major son, Hadad, are symbolized both by the bull, and both wear bull horns on their headdresses.
The Ugaritic text Shachar and Shalim tells how El came to the shores of the sea and saw two women who bobbed up and down. El 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 was fully cooked, and to then address him either as husband or as father, for he would thenceforward behave to them as they called him. They saluted him as a husband. He then lay with them, and they gave birth to Shachar and Shalim. Again, El lay with his wives, and the wives gave 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 El's chief wife, and the goddess Raḥmayyu.
In the Ugaritic Ba'al Cycle, El is introduced having an assembly of gods on Mount Lel, and dwelling on 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 to real streams, to the mythological sources of the salt-water ocean and the fresh-water sources under the earth, or to the waters above the heavens and the waters beneath the earth. A few miles from the swamp from which the Litani and the Asi flow, Baalbek may be the same as the , the abode of El in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle discovered in the 1920s and a separate serpent incantation.
In the episode of the "Palace of Ba'al", the god Ba'al Hadad invites the "seventy sons of Athirat" to a feast in his new palace. Presumably, these sons have been fathered on Athirat by El; in following passages, they seem to be the gods in general or at least a large portion of them. The only sons of El named individually in the Ugaritic texts are Yamm, Mot, and Ashtar, who may be the chief and leader of most of the sons of El. Ba'al Hadad is a few times called El's son rather than the son of Dagan as he is normally called, possibly because El is in the position of a clan-father to all the gods.
The fragmentary text R.S. 24.258 describes a Marzēaḥ banquet to which El 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 incantation for the cure for a hangover.
El's characterization in Ugarit texts is not always favorable. His authority is unquestioned, but sometimes exacted through threat or roundly mocked. He is "both comical and pathetic" in a "role of impotence". But this is arguably a misinterpretation since El had complementary relationships with other deities. Any "differences" they had pertained to function. For example, El and Baal were divine kings, but El was the executive, whilst Baal was the sustainer of the cosmos.