2. El

The first occurrence of this name is in Gen. 14:18 - 22. When Abram heard that Lot was taken captive,
he led forth his servants against the victorious hosts of the four kings, and pursued unto Hobah, and brought back all the goods, and. Lot and his goods, etc. " And the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shaveh. And (ver. 18) Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high El. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high El, possessor of heaven and earth: and blessed be the most high El, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he (Abram) gave him (Melchizedek) tithes of all. And the king of Sodom said unto Abram," etc. The scene was a remarkable one in the annals of faith, as much so as in the life of the father of the faithful.
The four victorious kings were-
1st, Amraphel, king of Shinar. The land of Shinar extends from the Persian Gulf, occupying thence upward, the whole land between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Faith's estimate of it is easily seen in these texts:-Gen. 10:10. The grandson of Ham (whose posterity were cursed by Noah), Nimrod, had " Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar," as the beginning of his kingdom. It was in the plain of Shinar (chap. 11:2) that the tower of Babel, which was man's defiance of God's power, was reared. Again, in Isa. 11:11, in the deliverance given to His people by the Branch out of the roots of the stem of Jesse, it is said, " The Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and.... from Elam, and from Shinar." Again, in Dan. 1:2, we read, that " the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, with part of the vessels of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god." And in Zech. 5:11, it is in the land of Shinar that wickedness has her house built, and is established and set upon her base. Mesopotamia, out of which Abram was called, was comparatively very small, yet formed part of the same territory, geographically, and was to the left furthest from the Persian Gulf.
2ndly, Arioch, king of Ellasar. Ellasar was in Arabia, extending along the Red Sea, or Arabian Gulf, at its mouth.
3rdly, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, in Persia. Elam was of Shem's branch (Gen. 10:22). But the captives of the beloved people, as we have just seen (1 Chron. 1:17), are delivered from "Elam," as much as from Shinar (Isa. 11:11); for " Go up, O Elam; besiege, O Media," had been the call (chap. 21:2) and (22:6) " Elam (in response) bare the quiver with chariots of men and horsemen." In the general desolation predicted, the kings of Elam have to drink of the wine-cup of the fury of the Lord God of Israel (Jer. 25:25). Its judgment was a most solemn one (chap. 49:34-39). The Shushan (of Dan. 8:2) was in the province of Elam. And Ezra tells us (chap, 4:6), that the Babylonians, the Susanchites.... the Elamites, counterworked God's people in the restoration from captivity.
4thly, Tidal, king of nations; that is, Galilee of the nations. The king of the nations of Gilgal (or Galilee) is the thirtieth king smitten by Joshua and the children of Israel, on their taking possession of the land (Josh. 12:23); and it is remarkable for another prophecy concerning it: " Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined" (Isa. 9:1,2). Compare Matt. 4:12-16, as showing how it regulated the blessed Lord's movements at one time.
The first of these four kings was lord of the land out of which the father of the faithful had been called by the God of the whole earth, when Lot accompanied him. Neither his land nor that of the next two lay in the Land of Promise. Tidal's land was therein, and was, perhaps more likely to be in collision with the cities of the plain. But the immediate cause of this war, and the inroad of foreign armies, was rebellion against Chedorlaomer (ver. 4). These four kings' kingdoms were large, and all lay within the conquests of Nimrod. Distant as they were the one from the other, they show the power of the confederacy of that day.
The five kings against whom they came were kings of cities, which all lay within the territory possessed by David and Solomon, though the first (Sodom) was in the land of the Amalekites, and the last (Zoar) in that of the Edomites. All five cities are but too notorious in Scripture. 1st, Bera, king of Sodom; 2ndly, Birsha, king of Gomorrah; 3rdly, Shinab, king of Admah; 4thly, Shemeber, king of Zeboiim; and, 5thly, the king of Bela or Zoar.
"Lot had seen all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest to Zoar.... and he dwelt in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked, and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." So we read in Gen. 13:10-13; and again in chap. 18:20: "And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know."
The God of mercy had prepared an intercessor for His own sake (that His mercy might appear), and for the sake, too, of Abraham, and of Lot, and of the poor sinners; and Abraham was he. But what a state the city was in, when (ver. 26) we read, " And the Lord said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes"; and then (ver. 28), " If I find there forty-and-five, I will not destroy"; and (ver. 29) "I will not do it for forty's sake"; and (ver. 30), " will not do it if I find thirty there"; and (ver. 31), " I will not do it for twenty's sake"; and then (ver. 32), " I will not destroy it for ten's sake." But there were not ten righteous persons in this city, chief in wickedness, towards which Lot pitched his tent. Lot entered into Zoar. " Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground" (chap. 19:22-25). And Abraham "looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace" (ver. 28).
This accounts for the prestige of these two places, and for such words as those used where the Lord is describing His plagues Deut. 29:23: "The whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the over-throw of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger, and in His wrath." And when utter destruction is intended, no phrase serves the turn better than, " As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and the neighbor cities thereof." See this, as to Babylon, in Isa. 13:19, Jer. 1:40; as to Edom, Jer. 49:18; as to Moab and Ammon, Zeph. 2:9.
Two other most striking passages on this subject are (Isa. 1:9), " Except the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah"; and (Rev. 11:8), the great city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
As to the last three of the cities: " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim?" (Hos. 11:8). Zoar was spared at Lot's intercession, when doomed: " See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken" (Gen. 19:21). And we find, as to Moab, it is written, in after-days, " His fugitives shall flee to Zoar" (Isa. 15:6); and, " They uttered their voice, from Zoar unto Horonaim" (Jer. 48:34). Mercy is a very self-consistent thing.
To sum up that which we have seen.
Abram, the father of the faithful, called by God out from his country and kindred, was dwelling as a pilgrim and a stranger in the land promised to him. He looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God; and God was not ashamed to be called his God. Lot had come out with him, but kept not up the wayfaring man's character, and settled down in the city of Sodom. The power of darkness brings in _three kings from the lands external to that of promise, and one king in the land, to punish the five kings in the land who had rebelled against the king of Elam. So far as the kings were concerned, Lot was nobody in the position of the war. His residence, however, as being in Sodom became so, and so did his goods, and the women and the people. In God's moral government, and in Satan's wiles, Lot in Sodom might be a very leading item in all this history. Abraham no sooner hears of this, than he goes forth with his own servants, and with Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre, pursues, and after a forced march overtakes the foe, and recovers the spoil, with Lot and all that was his. What a position was this friend of God in, when the king of Sodom went out to meet him, after his return from the slaughter of the king of Elam, and of the kings that were with him! A Lot, a Jonah, is oft a cause of trouble to a city, a ship: an Abram is oft a deliverer even of the wicked and their goods!
If Abram's deed was but natural to such an one, still it was a deed of a mighty man-one of valor and of disinterestedness. The king of Sodom came out to own it; he " went out to meet Abram"-this is given us in the 17th verse; but ere he can speak (as in the 21st verse), there is found to be another person present, who takes the lead and precedence of him: " And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine; and he was the priest of the most high El. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high El, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be the most high El, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all" (ver. 18-20).
The man who here wandered as a pilgrim and whose heart, formed to God, could content itself with no house, no city, no land, until he came to the house, city, and land prepared by God for Himself and for them that are His, wandered not from inward fickleness or weakness. That heart was bold enough to go forth and slay the four victorious oppressors of the strangers among whom he dwelt. The God of might was with him, and sends in His testimonial of approval in His own high priest-type, as we know, of another King of Righteousness, and Prince of Peace. Melchizedek meets him, on his return, with bread and wine; blesses him according to the name of Him the Mighty One of the most high places, Possessor of heaven and earth, whose servants they both were; praises the Mighty One for the honor put on Abram; and lets Abram show his might in tithing all unto himself as priest of God. Nothing could have been done to mark more distinctly God's thought of His own connection with the deed of might of His servant.
Now, the introducing, for the first time, this name to us here, is most sweetly significant. Abram had just been showing might in his own circumstances-might of no ordinary character. He who is the Mighty One, sends in one that can identify Himself with what His servant had just done, and His servant with Him in it. The king of Sodom is then allowed to speak, which gives to Abram an occasion of showing that his mastery was over himself, as much as over his circumstances. The spoil he had taken he would not keep, lest his God's faithfulness should be hidden among the children of men. This, as we know from the next chapter, had its immediate reward. For if Abram would be a Nazarite unto God, and so act that man should not say, even unjustly say, " I have made Abram rich," God would Himself be the shield and exceeding great reward of such a one And what a string of blessings does He pour out! Alas! poor Jacob had no such zeal for God, and fared accordingly. It is a great thing for us if we can think of God's name, and of what, in our circumstances, our being of the number of His called ones, makes meet for us.
Gen. 31:29. "It is in the power of my hand to do you hurt," said Laban to Jacob.
Deut. 28:32. "There shall be no might in thine hand," said to Israel in warning of the effects of sinning against God.
Neh. 5:5. " Neither is it in the power of our hand." Compare Prov. 3:27; Mark 2:1.
Psa. 82:1. " God standeth in the congregation of the mighty."
89:7. "Who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord!"
Ezek. 31:11. " The hand of the mighty one of the heathen."
32:21. " The strong among the mighty shall speak.")
Observe, as to the originating of this name, Melchizedek is the introducer of it. Man far from God may invent names, fashion titles for Him, misapply and misappropriate, to his own hurt and God's dishonor, names and titles of divine origin; but when the introducer of a name or a title is such an one as Melchizedek, that alone gives authority to the name.
The spring of the patriarch's strength was in another; his power to use that strength was in his own separation individually and as to circumstances, to that other.
The name is one of the most peculiar interest to us as Christians, because of that cry from the cross, "Eli! Eli! lama sabacthani!"
" There power itself and weakness meet;"
when He, who was the Power, as well as the Wisdom of God, was crucified through weakness.
A Nazarite in service was He, self-emptied, perfectly dependent, who alone could say, in the truthful sense of the words, " Lo! I come to do Thy will, O God!" and, " The cup which my Father Lath given me, shall I not drink it?" He would not speak or seek for Himself, for how then could the work have been accomplished? The patriarch got his heart cleansed by the exercises of faith; Christ, by the circumstance of exercises, got the occasion of showing how pure and perfect he was, while doing the work given to Him to do. I conceive that the use of this name in the first and in the tenth verses (" Thou art my El from my mother's belly") is full of force; and the feeling of weakness, forsaking, and desertion, in contrast with might and power, which are present, is sorrow indeed. Such was His when He tasted death for us.
The needs-be of it was in His own self and name. If His will and heart led to His name being Immanuel (the Mighty One with us), how should He be that, and hide His face from human woe? Or how, if He hid Himself from the human woe (the very core of which was guilt on account of sin), how, I say, could He ever, holily and justly, be God-with-us, to bring man into circumstances fitting to Himself? (Matt. 1:21-25; Heb. 2:9-18). The name of Immanuel is, in its application, earthly; yet in the connections of the truth found in it (as may be seen in the passages referred to of Matthew's gospel and the epistle to the Hebrews), it is of much wider application. A crucified Jesus was a Jew-rejected Messiah, who might be found by whosoever should call upon His name. Immanuel, though the very One in whom and in whose work we trust, is, Himself, once rejected by the Jew, yet to bless the Jew in the land. And what though the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory, shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks, and shall pass through Judah, shall overflow and go over, shall reach to the neck? Is the blessing hindered? Can a deluge breaking up from below prevent it? No: as Isaiah (8:7-9) goes on to say, El-with-us is our banner in that day; " the stretching out of His wings shall fill the breadth of Thy land, O Immanuel!" and therefore, " Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for EL-with-us." That is, this very name Immanuel is the solution, in that day, of all the sorrows of the Jewish people (see, also, Isa. 9:5-7).
Thus we find this name of El at the cross, where God let man measure out his wickedness against Him who was crucified in weakness; so opening a door to the whosoever, etc.: and we fins' the same name of El when God takes up His controversy with the infidel faction of the last day, and by this name the Jew gets blessing upon earth.
There is another combination of this name of El, besides that of Immanuel, which is also one of peculiar interest. For if Immanuel be a personal name of the blessed Lord, El-Shaddah'y is a name in the which much of Divine grace is presented to us in the word.
The first occurrence is in Gen. 17:1: "The Lord appeared unto Abram, and said unto him, I am [El Shaddah'y] the Almighty God: walk before me, and be thou perfect, and I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly," etc. Then, again, when Isaac is sending Jacob to Padan- Aram: " And El-Shaddah'y [God Almighty] bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people; and give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham" (chap. xxviii. 3, 4). And accordingly, when God appears to Jacob again, after he had come out of Padan-Aram, and blessed him, He said (chap. 35:10), " Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and He called his name Israel. And God said unto him, I am El-Shaddah'y [God Almighty]: be fruitful and multiply: a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land."
It is the name which Israel uses when he has to send Benjamin into Egypt (chap. 43:14): " And God Almighty give you mercy before the man," etc.; and uses, when, dying, he speaks to Joseph: " God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz, in the land of Canaan, and blessed, and said unto me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and I will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession" (chap. 48:3, 4); " and now Ephraim and Manasseh are mine," etc. Compare, also, his most beautiful blessing of Joseph, in chap. 49:25.
If God be for us, what is he, or what the circumstances, which may be set in opposition to us. El Shaddah'y was for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and was known, too, to each of them to be for him, for his posterity and circumstances, and all was felt to be right. Ruth, on the other hand (chap. 1:20, 21), felt bitterly, through unbelief, the sorrow of having "the Almighty" against her. Job's friends knew how to use the name of the Almighty against him and his own unbroken spirit lent itself to the same folly.
That there is something distinctive and characteristic in the name El-Shaddah'y is clear from Ex. 6:3: " I am Jehovah: and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the name of El-Shaddah'y; but by my name of Jehovah was I not known to them." A most important passage, as showing the force of the names used in Scripture. And in accordance with this -indeed, as confirmatory of it-I remark, that in the Song of Moses (Ex. 15), the name of LORD, or Jehovah, occurs twelve times; El, twice, viz., " He is my El" (ver. 2), and (ver. 11) "among the gods;" and the name of Elohim but once, " my father's God " (ver. 2).
Some of the passages in which this name of El occurs are of too much interest in themselves for me not to cite them; e.g.-
Ex. 34:5: " The Lord) descended in the cloud, and stood with him [Moses] there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, Jehovah-El, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear (the guilty); visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children, unto the third and fourth generation."
So, again (Num. 23.8), in Balaam's testimony: "How shall I curse whom El has not cursed?" Again (ver. 19), " El (is) not a man, that He should lie;" and (ver. 22), "El brought them out of Egypt;" and (ver. 23), " What hath El wrought!" See, also, chap. 24:4, 8, 16, 23.
In the songs which record the triumphs of grace over all that was outside and inside of David-the way in which grace, mercy, and compassion express themselves in the circumstances and persons of the beloved of God-this word occurs, 2 Sam. 22 and 23.
Chapter 22 " As for El, his way is perfect" (ver. 31).
" Who is El, save the Lord?" (ver. 32). " El is my strength and power" (ver. 33). " It is El that avengeth me."
And chap. 23. " Although my house be not so with. El, yet He hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure; for this is all my salvation and all my desire, although He make it not to grow."
In Daniel we find the word in two remarkable places, namely, in chap. 9 "the great and dreadful El " (ver. 4), and (in chap. 11) " The king... shall magnify him-self above every El, and shall speak marvelous things against the El of Els, and shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished " (ver. 36).
Observe also these passages where the word is connected with the thought of sonship.
In Psa. 89:26, speaking of Solomon, the son promised to David, " He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father, my El, and the Rock of my salvation." Also, " I will make Him my First-Born, higher than the kings of the earth. My mercy will I keep for Him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with Him."
Hos. 1:10: " It shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there shall it be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living El." A passage of peculiar interest to us, from its moral connection through the heavenlies with our-selves.