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El-Elyon


Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abram, saying, 'Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.” Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
 (Genesis 14:18-20) 
EL-ELYON meaning “The Most High God”
           Melchizedek, king of Salem...priest of El-Elyon. Someday, we need to spend a day or two looking at Melchizadek. Today, we're looking at his God, El-Elyon, the "God Most High" or "Most High God." Looking at the words, another way to say it would be that He is the God of gods. We begin to see this in Genesis and it continues through the rest of Scripture. El-Elyon destroyed Sodom, Gomorrah and the other towns in the area. Their gods didn't stop Him. He mocked the gods of Egypt in Exodus. As you continue to read, He defeated the gods of the Promised Land. In David's day, He repeatedly humiliated the Dagon. The people found the statue of Dagon on his face before the Ark of the Covenant one day, and found Dagon's statue smashed and dismembered the next. Baal and his four hundred priests were no match for El-Elyon and Elijah. Like the author of Hebrews, I have to say that there isn't enough time to wander through all the examples of God's supremacy over other gods. The crowning achievement was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, in which God showed His supremacy over death and Hell. As we move quickly to the Revelation to John, we get to see the final battles, and if you haven't read the end of the story, you should. Some people would shout "Hallelujah." 
         Two other bits of trivial interest are tucked away in these verses. When we read about Abram leaving the land of Ur and going where he didn't know, I think we tend to think that he and his family were all alone in that foreign land like a crew of sailors stranded on an island with cannibals. Here, we discover that there was a king who was a priest of the Most High God there, which would suggest that there were people who also worshipped El-Elyon. It also suggests that the king and people of Sodom and Gomorrah and the area around them were not without those whose lives (and possibly words) testified against the sins of those towns. They had warning.

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