Deity · Canaanite · c. 1400 BCE
El
Also called Ilu, El Elyon · also recorded as ’Ēl, Il, ’Il, Ilāh, El (Deity), אֵל, ܐܠ (per Wikidata)
The aged high god who presides over the assembly at Ugarit — and whose name is one of the Hebrew Bible's own words for God.
Well sourced
El's name is not disguised in the Hebrew Bible: *El*, *Elohim*, *El Shaddai*, *El Elyon* are all used of Israel's God, and Israel itself means 'El strives'. Deuteronomy 32:8 in the Dead Sea Scrolls text has El Elyon dividing the nations among the sons of God, with Israel allotted to YHWH — a passage the Masoretic tradition later altered. Whether YHWH was originally one of El's sons who absorbed the father, or was identified with him from the start, is among the most-argued questions in the field.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
Ugarit, where the assembly meets at his tent by the source of the rivers. His name is also the ordinary Semitic word for 'god', which makes tracing a cult of El as distinct from a cult of a god unusually hard.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- The Baal Cycle (Ugaritic Tablets) · c. 1400-1200 BCE
- Rank
- Father of the Gods
- Pantheon
- Canaanite
- Order
- Canaanite pantheon
- Base of operations
- Ugarit, where the assembly meets at his tent by the source of the rivers. His name is also the ordinary Semitic word for 'god', which makes tracing a cult of El as distinct from a cult of a god unusually hard.
- Era
- c. 1400 BCE
- Traditions
- Jewish, Canaanite & Ugaritic
Traits
- Domain
- Creation, the divine assembly, fatherhood, wisdom
- Traditional form
- An enthroned bearded elder
Stats
Known connections
Chain of command
Identified with
4 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 4 offices attributed to El, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- divination1
- martial2
- material1
3 marks
Which marks is it attached to?
A mark a figure carries and a mark used against a figure are opposite claims, so each link says which it is.
The Asherah Pole
Carried as an emblem
Her consort in the Ugaritic texts, where she is the mother of the gods.
The Bull
Carried as an emblem
Titled Bull El throughout the Ugaritic texts.
The Standing Stone
Carried as an emblem
The high god of the Canaanite pantheon whose cult these mark.
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names El, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 900 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as El, El / El Elyon (English 'God', 'God Most High')
- Rank: given as Father of years, creator of creatures; God Most High
Presides over the divine assembly and must approve Baal's palace.
The Hebrew name is used of Israel's God throughout and survives inside Israel, Bethel, Michael and Gabriel. English translations render it simply as God, which hides the borrowing.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Identified with Ahura Mazda
High gods presiding over ranked subordinate spirits.
Identified with Zeus
Aged and enthroned heads of a divine assembly; equated in the Hellenistic Levant.
Served by Baal Hadad
Baal must obtain El's permission to build his palace.
Identified with Dagon
Dagan is named as Baal's father at Ugarit, an office El also holds.
Identified with Saturn
Aged, deposed or withdrawn fathers of the reigning gods.
Identified with The Dagda
Fathers of a pantheon holding both abundance and authority.
Identified with Amun
Hidden or withdrawn high gods presiding over an active pantheon.
Ancestor of The Sons of God
The assembly of El in Ugaritic literature has the same vocabulary and the same shape three centuries earlier; the Hebrew council keeps the structure and changes who presides.
Served by Asherah
His consort at Ugarit, and the one whose intercession moves him.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention El?
Is El the same as Ahura Mazda?
What rank is El?
How else is El spelled?
What is El said to do?
How old is El?
Nearest in the corpus
If El is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Anat
Warrior Goddess · Canaanite
Baal's sister and avenger. She grinds Death himself to pieces and sows him in a field, which makes her the most violent figure in the Ugaritic corpus.
Astarte
Goddess of Love and War · Canaanite
The West Semitic goddess of love and war, cognate with Ishtar — and the direct ancestor of the Goetic duke Astaroth, who kept the name and lost the gender.
Baal Hadad
Storm God · Canaanite
The Canaanite storm and fertility god who defeats Sea and Death — and whose title, *baal* ('lord'), the Hebrew Bible turns into a generic term for false gods.
Chemosh
God of Moab · Canaanite
National god of Moab, known from the Bible and from the Mesha Stele — where a Moabite king describes his own history in language almost identical to Israel's.
Lotan
Chaos Serpent · Canaanite
The seven-headed sea-serpent slain in the Baal Cycle, described in language Isaiah reuses almost verbatim for Leviathan.
Mot
God of Death · Canaanite
Death itself as a god, with a throat wide enough to swallow Baal. The later mouth-of-hell is this image, several cultures downstream.
The books behind El
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
The Baal Cycle (Ugaritic Tablets)
Anonymous; recovered at Ras Shamra · c. 1400-1200 BCE · Ugaritic
Read The Baal Cycle (Ugaritic Tablets) in full ↗Cover: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Unknown artist · Wikimedia file page
Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon
Various · c. 900–100 BCE · Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek
Read Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon in full ↗Cover: Public domain · see en:Aleppo Codex; scanned by · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.