Get To Know God Through His Names, Part 1: “El.” Infinite, Yet Intimate.

The first biblical name of God that we will examine is in this series is the name “El.”

The name is most often translated as “God” in the English versions of our Bibles. It is the short form of “Elohim,” which we will examine in another post. It is also often translated as “god” when speaking of other gods. However, this is not what El means in the original Hebrew language of the Old Testament. Our word “God” is often taken as some type of proper name, but it is really a title and the actual meaning of the Hebrew word El is more like “The Mighty One.”

The word “El” is made up of two Hebrew letters, Aleph and Lamed. In ancient Paleo-Hebrew, each letter had something similar to a pictographic meaning along with the sound that each letter made. The letter Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and it connotes “first, power, strength, might, leader, chief, the head.” The ancient pictograph for the letter Aleph was a bull with long horns.

The second letter of the word “El” is Lamed, and it connotes “leading, teaching, guiding.” The ancient pictograph for the letter Lamed was a shepherd’s staff.

When we combine these two Hebrew letters into the word “El” we can get a little creative and come up with something like: “The Powerful Head Chief who leads and guides like a shepherd.”

Is there any more accurate picture of the God of the Bible in relation to humanity?

He is the infinitely powerful head of all things that was before all because he created all.

At the same time, despite his infinite greatness, God cared about the humans that he created in his image so much that he took upon flesh to be our shepherd, to lead us, guide us and save us.

He is both infinitely greater than we can imagine and intimately involved in every aspect of our lives!

“For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.” – Proverbs 8:11 KJV

All images used are in the public domain from Pixabay

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