elyon

At its plainest this word simply marks the higher of two things. A building has an upper room and a lower one; a city sits on the higher ridge while its twin sits below; water runs from an upper pool to a lower channel. The word picks out whichever member of a pair is on top.

From that physical sense it stretches naturally to rank. To be highest is to be raised above everyone around you. Israel is promised it will stand high above all the nations, the king is set higher than all other kings, and the temple is the most prominent thing on the skyline. In each case the picture of physical height carries the meaning of status: the thing on top is the one that matters most.

These ordinary uses share one idea, being above. That same idea, pushed to its limit, becomes the great title for God explored under the next meaning.

Used of God, the same word for highest becomes one of the Bible's oldest names for him: the Most High. It first appears on the lips of Melchizedek, who blesses Abram in the name of God Most High, maker of heaven and earth. The title says that whatever else is called great or powerful, God stands above it all.

The name turns up most often in the Psalms, where it is a favorite way of praising God as king over the whole world and a refuge for those who shelter under him. It also appears in older poetry, in Balaam's oracles and in the song of Moses, which is part of why scholars regard it as an ancient way of speaking about God.

Because the title means the one who is highest, it carries a sharp edge in passages about pride. When the taunt-song in Isaiah pictures a tyrant boasting that he will climb up and make himself like the Most High, the horror is precisely that a creature is reaching for the place that belongs to God alone.