Note 3 — Chapter XIV · Solomon Melchizedek.

The “Salem” of Gen. xiv. 18, and the “Shalem” of Gen. xxiii. 18, are evidently competitive. Also Jacob’s naming his altar “El-Elohe-Israel” seems an answer to Abraham’s “El-Elyôn,” as if saying that the latter was not the God of Israel. It is even possible that the name “Luz” (Gen. xxviii. 19) changed to Beth-El, after Jacob’s vision of the Ladder and setting up the pillar there, is meant to correspond with the “oaks of Mamre” (Gen. xiv. 13), where Abram dwelt when he was met by the priest of El Elyôn. For Abram had also built an altar at some place called Beth-El (Gen. xiii. 3) where he called on the name of the Lord and received a promise that his seed should be “as the dust of the earth,” which is verbatim the promise made to Jacob at his Beth-El (Gen. xxviii. 14). Now Abram next moves his tent to the “oak of Mamre” in Hebron (Gen. xiii. 18), and the Hebrew word for oak is Elah, or Eylon. The unusual name for the deity of both Abram and Melchizedek, El-Elyon, was probably selected because of its resemblance to the sacred oak or Elah of that place, and Jacob’s El-Elohe-Israel was no doubt meant to invest his deity with the same sanctity. Now “Luz” also means a tree,—almond-tree,—and was also a name of the Assyrian goddess Ishtar. The oak was associated also with Jacob, who buried beneath it the idols of his household (Gen. xxxv. 1–9) immediately before setting up his altar at Luz (the almond).