Lets make it perfectly clear that name Jehovah to mean the god of the ancient Hebrews was not used by the ancient Hebrews, which in fact was created centuries later.
Some more information relating to the gradual infusion of Canaanite culture to the evolving established Hebrew culture and how they eventually became distinctively unique.
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew form (אל) appears in Latin letters in Standard Hebrew transcription as El and in Tiberian Hebrew transcription as ʾĒl. El is a generic word for god that could be used for any god, including Hadad, Moloch,[26] or Yahweh.
In the Tanakh, ’elōhîm
is the normal word for a god or the great god (or gods, given that the
'im' suffix makes a word plural in Hebrew). But the form ’El also appears, mostly in poetic passages and in the patriarchal narratives attributed to the Priestly source of the documentary hypothesis. It occurs 217 times in the Masoretic Text: seventy-three times in the Psalms and fifty-five times in the Book of Job,
and otherwise mostly in poetic passages or passages written in elevated
prose. It occasionally appears with the definite article as hā’Ēl 'the god' (for example in 2 Samuel 22:31,33–48).
The theological position of the Tanakh is that the names Ēl and ’Ĕlōhîm,
when used in the singular to mean the supreme god, refer to Yahweh,
beside whom other gods are supposed to be either nonexistent or
insignificant. Whether this was a long-standing belief or a relatively
new one has long been the subject of inconclusive scholarly debate about
the prehistory of the sources of the Tanakh and about the prehistory of
Israelite religion. In the P strand, YHWH says in Exodus 6:2–3:
I revealed myself to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as Ēl Shaddāi, but was not known to them by my name, YHVH.
Before El's revelation with the name of Yahweh, it is said in Genesis 14:18–20 that Abraham accepted the blessing of El, when Melchizedek, the king of Salem and high priest of its deity El Elyon blessed him.[27]
One scholarly position is that the identification of Yahweh with Ēl is
late, that Yahweh was earlier thought of as only one of many gods, and
not normally identified with Ēl. Another is that in much of the Hebrew
Bible the name El is an alternate name for Yahweh, but in the Elohist and Priestly traditions it is conceived as an earlier name than Yahweh.[28] Mark Smith has argued that Yahweh and El were originally separate, but were considered synonymous from very early on.[29] The name Yahweh is used in the Bible Tanakh in the first book of Genesis 2:4; and Genesis 4:26 says that at that time, people began to "call upon the name of the LORD".[30][31]
In some places, especially in Psalm 29, Yahweh is clearly envisioned as a storm god,
something not true of Ēl so far as we know (although true of his son,
Ba'al Hadad). It is Yahweh who is prophesied to one day battle Leviathan the serpent, and slay the dragon in the sea in Isaiah 27:1. The slaying of the serpent in myth is a deed attributed to both Ba’al Hadad and ‘Anat in the Ugaritic texts, but not to Ēl.
Such mythological motifs are variously seen as late survivals from a
period when Yahweh held a place in theology comparable to that of Hadad
at Ugarit; or as late henotheistic/monotheistic
applications to Yahweh of deeds more commonly attributed to Hadad; or
simply as examples of eclectic application of the same motifs and
imagery to various different gods. Similarly, it is argued
inconclusively whether Ēl Shaddāi, Ēl ‘Ôlām, Ēl ‘Elyôn, and so forth,
were originally understood as separate divinities. Albrecht Alt presented his theories on the original differences of such gods in Der Gott der Väter in 1929.[32]
But others have argued that from patriarchal times, these different
names were in fact generally understood to refer to the same single
great god, Ēl. This is the position of Frank Moore Cross (1973).[33] What is certain is that the form ’El does appear in Israelite names from every period including the name Yiśrā’ēl ("Israel"), meaning "El strives" or "struggled with El".
According to The Oxford Companion to World Mythology,
It seems almost certain that the God of the Jews evolved gradually
from the Canaanite El, who was in all likelihood the "God of Abraham"...
If El was the high God of Abraham—Elohim, the prototype of
Yahveh—Asherah was his wife, and there are archaeological indications
that she was perceived as such before she was in effect "divorced" in
the context of emerging Judaism of the 7th century BCE. (See 2 Kings 23:15.)[34]
The apparent plural form ’Ēlîm or ’Ēlim "gods" occurs only four times in the Tanakh. Psalm 29, understood as an enthronement psalm, begins:
A Psalm of David.
Ascribe to Yahweh, sons of Gods (bênê ’Ēlîm),
Ascribe to Yahweh, glory and strength
Psalm 89:6 (verse 7 in Hebrew) has:
For who in the skies compares to Yahweh,
who can be likened to Yahweh among the sons of Gods (bênê ’Ēlîm).
Traditionally bênê ’ēlîm has been interpreted as 'sons of the mighty', 'mighty ones', for ’El can mean 'mighty', though such use may be metaphorical (compare the English expression [by] God awful). It is possible also that the expression ’ēlîm in both places descends from an archaic stock phrase in which ’lm was a singular form with the m-enclitic and therefore to be translated as 'sons of Ēl'. The m-enclitic
appears elsewhere in the Tanakh and in other Semitic languages. Its
meaning is unknown, possibly simply emphasis. It appears in similar
contexts in Ugaritic texts where the expression bn ’il alternates with bn ’ilm, but both must mean 'sons of Ēl'. That phrase with m-enclitic also appears in Phoenician inscriptions as late as the fifth century BCE.
One of the other two occurrences in the Tanakh is in the "Song of Moses", Exodus 15:11a:
Who is like you among the Gods (’ēlim), Yahweh?
The final occurrence is in Daniel 11:36:
And the king will do according to his pleasure; and he will exalt himself and magnify himself over every god (’ēl), and against the God of Gods (’El ’Elîm)
he will speak outrageous things, and will prosper until the indignation
is accomplished: for that which is decided will be done.
There are a few cases in the Tanakh where some think ’El referring to the great god Ēl is not equated with Yahweh. One is in Ezekiel 28:2, in the taunt against a man who claims to be divine, in this instance, the leader of Tyre:
Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre: "Thus says the Lord Yahweh: 'Because your heart is proud and you have said: "I am ’ēl (god), in the seat of ’elōhîm (gods), I am enthroned in the middle of the seas." Yet you are man and not ’El even though you have made your heart like the heart of ’elōhîm ('gods').'"
Here ’ēl might refer to a generic god, or to a highest god,
Ēl. When viewed as applying to the King of Tyre specifically, the king
was probably not thinking of Yahweh. When viewed as a general taunt
against anyone making divine claims, it may or may not refer to Yahweh
depending on the context.
In Judges 9:46 we find ’Ēl Bêrît 'God of the Covenant', seemingly the same as the Ba‘al Bêrît 'Lord of the Covenant' whose worship has been condemned a few verses earlier. See Baal for a discussion of this passage.
Psalm 82:1 says:
’elōhîm ("god") stands in the council of ’ēl
he judges among the gods (Elohim).
This could mean that Yahweh judges along with many other gods as one
of the council of the high god Ēl. However it can also mean that Yahweh
stands in the Divine Council
(generally known as the Council of Ēl), as Ēl judging among the other
members of the Council. The following verses in which the god condemns
those whom he says were previously named gods (Elohim) and sons of the Most High suggest the god here is in fact Ēl judging the lesser gods.
An archaic phrase appears in Isaiah 14:13, kôkkêbê ’ēl 'stars of God', referring to the circumpolar stars that never set, possibly especially to the seven stars of Ursa Major. The phrase also occurs in the Pyrgi Inscription as hkkbm ’l (preceded by the definite article h and followed by the m-enclitic). Two other apparent fossilized expressions are arzê-’ēl 'cedars of God' (generally translated something like 'mighty cedars', 'goodly cedars') in Psalm 80:10 (in Hebrew verse 11) and kêharrê-’ēl 'mountains of God' (generally translated something like 'great mountains', 'mighty mountains') in Psalm 36:7 (in Hebrew verse 6).
For the reference in some texts of Deuteronomy 32:8 to seventy sons of God corresponding to the seventy sons of Ēl in the Ugaritic texts, see ’Elyôn.
