Genesis 14:22

22. I have lifted up mine hand A solemn form of making oath before God .

Unto the Lord, the most high God Unto Jehovah El Elion . The God of Melchizedek was El Elion, (Genesis 14:19,) a name that first appears in this connexion; not Elohim, nor yet Eloah . Elion is mentioned by Sanchoniathon as the name of the Phenician deity, and was probably common among the early Semitic nations as the name of the Supreme God . But Abram knows God under another name, Jehovah, the God of gracious revelation and promise . Although as king and priest of the most high God, blessing Abram and receiving tithes from him, Melchizedek appears as one superior to “the friend of God,” yet, as Kalisch well observes, “the religious enlightenment of the king of Salem was but a ray of the sun of Abram’s faith, and scarcely sufficient as it was, in itself, entirely to dispel the darkness, it could not be intended to spread a light to distant regions . ” Abram can appropriately use the name El Elion, possessor of heaven and earth, thus repeating, with thankful recognition, the name of the God of Melchizedek, but he puts before it the NAME to him more sacred, the name of the God who had appeared to him in this land of promise, and to whom he had erected altars . Genesis 12:7-8; Genesis 13:18.