what is now Syria). There it is applied to the god El, with whom the LORD is often equated in the Tanakh (e.g., 33:20; Num. 23:8). God Most High is itself a not uncommon epithet of the LORD (e.g., Ps. 47:3). That a foreigner should recognize and revere the God of Israel is not unusual in Genesis, though it is so in much of the rest of the Tanakh. The account of Abram’s interaction with the priest-king of Salem may have served to establish the antiquity of Israel’s holiest site and the priestly and