El Chay – The Living God
This week’s name is awesome – El Chay, the Living God. Yahweh is throwing shade with this one.
So Joshua said to the people of Israel, “Come here, and listen to the words of Yahweh your Elohim.” Joshua continued, “This is how you will know that El Chay is among you and that he will certainly force the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites out of your way. – Joshua 3:9-10, Names of God version
Why does Joshua make the distinction that Yahweh is El Chay, the Living God?
Because Yahweh has ears that hear, eyes that see, and a mouth that speaks. Yes, he is Spirit, but he presented himself in the flesh as theophanies and Christophanies in the Old Testament. He hears the prayers of his people. He sees their situation. He acts on their behalf.
Unlike the gods of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Grigashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites.
This image is of Dagon, the idol Yahweh pwned when the Philistines placed the ark of the covenant in Dagon’s temple in Ashdod. (Pwn is a gamer term – slang for humiliate and annihilate while maintaining a cavalier attitude)
When the Ashdodites got up early the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. So they took Dagon and set him back in his place. But when they got up early the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And the head of Dagon and both palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold; only the torso of Dagon was left. For that reason neither the priests of Dagon nor any who enter Dagon’s house step on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day. – 1 Samuel 5:3-5
Did you ever wonder why, when Dagon’s head and arms were cut off, only his torso was left? Because he was a merman! He didn’t have legs. I find that fascinating and the scene above hilarious. If you’re a cat owner, you can envision Yahweh toppling Dagon. Oopsies!
The photo at the top of this post is Tangaroa, the Cook Islands god of fertility. I cropped the image, but you can imagine why this idol is still sold in tourist shops today. What a joke. It’s a carved piece of wood. And yet it was worshipped as a god.
Jeremiah says this:
For the customs of the peoples are futile;
For it is wood cut from the forest,
The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool.
4 They decorate the idol with silver and gold;
They fasten it with nails and hammers
So that it will not totter.
5 They are like a scarecrow in a cucumber field,
And they cannot speak;
They must be carried,
Because they cannot walk!
Do not fear them,
For they can do no harm,
Nor can they do any good.”
6 There is none like You, Lord;
You are great, and Your name is great in might.
7 Who would not fear You, O King of the nations?
For it is Your due!
For among all the wise men of the nations
And in all their kingdoms,
There is none like You.
8 But they are altogether stupid and foolish;
The instruction from idols is nothing but wood!
9 Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish,
And gold from Uphaz,
The work of a craftsman and of the hands of a goldsmith;
Their clothing is of violet and purple;
They are all the work of skilled people.
10 But the Lord is the true God;
He is the living God and the everlasting King.
The earth quakes at His wrath,
And the nations cannot endure His indignation.
11 [a]This is what you shall say to them: “The gods that did not make the heavens and the earth will perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”
12 It is He who made the earth by His power,
Who established the world by His wisdom;
And by His understanding He has stretched out the heavens.
13 When He utters His voice, there is a roar of waters in the heavens,
And He makes the clouds ascend from the end of the earth;
He makes lightning for the rain,
And brings out the wind from His storehouses.
14 Every person is stupid, devoid of knowledge;
Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols,
For his cast metal images are deceitful,
And there is no breath in them.
15 They are worthless, a work of mockery;
At the time of their punishment they will perish.
16 The Portion of Jacob is not like these;
For He is the [b]Maker of everything,
And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance;
The Lord of armies is His name. – Jeremiah 10:3-16 NASB
And Isaiah has this to say:
13 The craftsman of wood extends a measuring line; he outlines it with a marker. He works it with carving knives and outlines it with a compass, and makes it like the form of a man, like the beauty of mankind, so that it may sit in a house. 14 He will cut cedars for himself, and he takes a holm-oak or another oak and lets it grow strong for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a laurel tree, and the rain makes it grow. 15 Then it becomes something for a person to burn, so he takes one of them and gets warm; he also makes a fire and bakes bread. He also makes a god and worships it; he makes it a carved image and bows down before it. 16 Half of it he burns in the fire; over this half he eats meat, he roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Aha! I am warm, I have seen the fire.” 17 Yet the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He bows down before it and worships; he also prays to it and says, “Save me, for you are my god.”
18 They do not know, nor do they understand, for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts so that they cannot comprehend. Isaiah 44:13-18
When I was a child, I thought the prohibition against worshipping idols was no longer necessary. We don’t bow down to carved wood or shaped metal – we’re much too enlightened now, right?
Not so fast. In the next post we’ll look at what El Chay has to say to out generation.
This blog series is inspired by Ann Spanlger’s Praying the Names of God for 52 Weeks
