(Ugaritic il, Hebrew ēl, Akkadian ilu). Common Semitic appellation for ‘god’ (except in Ethiopian) and also the nomen proprium of a deity attested in Mesopotamia since the 3rd millennium BC that apparently belonged to the original Semitic pantheon. Of several etymological hypotheses, the derivation from the root wl, ‘be in front, the first, strong,’ deserves consideration.
While il in Old Akkadian and Amoritic, but also in the texts of Ebla (3rd millennium) only appears in theophoric personal names, Ugaritic texts (2nd half of the 2nd millenniu…