where did the ancient israelite god yhwh live
Yahweh
Israel emerges into the historical record in the last decades of the 13th century BCE , at the very end of the Late Bronze Age when the Canaanite city - state system was ending . The milieu from which Israelite religion emerged was accordingly Canaanite . El , `` the kind , the compassionate , '' `` the creator of creatures , '' was the chief of the Canaanite gods , and he , not Yahweh , was the original `` God of Israel '' -- the word `` Israel '' is based on the name El rather than Yahweh . He lived in a tent on a mountain from whose base originated all the fresh waters of the world , with the goddess Asherah as his consort . This pair made up the top tier of the Canaanite pantheon ; the second tier was made up of their children , the `` seventy sons of Athirat '' ( a variant of the name Asherah ) . Prominent in this group was Baal , who had his home on Mount Zaphon ; over time Baal became the dominant Canaanite deity , so that El became the executive power and Baal the military power in the cosmos . Baal 's sphere was the thunderstorm with its life - giving rains , so that he was also a fertility god , although not quite the fertility god . Below the seventy second - tier gods was a third tier made up of comparatively minor craftsman and trader deities , with a fourth and final tier of divine messengers and the like . El and his sons made up the Assembly of the Gods , each member of which had a human nation under his care , and a textual variant of Deuteronomy 32 : 8 -- 9 describes El dividing the nations of the world among his sons , with Yahweh receiving Israel :
Israel emerges into the historical record in the last decades of the 13th century BCE , at the very end of the Late Bronze Age when the Canaanite city - state system was ending . The milieu from which Israelite religion emerged was accordingly Canaanite . El , `` the kind , the compassionate , '' `` the creator of creatures , '' was the chief of the Canaanite gods , and he , not Yahweh , was the original `` God of Israel '' -- the word `` Israel '' is based on the name El rather than Yahweh . He lived in a tent on a mountain from whose base originated all the fresh waters of the world , with the goddess Asherah as his consort . This pair made up the top tier of the Canaanite pantheon ; the second tier was made up of their children , the `` seventy sons of Athirat '' ( a variant of the name Asherah ) . Prominent in this group was Baal , who had his home on Mount Zaphon ; over time Baal became the dominant Canaanite deity , so that El became the executive power and Baal the military power in the cosmos . Baal 's sphere was the thunderstorm with its life - giving rains , so that he was also a fertility god , although not quite the fertility god . Below the seventy second - tier gods was a third tier made up of comparatively minor craftsman and trader deities , with a fourth and final tier of divine messengers and the like . El and his sons made up the Assembly of the Gods , each member of which had a human nation under his care , and a textual variant of Deuteronomy 32 : 8 -- 9 describes El dividing the nations of the world among his sons , with Yahweh receiving Israel :