Yahweh and the Origins of Ancient Israel: Insights from the Archaeological Record 9781009314763, 9781009314770

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Yahweh and the Origins of Ancient Israel Insights from the Archaeological Record

Nissim Amzallag

YAHWEH AND THE ORIGINS OF ANCIENT ISRAEL

In this book, Nissim Amzallag offers new perspectives on the birth of ancient Israel by combining recent archaeological discoveries with a new approach to ancient Yahwism. He investigates the renewal of the copper industry in the Early Iron Age Levant and its influence on the rise of new nations, and also explores the recently identified metallurgical context of ancient Yahwism in the Bible. By merging these two branches of evidence, Amzallag proposes that YHWH was in the Early Iron Age approached in the Southern Levant as a powerful deity who sponsored the emancipation movement that freed Israel and its neighbors from the Amorite/Egyptian hegemony. Amzallag identifies the early Israelite religion as an attempt to transform the esoteric traditions of Levantine metalworkers into the public worship of YHWH. These unusual origins provide insight into many of the unique aspects of Israelite theology that ultimately spurred the evolution toward monotheism. His volume also casts new light on the mysterious smelting god, the figure around which many Bronze Age religions revolved.  Nissim Amzallag is Associate Researcher in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author of more than 50 papers and three books, most recently Psalm 29: A Canaanite Hymn to YHWH in the Psalter (Peeters, 2021).

YAHWEH AND THE ORIGINS OF ANCIENT ISRAEL INSIGHTS FROM THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD NISSIM AMZALLAG Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009314763 DOI: 10.1017/9781009314770 © Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2023 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. First published 2023 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. A Cataloging-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-009-31476-3 Hardback Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

CONTENTS

List of Figures

page ix

List of Tables

xi

Preface

xiii

List of Abbreviations

xv

INTRODUCTION: IDOLS OF KNOWLEDGE

1

Dating the Biblical Sources The Evolutionary Perspective The Monotheistic Bias The Refractory Reality Methodological Considerations

4 7 9 14 17

Part I The Movement of Emancipation in the Southern Levant 1 BAAL AND THE AMORITE HEGEMONY

29

The Southern Levant in the Bronze Age The Amorite Expansion The Storm-God Koiné The Amorite Ideology Indigenous Reactions

29 31 36 40 51

2 ISRAEL AND THE AMORITES

Biblical and Historical Amorites The Amorites: Enemies or Founders of Israel? The Contrasting Symbolism of the Serpent YHWH and the Chaoskampf Motif Pro- and Anti-Amorite Views in the Bible 3 THE FRATERNAL ALLIANCE IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT

Israel and the Emerging Nations The Polemic around the Conquest of Sihon’s Kingdom Early Israel Commitments Implications Concerning YHWH’s Authority

70

70 75 78 83 87 96

96 99 103 107 v

vi

CONTENTS

4 THE SUBSTRATUM OF THE MOVEMENT OF EMANCIPATION

Current Views on the Birth of Israel The Early Iron Age Global Recession The Southern Levant Abnormal Resilience The Resurgence of the Arabah Copper Industry The Impact of Copper Production

119

119 123 125 127 134

Part II The Primeval Identity of YHWH 5 THE METALLURGICAL BACKGROUND OF ANCIENT YAHWISM

The Patron of the Metalworkers YHWH’s Metallurgical Attributes Testimonies from the Israelite Religion Metallurgy as Transcendent Principle The Super-God Nature of YHWH 6 YHWH AND EL

First Comparisons El in the Early Iron Age The Ugaritian Figure of El Asherah, the Divine Mediator

151

151 155 162 165 170 178

179 184 186 188

Part III The Conception of Israel 7 THE ISRAELITE SINGULARITY

The Timna Makeover Parallels with the Emergence of Israel The Oasis Representation of the Divine Residence Volcanism and YHWH’s Modus Operandi The New Storm Attributes 8 THE EXODUS–CONQUEST IDEOLOGY

Israel before the Exodus The Partition of the Sea as Theological Novelty Divine Deeds in the Song of the Sea The New “Society of God” The Decalogue as an Initiatory Pledge 9 INTEGRATIVE YAHWISM

The Diversity of Yahwisms in the Levant YHWH in the Song of Deborah The Skeptical Message of Exodus Reactions to Elijah’s Activism The Hybrid Theology

199

200 201 204 208 211 220

220 222 224 229 235 245

246 249 255 260 268

CONTENTS

CONCLUSION

Metallurgy as a Transient Reality in the Southern Levant The Super-God Dimension and Its Consequences The Multiplicity of Yahwisms in Early Israel The Evolution of the Early Israelite Religion

275

276 277 278 280

Bibliography

285

Subject Index

321

Scripture Index

331

ANE Sources and Classics Index

341

vii

FIGURES

1.1 Trade of metals between the Caucasus, Anatolia, and the Ancient Near East in the Early and Middle Bronze Age. page 34 1.2 The storm-god stela from Ugarit. 36 1.3 Anatolian seal impression representing Haddu/Teššub and serpents. 41 1.4 Serpent and dancers in a seal from Saar, Early Dilmun culture. 41 1.5 Cylinder seal from Ur with an erect serpent. 42 1.6 The seven-headed serpent Mušmahhu, Mesopotamia, Early Dynastic period. 42 1.7 Cylinder seal from Susa with temple façade, serpent, scorpions and ibexes. 43 1.8 Vessel for libations from Gudea with intertwined serpents dedicated to Ningizzida. 44 1.9 Cylinder seal from Susa representing the serpent-god. 45 1.10 Cylinder seals from Eshnuna representing a serpent-god facing a fiery altar. 46 1.11 Elamite seals with representations of serpents. 47 1.12 Cylinder seals with serpent from Cyprus. 48 1.13 Imprints of cylinder seals from Ur with representations of Iškur. 52 1.14 Representations of Adad-Iškur from the end of the third millennium BC. 54 1.15 Baal-Seth slaying the serpent and the lion. 55 1.16 Representation of Athtar on a cylinder seal from Ugarit. 55 1.17 Baal claiming his authority on animals on a cylinder seal from Ugarit. 56 1.18 Cylinder seal from Ugarit with intertwined serpent motifs. 57 1.19 Cylinder seal from Ugarit representing a man holding a bird-headed serpent. 58 1.20 Gold pendant representing the goddess Asherah from Minet el Beida. 59 1.21 Cylinder seal from Northern Syria combining the storm-god subduing the serpent and the winged lion motif. 59 1.22 Cultic vessel with serpents from the Southern Levant. 60 1.23 Cylinder seal from the Southern Levant with a representation of Baal. 61 3.1 Incense burner with dotted serpents from Beth Shean. 114 4.1 The copper mining areas in the Southern Levant and Sinai exploited in Antiquity. 128 4.2 Copper production at the Faynan district during the Early Iron Age. 129 4.3 Copper artifacts from the Nahal Mishmar hoard, Southern Levant. 130 ix

x

LIST OF FIGURES

4.4 Remains from the tent sanctuary replacing the Hathor chapel in Timna. 4.5 Copper serpent from the Timna sanctuary (site 200). 4.6 Qurayyah ware from Timna. 4.7 Copper production networks in the Southern Levant in the Early Iron Age. 7.1 Volcanic fields, recent volcanic activity, and the trade routes from Northern Arabia in the end of the second millennium BC.

132 132 133 135 210

TABLES

3.1 The sins of the nations in Amos 1:1–2:6 8.1 Comparison of the successive phases of the cupellation process and the divine modus operandi in the Song of the Sea

page 106 227

xi

PREFACE

Rooting ancient Yahwism in metallurgy was first proposed in 2009, in an article entitled “YHWH: The Canaanite God of Metallurgy?”1 Since then, further papers have exposed new facets of this forgotten reality, emerging from the interface between two fields of research previously considered totally distinct: the history of ancient Israel and its beliefs on the one hand, ancient metallurgy and its cultural dimension on the other. The archaeological achievements from the last decade have made an essential contribution in bringing together these fields, with discoveries allowing a much greater understanding of the metallurgical activity in Arabah, and its impact on the Southern Levant in the Early Iron Age. This decisive breakthrough now makes it possible to formulate a first synthesis, and with it, to develop new theories about the emergence of Israel and the cult of YHWH. What is immediately apparent is that gathering all these data promotes a substantial shift in our representation of the circumstances of the emergence of Israel, and the beliefs accompanying this event. It also challenges many of our presuppositions concerning the relationship between the biblical sources and the historical reality. Expounding a new paradigm is not a simple matter, however. This is all the more true in the field of the history of ancient Israel that is so extensively debated. This makes it impossible to supply all the information concerning the elements promoting, supporting, or corroborating the new paradigm, and concurrently to discuss their relevance in the face of all current explanations. It is, above all, on the basis of its internal cohesiveness, its ability to reorganize knowledge, and its capacity to integrate a maximum number of facts previously left behind by the alternative explanations that the new paradigm should be evaluated. The debate will follow, I hope. It will refine the proposed scheme, provoke new questions, and allow new perspectives to emerge. With these considerations in mind, two further constraints impacted the conception of this book. The first is didactic. A detailed exposition of a metallurgical reality so frequently ignored in biblical research would require a long treatment. As legitimate as it may be, this would lead to the writing of a voluminous work, which would have been detrimental to an overview of the whole thesis and to the exposition of its intrinsic cohesiveness. For this reason, findings already discussed in previous publications (e.g., the metallurgical xiii

xiv

PREFACE

dimension of some divine attributes, the Qenite ascendancy upon the Israelite cult of YHWH, and the cultural dimension of copper metallurgy in the Bronze Age) are only briefly mentioned here. The second constraint is methodological. As will become clear, Yahwism is a very ancient doctrine in the Southern Levant, so it would be illusory to assume its homogeneity at the time Israel transformed YHWH into its tutelary deity. The fulminations of some biblical authors against what they call “deviations” or “foreign influences” in his cult probably echo this reality. No less than seven forms of Yahwism will gradually emerge here. This profusion raises a methodological problem, making it easy to introduce a new form of Yahwism to cope with every reality irreducible to the ones already identified. Although the diversity of ancient Yahwisms is a genuine reality, such inflation threatens the viability of the whole thesis presented here. This paradoxical situation occasioned a methodological choice, that of restricting to the minimum the number of Yahwistic doctrines necessary to account for the emergence of Israel, and its singular worship of YHWH. Of the seven forms of Yahwism identified in this book, two of them (the Exodus–Conquest ideology and the Integrative Yahwism) are sufficient to fulfill this task. It is why the last part of this work is mainly devoted to their expression, with the hope that this choice represents the best compromise concerning this methodological constraint. This methodological choice should nevertheless not obfuscate the impact of the other forms of Yahwism on the history and theology of early Israel. For example, although the data presented in this study make the likelihood of a storm-god’s former identity of YHWH definitely low, some Baal-like attributes are actually attached to the god of Israel in some biblical sources. They outline the presence of syncretistic form(s) of Yahwism among the Israelites, with a potentially substantial impact on their theology. These considerations are not essential for appreciating the likelihood of the present thesis, so this dimension was not pursued in this book. My hope is that the paradigm exposed here will stimulate the emergence of new theories that also account for this Baal-like dimension. Meanwhile, I would like to thank all those colleagues and friends who have contributed – through their knowledge, reflection, and criticism – to the maturation of the ideas presented here. My thanks go also to Nino Shanshashvili and Uzi Avner for sharing pictures and graphs, and to Patrick Jean-Baptiste and Mikhal Avriel for their generous contribution to the creation of the original graphs and drawings. I would also like to thank Sara Fine-Melzer and Amala Gobiraman for the English corrections in the manuscript; the two anonymous reviewers and the editor, Beatrice Rehl, for their invaluable comments and advice. NOTE 1 Amzallag 2009a.

ABBREVIATIONS

AAAS AAE ABD AEPHE AF AJA AJBI AJSLL AkSup AMN ANES ANET AntOr AO APAAA AR ARA AS ASAE ASOR AuL AUSS AWE BA BAR BASOR BBR BCSMS BEM BHM BiblInt BICS BIOSCS BK

Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy Anchor Bible Dictionary. ed. D.N. Freedman et al. New York, 1992. Annuaire de l’École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Section des Sciences Religieuses Altorientalische Forschungen American Journal of Archaeology Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures Akkadica Supplementum Acta Musei Napocensis Ancient Near East Studies Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Ed. J.B. Pritchard; Princeton, 1969 (3rd ed.). Antiguo Oriente Archiv Orientalni Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association Archiv für Religionsgeschichte Annual Review of Anthropology Anatolian Studies Annales du Service des Antiquités de l’Égypte American School of Oriental Research Ägypten und Levante Andrews University Seminary Studies Ancient West and East The Biblical Archaeologist Biblical Archaeological Review Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Bulletin for Biblical Research Bulletin of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies Bulletin of the Egyptian Museum Bulletin of the History of Medicine Biblical Interpretation Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies Bibel und Kirche xv

xvi

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

BN BO BS BSA BSNAF BSOAS BTB BurH BV BW CAJ CBQ CBR CBW CCE CFHG ClCh CorS CQ CW DCH DDD DL DRS

DU3D EA E&L E&W ElAn EM ER ESY ET EtrSt G&R GB GM GSAB HALOT HAR

Biblische Notizen Biblia e Oriente Bibliotheca Sacra Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture Bulletin de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Biblical Theology Bulletin Buried History Bulletin of Volcanology Biblical World Cambridge Archaeological Journal Catholic Biblical Quarterly Currents in Biblical Research Conversations with the Biblical World Cahiers Caribéens d’Égyptologie Comité Français d’Histoire de la Géologie Climatic Change Corrosion Science Classical Quarterly The Classical World The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. Ed. D.J. Clines. Sheffield, 2011. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd ed.). Eds. K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, and P. W. van der Horst. Leiden, 1999. DavarLogos Dictionnaire des racines sémitiques ou attestées dans les langues sémitiques. Eds. J. Cantineau, D. Cohen, F. Bron, and A. Lonnet. The Hague, 1970–Leuven, 2012. Dictionnaire universel des dieux déesses et démons. Ed. P. JeanBaptiste. Paris, 2016. El Amarna Egypt and the Levant East and West Electronic Antiquity Encyclopaedia Biblica. Eds. E.L. Sukenik and U.M.D. Cassuto. Jerusalem, 1950–1982 (Heb.). Encyclopedia of Religion (2nd ed.), 15 vols. Ed. M. Eliade. New York, 2005. Eurasian Studies Yearbook Expository Times Etruscan Studies Greece and Rome Gold Bulletin Göttingen Miszellen: Beiträge zur ägyptologischen Diskussion Geological Society of America Bulletin L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Leiden, 1999. Hebrew Annual Review

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

HeBAI HR HS HTR HUCA IAMS IDB IEA IEJ Iggud JAA JAAR JAEI JAIC JAIGBI JANER JANES JAOS JARCE JAS JAsiat JASR JB JBL JBR JBS JCE JEA JESHO JHS JISMR JITE JJS JM JMA JNES JNSL JNST JPOS JQR JRS JRSAI JRSM JS JSOT JSS

Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel History of Religions Hebrew Studies Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Institute for Archeometallurgical Studies The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Eds. K.R. Crim and G.A. Buttrick. Nashville, 1981. Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology Israel Exploration Journal Iggud – Selected Essays in Jewish Studies Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Journal of the American Academy of Religion Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections Journal of the American Institute for Conservation Journal of Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt Journal of Archaeological Science Journal Asiatique Journal of Archaeological Science Reports Journal of Biogeography Journal of Biblical Literature Journal of Bible and Religion Journal of Black Studies Journal of Chemical Education Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Journal of Hebrew Scriptures Journal of Interdisciplinary Study of Monotheistic Religions Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Maps Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal of Palestine Oriental Society Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Roman Studies Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Journal for Semitics Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal of Semitic Studies

xvii

xviii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

JTS JVGR JWP LIF LTJ MedArch MEJ MIO NAR NatHaz NEA NEASB NIDB NIDOTTE NRG NTT OJA OpAt OTE OTWSA PEFQS PEQ PSAS QI QR QSR R&E R&T RA RAAO RArch RB RC RHPR RHR RQ RSB SA SAAB SCJ SDB SEAJT SEL SG

Journal of Theological Studies Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research Journal of World Prehistory Lettre d’Île de France Lutheran Theological Journal Mediterranean Archaeology Middle East Journal Mitteilungen des Instituts für Orientforschung Norwegian Archaeological Review Natural Hazards Near Eastern Archaeology Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin New Interpreter’s Bible Dictionary. Ed. K.D. Sakenfeld. Nashville, 2010. New International Dictionary of Theology and Exegesis. Ed. W.A. VanGemeren. Grand Rapids, 1997. Nature Reviews Genetic Norsk Teologisk Tidsskrift Oxford Journal of Archaeology Opuscula Atheniensia Old Testament Essays Oud Testamentiese Werkgemeenskap in Suid-Afrika Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement Palestine Exploration Quarterly Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies Quarterly International Quaternary Research Quaternary Science Reviews Review and Expositor Religion and Theology Revue d’Assyriologie Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Archéologie Orientale Revue Archéologique Revue Biblique Religion Compass Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuse Revue de l’histoire des religions Restoration Quarterly Ricerche storico-bibliche Studia Antiqua State Archives of Assyria Bulletin Stone-Campbell Journal Supplément au Dictionnaire de la Bible. Eds. H. Cazelles, R. André, L. Pirot, et al. Paris, 1928–2019 (Fasc. 1–79). South East Asia Journal of Theology Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici sul Vicino Oriente Antico Surveys in Geophysics

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SJOT SM SMEA SMSR SP SSR StOr TA TB TBT TDOT

TN TPAPA TS TZ UF VEE VT WA WRR WTJ ZAW ZDPV ZSHA ZTK

Scandinavian Journal for the Old Testament Scripta Mediterranea Studi Micenei et Egeo-Anatolici Studi e Materiali di Stori delle Religioni Studia Phoenicia Space Science Review Studia Orientalia Tel Aviv Tyndale Bulletin The Bible Translator Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Eds. G.J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, and H.-J. Fabry. Grand Rapids, 2001–2016 (English ed.). Terra Nova Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association Theological Studies Theologische Zeitschrift Ugarit Forschungen Verbum et Ecclesia Vetus Testamentum World Archaeology Water Resources Research Westminster Theological Journal Zeitschrift für Alttestamentlische Wissenschaft Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins Zurich Studies in the History of Art Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

xix

INTRODUCTION: IDOLS OF KNOWLEDGE

It is our sense that when certain biblical references to Israel are read independently of the later notions of Israel that dominate the Bible, unexpected features come into view that reflect earlier configurations long forgotten by the biblical authors and overlooked by biblical scholars.1

In 1620, Francis Bacon published the Novum Organum or True Directions concerning the Interpretation of Nature, in which he cast the fundaments of an empirical source of scientific knowledge. In this opus, Bacon rejected any form of knowledge subsumed to theoretical premises, reasoning, and logical argumentation. He denounced the inadequacy of a science born from the segregation between philosophers speculating but disconnected from the material experience, and craftsmen devoting their attention to the resolution of practical problems only.2 For the first time, Bacon invited philosophers to leave the preformed ideas and opinions inherited from their predecessors, to abandon their demonstrations, and to “familiarize with the facts,” and in this manner, to elaborate a new empirical knowledge.3 As fruitful as this revolution became, it did not involve the historical sciences where experiments are impossible to perform. Nevertheless, even in these domains, the methodology is useful. It is especially true concerning the field of the history of religions in general, and that of ancient Israel in particular. After centuries of biblical exegesis, the god of Israel became an abstract entity of ethereal nature approached through philosophical speculations. 1

2

INTRODUCTION: IDOLS OF KNOWLEDGE

Hence, the prohibition of YHWH’s representation formulated in the Bible, the silence concerning his former identity, and the veneration focusing on his name and/or his “glory” all support such a conceptual approach. However, this is not the only apprehension of the divine defended in the Bible. In Ex 3:2–3, for example, the first “encounter” of Moses with YHWH derives from the observation of a singular phenomenon of a fiery nature. It is not the fruit of any speculation, mystical revelation, or even divine call. Similarly, Exodus and Deuteronomy insist that the Israelites encountered YHWH at Sinai through the appearance of the divine fire (Exodus 24; Deuteronomy 4–5). In both instances, this experiencing is considered a privileged way to access YHWH. Consequently, the material features associated in the Bible with YHWH, his theophany, and his mode of action are not necessarily metaphors introduced for didactic purposes. Instead, their approach as material realities may potentially reveal the genuine nature of YHWH and the way the Israelites apprehended him. In his Novum Organum, Bacon introduces rhetoric inspired by the biblical prophets. He invites his peers to fight the idols of knowledge, an expression encompassing all the false notions preventing positive perception, analysis, and understanding of the observed reality.4 Probably the most provocative of Bacon’s idols concerns the concepts that govern the investigation. Although concepts are essential for the organization of knowledge and the discovery of concealed aspects of reality, Bacon identifies many “idols” among them.5 Their detection is especially tricky because these idols, by their status of paradigm or general theory, serve as the key for the interpretation of the investigated reality so that conclusions may hardly challenge the misleading concept bringing them about. However, this type of preconceptions does not help us to elaborate well-founded answers to the questions motivating the investigation. Instead of simplifying it, an inappropriate concept produces an inflation of justifications, explanations, and secondary definitions filling the gap between the theory and the observation. The search for misleading concepts is especially welcome in biblical studies, due to the interface between the subject of investigation – the history and religion of ancient Israel – and the modern values and beliefs inherited from it, which are omnipresent in Western culture. For example, monotheism is currently the most essential concept structuring the investigation of the ancient Israelite religion. As Baruch Halpern observes, “In biblical studies, the center of interest is and has always been the history of Israelite religion […] Among the questions relating to Israel’s religious odyssey, that of the origin of monotheism is intellectually and theologically primary.”6 However, we cannot ignore that this position also reflects the central importance of monotheism in the modern religions inherited from the Bible. The approach of monotheism as a revolutionary concept that definitely modified the religious landscape might reflect a similar bias.

INTRODUCTION: IDOLS OF KNOWLEDGE

Alessandro Bausani, for example, assumes that “Monotheism was born as a conscious revolution against the archaic (so better than polytheistic) culture.”7 Robert Gnuse concurs: “In the Bible, monotheistic faith is a revolutionary breakthrough or culmination of evolutionary intellectual and religious advances over the ages.”8 This position becomes even more blatant when Jan Assmann emphasizes the overwhelming incidence of such a revolution in thought, whose worldwide influence is identifiable up to these days: At some stage in the course of ancient history – the date proposed by the experts range from the Bronze Age to late antiquity – a shift took place that has had a more profound impact on the world we live in today than any political upheaval. This was the shift from “polytheistic” to “monotheistic” religions, from cult religions to religions of the book, from culturally specific religions to world religions, in short from “primary” to “secondary” religions, those religions that, at least in their own eyes, have not so much emerged from the primary religions in an evolutionary process as turned away from them in a revolutionary act.9

Multiple nuances of monotheism are used today for relating its expressions in the ancient Israelite religion. It includes notions describing monotheistic trends overlapping polytheistic views (e.g., quasi-monotheism, pluriform monotheism, dualistic monotheism, incipient monotheism), trends expressing a greater distance from polytheism (e.g., exclusive monotheism, inclusive monotheism, monarchic monotheism, practical monotheism, prophetic monotheism), and stages expressing a mature form of the monotheistic thought (e.g., consistent monotheism, ethical monotheism, intellectual monotheism, philosophical monotheism, and emanational mystical monotheism).10 This luxuriant terminology influences the concept itself, extending it to a wide series of religious experiences and theologies.11 The terminology may be required for describing, step by step, a gradual evolution of monotheistic thought in ancient Israel. However, we cannot ignore that such an abundance of terms might betray an inadequacy of the concept of monotheism for describing the ancient religion of Israel and its biblical expressions. Furthermore, this profusion of terms depletes the concept of monotheism from its specificity and its consecutive relevancy as the central axis around which an actual knowledge may organize.12 Multiplying the categories of monotheism does not resolve all problems. Christian Frevel, for example, assumes that the concept of monotheism, despite its multiple expressions, is insufficient to acccount for the evolution of the Israelite religion.13 Benjamin Sommer concludes that “the polarity between monotheism and polytheism is of less explanatory value than many students of religion suppose – or at least that it can obscure connections of great interest that cross over that division.”14 Patrick Jean-Baptiste, the general editor of a recently published encyclopedia of religions, even formulates a radical criticism against this concept and its relevancy for the investigation of the ancient religion of Israel.

3

4

INTRODUCTION: IDOLS OF KNOWLEDGE

He considers it at best as an ideal promoted by a small minority, and at worst as an irrelevant notion: Monotheism is never acquired; and the imaginary line separating it from polytheism exists only in the books about history of religions. Outside the narrow circle of an elite of theologians or philosophers, the belief in a single god, at once transcendent and immanent, timeless and historical, personal but irrepresentable, omniscient and omnipotent, just but severe, is extremely rare. It is an extremum. Conversely, the belief in a host of specialized and local deities, personal and collective, never dissociates itself from the belief that there is a celestial hierarchy where the god whom one has chosen to venerate in priority is ultimately the only one really important, other members of the pantheon being, in one way or another, subservient […] In conclusion, monotheism is more a matter of definition or political bias than a relevant criterion to describe a religion.15

This opinion invites us to examine whether the centrality of the concept of monotheism in biblical research does not transform it into an “idol of knowledge” obscuring the investigation of ancient forms of Yahwism and their historical developments. DATING THE BIBLICAL SOURCES

Dating the biblical books and the sources composing them is fundamental to the investigation of the religion of ancient Israel, and today monotheism represents a precious tool for this purpose. The rationale is simple: If we can evaluate the time of emergence of the monotheistic faith in ancient Israel, we can determine the terminus ante quem of the redaction of the biblical sources defending a monotheistic position. However, the lack of consensus in biblical research concerning the emergence of monotheism complicates the situation.

Early Emergence of Monotheism Monotheism may be a singularity rooted in the Israelite religion from its very origin. Popular in the mid-twentieth century,16 this view is still defended today. For example, Johannes de Moor accounts for the monotheistic character of the Song of Deborah (probably one of the oldest text in the Bible17), and of the commitment to YHWH of the leaders from the period of Judges.18 From the analysis of theophoric names in use in early Israel, Benjamin Sommer concludes that the “Israelites tended to pray to one deity, whereas other peoples – at least those for whom we have sufficient epigraphic, onomastic, and iconographic evidence to come to a conclusion – prayed to many.”19 Similarly, Lawrence Stager assumes that monotheism, the singularity of the religion of Israel, is at the source of the emergence and differentiation of this nation: “Israel developed its selfconsciousness or ethnic identity in large measure through its religious foundation – a

DATING THE BIBLICAL SOURCES

breakthrough that led a subset of Canaanite culture, coming from a variety of places, backgrounds, prior affiliations, and livelihoods, to join a supertribe united under the authority of and devotion to a supreme deity, revealed to Moses as YHWH.”20 Scholars defending this opinion grant the historical books of the Bible a relatively high level of reliability. They elaborate a history of Israel in which the rise of this early monotheism coincides more or less with the historical events related in the Bible.21

The Exilic Origin Epigraphic discoveries, such as the mention of “YHWH and his Asherah” in the sites of Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el Qom (dated to the ninth and eighth centuries BC), challenged the idea of a monotheistic religion in Israel in the monarchic period.22 A comparison of archaeological remains from the whole Southern Levant confirmed that the religion of ancient Israel did not substantially differ from that of its neighbors (Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Phoenicians, and the Philistines) until the end of the monarchic period.23 These scholars deduced a polytheistic background of the religion of ancient Israel, in the monarchic period.24 They identified in the collapse of the monarchic regime and its official religion the determinant factors in the emergence of monotheism among the Israelites.25 This premise has a profound influence on the approach to biblical sources. First of all, in denying the exclusivist worship of YHWH during the premonarchic and early monarchic periods in Israel, it challenges the reliability of the biblical sources exposing the early history of this nation. At best, the biblical historians distorted the historical events in order to anchor in the prestigious past (the monarchic period) the recently emerging monotheistic fundaments. The second consequence is a shift toward exilic or postexilic periods of the dating of most biblical sources. However, this representation and its consequences are problematic. • Preexilic prophets: The exclusivist cult of YHWH is a concept already promoted in the prophecies of Amos, Hosea, Micah, Isaiah 1–39, and Jeremiah.26 Assuming an exilic emergence of monotheism implies that these prophecies had been modified or even rewritten during the postmonarchic period to fit the new monotheistic theology. Alternatively, it is necessary to assume that the monotheistic trend already existed before the Exile, but it remained a minority movement.27 In such a case, monotheism cannot constitute a marker for dating to the postmonarchic period as the biblical sources express it. • The Josiah reform: The monotheistic-like reform promoted by Josiah occurred a few years before the fall of Jerusalem.28 This reality minimizes the importance of exile in the development of such an exclusivist theology. Worse,  many

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Judeans approached the Josiah reform as the cause of the national catastrophe and the cause of YHWH’s rejection of his people (Jer 44:15–19). It therefore becomes challenging to understand how a monotheistic extension of the Josiah reform could have spread easily, both in exile and in Judah, to become the mainstream ideology after the exile.29 • The crisis of exile: If the exile is the crucial event in the development of monotheism and the universality of the religion of Israel, it is still incumbent upon us to explain how the patron-god of a defeated nation could have suddenly metamorphosed into the master of the universe. It is also necessary to explain how such an innovation could have gained popularity and become the foundation of a new faith that broke with the ancient traditions.30 Today, some explanations for such a counterintuitive process exist,31 but they remain speculative.32 • Deutero-Isaiah: Chapters 40–55 of the Book of Isaiah (the so-called DeuteroIsaiah) are generally regarded as the first biblical expression of a mature form of monotheism, the one excluding the existence of all deities other than YHWH.33 Scholars defined the theology extant in Deutero-Isaiah as pure, strict, full-blown, radical, or even extreme monotheism. They approached it as the achievement of a long maturation process or, alternatively, as the emergence of a new coherent theology.34 However, Saul Olyan identified in Deutero-Isaiah both allusions to other gods (Isa 40:1–8, 40:25–26) and a reference to the mythical struggle of YHWH with the cosmic serpent (Isa 51:9–11). They challenge the approach of Deutero-Isaiah’s theology as “pure monotheism.”35 At best, this book claims the loss of holiness and prestige of the hosts of heaven surrounding YHWH.36 With Olyan, we may wonder “how useful then is monotheism as a term to describe the ideology of Second Isaiah?”37

Postexilic Emergence Investigators identify Deutero-Isaiah as the first expression of a monotheistic trend which matured gradually throughout the Persian period, and even later. They integrate this novelty into a global trend (the so-called Axial Age) of revolutionary religious developments in the whole ancient world, and posit its relationship with the development of Zoroastrianism and Greek philosophy.38 Johannes Tromp makes this claim explicit: “This monotheism [= there can be only one god] is not, in my opinion, a mere development of ancient Israelite theology (as found, for instance, in the Deutero-Isaianic prophecies), but the result of the confrontation of the traditional belief of Israel with the philosophical demands of the Hellenistic age.”39 Moving the emergence of monotheism to the Persian and/or Hellenistic period transforms the whole biblical corpus into a pseudo-historical composition retrojecting the religious reform in a fictional past that legitimizes it.40 The composition of the biblical corpus becomes the result of a gathering,

THE EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE

rewriting, and editing of ancient literary sources and their integration within new literary creations.41 Such a process renders the Bible unusable for reconstituting the history of ancient Israel, and of its religion.42 But here again, this position is not easily defensible in accounting for the complexity of the biblical corpus, and the inclusion of so many historical details. Even more problematic is the diversity of opinions and even conflicting views expressed in the Bible itself. This situation is unexpected for an apologetic retrojection intending to justify a specific agenda. In conclusion, the use of monotheism as a marker for dating the biblical source yields three different positions currently defended today. This unexpected situation reflects a lack of consensus in the definition of monotheism. A definition inspired by modern monotheisms (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) identifies this theology with the belief in the existence of only one god.43 This definition corresponds better to the late forms of religiosity in ancient Israel, those developed at the end of the Persian or Hellenistic periods. It promotes, therefore, the idea of an exilic or postexilic emergence of this faith. But other definitions of monotheism exist today. For example, Jonathan Smith extends the definition of monotheism as follows: “In a broader sense monotheism may also denote belief in only one high or ultimate god (sometimes termed henotheism) with a plurality of lesser and nonultimate deities under the high god’s authority, or a plurality of lower manifestations of that ultimate god.”44 This approach enables us to subsume all the forms of Yahwism reported in the Bible into the definition of monotheism, even the earliest ones. Other definitions of monotheism even expand its application to many other religious experiences centered on the revelation of a supreme divine being.45 This diversity of opinions exhibits a methodological problem: The dating of the biblical sources depends on the definition of monotheism chosen by the investigator. It is a further reason why no consensus about dating the biblical sources may emerge from the use of monotheism as a marker. THE EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE

The emergence of monotheism is today envisioned as the issue of an evolutionary process extending from the history of ancient Israel to the emergence and development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This premise has a methodological consequence: Even though absolute dating remains controversial (see above), the identification of steps within this evolutionary process enables us to position biblical sources on this axis, and to determine a relative chronology of their composition. Most reconstitutions of this evolutionary process assume a gradual transformation of polytheism, the supposed initial stage through the following sequence. (i) YHWH, the patron deity of premonarchic Israel, was no more

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than a secondary god of the Canaanite pantheon. (ii) The rise of the monarchy promoted YHWH to the rank of a royal deity, and after that to the status of head of the pantheon. (iii) A popular cult of YHWH gradually extended his worship among the Israelites. (iv) A pan-YHWH “aloneist” trend emerged during the dynasty of Omri, eventually in reaction to the spread of foreign cults. (v) A group of prophets of YHWH (Hosea, Amos, Micah and so on) developed this aloneist trend, which became thereafter formalized through the religious reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah. (vi) The crisis of exile promoted the conceptualization of this aloneist trend and its transformation into monotheism. (vii) The monotheistic developments ripened in the Persian and even the Hellenistic periods, through intermingling with other doctrines.46 This scheme is undoubtedly attractive, but a problem remains. If the development of monotheism is the axis of such an evolutionary process, we may expect the last biblical writings to express a “mature” form of this theology, in which the divine beings other than YHWH are entirely excluded. This premise is unverified, however. In the Book of Zechariah, the prophet explicitly refers not to YHWH, but to a divine emissary speaking through him (hamalak̄ hadob̄ er̄ bî).47 This involvement is accompanied in Zechariah by details about the divine council surrounding YHWH.48 Such a feature present in the earliest evolutionary stages (in which monotheism was supposedly still not differentiated from polytheism) is unexpected in a postexilic opus such as the Book of Zechariah. And this book is not the only late composition displaying this anomaly. The divine council is mentioned in the Book of Job (Job 1:6–12). Proverbs, another late opus, includes explicit references to a female divine being, an Asherah-like goddess personifying Wisdom and present beside YHWH at the early time of creation (Prov 8:22–31). Malachi, the last prophetic book, includes an oracle far from any “mature” form of monotheism: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the lord (ha ʾ̄ ado ̄ n̑ ) whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; And the messenger of the covenant (ûmal ʾak̄ habe˘rît) in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says YHWH Sebaoth” (Mal 3:1).49 This verse does not only introduce the figure of the divine emissary of YHWH, it even claims that this secondary divine being is worshipped by the Israelites, and it even considers the Jerusalem temple as his dominion. Finally, Daniel, one of the latest books, is also the source where divine beings others than YHWH have the highest importance in the Bible. The multiplicity of divine beings, a so-called primitive character, extends to postbiblical compositions. An examination of literary sources from the beginning of the first millennium AD reveals a plethora of divine beings, most of them identified by a name (a condition for their worship), in the Hekhalot literature, the Book of Enoch, and other apocalyptic writings. Peter Hayman concludes that “monotheism” is a “misused word” in Jewish studies.50 Nevertheless, this Jewish literature should not be interpreted as a

THE MONOTHEISTIC BIAS

“regression”  to a polytheistic faith. Rather, Larry Hurtado notices, in the early Jewish literature, “a remarkable ability to combine a genuine concern for God’s uniqueness together with an interest in other figures or transcendent attributes described in the most exalted terms, ‘principal agent’ figures likened to God in some cases.”51 Consequently, no evolutionary trend toward monotheism may be traced throughout a millennium of worship of YHWH by the Israelites. THE MONOTHEISTIC BIAS

If the concept of monotheism is not adapted to the description of the religion of ancient Israel, its centrality in biblical studies is susceptible to perturbing the investigation, and to yielding misrepresentations and misunderstandings. This point is now examined.

The Early Stages of the Israelite Religion The evolutionary scheme assumes a gradual differentiation of monotheism from the polytheistic background of a religion of early Israel similar to that of its neighbors, in the Early Iron Age.52 This conclusion extends to the Zion theology, understood as the local expression of an older West-Semitic tradition.53 However, this scheme hardly accounts for the singularity of the early history of Israel because Israel and its neighbors experience parallel transformations: a synchronous emergence, a similar period of prosperity in the Early Iron Age, and a similar transition to monarchy. From the Assyrian period, all these small nations are similarly subdued by imperial foreign powers.54 In light of these similarities, it is not surprising to view the emergence of monotheism in ancient Israel being interpreted as a “mutation” from polytheism, that is, the sudden emergence of a new idea from a religious, relatively homogenous background.55 This ad hoc explanation may hardly increase our understanding of such a process, however. Extending this approach, authors envision the emergence of monotheism as an original reconfiguration, amalgamation, and transformation of ancient beliefs and mythical materials disconnected from their original context.56 But for a coherent theology to emerge from such a bricolage process, we expect organizing principles whose existence can be identified. In their absence, the emergence of the first monotheistic trends in ancient Israel remain as mysterious as any spontaneous mutation in evolutionary biology. As an alternative, scholars have identified the self-consciousness of singularity of the Israelites as the driving factor of the evolution toward monotheism. Robert Gnuse, for example, claims that “Israel articulated nothing radically different from other ancient Near Eastern religions about YHWH. Israelite religion came to be unique only in terms of recognition of what God was not.”57 Similarly,

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Jeremiah Cataldo assumes that “a monotheistic God is the ideational product of a self-awaredly exclusionary community.”58 For Edward Greenstein, the mere claim of self-identity and its singularity suffice to trigger the process: “The God of Biblical Israel may not actually be very different from the gods of the neighboring nations, but claiming that he is, is an important part of the rhetoric promoting devotion to that God alone.”59 These assumptions may be pertinent, but by introducing the issue (the monotheistic character) as a causal factor of the evolution, they lose their explicative power.

The Former Identity of YHWH A transformation from polytheism to monotheism occurs through a gradual coalescence of all the divine beings and their attributes around a divine figure. This “receiver god” necessarily preexists the process. In the course of the accretion process, however, his original nature, specificity, and essential attributes become diluted in the vastness of the newly integrated functions. Although the original attributes or status of the god might stimulate this accrual, his former identity loses its importance as long as the process continues. This situation exonerates us from determining it with confidence, clarifying why the question of the original identity of YHWH always remains of secondary importance in the evolutionary schemes.60 Since most of the biblical sources are supposed to belong to an advanced phase of monotheism, the evolutionary scheme implicitly claims the inability to investigate the former identity of YHWH, the latter being necessarily lost through the accretion process preceding their redaction. This situation yields a singular paradox in biblical research. On one hand, Mark Smith acknowledges that “YHWH known to ancient Israel may not have been the same YHWH as known before biblical tradition.”61 On the other, Jörg Jeremias concludes that “Almost nothing can be said with certainty about the nature of YHWH during this early period.”62 The evolutionary approach of the emergence of monotheism is not only unhelpful for identifying the former identity of YHWH, it also assumes the impossibility of investigating it with precision. It even claims the irrelevancy of such a questioning for the investigation of the mature Israelite religion, the one expounded on and promoted in most biblical sources.

The Pan-exilic Approach Most evolutionary schemes represent the period of exile as a crucial phase in the maturation of monotheism. They consider the collapse of the kingdom of Judah and the destruction of the Jerusalem temple as triggers of this evolution. They also identify the exile as a crucial experience in laying the foundation for the emergence of a “mature” form of monotheism. From this perspective,

THE MONOTHEISTIC BIAS

the exile became for the deported elite of the Judah kingdom the opportunity to discover a great variety of religious traditions and mythologies, to transcend the nationalistic boundaries of their religion, and to extend the Yahwistic faith to the entire world.63 Reiner Albertz expresses a widespread opinion when he writes: “I venture to claim that without the experience of the exile, Israel would never have made the discovery of monotheism in the strict sense.”64 It is not surprising, therefore, that most biblical writings promoting claims identified with “mature monotheism” are also interpreted as exilic (or postexilic) compositions. Isaiah 40–55, the quintessential expression of such a newly emerging “mature monotheism,” is considered by many scholars as an exilic composition, written between the destruction of the Solomon temple and the reconstruction of a new house of YHWH in Jerusalem.65 Such affiliation of Deutero-Isaiah to the exilic literature is not explicit in the text. It is even challenged by the prophet addressing the exiles from afar (Isa 43:14, 46:11, 48:20, 52:11), by the geographical markers of Jerusalem and its surroundings (Isa 40:1–11), and by the reference to a typical South Levantine flora distinct from that of Babylon.66 In order to cope with these observations, scholars assume today that only the first chapters (Isaiah 40–48) were composed in exile and that the last chapters (Isaiah 49–55) were completed after the return from exile.67 This obviously preserves the idea of an exilic origin for a mature monotheism, but it also introduces the danger of circularity in the argumentation. Deutero-Isaiah is not an exception. Today, the extensive literary activity during the sixth century is widely approached as a heritage from the exilic, scribal, and literary tradition. For example, most scholars today localize in Babylonia the final editing/composition of the books affiliated with the Deuteronomistic historical corpus, if not their initial redaction.68 Here again, the latter opinion is founded on the premise of the maturation of monotheism in exile, rather than the attestation of explicit markers in the sources. In contrast, many textual elements suggest a local composition of the historical corpus, or at least of substantial parts of them.69 The Book of Jeremiah, generally dated from the sixth century BC, is of importance for the development of second-temple theology.70 Its prophecies all being located in Israel or in Egypt, it is likely that this book was composed by an author remaining in Israel after the collapse of the Judah kingdom.71 However, in order to integrate it into the general scheme, scholars identify three layers of composition in Jeremiah: The first, an “endemic” one, comprises prophecies addressed to the people of Judea; a second, “exilic,” layer promotes the Babylonian exile at the expense of the endemic Judeans.72 The prophecies of hope (mainly Jeremiah 30–31) are identified as a third, postexilic, layer.73 Precisely as is done with Isaiah 40–55, such a splitting of the Book of Jeremiah is not supported by explicit indications in the text. Rather, it is

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guided by general considerations about the contribution of the Babylonian exile to the emergence and formulation of the monotheistic faith in Israel. These examples reveal how the evolutionary perspective introduces a panexilic bias. Biblical sources expressing a theology delineated as mature monotheism become identified as exilic because this phase is regarded as the trigger for this theological development. In return, the presumed exilic identity of these writings substantiates the central importance of exile to the development of mature monotheism. New understandings can hardly emerge from such a tautological process. Worse, in splitting the biblical sources for defending the theory, this approach dismantles the initial (potential) coherence of the biblical compositions and further distorts our understanding of their content.

The Paradigm of Exclusiveness Monotheism is not only the cult of one single god, but also the rejection of all the other deities and beliefs. For this reason, exclusitivity is essential in our representation of the emergence and development of monotheism in ancient Israel.74 For Jan Assmann, “Exclusion is the decisive point, not oneness. Instead of speaking about mono- and polytheism, it would, therefore, be more appropriate to refer to exclusive and non-exclusive religions, or better still, theologies.”75 This characteristic transforms the worship of YHWH into a “counter-religion” isolating Israel from all the other nations. It also promotes the idea of exclusivity in the relationship between YHWH, the god of Israel, and Israel, the people of YHWH. These claims do indeed exist in the Bible. However, transforming them into a universal key for reading the text betrays a pan-monotheistic approach to the religion of ancient Israel. And again, this position yields situations of cognitive dissonance. For example, Numbers 22–24 focus on Balaam, a prophet of YHWH operating independently of (and even in opposition to) Israel, carrying the word of his god to Moab and Midian. Similarly, the Israelite prophets formulated oracles addressed to neighboring nations, a meaningless feature in a context of an exclusive relationship between YHWH and Israel. This oracular activity finds a parallel in the spread of the musical worship everywhere by the Israelite singers and poets, revealed in Psalms 46, 67, and 87.76 The content of the Book of Job concurs. Whereas this opus exposes the deepest theological questions about YHWH and his actions, the protagonists debating them are not Israelites. The silence concerning Israel, in this book, is unexpected if this nation was the exclusive people of YHWH, or at least the leader in his worship. Even more troubling is the oracle in Malachi claiming that YHWH is honored all over the earth, not in an eschatological future, but at the time the oracle is formulated: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name,

THE MONOTHEISTIC BIAS

and a pure offering. For my name is great among the nations, says YHWH Sebaoth” (Mal 1:11). These few examples illustrate how the monotheistic view may introduce a bias not only in our approach to the Israelite religion, but also in the history of the worship of YHWH in the Southern Levant. An example will illustrate this problem. In 139 BC, the Roman Senate accused the Jews of disseminating a cult that undermined the fundaments of the Roman religion. But the Romans did not expel the Jews for propagating the cult of YHWH, as expected. Rather, they charged them with “infecting” the Roman customs with the cult of Jupiter-Sabazius, a Thracian version of Dionysus.77 The appellation mixing Jupiter with Sabazius confirms that the subversive god promoted by the Jews was not a minor Thracian deity, but a god acknowledged for his highest status, as YHWH was in Israel. This identification of YHWH with Sabazius is so incompatible with the current classification of Judaism as monotheistic that it was interpreted as a scribal error.78 Alternatively, scholars suggested that Sabazius here designates not the Thracian Dionysus, but rather YHWH’s attribute Sebaoth.79 However, these explanations ignore the existence of a Thracian sect identifying YHWH with Dionysus, and mixing Jews and Pagans.80 They also ignore the parallel between YHWH and Dionysus stressed by Plutarch,81 a priest of Apollo well initiated in mystery cults, and well informed about the Jewish religion.82 This is why the claim of homology between YHWH and Dionysus should be considered reliable. Many parallels between the two deities confirm it.83 Also the homology between Dionysus and Sabazius is confirmed today, especially concerning their esoteric dimension.84 Consequently, the monotheistic approach deprives us of a precious source of knowledge, the cult of Dionysus (and especially his mysteries), in the investigation of ancient Yahwism. It also biases our understanding of some important events in the history of ancient Israel.85 This short overview reveals how the concept of monotheism is inappropriate for the investigation of the ancient religion of Israel. Moreover, its status as a central paradigm generates epistemological problems, biases, and distortions. First, the multiplicity of definitions of monotheism prevents the emergence of a consensus, a prerequisite for its function as a fundament in biblical research. Instead, distinct schools, each one with its paradigmatic definition, elaborate their own reconstitutions of the religious history of ancient Israel. Furthermore, the use of such inappropriate concepts stimulates the formulation of ad hoc hypotheses and tautological explanations for justifying the emergence of a monotheistic trend in Israel. It also overestimates the importance of the exile in the theology of ancient Israel. Beside these biases, the question of the former identity of YHWH and its expression in the Israelite religion becomes relegated to secondary importance. In a similar manner, the material realities associated with YHWH’s theophany and mode of action become metaphors devoid of significance concerning

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YHWH’s identity and essential attributes. The exclusiveness inherent in this monotheistic trend discards any possible worship of YHWH outside of Israel. It also deprives us of important material for understanding his worship and its evolution. These observations do not deny that monotheism may account for genuine theological realities, especially concerning religions developing from late Antiquity to our times. Further, they do not rule out that some Israelite theologians may have had elaborate monotheistic developments. After all, Greek and Roman authors justified their disdain of the Jews because of the exclusivist character of their religion and their scorn for all deities other than YHWH.86 Nonetheless, it emerges from this overview that monotheism cannot be the central concept around which the knowledge about the ancient religion of Israel and its transformations may organize. It is why the concept of monotheism should be paradoxically regarded as the main “idol of knowledge” of the investigation of ancient Yahwism and its historical developments. THE REFRACTORY REALITY

In his Novum Organum, Francis Bacon advanced the need to leave aside our previous conceptions and “idols” before beginning an investigation. Although necessary, this tabula rasa is not enough to enable new discoveries to emerge. Instead, a singular feature refractory to its integration in the classical framework is required. The metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism is a fitting example of how reexamining past assumptions can produce fresh and previously ignored dimensions within old debates.87 Suggesting that the god of Israel was formerly the esoteric deity of the Canaanite guild of metallurgists challenges our current representations of the ancient Yahwism. Today, the early figure of YHWH is generally approached as a local South Levantine expression of the storm-god. However, in the Near East, this divine being does not show any substantial affinity with metallurgy and metalworking. The alternative representation of YHWH as a “god of fathers” worshipped by a small clan from the South Levantine desert areas is not helpful either and cannot justify the central importance of metallurgy among the essential attributes of YHWH in the Bible. The discovery of this metallurgical background therefore confronts both our current representation of the early figure of YHWH and the early history of Israel.

The Hypothesis of Qenite Ascendancy The eventuality that YHWH was formerly the esoteric smelting god of the small corporation of South Levantine metalworkers is especially interesting in light of the assumption that YHWH’s cult was introduced in ancient Israel

THE REFRACTORY REALITY

by the Qenites (=Kenites).88 Michael Stahl has even identified the “Qenite hypothesis” as one of the two prevailing theories concerning YHWH’s origin, the alternative defending a northern origin of YHWH and his representation as a Baal-like deity.89 Scholars have long identified the Qenites as the corporation of South Levantine metalworkers, on the basis of biblical indications (e.g., Gen 4:22), the metallurgical meaning of the Semitic root qyn, and the designation of metalworkers as qayin in Arabic.90 Although the idea of a metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism results from the conjunction of two wellestablished premises, it was curiously not formulated by the proponents of the Qenite hypothesis. Scholars even elaborated arguments to circumvent this conclusion. Julius Lewy, for example, assumed that [t]he Kenites and related tribes worshipped Yahu or YHWH but they did not know the origin of that worship and so they attributed it to their ancestor Cain, the first smith or hammerer. The Israelites who roamed the deserts, lying between Egypt and Edom, learned the name of this fire-and-storm-god and adapted their worship to their own socio-economic conditions and religio-cultural traditions.91

Postulating that the Qenites ignored the origin of YHWH is surprising, however. The metalworkers were known in antiquity and in traditional societies for the conservatism of their traditions and beliefs.92 Furthermore, being highly specialized artisans, we expect their main deity to be closely related to their craft. Finally, the taboo on agriculture among the Qenites (identifiable in Gen 4:11–14 and in Jer 35:8–10) renders unlikely the “transformation” of a storm-god into their patron deity. Instead, the Qenite hypothesis implicitly supports a metallurgical background to ancient Yahwism.

The Counterintuitive Dimension of Israelite Religion The idea of a metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism does not easily integrate into our current representation of ancient Israel. The Israelites are not known in antiquity for their metallurgical skill. Their agropastoralist lifestyle fits a religion organized around rites of fertility rather than metallurgy. So why would a people of breeders and farmers leave the cult of their ancestral deities, which granted them wealth and sustenance, for the worship of an esoteric smelting god who demanded exlusivity? The lack of a straightforward response to this question may explain why an early identity of YHWH as a storm-god is instinctively more convincing than its metallurgical alternative. But this conclusion implies that the metallurgical dimension of ancient Yahwism must be ignored. It also leaves aside the potential contribution of the traces of this metallurgical background in the Bible for the reconstitution of the early history of Israel.

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However, few indications suggest that the early religion of the Israelites was not organized around rites of agriculture, as expected. The first clue emanates from the Israelite calendar, which positions the New Year festival in spring, at the end of the rainy season. This feature splits artificially the agricultural cycle into two parts, breaking the interdependency between rain (autumn and winter, the previous year), and its consequence on crop yield (spring and summer, the next year).93 It is also noteworthy that none of the Israelites’ biblical festivals occurs during the rainy season.94 A second indication comes from the survival of the cult of Baal in ancient Israel after YHWH became the national deity. Such a feature is not easy to understand if YHWH and Baal were two parallel gods mastering the same natural vital element, rain. As long as Baal was worshiped in Israel, we may presume that most Israelites did not consider YHWH directly involved in rainfall and crop production. This premise corroborates the taboo about agriculture characterizing the Qenites in the Bible. The way YHWH became the national deity of the Israelites provides a third indication. Unlike the traditional deities attached to their people and irrevocably involved in their lifestyle, YHWH’s cult seems, curiously, to have been an optional feature for the Israelites, the issue of a deliberate choice. This leitmotiv of Israelite theology is restated in Joshua 24, where the Israelites are invited to decide whether or not they will worship YHWH: “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve YHWH, choose this day whom you will serve whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve YHWH” (Jos 24:15). This singularity reveals that the Israelites are not the “natural milieu” in which YHWH was formerly worshipped. Furthermore, the mere presence of choice implies that YHWH’s worship is not essential for the Israelites. This contrasts with the necessary worship, for farmers, of the god providing rain. A few verses after inviting the Israelites to make their choice, the speech in Joshua 24 expresses their chronic inadequacy for the cult of YHWH: “But Joshua said to the people, ‘You are not able to serve YHWH, for he is a holy God. He is a qanno ̑ʾ God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins’” (Jos 24:19). Again, this claim is meaningless if YHWH was initially a traditional stormgod or a god of fathers. However, the metallurgical process (qanno ̑ʾ)95 here mentioned in close relationship with YHWH’s holiness might refer to the Israelites’ distance from the metallurgical reality predicating his appropriate worship. Even the dramatic consequences of this situation make sense in the context of worship of an initial esoteric nature, whose divulgation is typically followed by sanctions and curses. Obviously, no conclusion concerning YHWH’s former identity may arise from these few observations, all of which recognize alternative explanations. But their mere existence is enough to justify launching an exploration of new

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

horizons concerning YHWH’s former identity, beyond the storm-god/godof-fathers approach.

The New Central Question As long as YHWH is approached as a god providing abundant harvests, fertility, and protection, his worship by the Israelites does not stimulate any special question. His cult and the fulfillment of his requests integrate the ensemble of actions ensuring the survival and wealth of individuals, families, clans, and nations. In this perspective, the question of the acknowledgement of YHWH as the supreme and even the lone god becomes the consequence of unusual cultic requirements. The problem of the “adoption” of YHWH by the Israelites is meaningless also in the context of the gradual transformation of YHWH from a minor deity to the Supreme Being. It is enough to assume a theological development promoted by the community of worshippers for justifying it. This situation may explain why the question of the Israelites choosing YHWH remained secondary. However, Israel’s chronic inadequacy for the cult of YHWH, combined with the traces of the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism, transforms the adoption of YHWH by the Israelites into the central question to be resolved. And if this feature is consubstantial with the birth of Israel, resolving this question might yield new understandings concerning the circumstances of the emergence of this nation and the nature of its early theology. This perspective guided the composition of the present book and its structure. The first part (Chapters 1–4) explores the historical context of the emergence of Israel, identified here as a part of a global movement of emancipation from the authority of foreign powers in the Southern Levant. This section also shows how the renewal of the copper industry from the Arabah fueled this movement and contributed to its success. This contextualization may explain why YHWH became so famous: This god formerly sponsored the production of copper in the Southern Levant, a reality exposed in the second part (Chapters 5–6). This singularity of the former figure of YHWH will help us, in the third part (Chapters 7–9), to reinterpret the nature of the early theology of Israel, and to clarify what distinguished it from all the other South Levantine nations participating in this movement of emancipation. METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Investigating YHWH’s transformation into the patron-god of the Israelites requires gathering data from many domains, including archaeology, epigraphy, mythology, history of religions, cultural metallurgy, and – obviously – biblical studies. For this purpose, a few points of methodology should be examined first.

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The Biblical Accounts about Early Israel The Bible is potentially the most important source for investigating the birth of Israel, its origin, and the unique features of its religion. Today, however, a low historical value is generally accredited to the biblical sources relating the birth of Israel, the main reason being the evolutionary scheme of development of the Israelite religion currently prevailing in biblical studies. This premise traces a gradual transition from polytheism to monotheism throughout the seven centuries following the birth of Israel. According to this scheme, identifying a “monotheistic trend” in texts relating the early worship of YHWH becomes necessarily anachronistic. It is approached as an artifice used for retrojecting the late religious reforms to the early history of Israel in order to grant them the prestige and legitimacy of the times of origin. Although such a maneuver is clearly identified in the Bible,96 its generalization is no less speculative than the evolutionary paradigm used to explain it. Consequently, in emancipating the present investigation from the model of gradual transformation toward monotheism, a possible historical dimension may potentially emerge from the sources relating the early history of Israel. The historical books of the Bible were composed many centuries after the birth of Israel. This situation necessarily affects the reliability of these writings, and challenges their ability to relate the events with precision. Here again, some considerations challenge this premise. The mere preservation of the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism, even in sources from the postmonarchic period, reveals that the memory of the origin of the Israelite religion did not disappear rapidly. It shows that some biblical sources, even of relatively recent composition, have preserved the memory of this pre-Israelite dimension of YHWH. The level of conservation is sometimes surprising. For example, the description of the Tabernacle in Exodus and the Jerusalem temple in Kings accounts for an abundance of metallic items. However, all the metals mentioned in both sources are nonferrous, suggesting that this description is rooted in Bronze Age traditions. This anachronism of more than seven centuries concerning the use of metals denotes an outstanding conservatism, rather than anachronistic projections to the past of the material reality at the time of the composition of these writings.97 Without transforming the biblical writings into historical documents, the preservation of the metallurgical dimension of ancient Yahwism in the biblical sources, even of recent composition, invites us to revisit the current premises conditioning their approach. It suggests that the historical books of the Bible may have preserved the memory of some essential events concerning the early history of Israel and its religion.

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

The metallurgical background was not a central part of the Israelite religion in the postmonarchic period when most biblical books were composed. At this time, a bitter conflict existed between Israel and Edom, the nation especially identified with copper production in the Southern Levant.98 In such an ideological climate of hostility and retaliation, the references to the metallurgical background of the Israelite religion and to a Qenite/Edomite origin of the cult of YHWH may hardly be considered apologetic, literary developments. Instead, their counterproductive effect regarding the anti-Edomite ideology suggests that their insertion fulfills a need for the Israelite authors to supply authentic details about the emergence of Israel as a prerequisite to Israel’s legitimacy as a new people of YHWH. These considerations even justify the better preservation of the memory of the history of early Israel than of the subsequent monarchic phase. Thus, details concerning the metallurgical component of Israel’s early history, especially those of an anti-apologetic nature, probably carry the memory of actual events.

The Question of the Influence of Neighbor Cultures The Israelite religion did not develop in a theological vacuum. It inherited the Canaanite religious traditions, themselves sharing many motifs, gods, and cults with the Northern Levant, Northern Euphrates, and Anatolia. These acknowledged parallels, combined with a similarity in the lifestyle of peoples from all these areas, have promoted in modern scholarship the idea of an early identity of YHWH as a storm-god. They also have methodological consequences. Based on these assumed parallels, many biblical sources (especially ancient poetry) are interpreted through the lens of the traditions from neighbor nations organized around the cult of a storm-god.99 Reinhard Müller explains the rationale behind this premise: In most areas of the Levant, of Northern Mesopotamia, and of Asia Minor where rainfed cultivation was practiced, a storm-god played a dominant role in the local pantheon, and the oldest psalms depict the Ancient Hebrew deity YHWH as a storm-god. In the early days of YHWH worship, this deity seems to have been conceived in a similar way to storm-gods of neighboring cultures.100

It is not surprising, therefore, to see these foreign sources so frequently exploited in order to fill the gaps concerning our knowledge of the early religion of Israel and the birth of this nation. In this light, the singularities of the early Israelite religion are ignored in favor of its similarities with their neighbors’ traditions, particularly the storm-god and his theophany. For example, despite the fact that the Bible specifically mentions the calendar year as beginning in the spring,101 Sigmund Mowinckel assumed the existence of an autumnal New Year festival in ancient Israel in the premonarchic and even monarchic periods:

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Here we need to remember that the feast itself, the chief feast of the year, marking the end of the old year and the beginning of the new, has been adopted from the Canaanites. The ground for this statement is, quite simply, its nature as an agrarian festival. Its basic idea is connected with the cultivation of the earth, and this fact is clearly brought out by its ancient fertility rites, the green branches and the ceremony of water drawing.102

The unique features of YHWH’s theophany, such as volcanism, became erased for the same reason, despite their explicit mention in the Bible.103 Undoubtedly, the paradigm of the gradual transformation of the Israelite religion from polytheism to monotheism authorizes these shortcuts in the name of a necessary likeness between the religion of early Israelites and that of most other agrarian peoples from the Near East.104 But it obfuscates any possibility of focusing on the singularities of the Israelite religion in its beginning stages. Theoretically, we cannot exclude a foreign influence in the Southern Levant, and even the introduction of metallurgical traditions from afar. The latter eventuality is unlikely, however. As will be shown here, the archaeological findings suggest a renewal of the local copper industry in the Early Iron Age, independent of any foreign influence. Furthermore, a strong cultural dimension of metallurgy seems to have been well entrenched in the Southern Levant. We may even identify its first expressions in the Ghassulian culture (Chalcolithic period, 4500–3700 BC), the period of the emergence of the local metallurgical traditions in this region. There, the abundance of nonutilitarian copper artifacts attests to the prestigious status of this craft and its religious importance.105 The extensive development of the indigenous copper industry in the Early Bronze Age provides further testimony. Consequently, in the absence of clear-cut evidence of foreign cultural influence in the Southern Levant in the Early Iron Age, this premise remains more speculative than its counterpart assumption of a resurgence of the local metallurgical traditions and beliefs. None of these considerations exclude the expression of agrarian rituals in the Israelite religion. However, they suggest that interpretating the data concerning early Israel through the lens of agrarian rites and Near Eastern official cults and festivals, a common feature of modern scholarship, might obscure the originality of ancient Yahwism and the singularities of the early history of Israel.

The Smelting God as an Ignored Deity Exploring the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism is not a simple task. The reason is our imperfect knowledge of the ancient metallurgical traditions and rituals, most of them concerning only small corporations of artisans. Today, most assumptions regarding the cultural dimension of the metallurgical traditions from antiquity emanate from comparative anthropology, and

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

especially from the religious dimension of metallurgy in traditional societies from Africa.106 Certainly, similarities exist between the social status of the metalworkers from traditional Africa and their peers from ancient Greece and the Levant.107 They confirm the cultural importance of metallurgy in these ancient cultures, and especially the esoteric nature of these traditions in the past. Nevertheless, the knowledge provided by anthropological studies about cultural metallurgy may hardly be extended to antiquity. Unlike in Africa, in which cultic metallurgy organizes around the production and working of iron, the corresponding Bronze Age traditions evolved around copper metallurgy. These two metals do not have the same symbolic charge and cosmological dimension, mainly because of the substantial differences in their mode of production and recycling.108 This hiatus is visible in the Bible, where iron is excluded from the divine sphere,109 whereas nonferrous metals are abundant and hold a theological significance far beyond any expression of opulence and magnificence.110 The other hindrance in investigating cultural metallurgy is the esoteric dimension characterizing it.111 This is evidenced in Bronze Age cultures in which the patron deity of metalworkers was generally also the master of the secret knowledge.112 This esoteric nature is especially attached to the figure of the smelting god, the deity dwelling in the mining areas (mountains, deserts), far from the alluvial plains of the “civilized” world. This singularity may explain why this great Bronze Age deity promoting the transformation of ore into copper remains overlooked today, even by the historians of religions. The eventuality that YHWH belongs to this category of gods is significant. It may account for the obscurity surrounding his former identity, before his transformation into the god of Israel. Furthermore, it implies that YHWH was not necessarily a minor deity that gradually ascended the divine hierarchical steps up to the rank of the supreme god. Rather, the emergence and development of the Israelite religion might express an opposite trend: a deflation process, downgrading YHWH from the status of a great esoteric deity overhanging the whole pantheon, to the status of a patron-god of a single nation. We are convinced that these questions, eventualities, and perspectives can no longer be ignored. The current state of knowledge concerning the early identity and history of YHWH calls for examining new directions of research, freed from the existing paradigms. The way Daniel Fleming recently summarizes the current state of knowledge about early Yahwism corroborates this requirement: The ‘origin’ of YHWH remains obscure – geographically, conceptually, and historically […] We do not know how a people could have given its name to a god and what the relationship of the first god YHWH may have been to a community that worshiped him – though the discussion of South Arabia and Moab, below, aims to define a context for such connection. Was YHWH one or several gods

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significant to his first worshippers, and how would YHWH have related to any others in play? Further, we cannot date YHWH’s first appearance as a god and explain the circumstances that would have provoked such a development.113

Exploring the new horizons elicited by YHWH’s metallurgical background calls for leaving aside the solid corpus of knowledge about the classical religions from the ancient Near East and the deities responsible for an official cult. Instead, it requires looking for scarce, scattered, and somewhat speculative elements of information about the smelting gods in antiquity. The use of this type of information is an inescapable prerequisite, once it is understood how unsatisfying the alternative is: the transposition to the early worship of YHWH of the well-documented agrarian rites and storm-god mythology from the Ancient Near East. NOTES 1 Monroe and Fleming 2019: 16. 2 For Bacon (Novum Organum I, 54), Aristotle “made his natural science a mere bond-servant to his logic, thereby rendering it contentious and well-nigh useless.” 3 Ibid., I, 36. 4 Ibid., I, 38. 5 Ibid., I, 44. 6 Halpern 1987: 77. 7 Bausani 1963: 168. 8 Gnuse 1999: 330. 9 Assmann 2010: 1. 10 See Herbener (2013) for an overview of these notions. 11 As stressed by Peter Van Nuffelen (2012: 20), “All these qualifications make clear that monotheism is no longer (if it even has been) a rigid concept, but rather a flexible term which can cover traditional monotheisms, and also monotheistic tendencies within polytheist religions.” 12 This symptom is identified by Jens-André Herbener (2013: 624), who notices that “the category of monotheism can be applied to fairly heterogeneous religious traditions and elements – a practice which, despite all explicit reservations and qualifying adjectives, inevitably contributes to the blurring of important distinctions between these religions.” 13 Frevel 2013. 14 Sommer 2016: 264. 15 Jean-Baptiste 2016: 562 (author’s translation). 16 Wright 1950; Bright 1953; Albright 1957; Kaufmann 1972. 17 Craigie 1969; Sparks 2007: 602. Linguistic considerations promote this view. See Globe 1974; Cross and Freedman 1997: 9–14; Halpern 1983a; Stager 1988: 224; Schloen 1993: 20; Niditch 2008: 76; Echols 2008: 44–63. Nonetheless, few scholars date the song to the monarchic and even postmonarchic period. See, for example, Soggin 1981: 80–1; Lindars 1995: 213–15; Frolov 2011 (and ref therein): 165. 18 de Moor 1990: 204, 219. 19 Tigay 1987; Fowler 1988; Sommer 2016: 246. 20 Stager 1998: 142. 21 Noth 1960: 143–53; Mendenhall 1962; Gottwald 1979. Concerning the recent developments of this model, see Sparks 2007 and Mullins 2015. 22 Dijkstra 2001a; Römer 2014a: 213–28. 23 Gnuse 1999: 317–21; Uehlinger 2015: 12–15.

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

24 Nikiprowetsky 1975; Vorländer 1986; Stolz 1994; Albertz 2003a: 436. This claim was already defended in the early twentieth century. See, for example, Meek 1936: 204–28. 25 Römer 2017: 20. 26 From the monotheistic trends in early prophets (Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah), Baruch Halpern concluded (1987: 96), “In short, it seems to be sometime in the period around 715–701 that we speak of the systematic turning of traditional xenophobic rhetoric and monolatrous thought against the traditional religion of Israel.” 27 Gnuse 1994: 898. 28 Halpern 1987: 96–8. 29 Albertz 2002: 105. 30 Mark Smith (2001: 165) highlights this singular situation: “First in the face of the great empires and then in exile, Israel stands at the bottom of its political power, and it exalts its deity inversely as ruler of the whole universe, with little regard for the status of the older deities known from the pre-exilic literary record.” 31 The exclusivist character of the Israelite monotheism became justified as a way to preserve the Israelite identity in exile. See, for example, Daniel Smith 1989: 63. In parallel, Patrick Miller (2000: 26) assumes that the strong hierarchy of the Mesopotamian pantheon inherent in the concentration of political powers in the Babylonian empire served as a framework for the conception of the Israelite monotheism. 32 For Joseph Blenkinsopp (2017: 29), “Isaiah 40–48 pioneers a new way of confronting overwhelming power – first Babylonian, then Achaemenid – expressed and projected through its religious symbols. In doing so it represents one of the great turning points in religious history in antiquity.” It remains unclear, however, how the author of such worldwide novelty convinced the Israelites to leave their traditional beliefs. 33 Smith 2001: 179–94; Albertz 2002: 104. 34 Stolz 1980: 179; Halpern 1987: 100; Gnuse 1997: 207–8; Kaminsky and Stewart 2006; Clifford 2010; Römer 2014a: 288–90. 35 Olyan 2012. Seitz (1990) already suggested that YHWH addresses the divine council in Isa 40:1–8. Also Johannes Tromp (1995: 106) considers the theology of Deutero-Isaiah as being “monolatric at the most.” 36 Olyan 2012: 201. As exposed here in Chapter 7, a similar trend is observed in Ezekiel 28 and in Psalm 82. 37 Olyan 2012: 197. 38 Lemche 1993; Soggin, 2001; Gerstenberger 2011. James Barr (1985: 219) even suggests that “the Greeks, and not the Persians, may have been the missionaries who made the Iranian religious world known to non-Iranians, including the Jews.” The notion of Axial Age was developed by Karl Jaspers 1953: 1–26, 44–60. Concerning the integration of the Israelite monotheism in this trend, see Halpern 1987: 88, 103; Gnuse 1997: 214–23; Cataldo 2012: 21–22. 39 Tromp 1995: 105–6. Thomas Thompson (1995) assumed that the intolerant (exclusive) monotheism was the development, at the Hellenistic period, of a former tolerant (inclusive) monotheism spreading under Persian cultural influence. 40 Garbini 1988: 52–132; Davies 2015: 99–120. 41 Gerstenberger 2011: 106. 42 Thompson 1991; Lemche 1994; Soggin 2001: 27. 43 van Baaren 2009. 44 J. Smith 1995: 728. 45 Theodore Ludwig (1995: 6155) approaches monotheism as “the religious experience and the philosophical perception that emphasize God as one, perfect, immutable, creator of the world from nothing, distinct from the world, all-powerfully involved in the world, personal, and worthy of being worshipped by all creatures.” This definition authorizes Ludwig (1995: 6156) to include most of the highest deities in this category. 46 This sequence synthesizes the evolution detailed in Halpern 1987; Gnuse 1994, 1999; Smith 2002: 184–96; Rollston 2003: 114.

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47 Zech 1:9, 1:14, 1:19, 2:3, 4:1, 4:4–5, 5:5, 5:10, 6:4–5. 48 Zech 1:11–13, 3:1. 49 The English Standard Version of Bible translation is used in this study, with minor modifications. 50 Hayman 1991: 15. 51 Hurtado 1998: 3. 52 Miller 2000: 4, 25; Römer 2013a: 1. 53 For Mark Smith (2001a: 157), “This fundamental paradigm [of the Zion theology] of cosmic and human royal power drew on a wider fund of West Semitic myth tradition represented in Ugaritic texts.” 54 Even the fall of Jerusalem, a crucial event in this evolutionary scheme, finds a parallel in Edom which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 553–552 BC, a few decades after the destruction of Jerusalem. 55 Nikiprowetsky 1975; Theissen 1985: 64–82. 56 Dever 2000: 67; Geller 2000: 283–4. 57 Gnuse 1999: 320. 58 Cataldo 2012: 9. 59 Greenstein 1999: 58*. 60 This situation is resumed by Patrick Miller (2000: 26), who acknowledges that “the difficulty of articulating a peculiar character to YHWH as a deity. In origin, YHWH has been seen as a mountain-god, a sky-god, a storm-god, a national god, and so forth. But none of these was the case and all of them were. The forces and aspects of the cosmos were all caught up in YHWH …” 61 Smith 2017: 43. 62 Jeremias 2017: 156. 63 Baly 1970; Lang 1985; Aberbach 2001. For Robert Gnuse (1999: 316), the emergence of religious novelties “is facilitated further by a setting in which intelligentsia discuss these issues with fellow believers and religionists of other faiths. Jews would have experienced this process in the Babylonian Exile (586–539 BC) and in the years thereafter.” 64 Albertz 2003a: 435. Similarly, Robert Gnuse (1997: 214) ascertains that “[h]ad the Jews remained in Palestine, they probably never would have attained pure monotheism, for they never would have experienced a crisis sufficiently great to generate such an intellectual leap.” 65 Thomas 1961: 40; Machinist 2005: 27; Albertz 2003a; Römer 2005: 112; Kaminsky and Stewart 2006. 66 Barstad 1997: 35–75, 84–93; Seitz 1998: 130–48; Tiemeyer 2007 and 2014: 24–5; Berges 2010: 563. Also, the call to all exiles (not specifically the Babylonian one) to come back to the land of Israel (Isa 43:5–7) suggests that the prophet stays in the Southern Levant. 67 Haran 1963: 29–32; Van Oorschot 1993: 166; Kratz 1991: 191; Berges 1998: 549; Werlitz 1999: 292–3; Albertz 2003a: 399–404 and 2003b: 375–6; Paul 2012: 1–12; Rom-Shiloni 2013: 100–3. 68 Soggin 2001: 19; Person 2002: 28–9; Albertz 2003a: 282–5; Römer 2005: 163–4. Alternatively, Cross (1973) suggested that most of Kings was composed in the Judah kingdom for supporting the Josiah reform, the last chapters (2 Kgs 23:13b–25:30) being added after the destruction of Jerusalem. 69 Scholars (e.g., McKenzie 2000, Lemaire 2000, Rom-Shiloni 2013: 9–10) even identified Mizpah, the headquarters of the Babylonian administration in the remains of the Judah kingdom, as the site of redaction of the Deuteronomistic history project. 70 Today, most authors acknowledge the composition of the Book of Jeremiah during the sixth century BC. See, for example, Rofé 1989; Lundbom 1999: 100–101; Albertz 2003a: 321; and Leuchter 2008: 1–17. 71 Thiel 1981: 113; Hoffman 2001: 74–6; Amit 2003: 135; Albertz 2003a: 322–4. 72 Jer 3:14–17, 16:14–15, 23:7–8, 24:1–10, 29:16–20, 29:40–44. See Carroll 1986: 483–7; RomShiloni 2013: 233–6 and ref therein. Hermann-Josef Stipp (2010: 132–6) even assumed a Babylonian origin to Jeremiah 37–43. 73 For example, Holladay 1989: 165–9, 228–32; Rom-Shiloni 2013: 244.

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

86 87 88

89 90 91 92 93

94 95

96

97 98

Herbener 2013: 626. Assmann 2010: 34. Amzallag 2014a, 2015a, 2015b. Bickerman 1986: 329–30; Feldman 1996: 542. This decree follows a previous one from 186 BC prohibiting the cult of Dionysus in Rome for similar reasons. Lane 1979: 35. This interpretation is rejected by Simon (1976: 54) and Bickerman (1986: 331). Bickerman 1986: 333. Simon 1976: 53. Quaestiones Convivales, 4.5.3. For example, Plutarch identifies the Shabbat festival with the worship of Sabazius-Dionysus. Feldman 1996: 531–2, 537. Furthermore, unlike many of his peers, Plutarch expresses a neutral or even positive attitude concerning the Jews. See Feldman 1996: 552. Feldman 1996: 541 (nn. 47–48); Amzallag 2011. Bickerman 1986: 334; Lane 1989: 34–5. For example, the processions to Dionysus organized by Antiochus Epiphanes in Jerusalem (2 Maccabees 6:7) are generally approached as a provocation intending to challenge the cult of YHWH. However, it might have been an initiative intending to emphasize the similarities and/or identity between YHWH and Dionysus. See Feldman 1996: 537. Excluded by the paradigm of exclusiveness, this interpretation challenges our representation of the Maccabeans, of their theology, and of their opposition to Hellenism. It also casts light on the significance of the popularity of Dionysus in Southern Levant in late antiquity. Daniel 1979: 58–61. Amzallag 2009a. See also Chapter 5. The first formulation of the Qenite hypothesis is generally attributed to Friedrich Wilhem Ghillany. He exposed his views about the pre-Israelite Yahwism in 1862 (under the pseudonym of Richard von der Alm) in a publication entitled Theologische Briefe an die Gebildeten der deutschen Nation (vol. 1). Ghillany deduced from the Exodus narrative a Qenite influence on Moses and his theology. He further assumed that YHWH’s name and character did not originate from the Qenites but the Phoenicians. The Dutch scholar Cornelis Petrus Tiele formulated in 1872 his own Qenite hypothesis, which knew further developments up to these days. For further details about the historical developments of the Qenite hypothesis, see Fleming 2021: 67–110. Stahl 2020. For a survey of the scholars supporting the Qenite hypothesis throughout the twentieth century, see Mondriaan (2010: 307–405) and Pfitzmann (2019: 4–70). Abramsky 1953; Lewy 1956; Albright 1963. Lewy 1956: 431–2. Mircea Eliade (1977) deduces this conservatism from the similar traditions and lifestyle of the metalworkers from cultures distant in time or space. This anomaly leads scholars to identify the Autumn festival (Sukkot) as the most important ceremony of the Israelite calendar. For Mowinckel (1967 1: 118), “It closed the agricultural year and opened a new one, which in ancient Canaan began with the rainy season and the awakening of the whole creation to new life.” Wagenaar 2005: 10–13. qanno ̑ʾ is generally translated as jealous. However, it also designates the process of recycling rust copper in the furnace. See Amzallag 2015c. As is suggested there, the latter meaning was apparently inspired by such a process of revitalization of matter through destruction of shape. For example, many scholars today assume that the Israelite tabernacle in Exodus is a retrojection of the Solomon temple to the times of origin. See Sarna 1986: 196; Houtman 2000: 325–6; Wood 2008: 28–9; Sommer 2009: 90–3. Iron is mentioned in the temple only in the book of Chronicles (1 Chr 22:3, 22:14, 22:16). Hoekveld-Meijer 1996: 77–90, 232–70; Dicou 1994: 182–97; Assis 2006.

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99 For example, in her reconstitution of the early religion of Israel, Karola Kloos (1986: 69) postulates that “it cannot be doubted that the Canaanite conception of the battle of the deity with the Sea exercised a direct influence upon the Israelite belief; or to put it better: that the Israelites shared this belief with the non-Hebrew population.” 100 Müller 2017: 208. 101 Ex 12:2; Lev 23:5; Num 9:5, 28:16; Ezek 45:21; Ezra 6:9. The mention of the Sukkot festival in the seventh month confirms this view. See Lev 23:34; Num 29:12; 1 Kgs 8:2; Ezek 45:25; Neh 8:14. 102 Mowinckel 1967 1: 125. 103 John Day (1985: 125), for example, denies the expression of a volcanic theophany of YHWH in Psalm 18, arguing his necessary representation as a storm-god: “I maintain strongly that the theophany is simply in the storm, involving lightning and thunder, and that we should not also see here allusions to volcanic phenomena. That we do not have volcanic allusions here is supported by the fact that, so far as we know, nowhere else in the ancient near east are volcanic features attested in theophanies, the manifestations rather being in the storm and earthquake.” 104 Mowinckel (1967 1: 123) formulates this premise conditioning the investigation of ancient Israel for more than a century: “It is a fact that Israel’s cult has not escaped strong influence from oriental cultic customs and ideas, with Canaan as the nearest and natural connecting link.” 105 Concerning the Ghassulian culture, Gošic´ and Gilead (2015a: 169) argue that “[t]he symbolic role of artifacts suggests that the technology [= metallurgy] was understood not only in practical terms, but also conceived in the realm of ideas, symbols and beliefs … This is why we argue that the technology itself – the production process, from preparing the smelting to the finished artifact – was ritualized.” Concerning the metallurgical acquaintances of the Ghassulian religious life, see Gošic´ 2013: 281–4; Gošic´ 2015; Amzallag 2018a. 106 Williamson 1990: 81–92, 106–7; Haaland 2004; Berggren 2004; Rotea et al. 2011; Gosic´ 2013: 272–80; Gošic´ and Gilead 2015b. 107 McNutt 1990; Blakely 2006. 108 Amzallag 2021a. 109 Deut 27:5; Jos 8:31; 1 Kgs 6:7. 110 Amzallag 2019a. 111 Eliade 1977; Amzallag 2019b: 2–3. 112 Ea/Enki, for example, was also the god of witchcraft, exorcism, divination, secrecy, and magic powers. See Lenzi 2008: 104–5; Schwemer 2015: 41–2; Galter 2015: 66–9. His homolog, Nusku, was the guardian of the secret knowledge revealed to his devotees, the metalworkers and diviners (Lenzi 2008: 53, 350). According to van Buren (1934: 89), the serpent-god Ningizzida, the patron deity of Gudea and divine sponsor of metalworking, was a mystic underworld divinity. Ptah, their Egyptian counterpart, had the same attributes. In Ancient Egypt, the discovery of metals and ores in temple foundations even identifies metallurgy as the esoteric fundament of the official religion (Aufrère 1991: 193). Also Velkhanos, the Cretan great god, had an esoteric cult mainly reserved for metalworkers. See Capdeville 1995: 166–7, 187–91; Blakely 2006: 13. A similar esoteric dimension of metallurgy is observed in Bronze Age cultures from Europe. See Kristiansen and Larsson 2005: 52–60. 113 Fleming 2021: 235. Daniel Fleming does not discuss the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism in his monograph. This excludes metallurgy from the state of knowledge related by this author.

PART I

THE MOVEMENT OF EMANCIPATION IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT

CHAPTER ONE

BAAL AND THE AMORITE HEGEMONY

U

nderstanding the circumstances of the emergence of ancient Israel first requires a clarification of the political, social, and religious situation that existed in the Southern Levant a few centuries before. It is especially important, for this purpose, to elucidate the identity and beliefs of the political elite ruling in Canaan before the Israelites. THE SOUTHERN LEVANT IN THE BRONZE AGE

The Middle and Late Bronze Age The Southern Levant experienced a wave of urbanization from the nineteenth century BC, with cities such as Achsaf, Hazor, Laish, Shechem, Rehov, Bet Shemesh, Jerusalem, and Ashkelon growing rapidly.1 This process did not expand Early Bronze Age urbanism (ca. 3600–2000 BC). Rather, it is characterized by the edification of important fortifications around the cities and a new type of sanctuary, which is especially evident in Megiddo, Shechem, Hazor, Tel Kitan, and Haror. Generally positioned on the Acropolis, these sanctuaries had thick stone-made walls supporting an elevated tower. If they were also used as watchtowers, as is generally assumed, these sanctuaries combined religious and military functions, which define them as migdal (fortress) temples.2 The construction of imposing edifices and fortifications requires the recruitment of large numbers of workers and the exercising of authority over the 29

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local population. The urbanization process in the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000–1500 BC) reflects, therefore, the rise of new local political elites. Beyond their defensive functions, the imposing fortifications reflect an explicit combination of demarcation of the elites and their authority over the population. This latter factor is visible in the Southern Levant, where the city ramparts do not entirely fulfill the requirements of defensive structures.3 It is why some of these constructions are considered today to be “extravagant building projects” expressing the might, power, and authority of the elite over the population.4 This elite did not apparently extend the local political power which peaked in the third millennium BC. In fact, urban life gradually declined from the mid-third millennium BC, which led to the abandonment of most urban centers of the Southern Levant between 2200 and 2000 BC.5 This process was even accompanied with a drop in the number and size of villages.6 The decline of South Levantine society did not result from war. It began even before the transient period of aridity affecting the whole Near East at the end of the third millennium BC.7 Although the causes are not entirely understood today, it is noteworthy that the global recession characterizing the second half of the third millennium BC occurred in tandem with the decline of Southern Levant copper metallurgy. This industry represented an important source of wealth that transformed the Southern Levant, in the Early Bronze Age, into the nexus of an international network of trade and exchange.8 It stimulated sedentarization along the transportation routes of the metal, and promoted the development of cities (e.g., Arad, Beer Sheba) that were involved in purification, alloying, and the working of copper.9 The exploitation of sulphide ore (instead of the oxide ore traditionally mined in the Arabah) from the mid-third millennium BC opened new opportunities for copper production.10 Cyprus, where sulphide ore is especially abundant, rapidly became the new center of this industry, provoking the decline of the copper industry in the Southern Levant and its network of transportation and exchange.11 This reality likely contributed to the de-urbanization in the Southern Levant from this time onwards.

The Amorite Newcomers The Middle Bronze Age process of urbanization being in discontinuity with the previous Early Bronze Age culture, we should ask about its origin and impetus. The construction of migdal temples was not restricted to the Southern Levant in the early second millennium BC. A similar reality was attested to in the Northern Levant (e.g., Alalakh, Ugarit).12 Prototypes of this edifice were identified in Mari and Ebla, suggesting that Northern Syria was the homeland of this architectural novelty.13 This observation, combined with characteristics of the fortifications and palatial architecture, denotes a North Syrian influence

THE AMORITE EXPANSION

on the wave of urbanization found in the Southern Levant.14 A similar trend observed in Anatolia reveals an extensive North Syrian influence on the Near East in the early second millennium BC, generating a koiné through the spread of new cultural and societal values.15 This new elite spreading all over the Ancient Near East is identified as “Amorite.”16 The idea of a massive migration of Amorites to the Southern Levant was defended in the past.17 However, the scenario of hordes of Amorites destroying the previous civilization was later challenged by the evidence of cultural continuity in many sites.18 The Amorites eradicated neither the local culture nor the indigenous people.19 Rather, it seems that small groups of Amorites settled in the Southern Levant in the Middle Bronze Age. Some of them became a political and religious elite ruling over the indigenous population. These leaders promoted a new urbanization process accompanied with the construction of important fortifications, temple fortresses, and other impressive monuments.20 THE AMORITE EXPANSION

Identifying the elite in the South Levant as “Amorite” invites us to examine their origin, lifestyle, ideology, motivations for migrations, and transformation into local political elites.

Early Identity of the Amorites In Mesopotamian sources from the mid-third millennium BC, the Amorites (Akkadian amurrû, Sumerian mar.tu) are referred to as small contingents of foreign pastoralists originating in the west.21 Documents from Ebla (twentyfourth century BC) acknowledge their presence in Northern Syria and the Upper Euphrates, in the region of Emar, Tutul, and mar.d oki (an area identified with Jebel Bishri).22 The mountains of Bašar (the region of Jebel Bishri), called “the mountain of the Amurru” in ancient sources, are sometimes regarded as the Amorites’ homeland.23 Further documents from Ebla identify them with the mountainous areas of the Upper Euphrates, Upper Tigris, and Caucasus.24 Archaeological remains from these areas account for people with an agropastoralist lifestyle and a primary organization in chiefdoms.25 It remains unclear, however, whether the Amorite appellation refers in these sources to a specific ethnicity, lifestyle, or material culture. Historians argue that this designation is mainly geographical, and that it should not be restricted even to peoples with a pastoral nomadic lifestyle.26 Others assume that the Amorite appellation refers to a class of people with a specific way of life, independent of their ethnicity, geographical origin, and language.27 But no specific material culture characterizes the people gathered under the

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appellation of Amorites.28 Also, it remains difficult today to define a specific Amorite language because these people spoke a multitude of Semitic dialects during the third millennium BC.29 This diversity extends to the second millennium BC, where the Amorites were to be found involved in multiple activities, displaying various lifestyles, and speaking a broad spectrum of languages. Such a situation might also result from their geographical dispersion, and their status as a minority among local populations. From the expansion of the Amorite cultural koiné across the Near East, authors suggest an evolution of the Amorite identity from an ethnic entity attached to a specific lifestyle and cultural markers from the third millennium BC, towards a broad community including the indigenous people identified with the cultural values and religion promoted by the Amorite newcomers, in the second millennium BC.30

Factors Promoting the Amorite Expansion From the end of the third millennium BC, Amorites were mentioned in Mesopotamian texts (Ur III period) as prisoners of war and mercenaries.31 This information advocates for an enhanced level of Amorite involvement in the urban civilizations of Mesopotamia and Northern Syria. At least two factors motivate this transformation: climatic changes and the control of networks of trade. Climatic Changes The end of the third millennium BC is a period of significant transformations in the entire Near East, including the collapse of urban civilizations. These changes occurred during a transient period of aridity affecting the whole of the Near East (ca. 2200–1900 BC).32 The traditional habitat of the Amorites, a semi-arid steppe zone that experienced substantial fluctuations in annual rainfall, was probably among the first regions affected by this climatic change.33 So the migration of the Amorites to the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia and Northern Syria probably reflects their need to look for new territories compatible with their original lifestyle.34 This trend may account for their conflicts with the sedentary populations (revealed by the military expeditions of the Mesopotamian kings against the Amorites), but also for the gradual integration of the Amorites, as warriors, into sedentary societies from Mesopotamia and Northern Syria.35 If the steppes were first to be touched by the climatic changes, the aridification process extended gradually. It reduced the fluvial regime in Upper Mesopotamia, and affected the irrigated cultures in Lower Mesopotamia.36 This cascade of ecological problems weakened the urban Mesopotamian civilization.37 Similar problems probably caused the collapse of the Northern Syria

THE AMORITE EXPANSION

societies.38 It is why extensive military campaigns are not necessary to explain the Amorite expansion at the end of the third millennium BC.39 Their spread might merely reflect the high resilience of their nomadic, agropastoral lifestyle in the face of the climatic crisis, as compared to the sedentary, highly organized agricultural societies of Southern Mesopotamia and Northern Syria.40 Commercial Circuits The climate crisis may account for the penetration of the Amorites into the Northern Levant, but it cannot properly explain their expansion into the Southern Levant, where the urban society had collapsed long before. Also, it may hardly justify their clustering in small scattered communities organized around a fortified city, simultaneously with their transformation into a new political elite. It means that a factor other than climate was probably involved in the Amorite expansion.41 An examination of the roads used for the transportation of metals (copper and its alloys, silver, and gold) from the Caucasus to the Levant and Southern Mesopotamia via the Zagros Mountains displays similarities with the pattern of migration of the Amorites (see Figure 1.1). These trade routes, which had already existed in the Early Bronze Age, might have guided the Amorite expansion. An examination of the ethnic elements constituting the Amorites supports this premise. In the late third millennium BC, the Amorite appellation designates clans of Semitic speakers inhabiting Northern Syria and the Upper Euphrates areas.42 But it also integrates a Hurrian ethnic element originating in the Caucasus area.43 From this region the Hurrians introduced the light chariot, thus contributing substantially to the rapid expansion and military power of the Amorites.44 But in the third millennium BC, the Hurrians were also involved in the trade and distribution of the metals produced in the Caucasus (see Figure 1.1).45 This may explain why some documents from the third millennium BC refer to the Amorites as suppliers of metallic implements.46 Tin, the rare metal required for the production of bronze and mined in the Caucasus, was apparently of importance in this trade controlled by the Amorites.47 This activity had many consequences. First, it guided the pattern of migration of the Amorites along the routes they already knew. The trade of tin generated a substantial source of wealth, and at the same time, it enabled their control of the production of efficient, bronze-made weapons and the development of a warfare ideology. It also granted the Amorites, or at least some of them, an elite status. The long-range trade of metals was traditionally controlled by small, kin-based communities scattered along the entire route, groups related for generations through shared beliefs, cultural markers, and marital alliances.48 The organization of the Amorites in interrelated communities living in fortified cities among indigenous peoples replicates this traditional pattern.

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1.1 Trade of metals between the Caucasus, Anatolia, and the Ancient Near East in the Early and Middle Bronze Age. (From Shanshashvili et al., 2013: 23, with permission.)

THE AMORITE EXPANSION

Obviously, this does not mean that the Amorites were systematically involved in the trade and exchange of metals. However, it does suggest that the Hurrian component influenced the mode of organization, the migration pattern, and the status of the Amorites in the early second millennium BC.

The Case of Ugarit The transformation of the city of Ugarit in the early second millennium provides priceless information about the Amorite mode of organization, ideology, and interaction with the indigenous population. The site of Ugarit shows continuous traces of occupation from the Neolithic period to the Early Bronze Age. Urbanization is visible in this later period, including the construction of fortifications and the development of metallurgical activity.49 Ceramic remains from the Southern Levant discovered at Ugarit suggest that this city was a node in the international network of exchange.50 The city apparently became abandoned at the end of the third millennium BC, inserting a hiatus between the former inhabitants and the new phase of urbanization that began around 1800 BC. Although the first stages of the city’s reconstruction remain obscure, populations described as “silos diggers” and “torque bearers” were among the first new occupants.51 Most traces of the Amorite presence in Ugarit (seal cylinders, iconography, and written documents) belong to the Late Bronze Age period. However, the continuity of occupation of the city and of its material culture, between the MBA and LBA periods, indicates an Amorite identity of the new founders of the city (silos diggers and torque bearers) or their immediate followers.52 Also, the list of Ugaritian kings from Yaqarum, the founder of the Ugaritian royal dynasty, supports the assumption of continuity of the Amortite hegemony between the MBA and LBA periods.53 Finally, the type of fortifications identified as markers of the Amorite hegemony are dated from the first stages of re-urbanization of the city.54 These indications confirm that groups kin-related to the Amorite tribes, or identified with them, rapidly became an elite ruling the city in the early second millennium BC and imposed their urbanism and cultural values. Maybe the best indicator of Amorite hegemony is the unearthing of two edifices in the Acropolis of the city that were dated to the nineteenth century BC.55 Their remains display similarities with contemporaneous temples from Northern Syria.56 The thickness of the basal walls of the inner room, the holy part of the sanctuary, suggests that both edifices were migdal temples.57 These two edifices being the only sanctuaries identified on the Acropolis, it is likely that the religious practices and beliefs of the Amorites became the official religion in Ugarit from the early second millennium BC up to the final destruction of the city (ca. 1180 BC).58 The dedication steles discovered

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in both temples reveal that Baal and Dagan were the two main deities worshipped by the Amorites in Ugarit.59 THE STORM-GOD KOINÉ

If the migdal temples from Ugarit served as markers of the Amorite koiné, it is likely that Baal and Dagan, the gods worshipped in these sanctuaries, belong to the Amorites rather than to the native inhabitants. Consequently, the worship and mythology of Baal and Dagan might reveal some essential features of the universe of beliefs of the Amorites, their ideology, and their relationship with the indigenous population.

Baal Worship in Ugarit The Grand Stele from the Baal Temple A large stele discovered in 1932 in one of the two migdal temples reveals its dedication to Baal (Figure 1.2).60 It represents the storm-god holding a threatening mace head in his right hand, and a spear in his left. This latter weapon is pointed towards the ground, positioned upon an undulating motif probably denoting the watery element or a serpent. Motifs on the spear evoke vegetation or lightning, the two expected attributes of a storm-god. A dagger on his belt reveals his warrior nature. The small figure under the god’s dagger faces in the same direction, leading Schaeffer to interpret it not as a mere worshipper but rather as an important figure under the protection of Baal, the king of Ugarit, or even a local divinity.61 Either way, this stele expresses the storm and warrior attributes of Baal and his supremacy in Ugarit. This conclusion corroborates the central importance of his temple on the Acropolis. It also substantiates the way Baal is approached in Ugaritic literature.

1.2 The storm-god stela from Ugarit. Photo by Frank Raux. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre (catalog number AO 15775).

The Literary Sources Along with the depiction of Baal, the Ugaritic hymns and epic literature emphasize three essential functions of the deity: (i) the provider of rain and agricultural fertility, (ii) the

THE STORM-GOD KOINÉ

warrior-god protecting the city and the one responsible for conquest, and (iii) the patron of the dynasty of rulers and the local political elite. Rain and fertility: The storm-god identity of Baal emanates from many of his characteristics, but primarily from his epithet of rider of clouds (rkb ʿrpt)62 and from identifying the thunder as his vocal theophany.63 Baal is the dispenser of rain and snow,64 then the provider of plant growth and fertility.65 His three “daughters” (Pidray, Tallay, and Arsay) and two emissaries (Gupn [Wine] and Ugar [Field])66 all refer to fertility, precipitation, and farming.67 All these storm-god attributes of Baal combine in KTU 1.4 v 6–9 And now may Baʿal also luxuriate with his rain May he luxuriate with abundant water in a downpour And He will sound his voice in the clouds May he flash to the earth lightning 68

Water being generally the limiting factor of plant growth in the Levant, Baal was granted, in Ugaritic mythology, the estimable function of supplying food for gods as well as mortals, thus enjoying both the prestige and authority accruing to these attributes: I alone am the one who rules over the gods Indeed commands/fattens gods and men Who satisfies earth’s multitude69

Warfare: In Ugarit, the storm-god is also praised for his warlike character and his function as defender of the city. This function is explicit in a fragment of Ugaritic liturgy (KTU 1.119) calling on Baal for protection: If a strong one attacks your gates A Warrior your walls Raise your eyes to Baal (saying): O Baal, if you will drive the strong one from our walls A Bull, O Baal, we shall dedicate A vow, O Baal, we shall fulfill […] Then Baal will listen to your prayer He will drive the strong one from your gates The warrior from your walls.70

The protective function of Baal is not merely the consequence of his prominent position in the Ugaritian pantheon. Rather, it reflects the warlike characteristic shared by many storm-gods. This bellicose nature issues from the representations of Baal in a threatening posture (e.g., Figure 1.2).71 Furthermore, Ugaritic hymns praise warfare as Baal’s essential attribute and ascribe conquests to its normal expression. In KTU 1.4 vii 7–1272, for example,

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the combative nature of Baal is praised for extending his earthly dominion by fighting armies, cities, and peoples:73 He travelled [from city to] city He went from tow[n to to]wn He seized sixty-six cities Seventy-seven towns Eighty Baal [smote] Ninety Baal [captured]

Patron of rulers: In the aforementioned extract (KTU 1.4 vii 7–12), Baal resembles the hypostasis of a king using his military power in order to expand his domain. The image of Baal traveling between cities even likens him to a king circulating in the conquered territories to consolidate his authority and to repress eventual unrest.74 This dual function is probably not coincidental. Texts from Northern Syria reveal that the storm-god (Haddu) was the deity enthroning kings, blessing them, and protecting them personally against their enemies.75 Also in Ugarit, Baal patronizes the dynasty of kings, guaranteeing their legitimacy and authority.76 Parallels between rites attached to the death of Ugaritian kings and those concerning Baal’s resurgence point to an essential function of this god in kingly authority.77 As in the grand stele (Figure 1.2), these texts even suggest that the Ugaritian king was considered a hypostasis of Baal, the patron-god of the city.78

The Main Gods The Cult of Baal If Baal was the god worshipped in the migdal temple in Ugarit, and if this latter edifice is a marker of Amorite identity, the worship of Baal in Ugarit becomes a central element of this cultural koiné. Baal (=the Lord) is also called Haddu (from *hdd = to thunder) in Ugaritic poetry, a feature identifying him with Haddu/Adad, the storm-god worshipped in Northern Syria and Mesopotamia in the second millennium BC.79 Baal/Haddu is also akin, in ancient sources, to Teššub, the Hurrian storm-god,80 and his Hittite counterpart, Tarḫuna.81 It suggests that the storm-gods from all the areas of the Amorite hegemony were the local expressions of an original figure introduced by the Amorites. Indeed, all these storm deities display the same features and essential attributes. They all enjoy the most prominent position in their respective pantheon, and a similar warlike dimension characterizes them all.82 The king was the “beloved of the storm-god” in Ugarit, and also of the Hurrians and the Hittites.83 There, the prince was not only the supreme leader enthroned by the storm-god but also the chief-priest of his cult.84 The parallels in representations of the king and the storm-god, in some Hittite reliefs, even suggest that the former was regarded as an incarnation of the latter.85

THE STORM-GOD KOINÉ

War and kingship authority similarly blend in all these figures of the stormgod. The divine weapon deposited in Haddu sanctuaries, in Northern Syria, was probably an artifact ensuring both royal legitimacy and success in war.86 Additionally, in the Middle Euphrates, the royal ideology interfaced with the cult of the storm-god, his warlike attributes, and even his dimension as conquereor.87 The Cult of Dagan The god Dagan, to whom the other temple tower from Ugarit was probably dedicated, also integrates the Amorite cultural koiné. This god is closely related to Baal, the latter being called the son of Dagan (bn dgn) in Ugarit.88 The worship of Haddu (sacrifices and deposit of his prestige weapons) in the temple of Dagan from Terqa (Middle Euphrates) confirms their interrelation.89 Dagan was apparently an important deity in the Amorite universe. This is evident by his mention at the top of the lists of gods in archives from Mari, and by his homology with Enlil in Southern Mesopotamia.90 This supreme position is probably related to his involvement in cereal cultivation or even plant domestication, a feature prominent in some elements of his ritual91 and by his appellation as “Lord of seeds (be l̄ zerı ̄)” in a text from Emar.92 This latter dimension of Dagan may easily explain his interrelation with Haddu, the storm-god ensuring the growth of the crops given to humankind by Dagan. The same homeland of these two gods seems not to be accidental. Dagan was apparently the supreme deity in the Upper and Middle Euphrates (which includes the two principal cities of his cult, Terqa and Tutul), the region identified as the homeland of the Amorites.93 His cult becomes, therefore, another marker of the Amorite identity. The Amorite Homeland of Baal-Haddu Royal and warlike ideologies do not casually interfere with rain, agriculture, and fertility. Their combination in all the figures of the storm-god suggests that all of them individualized from an archetypal figure of the Amorite stormgod, whose origin must now be determined.94 The Hurrian storm-god is called “Tessub from Aleppo,”95 and a temple dedicated to the storm-god from Aleppo existed in the Hittite city of Hattusa in the fourteenth century BC.96 The Ugaritian Baal is also called “Haddu from Aleppo” in some documents from Mari.97 Haddu is frequently named “the Lord of Aleppo” in dedications from Northern Syria (Nuzi, Tunip, Emar)98, and the Aleppo sanctuary was one of the most famous cultic centers of the storm-god during the second millennium BC.99 Further observations support this view. A tablet from Ebla dated from the mid-third

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millennium BC mentions Aleppo as the homeland from which the cult of Haddu originated.100 Moreover, the presence, in his Aleppo sanctuary, of the original weapon by which Haddu smote the primeval sea confirms its anteriority over all the other sanctuaries from the Northern Levant.101 The region of Aleppo is not necessarily the land of origin of this storm-god, but this city seems clearly involved in the diffusion of his cult from the end of the third millennium BC.102 THE AMORITE IDEOLOGY

The transformation of Baal-Haddu into a cultural marker for the Amorites is probably not founded only in his control of rain and plant fertility. Rather, we may expect from this god further characteristics that specifically promote the Amorite identity or ideology.

The Conflict with the Serpent The conflict of the storm-god with the serpent is a theme that runs through the whole of the Amorite koiné. Seals from Anatolia, Upper Syria, and Mesopotamia dated from the early second millennium BC represent the storm-god subduing a mythical serpent and killing it with a spear.103 For example, a seal from Kanesh shows the storm-god handling two subdued serpents by their heads (Figure 1.3A).104 Another seal represents the stormgod’s spear reaching the serpent’s head and killing it (Figure 1.3B). In Anatolia as well, the storm-god subdues the serpent with a spear poised over its head, or alternatively, standing upon two bulls with a subdued serpent at his feet.105 The storm-god’s victory over the serpent is also a widespread literary motif in the Amorite koiné.106 The fourth section of the Kumarbi Cycle reports Teššub slaying the dragon ḫedammu, itself identified with the sea.107 Also in Ugarit, Baal overcomes Yam, the sea-god, identified with a seven-headed writhing serpent called Litan.108 The struggle of Marduk with Tiamat, the cosmic sea with serpentine attributes, is probably a Mesopotamian extension of this Amorite mythology of Baal-Haddu.109 A document from Mari dated from the early second millennium BC reveals the antiquity of this theme, suggesting that it accompanies the Amorite expansion from its very beginning.110 The conflict between Baal-Haddu and the primary serpent is not a classical agrarian theme. It is therefore generally interpreted in terms of the mythical struggle of a god promoting order and civilization against the forces of chaos and destruction symbolized by the serpent.111 But this view is challenged by the positive connotation of the serpent symbol in the ancient Near East in the third millennium BC.

THE AMORITE IDEOLOGY

1.3 Anatolian seal impression representing Haddu/Teššub and serpents. 1A: seal from Kanesh/ Kultepe, level II (ca. 1920–1840 BC); 1B: seal from Aïdin (Northern Syria, ca. 1800–1700 BC). A: Redrawn from Williams-Forte (1983: 39); B: Drawing from a seal impression, Musée du Louvre (catalog number AO 1183).

The Serpent Symbol in the Pre-Amorite Period In Egypt, the serpent is especially abundant in Old Kingdom iconography. The uraeus, for example, is closely related to kingship and holiness, and the amulets representing it demonstrate its widespread protective functions.112 Mehen, the cosmic coiled serpent whose representation is attested to from the early dynastic period, even protected the god Ra against the forces of chaos and destruction threatening his integrity.113 Also in the Southern Levant, the serpent is encountered in a cultic context in the third millennium BC (e.g., in Megiddo, Arad, and Tel Dan), especially on vessels apparently used for libations.114 The same positive connotations characterize the Mesopotamian glyptic from the third millennium BC. In about 95 percent of its representations, the serpent exhibits positive and friendly connotations.115 The representation of serpents and dancers in a seal from Dilmun (Figure 1.4) reflects this reality. The same positive relationship between humankind, gods, and serpents is visible in a seal from Ur (Figure 1.5) representing a female figure peacefully facing a divinity (horn head-dress) around a palm-tree. The large erect serpent, whose head faces the woman’s, denotes the friendly character of the animal. Even the configurations of the seven-headed serpent Mušmahhu, the classical monster of second millennium BC literature, is represented with relatively 1.4 Serpent and dancers in a seal from friendly connotations in the third millen- Saar, Early Dilmun culture. Redrawn from nium BC (Figure 1.6). Crawford 2001: 74.

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1.5 Cylinder seal from Ur with an erect serpent. Source: British Museum (catalog number 89326). Copyright: The Trustees of the British Museum.

1.6 The seven-headed serpent Mušmahhu, Mesopotamia, Early Dynastic period. Redrawn from Black and Green 2008: 165.

The associations of the serpent with subterranean waters, the tree of life,116 sexual vigor, vitality,117 and healing118 all confirm the highly positive dimension of this symbol in the third millennium BC. This reptile also served as a guide in the afterlife and in the rebirth of the soul,119 and was even the symbol of immortality.120 Instead of being a negative figure of disorder, destruction, and chaos, the serpent was, in the pre-Amorite period, closely related to life, fertility, wealth, and happiness. The essential linkage of the serpent symbol with holiness is not surprising in light of these positive connotations. This holiness is reflected in a cylinder seal from Elam, through the combination of the serpent motif (together with scorpions and ibexes) with a temple façade and utensils for libations (Figure 1.7).

THE AMORITE IDEOLOGY

1.7 Cylinder seal from Susa with temple façade, serpent, scorpions and ibexes. Source: British Museum (catalog number 102416). Copyright: The Trustees of the British Museum.

The connection of the serpent with first-rank deities confirms this conclusion. The cobra was the essential attribute of Uadjet, the earliest patroness of the cities of Lower Egypt, and the goddess who protected the kings.121 Ptah, the patron-god of the first Egyptian dynasty and the demiurge of the Memphite theology, was identified with the cosmic serpent Ir-ta.122 Even Enki, the Sumerian promoter of a peaceful organized world, and the god reigning over subterranean waters (abzu), was closely related to the serpent. This is revealed by his appellation “Enki the snake” (muš Enki) or even “the black snake in the Abzu,”123 and by the representation of Ea, his Akkadian counterpart called the “King of the Deep,” as a two-headed snake.124 The serpent-god Ningizzida, the son of Ninazu (known as the king of snakes) frequently represented by two twisted erect serpents (Figure 1.8), was extensively worshipped in Mesopotamia (Ur, Uruk, Nippur, Umma and Larsa, Gišbanda), and was considered the protector of kings and cities from diseases, war, and destruction.125 It means that this serpent-god was the herald of the organized world, defending it against the forces of chaos, wars, and military conquests. The Elamite iconography is especially explicit concerning the holiness attached to the serpent symbol. For example, a cylinder seal from Susa represents a worshipper facing the serpent-god combined with the representation of a temple façade (Figure 1.9). The figuration of another serpent’s head within the temple here actualizes the essential linkage between the two.126 The centrality of the serpent-god also appears on cylinder seals from Eshnuna (Tell Asmar) from the end of the third millennium BC. In this site, expressing a mixed Mesopotamian and Elamite cultural influence, the humanheaded serpent-god is represented in close association with a star, facing a

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1.8 Vessel for libations from Gudea with intertwined serpents dedicated to Ningizzida. Photo Matthieu Rabeau. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre (catalog number AO 190).

fiery altar (Figure 1.10). This combination suggests a function of the serpentgod in linking the celestial universe (the star) with the cult (the altar). The standard-like motif represented in Figure 1.10A supports this interpretation, in combining a star and a triangle pointed downward toward the ground, a probable symbol of fertility. The plant and fertility symbolism beside the altar in Figure 1.10B corroborates this interpretation.

THE AMORITE IDEOLOGY

1.9 Cylinder seal from Susa representing the serpent-god. Photo Matthieu Rabeau. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre (catalog number SB 1055).

The Elamite iconography reveals that this serpent deity was also the guardian of the springs, another symbol of vitality and fertility.127 These testimonies leave little doubt concerning the central importance of the serpent in the pre-Amorite religious universe and its close association with holiness, vitality, fertility, and wealth.

The Impact of the Amorite Expansion In Mesopotamia, the decline of the positive dimension of the serpent symbol coincides with the rise of Amorite authority. There, the serpent symbol becomes rare from the early second millennium BC, and its positive dimension almost entirely disappears from the official religion.128 It remains visible mainly in domestic cults through its protective, apotropaic, and healing functions.129 In Elam, nevertheless, the popularity of the serpent symbol clearly extended to the second millennium BC, by prolonging the pre-Amorite iconography.130 The figuration of erect serpents in cultic scenes (Figure 1.11A) recalls similar Mesopotamian representations from the third millennium (see Figure 1.5). Serpents shaped as divine thrones (Figures 1.11B and C) recall the former representations of human-headed serpent-gods (Figures 1.9 and 1.10). Even the close relationship between serpents and springing water finds a parallel in the figuration of a deity mastering springing water and sitting on a serpent (Figure 1.11B).

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1.10 Cylinder seals from Eshnuna representing a serpent-god facing a fiery altar. Drawings from seal impression. Source: A: Oriental Institute, Diyala Cylinder Seal collection, catalog number IM15616 (pl. 58, no. 616); B: Oriental Institute, Diyala Cylinder Seal collection, catalog number IM15623 (p. 87, no. 921).

A similar positive connotation of the serpent symbol is attested to in Dilmun, where the serpent worship extended up to the first millennium BC.131 This difference between the core (Northern Levant, Mesopotamia) and periphery (Elam, Dilmun) of the Amorite koiné suggests that the inversion of meaning of the serpent symbol, between the third and second millennia BC, was occasioned by the Amorite hegemony and their promotion of a new official religion organized around their storm-god. Nevertheless, the distance of Elam from the centers of Amorite power and the mountainous nature of this country are probably not the only factors that account for the preservation of the pre-Amorite religious traditions. Indeed, a similar trend is observed in Cyprus throughout the entire second millennium BC. Here again, an erect serpent is represented beside a man, both being of similar size (see Figure 1.12A–C), a motif recalling the serpent iconography

THE AMORITE IDEOLOGY

1.11 Elamite seals with representations of serpents. A: Cultic scene with erect serpent; B: God sitting on a serpent with water springing from his scepter. C: Cultic scene with a god sitting on a serpent; Sources: A: drawing from a cylinder seal impression, Musée du Louvre (catalog number SB 6210); B: drawing from a fragment of juridical tablet, Musée du Louvre (catalog number SB 8748); C: drawing from cylinder seal impression, Musée du Louvre (catalog number AOD 68).

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1.12 Cylinder seals with serpent from Cyprus. Drawings from seal impression, Musée du Louvre. A: catalog number AO 27731; B: catalog number AM 1660; C: catalog number MNB 377.

THE AMORITE IDEOLOGY

from the pre-Amorite period (Figures 1.4 and 1.5). Similarly, the association between the serpent and the ibex (or another horned quadruped) visible in Figure 1.12A–C is reminiscent of the pre-Amorite iconography (see Figure 1.7). Even the connotation of fertility formerly attached to the serpent and symbolized by vegetation (see Figures 1.5 and 1.10) remains visible in the Cyprus seals (Figure 1.12A and C). In the second millennium BC, Cyprus was the nexus of the Eastern Mediterranean network of exchange and trade. Consequently, the survival of the pre-Amorite serpent symbolism cannot be attributed to isolation. One of the features common to Elam, Dilmun, and Cyprus in the second millennium BC was the prominent importance of the copper industry in these areas. While the serpent was an animal of religious importance in the Near East long before the domestication of metals, its symbolism infiltrated the metallurgical sphere in the Bronze Age. It is revealed by the serpentine attributes typically attending the gods who sponsored metallurgy: the role of the serpents as guardians of the mining areas, and the involvement of this animal in cultic metallurgy.132 In the Levant, the essentiality of the serpent–metallurgy nexus is even stressed by the semantic closeness between serpent (nḥs) and copper (nḥst).133 This craft became concurrently a cultural and a religious precept, which was especially visible in the Southern Levant.134 Consequently, the importance of the metal industry in Elam, Dilmun, and Cyprus might be a factor promoting the preservation of the prominent position of the serpent symbol in these areas.

A Political Reading of the Struggle with the Serpent The third-millennium iconography reveals that the serpent was not often associated with the forces of chaos and destruction in the Near East. Rather, this negative dimension looks like a component of the Amorite ideology that spread with their expansion. An examination of the mythology from Ugarit enables us to clarify its significance. There, the serpent, the arch-enemy of Baal, is identified with Yam, the sea-god with serpentine attributes. But Yam also identifies with the pre-Amorite indigenous beliefs, as revealed by his mention as the beloved son of El, the great god of the indigenous pantheon. Thus, the conflict between Baal and Yam looks like a mythical expression of the struggle for authority and power between the local population and the Amorite newcomers. The Mythic Struggle In Ugaritic mythology, the central motif regarding Baal’s conflict with the local deities concerns the construction of his palace (temple).135 Transposed to the political arena, this quest for the religious ascendancy of Baal over the local deities reflects the search for authority of the Amorites over the indigenous population. If so, El’s rejection of Baal’s request expresses an opposition

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to this claim of hegemony. By extension, the mythical struggle between Baal and Yam might reflect an ideology of conquest of the Amorites rather than cosmological considerations about the forces of chaos, at least in the first stages of the formulation of this myth.136 The conflict, in Ugaritic mythology, explodes after Baal challenges the hegemony of Yam, and especially after he violates the diplomatic rules in attacking the emissaries sent by his rival (a disloyal act of Baal arousing enmity amongst the sons of El; see KTU 1.2 i 35–41). The myth goes on to describe the struggle in which Baal defeats his adversary with the help of the magic weapons made by Kothar (KTU 1.2 iv).137 The contribution of the smith-god to Baal’s victory is surprising, at first sight, because Kothar belongs to the local, indigenous family of gods. He is even considered the son of Yam.138 However, this singular alliance is not specific to Ugaritic mythology. Further, Teššub smites the mythic serpent with the help of Ea, the Mesopotamian smith-god.139 This parallel indicates that the motif of the smith-god assisting Baal-Haddu in subduing the serpent belongs to an Amorite cultural context. It might emphasize the contribution of metalworkers to the military power of the Amorites in their military conquests.140 It might even echo the control of the trade of tin and bronze by the Amorites, with its military implications. The Consequences of the Victory In Ugarit, the enthronement of the storm-god following his victory over Yam is the climax of the Baal Cycle. The myth begins with the construction of his palace by Kothar (KTU 1.4 i, step 1). Once this is accomplished, Baal invites almost all the sons of El to a festival organized in his palace (KTU 1.4 vi 44–58, step 2). Their coming (step 3) lends legitimacy to the claim of supremacy of Baal on the local pantheon. Immediately thereafter, the epic relates that Baal conquers seventy towns surrounding Ugarit, an act that transforms the citystate into a whole kingdom with vassal cities and territories (KTU 1.4 vii 6–12, step 4). Baal becomes the patron-god of Ugarit only after this successful military campaign (KTU 1.4 vii 40–56, step 5). The political dimension of this myth extends once the Amorite ruler is identified with Baal-Haddu, his patron-god. Then the story relates how an Amorite leader achieved power in the city with the help of his superior weaponry (represented by Kothar). It mentions how he replaced the previous authority (symbolized by Yam) and became accepted by the population of the city (represented by the El family of gods). However, agriculture remains of only secondary importance in a harbor city like Ugarit, which mainly specialized in maritime trade. This may explain why Baal’s victory over Yam is not enough to ensure the stability of his kingship, and with it, the authority of the Amorites.141 The situation changes after the military conquest of

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the hinterland (step 4), which generated a new source of wealth for the city through crop production and taxes. Like the king promising a new era of prosperity of the city, the god reveals his greatness (=potential of wealth) to the inhabitants of the city: He instructs Kothar to open a window (KTU 1.4 vii 15–27), thunders his voice (KTU 1.4 vii 25–9), and reveals his function of feeding mortals and gods (KTU 1.4 vii 30–5). This myth announces that the military conquest of the seventy cities (step 4) is the crucial event in the process granting political power to the Amorite newcomers. It legitimizes the authority of the new dynasty of rulers, promotes the cult of the storm-god, and frightens the opponents (step 5).142 But indirectly, it also informs us that the conjunction of two sources of wealth, agriculture and maritime trade, enabled the survival for centuries of the ancient religious system (organized around the family of El and the leadership of Yam) together with the new one centered on Baal’s hegemony. The interpretation of the Baal epics proposed here suggests that the affiliation of Yam and his companions with the forces of chaos is probably a secondary, cosmological extension of the ideology of conquest advanced by the Amorites. It reflects first of all the claim of replacement of the old religious values by new ones.143 In return, this mythical motif and its attendant stories become an ideological pattern guiding the Amorite leaders in their conquest of new cities, territories, and kingdoms. INDIGENOUS REACTIONS

Rather than the mere issue of a military conquest, Ugaritic mythology suggests that the Amorite hegemony resulted in a kingdom based on a subtle mixing of intrigues, compromises, negotiations, demonstrations of power, and warlike capacities with regard to the local populations. This complex situation introduced many possible modes of coexistence between the indigenous traditions and those introduced by the Amorites.

Baal-Haddu and the Local Storm-Gods The first way to evaluate the reaction to the Amorite conquest is to examine the fate of the indigenous storm-god, whose authority became challenged by the coming of Baal-Haddu. A dissolution within the figure of Baal-Haddu reflects a syncretism between the local and foreign traditions, whereas survival of the indigenous storm-god alongside his Amorite counterpart betrays a local resistance.144 Resorption of the Local Figure of the Storm-God The mingling of the local storm-god with his Amorite peer is observed in Southern Mesopotamia. In this area, the indigenous storm-god, Iškur, was

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1.13 Imprints of cylinder seals from Ur with representations of Iškur. Redrawn from Vanel 1965: 172–3.

traditionally affiliated with the chief-god Enlil. His kinship with Enki (the patron of irrigation, rivers, and subterranean water) suggests a Sumerian origin. Iškur was also a young warrior-god.145 In his earliest representations (mid-third millennium BC, Figure 1.13A), the god looks like a large bird of prey with a leonine facies, a probable figuration of large clouds (the bird wings) with thunder (the lion roaring).146 He was mainly the patron of flocks, ensuring their feeding through pastures watered by rain.147 His secondary status regarding Enki is visible in a Sumerian representation of the storm-god standing beside a central deity surrounded by serpents, a probable figuration of Enki (Figure 1.13B). Iškur was, in Southern Mesopotamia, a deity of an ambivalent nature, providing both fertilizing rain and destructive hail.148 But unlike Baal-Haddu, no mythic struggle with the serpent characterizes this

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indigenous figure.149 On the contrary, the god is sometimes represented in the company of friendly serpents (Figure 1.13B). His general appellation as Adad-Iškur, towards the end of the third millennium BC, likely reflects his gradual merging with the Amorite storm-god.150 Adad-Iškur remains represented with a trident symbolizing lightning and storms (Figure 1.14A and B), and as in a few previous centuries (Figure 1.13B), the god is occasionally figured as seated on a horned quadruped (Figure 1.14A), a feature expressing his status as master of pastures and flocks. A similar process is found in Anatolia, where Baal-Haddu is identified with Tarḫuna, the Hittite storm-god, himself issued from a syncretism with the Hatti storm-god Taru.151 Nonetheless, his equality with Baal-Haddu eradicated some characteristics of this indigenous deity. For example, the association of the Hattian storm-god with subterranean waters (symbolized by his representation with serpents and fish), visible in Anatolia in the third millennium BC, became replaced by enmity between the storm-god and the serpent.152 This transformation suggests that the identity of this indigenous figure of the storm-god was absorbed into its Amorite counterpart. Coexistence between the Two Homologous Storm-Gods The dissolution of the figure of the indigenous god is not the only observed phenomenon. Survival of the indigenous storm-god, at least in part, may also be observed. In Northern Egypt, for example, the figure of Baal-Haddu is somewhat mingled with Seth, the local storm-god responsible for violent and destructive storms rather than fertility and agriculture.153 Their syncretism is visible through the appellation of Baal as “Seth from Aleppo” in Egyptian treatises, through the use of the hieroglyph of Seth for designating Baal, and through the representations of Seth thrusting a spear into the head of a serpent (Figure 1.15).154 The former nature of Seth as a raging warrior probably facilitated his interposition with Baal-Haddu.155 However, both the iconography and the literary sources reveal that Seth preserved his own identity, at least partially.156 This shows that the process of dissolution of the local storm-god into his Amorite counterpart remained incomplete in Egypt. This situation is accentuated in the Levant. It concerns Athtar, an ancient deity attested to from the third millennium BC157 whose worship was probably rooted in the indigenous Early Bronze Age traditions.158 His affiliation to the El family, in Ugaritic mythology, confirms the antiquity of his cult in the Levant.159 A figuration of the god on a cylinder seal from Ugarit (Figure 1.16) represents him standing on a lion combined with a serpent, and handling a spear. Like Iškur in Mesopotamia, these attributes likely reflect a combination of fertility, storms, and war assigned to the figure of the indigenous storm-god.160

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1.14 Representations of Adad-Iškur from the end of the third millennium BC. Sources: Drawings from seal impressions from the British Museum. A: catalogue number 89007; B: catalogue number 1613054426.

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1.15 Baal-Seth slaying the serpent and the lion. Imprint of cylinder seal from tell es-Zafi (Northern Egypt). Redrawn from Cornelius 1994: 221–2.

Both Athtar and Astarte, his female counterpart, are associated with a multiplicity of expressions of fertility, from vegetation to reproduction.161 Athtar is also the provider of dew, a feature which may explain his identification with Venus, the morning star shining at the time dew condenses on the earth.162 As in Southern Arabia, Athtar probably also patronized the subterranean waters and irrigation in the Levant.163 Ancient Arabic dedications of Athtar as “the bellicose,” “the mighty one,” or “the lord of strength” reveal that he was also a protective/ warrior-god.164 Unlike the syncretism with Baal-Haddu observed in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and even partially in Egypt, the figure of Athtar neither disappeared nor comingled with the Amorite storm-god. The figures of Baal and Athtar remained clearly distinct for centuries after the Amorite conquest. The two gods even compete in Ugaritic mythology: Athtar calls for the construction of his own palace independent of the one belonging to Baal (KTU 1.2 iii 15–24). He even aspires to replace Baal after Mot kept this latter in the Netherworld (KTU 1.6 i 50–65).165 Although officially supplanted by Baal, Athtar apparently preserved for centuries his identity, cult, and prestige.166

1.16 Representation of Athtar on a cylinder seal from Ugarit. Drawing from a seal impression in Amiet 1992, Figure 5.

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1.17 Baal claiming his authority on animals on a cylinder seal from Ugarit. Drawing from a seal impression in Amiet 1992, Figure 9.

The iconography corroborates this premise. A cylinder seal from Ugarit (Figure 1.17) represents the struggle between someone with a conical hat and a threatening pose (Baal), and a lion/caprid associated with a serpent (Reshef/ Athtar). The posture of the animals (and especially the serpent) is not submissive, a feature challenging the hegemony of Baal (and the Amorites) on the local pantheon.

The Dual Religious System in the Levant The survival of Athar beside Baal-Haddu might reflect a resistance to the cultural changes introduced by the Amorites. It invites us to examine to what extent this trend extends beyond the sphere of the storm-god and his cult. Northern Levant The designation of Baal as “the son of Dagan” rather than “the son of El,” the indigenous supreme god, finds a correspondence in the distinction related in Ugaritic mythology between the “family of El” (dr ʾl), the gods from the local pantheon, and the “company of Baal” (pḫr bʿl), a group of deities that includes his sister, ʿAnat, and his emissaries,ʾgr and gpn.167 This dichotomy suggests the coexistence in Ugarit of two independent religious traditions that intermingled.168 The distinction between the storm-god and the local pantheon is not restricted to Ugaritic mythology, however. This is seen among the Hurrites, where the storm-god Teššub is depicted as an outsider attaining his prominent position by fighting the sons of Kumarbi, the leader of the indigenous pantheon.169 However, unlike Baal in Ugarit, Teššub is there credited with

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1.18 Cylinder seal from Ugarit with intertwined serpent motifs. Photo Christian Larrieu. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre (catalog number AO 19424).

double paternity, the first recalling his foreign origin, and the other claiming his integration into the local pantheon and his closeness to the local supreme god.170 The permanent distinction between Baal and the local pantheon, in Ugaritic mythology, suggests a different situation. The status of Yam in Ugaritic mythology confirms the resistance of the indigenous beliefs to an assimilation with the Amorite religion. This arch-enemy of Baal was still called the “beloved of El” (mdd ʾl) centuries after the Amorite domination of the city.171 He was even called “sovereign” (ṯpṭ) or “king” in the Ugaritic literature from the Late Bronze Age.172 Even Litan, the mythical serpent assimilated with Yam, retained his prestigious status in Ugarit.173 This prestige might reflect the economic importance of maritime trade for the wealth of the city.174 The sea-god was in Antiquity an object of pious veneration for seafarers and other inhabitants of harbor cities. This god probably protected boats from shipwreck, blew favorable winds, and moved helpful marine streams.175 However, the survival of pre-Amorite traditions in Ugarit overwhelms devotion to the sea-god. For example, a cylinder seal from Ugarit represents intertwined serpents in a cultic context beside a representation of the tree of life (Figure 1.18). The two serpentine motifs bordering the mythic scene suggests that their prestige and even holiness survived the Amorite religious transformations.

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Further, the representation of a man holding a serpent with a bird head (a probable figuration of divine powers) expands the pre-Amorite iconography (Figure 1.19). It even recalls the figurations of erect serpents with connotations of fertility from the third millennium BC (see Figures 1.4, 1.5, 1.11A, and 1.12). The discovery of a gold pendant dated from the Late Bronze Age, near Ugarit (Minet el Beida), corroborates this premise. The nude goddess Ashera with Hathor coiffe is represented standing on a lion, handling two caprines and flanked by two erect serpents (Figure 1.20). It reveals that these animals remained positively associated with fertility, even centuries after the religious transformations stimulated by the Amorites. The discovery in Ugarit of a shrine model with serpents over the door reveals that this animal symbolized not only fertility but also holiness in the second millennium BC.176 Two contrasting trends coexisted in Ugarit. The first is a pan-Amorite representation reflected in the image of Baal-Haddu killing the serpent with a spear. The tree symbolism attached to this weapon displays an approach to fertility that challenges the previous association of this 1.19 Cylinder seal from Ugarit notion with the serpent symbol. But this type of reprerepresenting a man holding a bird-headed serpent. Drawing sentation coexists with another one that is much more from a seal impression in Amiet subversive, in which the god Athtar is represented besides 1992, Figure 6. Baal-Haddu. It is visible in Figure 1.21, where the motif of the storm-god subduing a serpent combines with the representation of a winged lion, identifiable with Athtar. His figuration with Baal-Haddu, but on the other side of the altar, specifically emphasizes the individuality of the two storm-gods. Moreover, the representation of the worshippers near the lion, rather than the figure of Baal, even suggests that the indigenous stormgod remained more popular than his Amorite counterpart. This iconography uncovers a subversive dimension in the Ugaritian religious life regarding Amorite religious beliefs. Southern Levant The duality attested to in Ugarit becomes even more significant in the Southern Levant. There, the serpent symbol remains important not only in domestic cults but also in the official religion of cities under Amorite authority. It is figured in cultic or burial contexts in Megiddo, Hazor, Gezer, Sechem, Ein Samiya, Bet Shemesh, Bet Misrim, and Jericho.177 The serpent also remains a symbol of fertility.178 As in Elam and Dilmun, this positive symbolism extends the third

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1.20 Gold pendant representing the goddess Asherah from Minet el Beida. Photo: Maurice and Pierre Chuzeville. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre (catalog number AO 14714).

1.21 Cylinder seal from Northern Syria combining the storm-god subduing the serpent and the winged lion motif. Redrawn from Keel 1997: 51, Figure 46.

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1.22 Cultic vessel with serpents from the Southern Levant. A: Vase from Tel Beth Shemesh; B: Vase from Tel Jericho. Photo: Meidad Suchowolski. Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

millennium BC iconography, through an abundance of serpent symbols on the cultic vessels from Megiddo, Bet Shan, Tel Dan, and Arad (Figure 1.22).179 Like in the Northern Levant, these representations coexisted with the figuration of the storm-god smiting a serpent.180 This duality is visible in a Middle Bronze Age cylinder seal discovered near Caesaria, south of Mount Carmel (Figure 1.23). The scene represents the storm-god typically brandishing a mace head in his right hand. His left handles both a serpent and a lead keeping a horned bovine. But here, the storm-god does not kill the serpent; he only threatens it with his weapon. Alongside this scene, there is a griffin pointing upward to a twisted serpent, both of which are present in the pre-Amorite iconography. Also, the threatening posture of the lion beneath the twisted serpent emphasizes the vitality of the former cultural values opposing those of Amorite origin. Novelties concerning the serpent worship are even identified in the Southern Levant in the second millennium BC. For example, copper-made serpents were found in a cultic context at Megiddo, Sechem, and Gezer.181 These artifacts were previously unknown in these areas, and they were absent from the Northern Levant, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.182 They probably reflect new developments of the ancient indigenous beliefs that survived the Amorite

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1.23 Cylinder seal from the Southern Levant with a representation of Baal. Photo: Thierry Ollivier. Courtesy of the Musée du Louvre (catalog number AO 10862).

conquest and the worship of Baal. These novelties reveal that the holy dimension attached to the serpent symbol in the second millennium BC cannot be interpreted as merely religious atavism. Rather, they reflect a dynamism of the indigenous traditions and their further development at the expense of the Amorite ideology. Threatening and aggressive representations of the storm-god became frequent from the mid-second millennium BC, the phase of the second Amorite migration in the Southern Levant.183 From this time (Late Bronze Age), the storm-god iconography was also influenced by the Seth–Baal syncretism.184 Nevertheless, even under these conditions, cultic representations of serpents, including the ritual use of copper serpents, considerably increased in regard to the previous phase of Amorite hegemony (Middle Bronze Age).185 A new trend of standardization of the serpent motif even becomes visible. It reveals that this extensive use of the symbol was not merely a consequence of its popularity, but also an institutionalized sign of cultural/religious identity.186 In the Levant, and especially in the Southern area, the indigenous religious universe did not disappear after the first or even the second wave of Amorite conquest, nor even after Egyptian political domination. Instead, it was surprisingly vigorous. The present analysis shows that the Amorite expansion process resulted from an opportunistic installation in areas previously affected by ecological crises and the collapse of crop production.187 But this trend also intruded into Amorite spread through the routes of international trade of metals, especially in Anatolia, the Levant, and Northern Egypt. This latter reality corroborates the importance of the Hurrian component of the Amorite identity. The prestige and wealth attached to this activity may also explain the rapid

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transformation of the Amorites into a new political elite, even though they remained a minority among the local population. The trade in metals may also have accounted for their political organization, which was centered on scattered but small kin-related communities preserving the memory of their interrelation through the expression of specific cultural markers, and their organization around fortified cities. The two main deities expressing the religious identity of the Amorites, Baal-Haddu and Dagan, reflect their original agropastoral lifestyle, rather than their activity of trade in metals. Among these two deities, the figure of BaalHaddu and its warlike ideology contributed to elevating them into a new political and religious elite, and to undermining the local social organization and religious beliefs. The motif of destruction of the serpent, the traditional Near Eastern symbol of holiness in the pre-Amorite period, reflects this struggle for the supremacy of the Amorite deity and ideology, and the antagonism between these two sets of beliefs. However, the Amorite hegemony did not successfully eradicate the local traditions, ideology, and beliefs, their survival being especially blatant in the Levant. Continuity in settlement, activities, and traditions between the third and second millennia BC is visible in many cities of the Levant.188 This characteristic may account for the survival of the positive dimension of the serpent symbol in the second millennium BC.189 NOTES 1 Burke 2021: 176. 2 Wright 1965: 94–6; Mazar 1992: 161–2; Buck 2020: 136–9. In the Bible, such a “migdal sanctuary” is mentioned in Shechem (Judg 9: 46–49) and Thebez, a neighbor city (Judg 9: 50–51). 3 Burke 2021: 129. Shlomo Bunimovitz (1992: 225) assumes that these large architectural projects were an instrument of power and authority for the Amorite elite. 4 Bunimovitz 1992: 227. 5 Burke 2021: 141. 6 Finkelstein 1991: 21–6. 7 Burke 2021: 31; Homsher and Cradic 2017: 266. 8 D’Andrea 2014: 127–8, 232–4. 9 Finkelstein 1992; Levy et al. 2002; Finkelstein et al. 2018. 10 Amzallag 2009b: 508–9. 11 Burke 2021: 34–6, 143. 12 Matthiae 1975; Mazar 1992: 167. 13 Wright 1965: 94–6; Mazar 1992: 167; Bourke 2012: 191–2; Burke 2011: 898; Buck 2020: 136–7. 14 Bonfil and Zarzecki-Peleg 2007; Buck 2020: 122–4, 126, 131. These typical fortifications are observed in the Southern Levant (Tel Kabri, Acco, Hazor; Yavneh-Yam; Sechem) about 100–150 years after their first appearance in Northern and Central Syria. See Bunimovitz 1992: 223; Lönnqvist 2008: 205–6. 15 Burke 2014; Pruitt 2019: 54–6. Mary Buck (2020: 171) selected five criteria associated with this cultural koiné: type of fortifications, the palace organizational system, the migdal temple, glyptic characters, and the ritual use of donkeys. She identified (Ibid.: 260) many cities

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exhibiting at least three of these features: Tell el-Dab’a in Northern Egypt; Shechem, Hazor, and Megiddo in the Southern Levant; and Aleppo, Mari, Subat-Enlil, and Hammam etTurkam in Northern Mesopotamia. Burke 2014, 2021: 257–344; Buck 2020: 99–116. Kenyon 1966; Kaplan 1971; Dever 1976. Finkelstein 1991: 42. Robert Homsher and Melissa Cradic (2017: 260) assume that “the indigenous populations of the Southern Levant were primarily responsible for the local innovations of the MB that transformed the social, technological, economic, demographic and political landscape of the region.” Even the Amorite contribution to the urbanization process is a matter of debate. For Mary Buck (2020: 47), “It is therefore unclear whether urban settlements in the Levant should be attributed to local, Canaanite population who are returning to urbanism after a period of deurbanization, or to foreign, Amorite populations moving into the region to take over abandoned sites.” Burke 2014: 360. Tubb (2003: 140) argues a Canaanite cultural continuum between the Early Bronze and the Late Bronze Age, with the influence of Amorite foreigners. Jonathan Tubb concludes (1983: 59) that “The MBIIA culture of Palestine is best explained in terms of an indigenous development of the population in response to a resumption of more favourable conditions, both climatic and economic, which allowed the return to urban settlement.” Burke 2008: 160; Buck 2020: 47. Homsher and Cradic 2017: 262. Archi 1985; Lönnqvist 2010: 122. Frayne 1993; Lönnqvist 2010: 115–6; de Boer 2014: 21. Akkadian sources and texts from Ebla provide further references to the Jebel Bishri, a semi-arid region located between the Upper Euphrates area and the urban civilization of Northern Syria (Ebla, Mari). See Lönnqvist 2008: 201 and 2014: 245. From these upper steppes, it is likely that the Amorites gradually spread eastwards to the Zagros Mountains, and from there to Southern Mesopotamia. See Michalowski 2011: 82–121; de Boer 2014: 163–8; Charpin and Durand 1986: 166–70; Mendenhall 1992: 200; Fleming 2016: 5–6; Burke 2021: 18. Burke 2021: 346. Mainly deduced from epigraphic sources, this origin is challenged by archaeologists stressing the absence, in the Amorites’ presumed homeland, of substantial remains of material culture (such as permanent settlements) confirming their presence. However, as suggested by Homsher and Cradic (2017: 267), this lacuna might reflect the paucity of material remains from nomadic cultures. This opinion is deduced from the discovery of few single large graves (cairns tumuli) positioned on hilltops and a special ring structure. See Lönnqvist 2010: 120. Michalowski 2011: 85. Aaron Burke (2014: 357) criticizes the overriding identification of Amorites as pastoral nomads. Fleming 2016: 5–7. See Pruitt 2019: 43, for review. Heather and Cradic 2017: 262; Buck 2020: 26. Pruitt 2019: 43; Buck 2020: 17–18. See de Boer 2014: 22–6; Burke 2014: 363 and 2021: 18, 130. Ur 2010: 412–3; Weiss 2012; Wilkinson and Hritz 2013: 4; Courty and Weiss 1997. Wilkinson 1997; Wilkinson and Hritz 2013: 7, 11. Burke 2021: 14, 57, 64–5. Whitting 1995: 1235. The term amurrum even designated the elite warriors during the Ur III period. See Michalowski 2011: 110. This problem amplified a reality acknowledged before: the gradual decrease in crop production caused by soil salinization, itself consecutive to poor drainage, excessive irrigation by river water, low rainfall, low soil permeability, and high rates of evaporation. The archives from Southern Mesopotamia reveal a 40 percent decrease in yield per hectare of cultivated land in 2100 BC, compared to 2400 BC. The drop reached 70 percent a few centuries later. The crisis is confirmed by the progressive replacement, around the third millennium BC, of wheat by barley, a cereal more resistant to abiotic stresses, and especially to soil salinization. See Maekawa 1974 and 1984.

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37 Artzy and Hillel 1988; Chew 1999. For Mark Altaweel (2013: 1), “Salinization is considered to be one of the likely reasons why major settlements, cultural influences and the centers of political power shifted to more northern regions such as Babylon in the second and first millennium BC.” 38 Ur 2010: 413. 39 Michalowski 2011: 110–1, 118–9; Burke 2014: 363; van de Mieroop 2016: 111–2. 40 Burke 2014: 365. 41 Robert Homsher and Melissa Cradic (2017: 265) note that the Amorite migration does not always fit the climatic changes, both in time and amplitude, a dissonance especially visible in the Levant. 42 The Amorites at the beginning of the second millennium BC accounted for two main populations, the Bensimalites and the Benjaminites, of northern and southern origin and affiliation, respectively. See Charpin and Durand 1986; Durand 2004; de Boer 2014: 29. 43 Astour 1968: 174; Wilhelm 2008: 191. This blending is considered a factor of differentiation of the Amorite identity and religion. 44 Moorey 1986: 197–8, 211–2. 45 Kelly-Buccellati 2004: 75; Shanshashvili et al. 2013: 6–7. The EBA road from the Caucasus extended an earlier pathway for supplying special ores to the South Levantine metallurgy in the early fourth millennium BC. See Amzallag 2009b, Figures 2–3. 46 For example, documents from Ebla mention the Amorite daggers and further traded metal objects. Lönnqvist 2010: 122. 47 Lönnqvist 2010: 130. 48 Mary Buck (2020: 74) concluded that “The very kin-based nature of tribal groups in the Amorite period led to a plethora of local ethnic affiliations and most individuals likely adopted several ethnic descriptors.” 49 Singer 1999: 608. 50 Buck 2020: 101–2. 51 Mallet 2008: 76–7; Buck 2020: 66. 52 Singer 1999: 609–14. 53 Singer 1999: 610–1. An average of fifteen years of reign for each ruler brought back the foundation of the Ugaritian royal dynasty to the eighteenth century BC, which coincides with Amorite hegemony in this area. See also Buck 2020: 12 and ref. therein. 54 Schaeffer 1939: 291–2; Burke 2008: 156. The imposing fortifications signaled by Schaeffer should be dated from the Late Bronze Age, but they apparently replaced earliest similar structures dated from the Middle Bronze Age. See Lagarce 1984; Singer 1999: 609; Buck 2020: 106–7. 55 Schaeffer 1931: 8–10; Schaeffer 1935: 154. 56 Yon 1984: 46; Buck 2020: 135. 57 Yon 1984: 44–5; Al-Maqdassi et al. 2007: 37; Buck 2020: 114–6. See Callot and Monchambert (2011) for a figuration of these temples and their architecture. Concerning the Baal sanctuary, these authors describes the inner room (northern hall) as a rectangle of about 13 × 16 m, the basis of a tower of about 20 m height, with three main levels: a ground floor level with the altar, a balcony, and the roof. 58 The two temples were destroyed by an earthquake in 1250 BC, but one of them, the temple dedicated to Baal, was reconstructed until the collapse of the city, in 1180 BC. See Al-Maqdassi et al. 2007: 37. 59 Schaeffer 1931: 8–10, 1933: 122–3, 1935: 155; Dussaud 1935. 60 Schaeffer 1933: 123. 61 Ibid. 62 KTU 1.2 iv 8; 1.3 ii 40; 1.4 iii 18; 1.3 iv 4; 1.4 v 60; 1.19 i 43–4. 63 KTU 1.4 v 8–9; 1.4 vii 25–31; 1.5 v 7; 1.101.3–4. 64 KTU 1.3 ii 39–41; 1.4 v 6–7; 1.5 v 8; 1.16 iii 5–7. 65 KTU 1.3 ii 39; 1.6 iii 6–7, 12–13; 1.4 vii 50–1. His residence in Mount Sapan (1780 m, about 40 km north of Ugarit) confirms this view, as this coastal mountain frequently experiencing violent storms.

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66 KTU 1.4 vii 54; 1.5 i 13–14; 1.8 ii 6. 67 See KTU 1.3 i 22–6; 1.3 v 42–5; 1.4 i 15–19; 1.4 v 55–7. Their mention combined with the opening of a window in Baal’s palace confirms this view. See Wiggins 2003: 87–93. Their status (daughters or brides) regarding Baal is ambiguous. See Wyatt 1998a: 71–2; Smith and Pitard 2009, 116–21; Anderson 2015: 65. Mark Smith and Wayne Pitard (2009: 116–19) suggest an intercourse between Baal and these goddesses, probably related to rites of fertility. 68 Translated by Smith 1994: 66. 69 KTU 1.4 vii 50–2. Translated by Smith 1994: 84. 70 KTU 1.119 v 28–36, translated by Wyatt 1998a: 421–2. 71 Williams-Forte 1983: 39–43; Cornelius 1994: 134–5, 138–9; 169–72, 176–7; Toyräänvuori 2012: 164–5. 72 Translated by Wyatt 1998a: 108. 73 Irwin 1999: 78; de Moor 1975: 188. 74 Wyatt 1998a: 108. 75 Schwemer 2008a: 156; Green 2003: 58–9. 76 Smith 1994: 109. 77 Schwemer 2008b: 10. 78 For Mark Smith (1994: 109), “[I]t appears that the Baal Cycle expresses the political exaltation of the divine king, and by implication that of the human king, as well as the limits of their kingship.” A similar opinion is argued by Wyatt (2005: 698–9) and del Olmo Lete (2012: 243). 79 For example, KTU 1.4 vii 35–7; 1.5 i 22–3; 1.10 ii 4–5; 1.104.1–4. Concerning the likening of Baal with Haddu/Adad, see de Moor 1975: 187; Greenfield 1999: 378; Green 2003: 173; Schwemer 2008b: 8–9. 80 Lambert 1985: 443; Popko 1998: 75–6; Hawkins 2011: 35–6; Taracha 2008: 748. 81 The appellation of Tarḫuna as “the Teššub of Kummani” (the city of the first Hittite dynasty) confirms this point. See Taracha 2008: 750. This borrowing corroborates the ascendant of the Hurrian pantheon, mythology, and cults on the Hittite religion. See Popko 1995: 87; Taracha 2009: 120; Green 2003: 126. 82 For example, documents from Mari acknowledge the presence in Haddu’s sanctuaries of votive representations of siege machines (battering rams) and prestige weapons (swords, daggers, mace heads). See Vidal 2011: 250–1; Bunnens 2006: 65; Toyräänvuori 2012: 164. Also a letter from Mari (A.3597) informs the recipient that “The weapon of Hadad of Aleppo have reached [me] in the temple of Dagan in Terqa.” See Durand 1995: 306. Scholars (e.g., Harris 1965: 217–24; Spaey 1993: 418; Toyräänvuori 2012: 152) assume that these divine weapons were exhibited during processions associated with agricultural ceremonies and served in oath-taking ceremonials. 83 Taracha 2008: 745; Houwink ten Cate 1992: 86. 84 Popko 1995: 86. 85 Taracha 2008: 747, 750; Miller II 2014: 230. 86 Ricks and Sroka 1994: 247–8; Feliu 2003: 101; Toyräänvuori 2012: 154. A letter from Mari confirms this. It mentions Haddu restoring a defeated king to his throne by giving him back the weapon by which he smashed the sea-monster. See Durand 1993: 43–6. 87 Schwemer 2008a: 138. Alberto Green (2003: 58) concluded: “Fulfilling one of his primary functions as patron of the kings of the region, Addu is conceptualized as a bull who conceives the kings ‘between my thighs’ (with my testicles), and establishes them on their respective thrones. He arms them with the weapons of Addu, scatters their foes in battle, and as the lord of the region grants his king’s house upon house, territory upon territory, and city upon city, from west to east.” 88 KTU 1.2 i 19, 35, 37; 1.5 vi 24; 1.6 i 6–7, 52; 1.10 iii 11–14, 33–4; 1.12 i 38–9; 1.12 ii. 25. 89 Feliu 2003: 87. 90 Guichard 1999: 35; Feliu 2003: 119, 173; Schwemer 2008a: 129. 91 Roberts 1972: 76; Lipinˊski 1995: 173; Day 2000: 87–8; Fleming 2000: 158. 92 Feliu 2003: 243. 93 Ibid.: 210–1.

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94 Williams-Forte (1983: 19) argues that “Rather than multiple gods of weather of distinctly Anatolian or Syrian nature, there appears to be a single, vigorous, young weapon-wielding storm-god identifiable by his attributes (the bull, the mountains, and the snake) and most critically, by his actions or battles, on artifacts from each of these regions.” 95 Popko 1998: 75–6; Taracha 2008: 748, 750. 96 Archi 2006: 158. 97 Durand 2002: 2; Schwemer 2008a: 165. 98 Green 2003: 171–2; Schwemer 2008a: 153, 165. 99 The famous sanctuary of Haddu was discovered in 1996 in the ancient citadel of the city of Aleppo. It comprises no less than twenty-six reliefs with inscriptions and representations of the storm-god and other figures. See Kohlmeyer 2009; Hawkins 2011. 100 Schwemer 2008a: 163; Hawkins 2011: 35. The allusion to a conflict between Haddu and the sea in a document from Ebla (Fronzaroli 1997) suggests that such a theme already existed in the Northern Levant in the third millennium BC. 101 “Let me restore you on the throne of the house of your father; I returned you, the weapon[s] with which I struck the sea (Têmtum), I have given you.” Document A 1968, in Durand 1993: 43–5 (English translation by Töyräänvuori 2012: 180). 102 Also in South Mesopotamia, Adad (Haddu) is acknowledged as originating from the west, a claim inviting us to position his homeland in Syria. See Green 2003: 58. 103 Lambert 1985: 440–1; Cornelius 1994: 212; Green 2003: 116, 157–8; Schwemer 2008b: 36. 104 Green 2003: 158–60; Cornelius 1994: 223. 105 Lambert 1985: 440; Green 2003: 118; Miller II 2014: 231, 233. 106 Williams-Forte 1983: 25–6; Schwemer 2008b: 25. 107 Miller II 2014: 234. 108 KTU 1.5 i. See Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 13. 109 Scholars identify the struggle related in the Enuma Elish as an adaptation of a Northern Mesopotamian/Northern Levantine theme. See Jacobsen 1968, 1975; Kaplan 1976; Lambert 1982; Tsumura 2007: 473; Tugendhaft 2018: 192. 110 See note 101, this chapter. 111 Challenging this approach, Wayne Pitard (2013: 200) notices that “too much emphasis has been placed on interpreting the Baʿal Cycle through the lens of the Mesopotamian creation epic, the Enūma Eliš, with scholars often reading aspects of the latter’s narrative into the former.” 112 Andrews 1994: 74. 113 Piccione 1990: 43, 46. 114 Koh 1994: 47–50. 115 McDonald 1989: 20–49, 111, 140–2; Joines 1974: 63. 116 Joines 1974: 18–22; Elliott 1977; Lambert 1985. 117 Brown 1916: 422. 118 James 1968; Wilson 2001: 183–94; McDonald 1989: 183; Koh 1994: 133. 119 Lurker 1980: 373; Piccione 1990: 48–9. The same function is attributed to Ninazu, the Sumerian snake-god reigning upon the netherworld and father of Ningizzida. See Black and Green 2008: 137; Wiggerman 1997: 35. 120 Dalley 1989: 118–9. In the epic of Gilgamesh, the hero brings the plant of immortality back from the Apsu, but the serpent carried it off for himself and shaded its scaly skin as a sign of immortality. 121 Watterson 1999: 129–31. 122 Sauneron and Yoyotte 1959: 33–8. 123 Espak 2006: 51–3. 124 Frothingham 1916: 186; Budge 1921: 24–6. 125 van Buren 1934; McDonald 1989: 29–35; Wiggermann 1997: 40–1. 126 This god is identified in Susa with Inshushinak, the patron-god of the city. See Wiggermann 1997: 44–6; Amiet 1979: 348–50. A rock carving depicting processions to this snake-god sitting on a coiled snake confirm this view. See Debevoise 1942: 78–80.

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127 128 129 130 131 132 133

134 135 136

137

138

139 140

141 142 143

144

145 146 147 148

Joines 1974: 70; Grillot-Susini 2001: 141. McDonald 1989: 114, 135, 156. Black and Green 2008: 166–7. Potts 2007: 66; Roach 2008: 492–9. The serpent symbolism there extends to the first millennium BC. Potts 2007: 55, 69. See Amzallag 2021a: 268–70 for review. Among the Semitic languages, this homonymy recurs only in Hebrew and Ugaritic. According to Militarev and Kogan (2005: 89–91, 135–6), the original term for serpent in the Levantine linguistic area is bata̱ n and its alternative designation is ḥwy. Consequently, the copper–serpent homonymy might be a secondary feature stressing the metallurgical symbolism of this animal. Amzallag 2022. See Pitard (2013: 200–3) concerning the centrality of this question in the Baal Cycle. This premise was argued by Oldenburg (1969: 146–63) and further scholars support it. See, for example, Bordreuil and Pardee 1993: 67; del Olmo Lete 1999: 51; Wyatt 1998b: 839–40; Tugendhaft 2018: 27–46. For Mark Smith (1994: 90), “The Baal Cycle may be understood to reflect not the rise of the Amorites at Ugarit, but the origins of Ugaritic kingship under the Amorite dynasty of Niqmaddu.” The name of these weapons, “expeller” (ygrš, KTU 1.2 iv 12) and “all-driver” (aymr, KTU 1.2 iv 19), and the repeated mention of their autonomy of action (“Then the mace leapt from the hand of Baal, like a falcon from his fingers,” KTU 1.2 iv 14, 16, 21, 24), emphasize the crucial role of Kothar in the victory over Yam. See Yon 2013: 258. Their relationship is confirmed by the fiery–serpentine dimension of Yam and its metallurgical connotation (KTU 1.3 iii 40–4), which recalls the metallurgical symbolism typically associated with the serpent symbol in the third millennium BC. The Song of Ullikumi 3 iii, iv, quoted by Oldenburg 1969: 137. Nonetheless, the importance of Kothar as the provider of Baal’s victory in Ugaritic mythology is highly significant. It spontaneously reduces the prestige of the Amorite storm-god, lessens his legitimacy, and even challenges the stability of his kingship. Mark Smith (1994: xxvi) notes that in the Baal Cycle, “Baal acquires a limited kingship and not primarily through his exploits, but mostly thanks to the aid of other deities. His foes loom large not only in a single combat, but in repeated engagements, and without definitive outcomes.” The fact the Baal palace was initially conceived without windows (KTU 1.4 i, step 1) might reflect this situation. Nick Wyatt (1998b: 838) interprets the Chaoskampf as a myth by which the Amorite rulers “regarded themselves as recapitulating the divine victory in their own military triumphs.” Oldenburg 1969; Smith 1994: 87–8, 113; Tugendhaft 2018: 29. Such a political dimension is even identified in the Enuma Elish by Tsumura (2005: 41, 55) and Pitard (2013: 200–3). The Chaoskampf dimension is questioned by Saggs (1978: 57), who argues that the Enuma Elish does not reflect the beliefs of the Sumerian or Akkadian mythologies. Lambert (1965: 291) even assumes that the Enuma Elish “is not a norm of Babylonian or Sumerian cosmology. It is a sectarian and aberrant combination of mythological threads woven into an unparalleled composition.” Daniel Schwemer (2008a: 158) concluded that “Without exception the different storm-gods that stem from the afore-mentioned traditions are equated with each other in Late Bronze Age Syria and Upper Mesopotamia; mutual influences between the different traditions associated with the individual storm-gods are a necessary consequence without the different names, myths and cult traditions ever being systematically bound into a unitary syncretistic theological construct anywhere.” Green 2003: 13–6, 49; Schwemer 2008a: 132, 135. Vanel (1965: 14–5) suggests that this warrior attribute of the archaic storm-god is expressed through the figure of Ningirsu-Ninurta. Vanel 1965: 11–2. Green 2003: 50, 56; Schwemer 2008b: 130; Anderson 2015: 50. Green 2003: 54; Schwemer 2008a: 133.

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149 Durand 1993: 42. 150 Green 2003: 48–59; Schwemer 2008a: 137. 151 This is revealed by the identical cuneiform logogram used for designating these two figures. See Miller II 2014: 233. 152 Green 2003: 106–20. 153 Irwin 1999: 85–6. On the ancientness of Seth in Upper Egypt (up to the pre-Dynastic period), see Wainwright 1963: 13; Cox 2013: 33. 154 Thompson 1970: 131–2; Cornelius 1994: 142, 221–2; Irwin 1999: 84; Allon 2007: 19. 155 Thompson 1970: 131, 135. 156 Cornelius 1994: 134, 142. 157 Athtar is attested in documents from Ebla from the third millennium BC. See Archi 1979–1980: 171. 158 Gray 1949: 77; Mesnil du Buisson 1969: 332. The archaism of Athtar is confirmed by his affinities with two of the earliest deities of the Levantine pantheon, Shahar and Shalim, the gracious sons of El. See Gray 1949: 73–6; Caquot 1958: 51–2; Yon 1991: 59. 159 Oldenburg 1969: 41; M. Smith 1995: 638. Green (2003: 211) assumes that Athtar was the former storm-god of Northern Syria and the Middle Euphrates region. 160 Ryckmans 1992: 172; Smith 1994: 246; Gray 1949; Oldenburg 1969: 41. 161 Caquot 1958: 49, 58. 162 Fahd 1968: 47, 55; Smith 1994: 245. The link between dew and the morning star is already suggested by Oldenburg (1969: 41–2). 163 Fahd 1968: 64; Green 2003: 211. 164 Oldenburg 1969: 39; Smith 1994: 247–8. 165 The question of the replacement of Baal by Athtar has a central position in the concentric pattern organizing the story of Baal’s death and resurrection (KTU 1.6 i 50–65), a feature highlighting its importance. See M. Smith 1995: 628. 166 Caquot 1958: 55; M. Smith 1995: 640. Caquot (1958: 48–9) assumes that Athtar was worshipped as a great god in Ugarit even during the Amorite period. 167 Few exceptions exist, however, such as the mention of the Bull El as “the father of Baal” in KTU 1.3 v 35. See Wyatt 1998a: 87, esp. note 75. 168 Oldenburg 1969: 46; del Olmo Lete 1999: 50–2; Tugendhaft 2018: 101. 169 Schwemer 2008b: 12; Ayali-Darshan 2013: 655; Miller II 2014: 234. 170 Ayali-Darshan 2013: 655–7. 171 KTU 1.1 iv 20; 1.3 iii 38–9; 1.4 ii 34; 1.4 vi 12; 1.4 vii 3. 172 See KTU 1.1 iv 24–5; 1.2 iv 10; 1.3 iv 2–3; 1.3 v 32; 1.4 iv 43–4; 1.4 vii 44; 1.6 v 5–6; 1.6 vi 34–5; 1.9 V 17. See also Tugendhaft 2018: 84. 173 The positive dimension of the (serpentine) sea god is confirmed by the appellation Athirat Yam (Athirat of the Sea) given to the great goddess of Ugarit (KTU 1.3 iv 45; 1.3 v 41; 1.4 i 14). See Smith and Pitard 2009: 406–7. 174 See Heltzer 1999: 440–4; Knapp 1993: 334–6. The archives of Mari confirm that Ugarit was an important site of commercial activity with Egypt, Crete, and the Aegean at the beginning of the second millennium BC. See Matoïan 2014: 99–100. 175 Brody 2008: 445. In parallel, the miniature anchors and model ships found in the Baal temple from Ugarit (see Brody 2008: 447) suggest that Baal was also granted such protective functions. 176 Koh 1994: 102. 177 Joines 1974: 62–9; Koh 1994: 53–61. 178 Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 39. 179 Koh 1994: 45–50. 180 Cornelius 1994: 212–23. 181 Joines 1974: 62; Koh 1994: 53, 60. 182 Copper-made serpents were also encountered in cultic context in Elam at the Late Bronze Age. See, for example, the two copper serpents found in the Susa acropole exposed in Musée du Louvre (catalogue numbers SB 6439 and SB 13953).

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183 Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 39. The first wave of Amorite incomers was followed by another one (mainly Hurrians and Hittites) installed in the Southern Levant in the mid-second millennium BC. This wave is the probable consequence of conflicts between the Hittites and Hurrian kingdoms, as well as the politics of southward expansion of the emerging kingdom of Mitanni. See Schwartz 2014: 272; von Dassow 2014: 12. The multiplicity of Hurrian names in correspondence from Tel El Amarna reveals that the second wave of incomers rapidly became a new political and military elite organized in small kingdoms vassals of the Egyptians. The many names of Amorite origin among the Canaanite kings and rulers in the El Amarna correspondence confirm this trend. See Na’aman 1994a: 176. 184 Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 114. 185 Koh 1994: 70–8. 186 Ibid.: 69, 89. 187 Green 2003: 58–9. According to Feliu (2003: 44–6), Dagan, the father of the storm-god and supreme deity of the Amorites, was the god who granted legitimacy to the conquests. 188 Van Loon 1992: 103; Buck 2020: 12. 189 Van Loon 1992: 104–5. Gernez (2012: 112, 120) specifies that continuity in metallurgical traditions is visible also in Ugarit, despite the hiatus in urbanism.

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T

he Amorite authority collapsed at the end of the Late Bronze Age. In parts of the Southern Levant, this hegemony became replaced by a confederation of tribes defining themselves as Israel and acknowledging YHWH as their patron deity. This situation introduces three possibilities concerning the relationship between early Israel and the Amorite kingdoms. Israel may have emerged as a continuation of the Amorite culture by gathering the Amorites and the indigenous population into a new national identity. Alternatively, Israel may have been the result of an already existing movement of emancipation from Amorite political authority and religious hegemony. Finally, Israel may have emerged from another horizon, not precisely related to the former geopolitical reality of the Southern Levant. Each of the three eventualities finds some support. The Amorite affinities of the figure of Abraham in the Book of Genesis promote the first option. The survival and surprising vitality of the indigenous traditions and their distance from the Amorite ideology substantiate the second eventuality. The epos of Exodus, the conquest ideology, and the hostility regarding both the Amorites and the Canaanites fit the latter proposition. This complex situation asks for further examination of the question.

BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL AMORITES

The term “Amorite” (ʾe˘mor̄ î ) is mentioned eighty-seven times in the Bible. Most of these quotations are encountered in the Pentateuch (forty times), 70

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Joshua (twenty times), and Judges (eleven times), and ten times in the other historical books (1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, 1–2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah). The Amorites are practically ignored in prophecy and ancient poetry. Before clarifying the position regarding these people in the Bible, we should first examine the question of the historicity of the biblical Amorites.

The Look for Parallels The historical background of the biblical Amorites was an accepted fact in the past,1 but this position has changed after dating the historical books of the Bible to the end of the monarchic period, or even later. Today, most scholars assume that the many centuries between the emergence of Israel and the redaction of the biblical sources undermined their historical value. Consequently, the biblical Amorites became regarded as a literary motif introduced for elaborating the Israelite epos. The mention of Amorites among a list of peoples dispossessed by the Israelites, some of them (e.g. Hivites, Jebusites, Girgashites, Perizzites) mentioned only in the Bible, supported this premise.2 Bustenay Oded, for example, concluded that “[t]he stereotyped lists of ‘seven nations’ are a paradigm for the ‘other’ – all of the idolatrous peoples who were practicing contaminated cultural practices.”3 The biblical use of the term “Amorite” for designating the whole country of Canaan, rather than specific territories, strengthens this conclusion.4 Scholars noted the same feature in Assyrian documents from the first millennium BC, where the vast territories west of their kingdom, from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean shore, are globally designated as “Land of Amurru”.5 Therefore, it was tempting to assume that the biblical authors borrowed an Assyrian appellation of the land of Canaan, independent of the Amorites present in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age.6 Nonetheless, this reference to Canaan as the land of the Amorites in the Bible recognizes another potential explanation. It may reflect the memory of their political hegemony over the whole Southern Levant, prior to the rise of Israel. This possibility calls for further examination of the way the Amorites are portrayed in the Bible. Whereas the Amorite dominion extends to the whole of the land of Canaan in some biblical sources, it is restricted to the hill country in others. In Numbers, for example, the spies sent by Moses report that the land of the Amorites comprises the central hills east and west of the Jordan Valley: “The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan” (Num 13:29). This distribution, also reported in Jos 5:1, broadly corresponds to the pattern of expansion of the Amorites in the Southern Levant throughout the second millennium BC. In the El Amarna correspondence, most rulers from the coast bear West Semitic names, whereas most of their homolog from the Akko

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plain, Lebanon hills, Bashan area, Hazor area, Jezreel Valley, and Samaria hills carry names of Amorite, Hurrian, and Indo-European (Mitannian) origin.7 The foreign origin of the Amorites living in Canaan is explicit in Jos 24:18: “And YHWH drove out from before us all the people, and also the Amorites which dwelt in the land (we˘et ha ʾ̄ e˘mor̄ î yoš̄ eb̄ ha ʾ̄ ar̄ eṣ). So we also will serve YHWH, for he is our God.” In Deut 1:27–28, the Amorites are mentioned as a people inhabiting fortified cities, a feature echoing the settlement pattern of the historical Amorites in the Southern Levant. The mention of Amorite kings reigning in the cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon (Jos 10:5), and the eastern bank of the Jordan River (Num 21:26; Deut 3:8) echoes the epigraphic data. The case of the city of Hazor is particularly interesting. Both Joshua and Judges mention Jabin, the king of Hazor, as the leader of the coalition of the cities ruling Canaan before the rise of Israel (Jos 11:1, 11:10; Judg 4:2). This corroborates the discovery, in the site of Hazor, of a Late Bronze Age city of outstanding dimensions. Unique in the Southern Levant, this city, whose thirteenth-century population is estimated to be 30,000 inhabitants, was similar in size and importance to Aleppo, Qatna, and Carchemish.8 The architecture of the imposing palace of Hazor, its similarity with its North Syrian homologs, and the commercial relations with Mari all support the integration of this city within the Amorite koiné. Also, the name of the founder of the dynasty, Ibni-Adad, belongs to the Amorite religious universe.9 It is thus difficult to dismiss the similarity between Ibni, the founder of the Hazor dynasty of Amorite kings, and Jabin, the name of the king of Hazor in Joshua and Judges. The parallel extends. Like the Book of Joshua mentioning the early Israelites destroying Hazor by fire, archaeology has shown that a fire ruined the city in the thirteenth to twelfth century BC. The question of whether the Israelites destroyed it is still debated.10 However, we cannot ignore the violence of the destruction of the palace, where Egyptian cultural markers and the statues of deities and ancient rulers were intentionally mutilated and destroyed.11 We may therefore conclude, with Brendon Benz, that “Hazor was destroyed by a coalition of Levantine polities and populations who sought to drive Egypt and its influence out of the land.”12 Especially interesting is the fact that the Israelites, once the city had been reconstructed, preserved the ruins of the palace on the hilltop of the city. This feature reflects the importance of the victory against the king of Hazor in the Israelite consciousness.13 It reveals that the defeat of the most potent Amorite ruler of Canaan had a highly symbolic significance for the Israelites.14 Consequently, depictions of genuine historical events relative to the emergence of Israel, and especially the victory over the Amorite kings, are not unlikely in biblical sources composed many centuries later. The history of Hazor reveals that these victories were a part of the cultural memory of the

BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL AMORITES

Israelites, carried generation after generation not only through epic stories but also through the preservation of ruins as material testimonies. Consequently, a link between the historical Amorites and the way they are mentioned in the biblical sources may truly exist.15

The Amorite Company Three groups closely related to the Amorites are mentioned in the Bible: the Hittites, Rephaim, and Anakim. Their description reveals further parallels between the biblical and historical Amorites. Hittites The Hittites are designated, along with the Amorites, among the peoples of Canaan to be dispossessed by the Israelites.16 And as with the Amorites, their relationship with the historical Hittites is frequently denied today.17 In the Bible, nevertheless, the land of Hatti is correctly located in Anatolia, Northern Syria, and the Southern Caucasus (1 Kgs 10:29; 2 Kgs 7:6).18 Similarly, Egyptian documents attest to the Hittites’ presence at the end of the Bronze Age in the Southern Levant, where they apparently belonged to the military elite.19 The mention of Uriah, a Jerusalemite warrior serving in David’s army, belonging to the Hatti people (2 Sam 11:3, 11:6) might therefore echo a memory of Hittite warriors among the Amorites in the Southern Levant (Jos 10:5 specifies that Jerusalem was a city ruled by an Amorite king in the premonarchic period). Accordingly, the reference to Hittites in the Bible may evoke the memory of a military elite originating from Anatolia, which assisted the political elite to exercise its authority over the local population. Rephaim The Rephaim are not included in most records of the pre-Israelite peoples to be dispossessed by the Israelites, but the extended list in Gen 15:19–21 mentions them. Here again, denying any historical dimension to this appellation is attractive, in light of biblical mentions of the Rephaim in the Netherworld.20 In Ugarit, however, the dual mention of the rpʾm as living people and as inhabitants of the Netherworld does not deny their genuine existence. As living beings, they constituted the aristocracy of the city,21 a guild of elite warriors and equestrian feudatories ruling their farming domains.22 Some Ugaritic incantations even reveal that the rpʾm were in charge of the rites promoting the renewal of vegetation, fertility, and crop production.23 The parallel functions of protecting the city and land fertility ensured by the dead rpʾm suggest that these latter are none other than divinized rulers.24 The characteristics of the rpʾm, their high social rank in the Ugaritian society, their warrior activity, and especially their involvement in rites of agricultural fertility all point to

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their affiliation with the Amorites.25 This identity is also supported by their affiliation with the congregation of Ditannu (qbṣ dtn), a name identified with Yaqaru, the founder of the Amorite royal dynasties.26 This mythical founder is mentioned in the Amorite dynasties of Northern Syria and of the Upper Euphrates, and even as one of the ancestors of King Hammurabi of Babylon.27 In the Bible, the designation of the Bashan as the land of the Rephaim (Deut 3:13) is echoed in Ugaritic sources mentioning the Bashan as the land of the Rapauma.28 Og, the famous king of Bashan, is designated in the Bible both as an Amorite king (Deut 3:8, 4:47; Jos 2:10) and as the last remnant of the Rephaim (Deut 3:11; Jos 13:12).29 Consequently, it seems that biblical sources have preserved the remembrance of the Amorite elite, called Rephaim, ruling some Canaanite cities and kingdoms in the Late Bronze Age. Anakim The Bible evokes the Anakim as people living in Canaan before the Israelite conquest (Deut 1:27–28).30 The spies sent by Moses describe them as giants: “And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them” (Num 13:33). Their high stature and semidivine nature (through their affiliation to the Nephilim; see Gen 6:4) might invite us to treat this group as purely mythical. However, it is noteworthy that the biblical Amorites, whose historical background cannot be ignored, are also described as giants “whose height was like the height of the cedars, and who was as strong as the oaks” (Amos 2:9). In addition, the description of the giant warriors among the Philistines is probably exaggerated. However, it is noteworthy that these “giants” are associated with the Rephaim and a local military elite ruling before the Israelites.31 Their mention in Hebron (Num 13:22; Jos 14:12, 14:15, 15:14; Judg 1:20), a city inhabited by the Amorites in the past (Gen 14:13) and ruled by an Amorite king before the Israelite conquest (Jos 10:5), suggests that they belonged to the same category of foreign warriors and political elite. The presence of tall foreigner warriors could be the basis for such a description.32 On the other hand, their gigantism may be an appellation referring to their use of horse-driven chariots for war and rituals.33 This brief overview suggests that the Amorites and their companion groups mentioned in the Bible are not pure literary fiction. Although their description includes exaggerations, it remains anchored in historical reality: the reference to an aristocracy of foreign origin and/or obedience that ruled over the indigenous population prior to the rise of Israel. This information is by itself of interest. The memory for many centuries of a people disappearing from history underscores their importance for the Israelites. However, the Amorites’ position is ambiguous in the Bible, with some sources expressing virulent hostility, whereas others are considerably more positive.

THE AMORITES: ENEMIES OR FOUNDERS OF ISRAEL?

THE AMORITES: ENEMIES OR FOUNDERS OF ISRAEL?

The Main Enemy The Amorites are cited in all the records of peoples from Canaan to be dispossessed by the Israelites.34 This characteristic invites us to consider the Amorites as enemies of Israel. However, this pool of enemies also includes the indigenous “Canaanites,” justifying why the reference to the Amorites in these records cannot identify the rise of Israel as a movement of emancipation from their hegemony. But we cannot ignore the fact that including the Canaanites in the lists of dispossessed nations might express the wish for some biblical authors to demarcate Israel from the cults practiced before. The Israelite conquest narrative does sometimes allot a specific treatment to the Amorites. This is the case, for example, in Joshua 24, where the Exodus process (v. 17) and the conquest (v. 18) are closely related. In this chapter, the whole land of Canaan is designated as the land of the Amorites: “Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan. They fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you” (Jos 24:8). A few verses later, special attention is given to the Amorites in the process of appropriation of the land of Canaan: “And YHWH drove out before us all the peoples, and the Amorites who inhabited the land. Therefore we also will serve YHWH, for he is our God” (Jos 24:18). This second claim apparently integrates all the peoples from Canaan into the appellation of Amorites. Nonetheless, the specific reference to “the Amorites inhabiting Canaan” reveals their foreign identity (the Amorites may also live outside of Canaan), suggesting that this criterion distinguishes them from the other inhabitants. Also, in Amos 2:10, we read that the Israelites conquered the land of Canaan from the Amorites: “Also it was I who brought you up out of the land of Egypt; and led you forty years in the wilderness, to inherit the land of the Amorite.” Both claims identify the Israelite “conquest” as a military conflict with the Amorites. A special reference to the Amorite hegemony is also visible in Judg 6:8–10, three verses recounting the emergence of Israel: 8YHWH sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says YHWH, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. 9And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. 10And I said to you, ‘I am YHWH your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”

In this narrative, Israel arises from two realities. The first one is the migration of a group coming to Canaan from Egypt (v. 8). The second is the

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deliverance from the Egyptians and their vassals that YHWH expelled from the land of Canaan (v. 9). The subsequent verse (v. 10) calls the Israelites to expel even the Amorite deities, those sponsoring the Amorite rulers of Canaan. The claim of the dual origin of the Israelites will be examined in the next chapters. Here, it will suffice to note the special enmity against the Amorites, which extends to their companion groups, the Anakim and the Rephaim.35 Once gathered, these observations identify early Israel as a movement of emancipation from the authority of Egypt in Canaan and of their local vassals, the Amorite kings.

Amorite Forefathers The Book of Genesis advocates a foreign origin of the Israelites. It localizes Abraham’s homeland in the Northern Euphrates, and more specifically in the region of Harran (Gen 11:31).36 Further details confirm the importance of Harran in this epos of origin: the death of Abraham’s father in this area (Gen 11:32), the reference to Harran as the point of departure for Abraham’s migration (Gen 12:5), and Jacob fleeing to his family in Harran once threatened by Esau (Gen 27:43, 28:10). The parallels between Abraham’s ancestors or family members (Terah, Sarug, Nahor, Harran) and ancient toponyms from Upper Mesopotamia confirm this northern affinity.37 The region of Harran being close to Jebel Bishri, the Book of Genesis promotes the claim that Abraham originated from the homeland of the Amorites.38 Then, many parallels emerge between the story of Abraham and the Amorite migration into the Southern Levant and Egypt in the second millennium BC. Moreover, this tradition argues for an Amorite origin of the forefathers of Israel. Many scholars maintain that the postexilic composition of the Book of Genesis renders unreliable the descriptions of the events dated from the Middle Bronze Age.39 Rather, they suggest that the description of Abraham’s migration to Canaan was conceived as anchoring the return from the Babylonian exile into the prestigious time of origins.40 For scholars defending this opinion, the Abraham epos is not necessarily a postexilic invention, but rather an adaptation of ancient traditions to the returnees’ specific needs.41 This explanation is not entirely satisfying, however, because some details concerning an Amorite origin of Abraham do not fit into this scheme. Nahor and Harran have no importance in the Bible, outside the story of the patriarchs. These cities were devoid of particular interest for the exilic communities, and no leader among the returnees inhabited them.42 Additionally, the Aramean identity of Abraham’s family (Gen 25:20, 28:5, 31:20, 31:24) is not easy to justify in this portrayal. But this appellation makes sense if the author of Genesis was interested in promoting an Amorite origin and identity of

THE AMORITES: ENEMIES OR FOUNDERS OF ISRAEL?

Abraham, because the nation of Aram was foremost extending the Amorite dominion of the Late Bronze Age.43 Thus, instead of retrojecting a present situation into a fictional past, the author of Genesis uses the appellation “Aramean” to locate his story in the contemporaneous political reality with most of the Amorite dominion at its center.44 Assyriologists noted that some features attributed to the patriarchs (such as worship, social organization, covenant-making) recall traditions related to Amorite documents from the Middle Bronze Age, so that they should not be considered as pure literary fictions.45 These findings do not rehabilitate the idea of historicity of the figure of Abraham depicted in Genesis. Nevertheless, they reveal a durable memory of events, habits, beliefs, and lifestyle attached to the Amorites.46 Elements of this memory apparently survived up to the time of the redaction of the Book of Genesis, where they are skillfully organized to advance the idea of an Amorite identity of Abraham, the forefather of Israel. The portrait of Abraham confirms this view. The patriarch’s lifestyle combines an ideal of agropastoralism (Gen 13:1–2) with the wish to create a new realm for himself and his descendants (Gen 12:1–5). This project implies his migration from the Amorite homeland (the region of Harran) to the Southern Levant, the land inhabited by the Canaanites (Gen 12:6, 13:7). Like the Amorite newcomers, Abraham determines the size of his dominion with his peers, not with the indigenous people (Gen 13:6–12). Once settled in the region of Hebron, Abraham allies with the Amorite rulers in this region (Gen 13:7), and even becomes one of them. Abraham is portrayed as a war leader (Gen 14:14, 14:24) and a judge resolving local conflicts (Gen 13:7, 21:25). In Genesis, he has the power to conclude treatises (Gen 20:15) and to collect taxes and tithes (Gen 14:22–24).47 Finally, the marriage of Isaac and Jacob with women from his clan of origin, and inhabiting the Amorite homeland, is especially instructive. In Genesis, this requirement is not motivated by any claim of moral depravity or idolatry of the Canaanites that might prohibit their intermarriage. Rather, it fulfills the desire to perpetuate the kin relationships enabling the scattered Amorites to preserve their identity and social status.48 Out of Genesis, the claim of a Mesopotamian origin of Abraham remains rare in the Bible (e.g. Jos 24:2–4; Neh 9:7), and the mention of Abraham as an autochthonous figure (Ezek 33:23–29; Isa 51:1–2; 2 Chr 20:8) challenges it.49 Two contrasting views coexist in the Bible concerning the Amorites. The books relating the emergence of Israel account for emancipation from their hegemony. A resentful disdain of these ancient rulers emanates frequently from these opuses. Alternately, the Book of Genesis portrays Israel’s fathers through the archetype of the Amorite newcomers appointing themselves the lords of Canaan.

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THE CONTRASTING SYMBOLISM OF THE SERPENT

The early character of YHWH may clarify the circumstances of the emergence of this nation. Following the Genesis tradition, the god of Israel prompting Abraham to move from Harran to Canaan is expected to be a local variant of Baal-Haddu or Dagan, the head of the Amorite pantheon. Alternatively, if Israel emerged from a movement of emancipation, as related in the historical books of the Bible, we would expect the cult of YHWH to belong to the pre-Amorite layer of Southern Levantine traditions.50 Baal-Haddu was not the only storm-god acknowledged in the Southern Levant in the Late Bronze Age. The survival of the indigenous storm deity, Athtar, underlines why identifying storm attributes in the figure of YHWH is unhelpful for clarifying the relationship between Israel and the Amorites. Even the much-debated origin of YHWH, either from the south or the north of the Levant, is irrelevant because Athtar was known in both areas. However, the previous chapter has revealed a discriminant factor relative to the Amorite/ Israelite relationship: the serpent symbol. A sudden inversion of values accompanies the spread of the Amorite koiné, from the expression of general holiness and vitality to an icon of the destruction and chaos of the organized world. Chapter 1 also mentioned the survival, in the Southern Levant, of the original meaning of the serpent symbol, as well as its obliteration by the Amorite ideology. Consequently, examining the relationship between YHWH and the serpent, in the Bible, enables us to determine whether the patron god of Israel issued from foreign Amorite or local pre-Amorite traditions. This is not an easy task, however. Here again, two contrasting views coexist in the Bible concerning the serpent and its symbolism. This creature is sometimes a metaphor for evil (Deut 32:33; Pss 58:5, 140:4; Job 20:16) and divine curse (Gen 3:14; Isa 59:5). It is even an enemy that YHWH vanquished in the mythical past (Isa 51:9; Ps 74:13–14) or will defeat in an eschatological future (Isa 27:1). A considerably more positive view, however, is enunciated in Ps 148:7, where the poet explicitly invites the serpents and other sea monsters to praise YHWH: “Praise YHWH from the earth, dragons (tannînîm) and all deeps (te˘homo ̄ t̑ ).” Both approaches are examined here.

The Guardian of the Holy Domain Among the positive views about the serpent, the most detailed one is probably YHWH’s discourse in Job, which is entirely devoted to a fantastic snake-like creature called Leviathan (Job 40:25, 41:26). This appellation denotes affinities with litan, the serpentine sea monster defeated by Baal-Haddu in the Ugaritic mythology. In Job, YHWH’s discourse bears no trace of such a conflict, even in the mythical time. Rather, YHWH praises its wondrous nature, and congratulates

THE CONTRASTING SYMBOLISM OF THE SERPENT

himself as its creator. This position is echoed in Ps 104:26, claiming that YHWH created the Leviathan for his own distraction (liwyata ̄ n̄ zeh yaṣ̄ arta ̄ le˘sˊaḥeq bo)̑ . Even in Genesis, the book advancing a pro-Amorite origin of Israel, we find no conflict with the serpent at the time of creation (Gen 1:21, 1:25). Two biblical sources even integrate the serpent symbol in the worship of YHWH. The first is the production of a copper serpent by Moses in Num 21:8, after being instructed by YHWH to make it. The second one is the mention of a copper serpent set in the courtyard of the Jerusalem temple, up until Hezekiah’s reform, and the mention of the Israelites’ devotion to it: “He removed the high places and broke the pillars and cut down the Asherah. And he broke in pieces the copper serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the people of Israel had made offerings to it – it was called Nehushtan” (2 Kgs 18:4). The concurrent mention, in this verse, of the destruction of high places (habamo ̄ t), ̄ and figurations of ̄ t̑ ), pillars (hamaṣsẹ bo the Asherah goddess, is classically interpreted as the elimination of an idolatrous cult incompatible with the worship of YHWH.51 This approach is challenged, however, by the specification that Moses crafted the copper serpent. It seems, therefore, that the copper serpent attained the holy sphere in early Israel.52 Further indications support this conclusion. Genesis 3 indicates that the serpent was closely related to the holy trees of the Garden of Eden. Since the access to this tree was forbidden to humanity, it is likely that the serpent was the animal normally guarding it. A similar function of the serpent as the guardian of secret knowledge exists in other cultures from Antiquity.53 Therefore, the invitation to Eve to access the tree should be regarded as an infraction of its function as guardian of the holy tree. This incident is generally approached as an expression of the serpent’s evil nature, although scholars already noticed that such a vile dimension is not explicit in this myth.54 The issue of the ‘sin’ confirms this reservation. Unlike Adam and Eve, the serpent is expelled neither from the Garden of Eden nor from the vicinity of the holy tree. The only two modifications that the serpent undergoes are a change in its ‘nutrition’ and the perpetual enmity of Eve’s progeny (Gen 3:14–15). However, no such enmity between the serpent and YHWH is announced. In the Genesis myth of Eden, the serpent remains the guardian of YHWH’s secret knowledge even after the transgression. The reference to serpents in Isa 6:1–8 corroborates this conclusion. Isaiah 6:1–8 is a section relating how the prophet accesses the divine council, and how he becomes instructed in divine plans and decisions. Once transported to the threshold of the divine assembly, Isaiah describes a cohort of seraphim (winged serpentine creatures)55 surrounding the celestial throne and performing songs of praise to YHWH (vv. 2–3). The subsequent verse speaks of how the gates of the divine council are influenced by this choral singing, suggesting that the serpents control its access. This feature is confirmed in verses 6–8, where the seraphim purify Isaiah before introducing him into the divine council. This

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description corroborates the function of guardians of both the celestial domain and the sanctuaries heretofore devoted to serpents in the Near East.56 The sanctuaries are not the only terrestrial domains whose access was controlled by serpents. In Numbers 21, the production of the copper serpent follows an attack on the Israelites by “burning serpents.” Calling them “seraphim” in this story echoes the mention of the winged creatures described in Isaiah 6 that surround YHWH’s throne. And as in Isaiah, these burning serpents are here identified as YHWH’s emissaries protecting an area whose access is forbidden to the Israelites.57 Although the location of this event remains elusive in Numbers 21, crossreferencing the descriptions of the Israelites’ itinerary (Num 21:4, 21:10; Num 33:41–43) suggests that it occurred in the region of Punon, the main Arabah area of mining and copper production.58 This transforms the burning serpents into guardians of the mining area, a feature well established in mythologies from antiquity.59 Furthermore, in mentioning YHWH sending these burning serpents, the author of Num 21:6 promotes their status to that of emissaries of YHWH whose duty is to protect his forbidden/holy domain. A similar function appears in Amos 9:3. There, a fabulous creature dwelling in the abyss, called “the serpent,” attacks people looking for a refuge in forbidden areas: “And if they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent (ʾa˘ṣawweh ʾet hanah̄ ̣aš̄ ), and it shall bite them.” The use of the verb ṣwh (=to command, to give an order) here designates the marine monster as YHWH’s faithful emissary. This protective function of the serpent extended to individuals, peoples, and nations in antiquity. In Egypt, for example, the uraeus protects the king and, by extension, the entire kingdom.60 This protection concerns the nation of Israel too. It is revealed by identifying Dan as a serpent-guardian who prevents invading armies from entering into Israel from the north: “Dan shall be a serpent (naḥ̄ aš)̄ in the way, a viper (še˘pîpon) ̄ by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that his rider falls backward” (Gen 49:17).61 This ascription of Dan as a serpent is immediately followed by a call for divine protection (“For your salvation I wait, YHWH” [Gen 49:18]), confirming both the divine involvement in the serpent’s protective function and the homology of the land of Israel with the holy domains protected by this animal. Further cases of a similar positive connotation confirm that many of the biblical authors approached the serpent as a holy animal of YHWH.62

The Divine Conflict with the Serpent Contrasting this positive approach, some biblical sources recount a mythical struggle between YHWH and a serpent monster, a pattern typically affixed to the Amorite storm-god. Three psalms (Psalms 74, 77, and 89) refer explicitly to this mythical deed.

THE CONTRASTING SYMBOLISM OF THE SERPENT

Psalm 74 Psalm 74 is a complaint following the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the temple of YHWH. In this song, the psalmist stresses the contrast between YHWH’s passivity during the destruction of the city (vv. 2–8) and his famous deeds from the past (vv. 9–15). The first one is the divine involvement in Exodus and the birth of Israel (vv. 9–11). The second one is none other than the mythical victory against serpentine sea monsters (vv. 12–15): 12Yet

God my King is from of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth. 13You divided (pȏrarta ̄) the sea by your might; You broke (šibbarta ̄) the heads of the sea monsters (ra ̄ʾšê tannînîm) on the waters. You crushed (riṣṣaṣta ̄) the heads of Leviathan (ra ̄ʾšê liwe˘yata ̄ n); ̄ 14 You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. 15You split open (ba q̄ aʿta ̄) springs and brooks; You dried up (ho b̑ ašta ̄) ever-flowing streams.

Here, YHWH’s kingship emanates from a violent combat leading to the death, mutilation, or complete submission of his enemies. Their mention as the multiheaded sea monster (vv. 13–14) and the river (v. 15) recalls Ugaritic mythology, where the reign of Baal over the pantheon is the consequence of his victory over Yammu/Naharu (=Sea/River) and over the seven-headed marine monster called tnn or lwtn.63 The subsequent reference to the creation event (vv. 16–17) strengthens the belief that the organized world emanates from YHWH’s victory over the sea monsters.64 But this link does not fit the victory of Baal over Yam, whose mythology is devoid of any demiurgic dimension. Instead, it recalls the victory of Marduk over Tiamat related in the Enuma Elish (iv 123–40; v 1–66). Psalm 77 Psalm 77 is a lament expressing the distress of the nation after the fall of Jerusalem. As in Psalm 74, the first verses (2–11) identify YHWH’s passivity (“Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time?” v. 8) as being the source of this deplorable situation. After expounding on the majesty of YHWH (vv. 12–14), the psalmist goes on to contrast this current situation and the divine intervention in Exodus, again, the famous deeds from the past (vv. 15–21). In this instance, YHWH demonstrates his storm attributes in order to frighten the waters and cause them to flee. 17When

the waters saw you, O God, When the waters saw you, they were afraid; Indeed, the deep trembled.

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18The

clouds poured out water; The skies gave forth thunder; Your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the dome of the heaven (bagalgal)65; 19 Your lightnings lighted up the world; The earth trembled and shook.

The modus operandi combining the aspects of storming and instilling fear reflects a parallel with the Amorite storm-god defeating the sea in mythical times.66 The reference to thunder, rainfall, and lightning recalls the weapons used by Baal for vanquishing Yam in Ugaritic mythology.67 YHWH unambiguously integrates the Amorite storm-god’s family in Psalm 77.68 Psalm 89 Like Psalms 74 and 77, Psalm 89 is a lament comparing the prestigious status of Israel and its king in the past with the contemporary downfall of the Judah kingdom and the demise of the Davidic dynasty. To stress this contrast and the divine passivity accompanying it, the poem opens by presenting YHWH as the supreme deity (vv. 2, 6–9) and speaks of his deeds (vv. 10–11) that justify this august status (vv. 12–15). Here again, this epic wonder is none other than the mythical victory over the sea and the reptilian monster personifying it: 9YHWH,

God of hosts, Who is mighty as you are, YHWH, With your faithfulness all around you? ̄ ); 10You rule the raging of the sea (geʾût haya m When its waves rise, you still them. 11You crushed (dikiʾta ̄) Rahab like a carcass; You scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. The heavens are yours; the earth also is yours; 12 The world and all that is in it, you have founded them. 13The north and the south, you have created them; Tabor and Hermon joyously praise your name.

In this psalm, the praise of YHWH’s greatness (v. 9) is immediately followed by the deed promoting it: the subduing of the primeval ocean (v. 10) following the mythical struggle against Rahab, the sea monster (v. 11).69 The subsequent reference to YHWH’s supremacy (v. 12) even suggests that this ultimate position is the result of this mythical combat, as it is in the Baal and Marduk mythologies.70 The divine combat against the serpent is also visible outside of the Psalter. In the call to YHWH to intervene on the earth, in Isa 51:9–10, verse 9 recalls Baal’s victory against a mythical creature identified there as Yam, Nahar, Tanin, and bṯn ʿqltn (twisting serpent) (KTU 1.3 iii 38–46).71 As in Psalms 74

YHWH AND THE CHAOSKAMPF MOTIF

and 77, the reference to this mythical deed is immediately followed by a reference to the exodus and the miracle of the sea. 9Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of YHWH; Awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you who hewed (hamaḥṣe˘be˘t) Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon (me˘ḥo l̑ e˘le˘t tannîn)? 10Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?

Both events are gathered in the concluding claim: “I am YHWH your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar – YHWH-Sebaoth is his name” (Isa 51:15). Like in Psalm 74, the author of these verses interprets the aperture of the sea as a reiteration of the mythical victory against the sea monster, a feature granting the birth of Israel the status of a new creation event. A victory against the mythical serpent identified with the sea is also related in Job 26:8–13: 8He

binds up the waters in his thick clouds, And the cloud is not split open under them. He hides the face of his throne 9 And spreads over it his cloud. 10He has set a circle on the surface of the waters At the boundary between light and darkness. 11The pillars of heaven tremble And are astounded by his rebuke. 12By his power he stilled (ra ḡ aʿ) the sea; By his wisdom he shattered (maḥ̄ aṣ) Rahab. By his wind the heavens became serene (šipe˘râ) 13 His hand pierced (ḥo l̄ e˘lâ) the twisting serpent (na h̄ ̣a š̄ ba r̄ iaḥ).

Here, verses 12–13 unambiguously mention YHWH’s victory over a serpentine marine monster.72 The parallel with Baal-Haddu mythology is confirmed by the reference, in the previous verses, to the power of YHWH to initiate a storm (v. 8) and to stop it (v. 12). The mention of the strength of his thunder (v. 11) provides additional support.

YHWH AND THE CHAOSKAMPF MOTIF

The problem of the coexistence of two contrasting views concerning the YHWH–serpent relationship is generally resolved in modern research by identifying in the conflict with the serpent an original trait of YHWH’s former identity. In this perspective, the positive views about the serpent become a marker of the Canaanite influence on the Israelite religion. This interpretation transforms YHWH into a local version of the Amorite storm-god, which was later influenced by the indigenous rites of fertility. However, the

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anti-Amorite position expressed in many biblical sources calls for a closer examination of this premise, through the relationship between YHWH and the forces of chaos.

The Chaoskampf as Fundament In 1895, Gunkel first identified the theme of a mythical struggle with a serpent symbolizing the forces of chaos (Chaoskampf motif) in the early Israelite literature.73 This assumption emanated mainly from the affinities identified between some biblical sources, especially the myth of creation in Genesis 1, and the struggle between Marduk and Tiamat in the Babylonian myth of creation (Enuma Elish). The discovery of the Ugarit archives, three decades later, strengthened this premise and displaced the origin of this biblical motif from Babylonia to the Northern Levant.74 By extension, scholars assumed the existence, in ancient Israel, of a festival celebrating YHWH’s famous victory over the serpent and its consequences: the stability of the universe, the provision of rain, and the fertility of the earth. Out of the three psalms of lament mentioned above (Psalms 74, 79, and 89), Mowinckel identified in the Psalter many songs praising this mythical victory and the subsequent enthronement of YHWH as the supreme deity.75 The Chaoskampf became the crucial event that ascribed supremacy to YHWH, and an autumnal festival celebrating it was then regarded as the original New Year festival of the early Israelite calendar.76

Theoretical Objections Until the present, neither archaeological nor epigraphic evidence has clearly supported the idea of an early Israelite autumnal New Year festival celebrating YHWH’s victory over the evil forces of chaos. This lacuna is usually compensated for by general considerations about the Israelite religion. Carola Kloos summarizes this argument as follows: “Now, in my opinion, it cannot be doubted that the Canaanite conception of the battle of the deity with the Sea exercised a direct influence upon Israelite belief; or, to put it better: that the Israelites shared this belief with the non-Hebrew population of Canaan.”77 The previous chapter has revealed the coexistence of two contrasting religious traditions in the Southern Levant prior to the rise of Israel, one promoting the hegemony of the Amorite stormgod over the local traditions, and the other challenging it. Consequently, the relevant question is not whether or not the Canaanite culture influenced the Israelites, but rather which one of these trends the Israelites followed. The Book of Genesis, and especially the myth of creation in Genesis 1, is of central importance in the Chaoskampf theory because of the parallel advocated between Tiamat, the monster sea-goddess representing the (chaotic) precreated

YHWH AND THE CHAOSKAMPF MOTIF

universe in the Babylonian myth, and tehom, an expression of the emptiness of the precreated universe mentioned with the primeval ocean in Gen 1:2. However, the Hebrew tehom does not originate from the Akkadian Tiamat, but both terms derived from *thm, an early Semitic appellation of the sea. Consequently, the parallel between Tiamat and tehom cannot reflect any Israelite borrowing of the Babylonian mythology, or even their derivation from an archaic creation myth.78 Furthermore, the serpent is not necessarily the symbol of the destroying forces of chaos in the ancient Near East. The previous chapter identified the political dimension of the struggle with the mythical serpent, in which the storm-god victory reflects the hegemony of the Amorites’ value system vis-àvis the indigenous beliefs.79 A similar, political, dimension apparently underlies the struggle in the Enuma Elish, so the concept of chaos might be absent from Mesopotamian mythology.80 Egyptologists concur, assuming that the concept of chaos, as formulated in the ancient Egyptian cosmologies, expresses emptiness rather than any enmity.81

Revisiting Some Chaoskampf Psalms Considered as a ubiquitous theme of the Israelite early religion, the Chaoskampf motif influences the interpretation of many pieces of poetry and oracles in the Bible. For Eric Ortlund,82 [T]he binding of theophany and the divine defeat of chaos is so widespread in Hebrew poetry that any occurrence of a theophany in a poetic context without such conflict leaps out by contrast […] In light of these considerations, one could legitimately describe theophany in the Psalms and Prophets as the visible appearance of YHWH as he defeats the powers of chaos.

While this view is not shared by all scholars, a general consensus exists today for interpreting many psalms in this Chaoskampf context.83 Here, we intend to examine the relevancy of this approach in poems and oracles frequently recruited for supporting the Chaoskampf theory. Psalm 18 (=2 Samuel 22) Psalm 18 is traditionally grouped with Psalms 74, 77, and 89 in the category of songs expressing the Chaoskampf motif.84 Unlike them, Psalm 18 is not a lament about the collapse of the kingdom of Judah and YHWH’s lack of intervention. Instead, this hymn praises YHWH protecting the psalmist, here identified with King David, against his enemies (vv. 2–7). A divine intervention follows this preamble. It begins with an impressive theophany involving the natural elements (vv. 8–16), followed by the description of the psalmist begging for divine protection from his enemies (vv. 17–19). Psalm 18 is approached as a case-study advocating an early identity of YHWH as a storm-god for two reasons.85 First, the warrior-like attributes

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of YHWH and his special protection of the king are both characteristics of the Amorite storm-god.86 Second, the voice of YHWH thundering in the sky (v. 14), the dark storm clouds surrounding the deity (vv. 10, 12) and the combination of arrows and lightning (v. 15), recall the representation of Baal’s theophany in Ugarit.87 Also the image of YHWH ‘riding’ on a cherub (v. 11) likens the representation of Baal as a cloud-rider (rkb ʿrpt) in Ugaritic literature.88 The Chaoskampf motif is here deduced from the vocabulary and from the image of moving waters laying bare the earth’s foundations (verse 16), interpreted as an allusion to creating the dry land after vanquishing a sea monster.89 However, no reference to such a mythical animal or any conflicting natural element is visible in the preceding verses.90 Furthermore, the enemies fighting the psalmist also worship YHWH in Psalm 18, as revealed in verse 42: “They cried for help, but there was none to save; they cried to YHWH, but he did not answer them.” Unlike the Baal or storm-god mythology, Psalm 18 refers to a religious conflict between two brother groups. While it is true that verse 9 describes a being producing volcanic smoke and fire (“9Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; Glowing coals flamed forth from him”91), this dragon-like creature is none other than YHWH, thus negating the idea of Chaoskampf in Psalm 18.92 Psalm 29 Psalm 29 lacks any explicit reference to a divine fight against a serpent or any other trace of conflict. It is nonetheless generally interpreted as a Chaoskampf psalm after assuming that the mighty waters (mayîm rabbîm) (v. 3) refer to the chaotic, primeval ocean.93 By extension, scholars interpreted the image of the voice of YHWH upon mighty waters (v.3) as the expression of the divine victory over the forces of chaos.94 Nevertheless, the association of mayîm rabbîm with the primeval ocean of chaotic nature is absent not only from the Bible but also from the Ugaritic literature.95 It is why the Chaoskampf interpretation of Psalm 29 cannot be based on the interpretation of mayîm rabbîm as the chaotic primeval ocean.96 The other possible indication comes from the reference to mabbûl (v. 10). Interpreted as flood, this term evokes the regression of the organized universe to a chaotic, predifferentiated state filled by the primeval ocean.97 By extension, the image of YHWH “sitting” upon the mabbûl (v. 10) is interpreted as a reference to YHWH vanquishing the “forces of chaos” and protecting the stabilized universe.98 It also argues for a parallel with the Babylonian representation of Marduk standing upon the body of Tiamat, the defeated patroness of the primeval ocean.99 However, the image of a god enthroned on the despised and defeated “forces of chaos” is absent from the Near Eastern mythologies of the

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storm-god. Even Marduk does not set his throne on Tiamat’s body. The only Mesopotamian god enthroned upon the deep water (Apsu) is Ea/Enki, who is not a storm-god, and his sitting there does not result from any struggle or Chaoskampf event. Furthermore, Ea/Enki displays substantial affinities with El, the supreme deity of the Canaanite pantheon, rather than Baal.100 Consequently, it is not surprising that even scholars arguing a Chaoskampf motif in Psalm 29 exclude the idea of its expression in verse 10.101 If Psalm 29 refers nonetheless to the Chaoskampf motif, it may be only in a very elliptical way.102 Psalm 46 Psalm 46 is generally approached as a song of Zion articulated around the Chaoskampf motif.103 This claim is justified by the mention of mountains collapsing into the sea (“and in the slipping of mountains into the depth of the seas,” v. 3) and other cataclysmic events (vv. 4, 7, 9), all interpreted as expressions of a cosmic fight between YHWH and the primeval forces of chaos threatening the organized universe.104 The theme of YHWH as the refuge and ‘help in adversity’ (v. 2) even transforms Psalm 46 into a hymn praising Zion’s stability in a universe still threatened by the destructive power of chaos.105 However, the expression “[He] Will shake mountains by his power” (v. 4) refers to YHWH, transforming the god of Israel into the source of the cataclysm, not the protector of the world against chaotic powers of destruction. The parallel between the fall of mountains (v. 4) and the fall of kingdoms (v. 7) even extends this divine power of destruction.106 A volcanic dimension appears in Psalm 46, where the voice of YHWH stimulates the melting process: “He uttered his voice, let be melted (tam ̄ ûg) the earth” (v.7).107 Further, the destructions (šamo t̑ ) evoked in verse 9 fit the vast desolation provoked by volcanic activity. It is noteworthy that the cataclysms and disorders are not deplored in this song. Rather, they actually seem to be a source of joy for the psalmist.108 These observations signify that Psalm 46 is not a hymn of Zion praising the stormgod for vanquishing the forces of chaos, as is generally assumed.109 Rather, such praise of the all-destructive powers of YHWH challenges the reading of Psalm 46 through the lens of Amorite storm-god mythology. PRO- AND ANTI-AMORITE VIEWS IN THE BIBLE

Two contrasting approaches of the serpent symbol coexist in the Bible. One of them refers to the pre-Amorite religious background, and the other integrates the Amorite storm-god koiné. These two approaches being anchored in Bronze Age traditions, the simplest interpretation would be to assume that

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both coexisted in Israel from the rise of this nation. Two observations invite us to revisit this premise, however. The first is the rarity of the Chaoskampf motif in Psalms, which challenges the Gunkel hypothesis. The second is the postmonarchic dating of the sources referring to the Chaoskampf motif. Psalms 74, 77, and 89 are three laments on the collapse of the kingdom of Judah. Isaiah 51 and Job are late compositions as well. This characteristic weakens the presumption of the extension, in early Israel, of the Chaoskampf motif inherited from the Amorite koiné.110 Once the Chaoskampf interpretation in psalms of possibly preexilic composition (e.g., Psalms 18, 29, 46) is challenged, the Chaoskampf motif becomes mainly expressed in the postmonarchic period. It is mostly related to the Book of Isaiah, the Chaoskampf being even considered by scholars as an essential element of the theology developed in the second part of this book (Isaiah 40–55).111 Furthermore, Psalms 74, 77, and 89 interrelate with the Book of Isaiah in their language, motifs, and theology.112 In all of them, the Chaoskampf motif is introduced in order to demonstrate YHWH’s capacity to intervene and fight the enemies of Israel. The cosmogonic dimension of the Chaoskampf motif, explicit in Psalm 74 and Isaiah 51, displays more affinities with the Enuma Elish than with Ugaritic Baal mythology, where the victory over the serpent is devoid of such characteristics. These observations suggest a Babylonian influence on the exilic or postexilic Israelite theology rather than the sudden resurgence of an archaic theme.113 It is why the use of the Chaoskampf motif in the Bible probably denotes an exilic Babylonian influence integrated in the Israelite theological context, rather than an Amorite background to the god of Israel.114 If it already existed in the preexilic period, the Chaoskampf motif apparently remained a marginal theological element in early Israel. Few indications support this conclusion. First, the importance of the Chaoskampf motif in Isaiah contrasts with its absence in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, suggesting that this motif was meaningless for many prophets and theologians from the end of the monarchic period and the beginning of the exile.115 Furthermore, no explicit reference to the Chaoskampf motif is present in Genesis, despite the pan-Amorite bias in portraying Abraham. Rather, the serpent remains the holy guardian in the Garden of Eden. Finally, most references to the parting of the Sea, including Exodus 14 and the Song of the Sea (Ex 15:1–21), ignore the Chaoskampf imagery, a feature confirming the late integration of this motif, probably under Babylonian influence. Until now, the main question concerning the emergence of the early Israelite religion was to evaluate the relative weight of its “Canaanite” background. A northern origin of YHWH and his representation as a Baal-like deity was interpreted as evidence of a high level of continuity with the indigenous

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religion organized around agrarian cults of fertility. Alternatively, a low “Canaanite” influence contributed to identifying the early Israelites as nomad peoples originating in the arid areas of Sinai, the Negev, and Northwestern Arabia. The previous chapter has revealed how oversimplified this dichotomy is, due to the coexistence in the Southern Levant of two different systems of religious values, Amorite and pre-Amorite. In light of these findings, the problem becomes determining whether early Israel displays affinities with the Amorite or the pre-Amorite culture. This task is facilitated by the contrasting status of the serpent symbol in these two religious systems. But the conclusion of this investigation is not as simple as expected. Two opposite views coexist in the Bible concerning the relationship between the early Israelites and the Amorite elite previously ruling in Canaan. Further research is needed to determine which position prevailed in early Israel and spurred the birth of this nation.

NOTES 1 A linkage between the biblical and historical Amorites was well accepted few decades ago. See, for example, Ishida 1979: 467; Mazar 1981: 79; Luke 1983: 224; Hess 1993: 127; Nakhai 2001: 7. 2 See Gen 15:19–21; Ex 3:8, 3:17, 13:5, 23:23, 33:2, 34:11; Deut 7:1, 20:17; Jos 3:10, 9:1. Nadav Na’aman (2005a: 338) concluded: “Only two of the seven pre-Israelite nations represent the autochthonous population of the country: Canaanites and Amorites (though the latter is an archaic non-historical name). The rest bear names of splinter groups that migrated to Canaan in the twelfth century and settled there side by side with the settlements of local and migrating West-Semitic groups (the so-called ‘Israelites’).” 3 Oded 2015: 399. The seven nations are mentioned in Deut 7:1: “When YHWH your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you.” 4 For example, Gen 15:16–17, 15:19–21; Ex 3:8, 3:17, 13:5; Deut 7:1; Jos 3:10, 7:7; 24:8; Amos 2:10. 5 ANET: 287; Van Seters 1972. 6 John Van Seters (1972: 78) deduced that “[the term] ‘Amorite’ in the Old Testament does not correspond to any political or ethnic entity known from historical documents of the second millennium BC. Instead, the Old Testament writers probably learned of the term from Assyrian and Babylonian sources of the first millennium and construed it as an archaic term for the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Palestine.” 7 Nadav Na’aman (1994a: 178) noticed that “The name of most of the inland Southern Syrian and Northern Palestinian rulers are of ‘northern’ origin, with relatively few exceptions […] On the coast of Lebanon and in southern Palestine on the other hand there is a great majority of West Semitic names, with only few exceptions.” 8 Malamat 2006; Benz 2019: 264. 9 Malamat 2006: 352; Bonfil and Zarzercki-Peleg 2007. 10 Ben-Tor and Rubiato (1999) assume that the early Israelites destroyed the city. Other scholars challenge this conclusion, integrating the fall of the city in the battle of Qadesh, or attributing it to internal conflicts within Canaan. See Whitelam 1994; Schäfer-Lichtenberger 2001.

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11 12 13 14 15

16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25

26

27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36

Ben-Tor 2006. Benz 2019: 278. Ben-Ami 2013; Sandhaus 2013. Zuckerman 2011; Na’aman 2016: 140; Benz 2019: 274. For William Dever (2003: 68), “this suggests strongly that the writers of the Book of Joshua did not entirely ‘invent’ the story of the fall of Hazor. They had reliable historical sources, oral and/or written. They also knew correctly that Hazor had indeed formerly been ‘the head of all those kingdoms’ or city-states in the north, as the current excavations have made abundantly clear.” For example, Ex 3:8, 3:17, 13:15, 23:23, 3:28; Deut 7:1, 20:17; Jos 3:10, 9:1. For Itamar Singer (2006: 756), “the biblical Hittites have nothing to do with the Anatolian Hittites. Rather, the term ‘Hittite’ serves as a synonym for ‘Canaan’ and ‘Amorite’, generally denoting the inhabitants of Syria-Palestine, in accordance with the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian usage of the term from the late century on.” Collins 2006: 842–3. The Hittites (ḥatti) are mentioned in Egyptian sources from the Late Bronze Age as people from Anatolia. See van Seters 1972: 65. Isa 14:9, 26:14; Ps 88:11; Job 26:5; Prov 2:18, 9:18, 21:16. See Schnell 1962. Gray 1952; Caquot 1960: 79. Gray 1952: 40; L’Heureux 1974: 271–2. Caquot 1960: 79. Caquot 1976: 296. Continuity between the living rpʾm and their dead counterparts is ensured through the succession of kings. The divinized status is apparent in the king list (KTU 1.113), where the name of each dead king is preceded by el. The ritual offerings to the temple of ditan̄ u (e.g., KTU 1.102, 1.104, 1.124) confirm this deified status. The royal liturgy (KTU 1.161) performed in ceremonies for the dead king’s succession confirms it. The refrain of this royal liturgy specifies that the dead king joins the assembly of dead rpʾm (rpʾi arṣ), transforming him into the protector of his successor. In counterpart, the new king performs the kispu rituals (in which food and drink were offered to the dead), which enable his successful deification. See Gray 1952; Caquot 1976; Pitard 1978; Levine and de Tarragon 1984; Wyatt 1998a: 314–24. KTU 1.161 R 1–3. A document from Ugarit dated from about the thirteenth century BC (KTU 1.113 = RS 14.257) mentions about thirty successive kings, a feature dating the beginning of the dynasty to the early second millennium BC. See Levine and de Tarragon 1984: 655; Wyatt 1998a: 399–403. See also Vidal (2006: 170–1 and ref therein) for the early history of the Ugaritian dynasty. Kitchen 1977; Lipin´ski 1978; Wyatt 1998a: 433; Whiting 1995: 1232; Vidal 2006: 168. The opening verses of KTU 1.108 address the “father” of the rpʾm who reigns from Athtarat and Edrei. Wyatt 2010: 589. See also Smith (1992: 675–6) for the parallel between the Biblical Rephaim and their Ugaritian homologs. Num 13:28, 13:33; Deut 1:28, 9:2. For Shemaryahu Talmon (1983: 239–40), “it could be surmised that the yelîdê hara ̄ p̄ a’/h ̄ by origin were not Philistines, but rather survivors of a component of the autochthonous population of Canaan who had been conquered by the invading Philistines (cp. Josh 11:22) and either were pressed into military service or had joined their army as mercenaries…” Talmon (1983: 240) assumes that the mention in the Bible of populations of abnormal height “may well be an ‘epic’ aggrandizement (Deut 2:11; 3:11 et al.) of basic actual facts.” L’Heureux 1974: 273; Wyatt 2010: 591. Gen 10:15, 15:21; Ex 3:8, 3:17, 13:15, 23:23, 23:28; Deut 7:1, 20:17; Jos 3:10, 9:1; Neh 9:8. See Num 13:22; Deut 9:2–3; Jos 11:21–11, 15:14 for the Anakim; Deut 9:13 for the Rephaim. See, for example, de Vaux 1971a: 250–2; Wiseman 1977a.

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37 Teraḥ, Naḥor and Serug correspond to the old Babylonian toponyms Turaḫi, Niḥriya and Saru¯gi, respectively. See Hendel 2005: 52 and ref therein. 38 Bailey 1968: 436; Wiseman 1977a: 127–8; Hendel 2005: 53. 39 Thompson 1974; van Seters 1975; de Pury 2002. 40 Blenkinsopp 2009: 233; Na’aman 2015: 158–60; Ska 2001: 174. 41 Ska 2001: 177. 42 Daniel Fleming (1998: 68) noticed that “Neither location [Harran or Nahor] has any personal interest to Israel outside of Genesis, nor do they offer any persuasive connection to exilic or post-exilic communities that would explain either the region or the particular towns as the ultimate point of reference for Israelite ancestry.” 43 Hendel 2005: 52–3; Bodi 2014. 44 This artifice is also visible in Deut 26:5, a verse asserting an Aramean (=Amorite) origin of the fathers of Israel: “And you shall make response before YHWH your God, ‘A wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous.” 45 Durand 1998. 46 Fleming 1998: 78; Hendel 2005: 53–5; Finkelstein and Römer 2014: 4. 47 Wiseman 1977b; Berner 2015: 42–3. 48 Though the Amorite portrayal of Abraham, as exposed in Genesis, is probably a postexilic composition, the precision concerning the description of his Amorite character is surprising. This portrait might be inspired by Amorite incomers’ traditions that survived for a long time in Israel. Daniel Fleming (1998) already suggested in the past the Amorite origin of the Israelite tribe of Benjamin, the Yaminites being the southern clan of Amorites organized around the region of Harran. He concluded (1998: 71): “It is this identification of Harran with the Yaminites, the most plausible ancestry of Benjamin, that suggests a more specific historical link between the players known from Mari and Genesis.” 49 Ego 2005: 178; Römer 2001 and 2012a: 163–5. Finkelstein and Römer (2014: 10–12) challenge the assumption of an exilic origin of the Abraham tradition. They rather argue its indigenous origin in the Southern Levant, at the Iron Age. From the reference to Abraham in Ezek 33:23–29 and its echo in Isaiah, Finkelstein and Römer (2014: 12) concluded that “the oldest Abraham traditions originated in the Iron Age and that they contained an autochtonous hero story.” 50 This latter eventuality fits the biblical appellation of YHWH as El, but never as Dagan. 51 Fabry (1999: 378–9) reports various opinions identifying the Nehushtan either as a former Mosaic fetish, a Syro-Phoenician emblem, a foreign military emblem captured by David that became a trophy, an Egyptian symbol of royal sovereignty, an apotropaic Babylonian talisman, a Phoenician serpent staff of Eshmun, or even a relic of local Canaanite fertility rites. See also Sweeney 2007: 403. For Maciej Münnich (2005: 49*), “The bronze serpent was primarily a symbol of a deity in competition with the cult of YHWH as it moved towards monotheism.” Westermann (1984: 384), however, rules out the possibility that the serpent merely denotes Canaanite fertility cults independent of the worship of YHWH. 52 Ron Hendel (1999: 616) concludes that “The bronze snake probably belonged to the traditional repertoire of Yahwistic symbols.” Savignac (1972: 332) even interpreted the serpent as a figuration of YHWH (or his powers) in the popular religion of ancient Israel. 53 In Mesopotamia, for example, the serpent-god Ningizzida is acknowledged as the guardian of the tree of knowledge (van Buren 1934: 67). Also in Greece, a serpent-dragon Ladon prevents the access to a mysterious tree producing golden apples, whose harvest is forbidden. Alike in Genesis 3:22, the fruit of this fabulous tree is expected to provide eternal life. See Canby 1995: 18. 54 Arnold (2009: 62) noticed that nothing in Genesis 3 promotes the association of the serpent with the evil. The connotations are rather of wisdom, protection, and knowledge. Such a positive association is also acknowledged by von Rad (1961: 85) and Westermann (1984: 237).

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55 Day 1979: 150; Ornan 2012. Keel and Uehlinger (1998: 273) interpret this winged serpent as representing the seraph, a divine creature belonging to the yahwistic sphere. About the affinities between the seraphim and the uraeus, see de Savignac 1972; Mettinger 1999: 743; Amzallag 2015d. 56 Mundkur 1983: 102. Concerning the figuration of serpents in Mesopotamian temples, see Frayne 1982. According to van Buren (1934: 63, 66–7) and Dalley (1989: 186), the Mesopotamian serpent-god, Ningizzida, was the guardian of the gate accessing the palace of the sky-god Anu. 57 The serpent attack immediately follows the decision not to circumvent the land of Edom from the south (Num 21:4). 58 More than a century ago, Lagrange (1900: 284–5) located the event in Punon. See Sawyer (1986: 156), Tebes (2009: 108), and Amzallag (2015d: 114–16) for recent scholars defending this opinion. 59 McCulloch 1930: 216; Suhr 1967: 218; Grottanelli 2005: 433–4. Already in the nineteenth century, A. W. Buckland (1875: 60–1) concluded that “A large number of the old-serpent myths represent this reptile as associated in some way with precious metals and precious stones; the serpent constantly appears as the guardian of hidden treasures and the revealing of precious knowledge; whilst the deities, kings and heroes who are either symbolized by the serpent, or supposed to partake its nature, are commonly described as the pioneers of civilization and the instructors of mankind in the arts of agriculture and mining.” 60 Watterson 1999: 129–31. 61 James Charlesworth (2010: 231) concludes that “Dan is clearly portrayed as the serpent that guards the tribes of Israel.” The aptness of the metaphor is confirmed in Jer 8:16 by the mention of invading northern enemies that enter Israel from Dan with horses and cavalry. 62 See Amzallag 2016a. The biblical parallel between the seraphim and the kerubim (griffins) confirms their belonging to the holy universe. See Wyatt 2009. 63 KTU 1.2 iv 27–34; 1.3 iii–iv; 1.5 i 1–3. See, for example, Day 1985: 23–4; Goulder 1996: 71; Tsumura 2015: 552; Scoggins-Ballantine 2015: 84–5. 64 McKenzie 1950: 282; Mettinger 1997: 145; Sylva 2011: 246; Scoggins-Ballantine 2015: 84–5; Stahl 2020: 7. 65 Dahood (1968: 232) does not translate glgl as ‘whirlwind’ (as generally assumed) but as ‘firmament’ because glgl (formerly skull) designates something domed or vaulted. The parallel reference to tbl (created universe) in this verse strengthens this interpretation. 66 Hossfeld and Zenger 2005: 279; Kselman 1983: 51–3; Kraus 1993: 116. 67 Day 1985: 511; Weber 2007: 116; Sylva 2011: 263. 68 Hossfeld and Zenger 2005: 279; Sylva 2011: 255; Müller 2017: 215; Goulder 1996: 105. 69 Dahood 1968: 314; Tate 1990: 421; Kraus 1993: 206; Clifford 2003: 92. 70 See Bang (2020: 91–2) concerning the parallels between Ps 89:10–13 and the Enuma Elish. Hutton (2007: 284) notices striking parallels between these verses and Baal’s mythology, especially in KTU 1.3 iii 38–46. These features denote a preservation of old traditions in the ancient Near East, including among biblical authors. 71 See Hutton (2007) for a comparison between Isa 51:9–11 and the Baal mythology. 72 Day 1985: 39. 73 Gunkel (1895), Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (English translation: Creation and Chaos in the primeval Era and the Eschaton: Religio-Historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12). 74 See Scurlock (2013) and Bang (2017) for an overview of the Chaoskampf theory. 75 Mowinckel 1967 1: 106–35, 143–5. 76 Scholars (e.g., Day 1985: 19) identified allusions to an autumnal New Year festival in Early Israel in Ex 23:16 and Ex 34:22, whereas others (e.g., Clines 1974) denied it. Among the many books organized around this paradigm, we may quote Wakeman 1973; Day 1985; Kloos 1986; Batto 1992; Scoggins-Ballantine 2015. 77 Kloos 1986: 69. John Day (1985: 21) deduces from the biblical sources the existence of a “Canaanite New Year festival,” which is expected, in return, to have influenced the

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78 79 80 81

82 83 84 85 86

87 88

89 90 91 92

93 94

95

96

Israelite festival: “Since both the Feast of Tabernacles (cf Judg 9:27) and the festal theme of the king-god in conflict with the chaos waters were appropriated from the Canaanites, it is reasonable to suppose that this motif was also a feature of the Canaanite Autumn Festival.” Day 1985: 7, 50–1; Tsumura 2005: 9–35; Watson 2005: 16–17; Sonik 2013: 2–3; Lambert 2013: 44. This view is detailed in Oldenburg (1969), Benz (2013: 138), and Tugendhaft (2013: 195–6). Lambert 2013: 44; Lemos 2020: 166. For Jan Assmann (2003: 189), the idea of chaos as evil threatening of the organized world “should not be confused with cosmogonic chaos, the primal state of the fore-world from which sprang the order of creation. Cosmogonic chaos is the amorphous primal matter devoid of any connotation of evil or imperfection.” According to Sonik (2013: 5, 13), a similar perception of cosmogonic chaos existed in ancient Greece. Ortlund 2010: 2–3. For example, Sylva (2011: 244) assumes that only five poems from the Psalter (Psalms 18, 65, 74, 77, and 89) carry the Chaoskampf motif. Cole 2000: 59; Sylva 2011: 244. Crouch 2011: 263; Stahl 2020: 7. Craigie 2004: 173–4; Smith 2002: 56; Maré 2010: 106–8; Green 2003: 269–71; Gray 2014: 83. For Shnider (2006: 394), the king–god relationship extends considerably, here, through the parallel stressed between the divine theophany (vv. 8–16) and the king fighting his enemies (vv. 30–43). From such a divine protection to the king, Leonard Maré (2010: 102) deduced that “the psalm was probably utilized by a succession of Davidic kings in various liturgical settings, including the great festivals.” Stahl 2020: 7. Maré 2010: 107; Strine and Crouch 2013: 885; Gray 2014: 88. However, this supporting indication is valid only if YHWH is truly depicted as a storm-god in this song, but not as evidence demonstrating it. See Keel 1997: 214. Kraus 1988: 260; Maré 2010: 106; Crouch 2011: 264; Strine and Crouch 2013: 885. Craigie 2004: 173–4; Smith 2002: 56. G. H. Wilson 2014: 341; Maré 2010: 107; Cartledge 2001: 653; Kim and Trimm 2014: 169–72. The storm-god and Chaoskampf readings of Psalm 18 remain generally unaffected by these considerations. For John Day (1985: 125), “the theophany is simply in the storm, involving lightning and thunder, and that we should not also see here allusions to volcanic phenomena. That we do not have volcanic allusions here is supported by the fact that so far as we know, nowhere else in the ancient near east are volcanic features attested in theophanies, the manifestations rather being in the storm and earthquake.” Here again, the storm-god interpretation is fed by the assumption that early Israelite religion necessarily likens its neighbors’. May 1955: 10. Dahood 1966: 176; Beaucamp 1976: 136; Craigie 2004: 247; Kennedy 2009: 15; Sommer 2013: 135; Barbiero 2016: 386. The possible interpretation of the preposition ʿl as “against” instead of “upon,” in 3c, further supports the combative dimension in this verse. See Kloos 1986: 52. Pardee 2005: 176. Indeed, mayîm rabbîm may refer to flooding and destruction (e.g., Ps 18:17, 32:6, 144:7), but without any reference to a primeval ocean of chaotic nature. Even in Isa 17:13, which mentions the nations roaring “like the roaring of many waters (mayîm rabbîm),” this expression probably does not refer to chaotic forces of creation rebuked by YHWH in the past. The metaphor of chaff chased by wind introduced in this verse refers to another reality. For example, Dennis Sylva (2011: 245) disbelieves that the mention of the waters (mayîm rabbîm, mabbûl) in Psalm 29 refers to the Chaoskampf mythological motif: “There is no specific action taken against the water, as there is against the cedars, Lebanon, the wilderness, and the

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97 98 99

100 101 102

103 104

105

106 107 108

109 110

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112 113 114

oaks (vv. 5–9), suggesting that v. 3 describes a sea storm. The statement ‘YHWH sits enthroned over the flood’ (v. 10a) may refer to a torrential downpour, the chaotic waters, or to both. But that YHWH is so enthroned does not necessarily suggest a Chaoskampf.” Dahood 1966: 176; Seybold 1996: 121; Clifford 1979: 241; Luyster 1981; ScogginsBallantine 2015: 81–2. Fensham 1963: 87; Day 1979: 143–4; Müller 2017: 222–3. Mettinger 1982: 69–70. The representation of the storm-god standing upon the deep water/flood (mdb) therefore creates a bridge with the Baal mythology: “Baal sits like a mountain stands; Haddu [lies down] like deep waters (mdb)” (KTU 1.101.1, translated by Pardee 1998: 124–5). The term mdb is assimilated with Yam by Fisher and Knutson (1969: 158, n. 7) based on their interpretation of the Baal deeds. Tsumura (2005: 154–5) rejects this extrapolation, however. Tsumura 1988: 352–3; Tsumura 1989: 145–54. For example, Kloos 1986: 62, 66–8. An alternative interpretation of Psalm 29 is proposed in Amzallag (2021c), arguing that this hymn was not originally devoted to a storm-god deity but was a hymn of Qenite origin praising the former, pre-Israelite identity of YHWH. Gunkel 1998 (1926): 22, 55–7; Ollenburger 1987: 16. This genre is also supposed to include Psalms 48, 76, 84, 87, and 122. See, for example, Schökel 1981: 418; Anderson 1972 1: 356; Gerstenberger 1988: 192; Kelly 1970: 306; Maillot and Lelièvre 1962: 291; Schäder 2010: 145–7. This psalm has been paralleled with Ps 74:13–16, where YHWH shatters the sea monster’s head. Kelly 1970: 308; van der Lugt 2010: 45; Watson 2005: 135. By extension, Jerusalem becomes the nucleus of stability from which peace and order expand to the whole earth. See Gunkel 1903; Gunkel 1926 (1998): 57; Kraus 1988: 496–9. Tsumura 1980. Amzallag 2015b: 30–2. This point was already stressed by Dahood (1966: 281) and Hakham (1990 1: 266). Erhard Gerstenberger (1988: 192) noticed this singularity: “Strangely enough for our way of reasoning, vv. 5–6, flanked as they are by battle and victory, express joy and trust.” See also Raabe 1990: 55. This joy and trust are visible in verse 5 and especially in verse 9, where the parallelism of members identifies the destructive action of YHWH (šamo t̑ ) as the great work of YHWH (mipʿa l̆ o t̑ ). Amzallag 2015b. This problem is noted by scholars defending the Gunkel hypothesis, such as John Day (1985: 187): “Although the [Chaoskampf] imagery was already known in pre-exilic Israel, when it was especially associated with the Autumn Festival, it did become particularly prominent in the exilic period […] Why should the imagery gain prominence at this time?” Crouch 2011: 265–71; Ortlund 2010: 2–3. Eric Ortlund identified expressions of the Chaoskampf motif in the whole Book of Isaiah (Isa 2:10–21, 13:1–3, 24:21–23, 26:20–27:1, 29:1–8, 30:23–33, 35:1–10, 40:1–11, 42:14–17, 51:7–10, 59:15–19, 66:15–17, and allusions to it in Isa 17:12–14, 31:4–9, 33:1–16, 50:1–3, 63: 1–6, 63:19–64:2). For Tryggve Mettinger (1997: 150), “The idea of Divine Warrior, who vindicates his kingship in a new victory over the forces of chaos, is something that gives a profound unity to the whole book of Isaiah 40–55. From the point of view of contents 51:9–52:12 with the proclamation of YHWH as king in 52:7 constitutes the summit.” Day 1985: 22, 28; Nurmela 2006: 70; Willey 1997: 146; Hutton 2007: 278, 282, 284. Clifford 1985: 513; Willey 1997: 147. Scholars assume that the third part of Isaiah (Chapters 56–66) is issued from a small circle of theologians originating from the Babylonian diaspora or influenced by it. See Blenkinsopp 1990: 7, 17–19; Schramm 1995: 179–81. Theodor Gaster (1977 [1950]: 142) has already suggested that the Chaoskampf motif might have been introduced into the Israelite religion

PRO- AND ANTI-AMORITE VIEWS IN THE BIBLE

through the Babylonian exile: “Without exception, the passages in question are of exilic or postexilic date – the product of a general archaeological revival which swept the whole of the Near East in the sixth-fifth centuries B.C. and, more specifically, of an attempt to recapture the allegiance of the returning and assimilated Jewish exiles by representing their ancestral religion in terms of the ‘heathen’ mythologies with which they had become acquainted.” 115 The Chaoskampf motif already appears in Isa 27:1. Instead of referring to a deed from the past, it here conditions the future redemption of the whole earth: “In that day YHWH with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.” This diversity of uses pleads for the relative novelty of this theme in the Israelite theology.

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I

srael is not the only nation emerging in the Southern Levant on the remains of Bronze Age cultures. A similar trend is observed east of the Jordan Valley, with the emergence of Ammon, Moab, and Edom. At the same time, the Philistine cities organize themselves into an autonomous confederation, and the cities of Tyre and Siddon undergo renowned development. Consequently, we should examine whether or not Israel is part of a global trend of emancipation from Amorite authority in the Southern Levant. At first sight, this eventuality is unlikely because Israel separates itself from all the other nations by its claim of an exogenous origin. However, an examination of some biblical sources reveals another reality.

ISRAEL AND THE EMERGING NATIONS

The first way to clarify whether or not the neighbor nations took part in the movement of emancipation is to look for a reference to their emergence in the Bible. The Book of Genesis stresses a parallel between the early history of Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Israel. Esau is the twin brother of Jacob, and Lot, the forefather of Ammon and Moab, belongs to Abraham’s lineage. In Genesis, the land promised by YHWH to Abraham comprises the territory of the Israelites, but it also extends to the whole area from the Nile to the Euphrates: “On that day YHWH made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates’” 96

ISRAEL AND THE EMERGING NATIONS

(Gen 15:18). This dominion corresponds to all the territories conquered by the Amorites throughout the second millennium BC. Consequently, in promising them to all the sons of Abraham, and not only to Israel, Genesis 15 identifies YHWH as the god sponsoring the whole process of emancipation from Amorite domination. Further indications support this premise.

Indications from Amos 9 Amos 9 stresses a parallel between the emergence of Israel and the simultaneous rise of other Southern Levantine nations. Here the oracle does not refer to Ammon, Moab, and Edom, but to the Philistine confederation and the kingdom of Aram: “Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?” (Amos 9:7b). Concerning the Arameans, the migration is not easy to identify because the exact location of Kir remains uncertain (although it probably lies in Northern Syria).1 Caphtor probably designates the island of Crete.2 These details concerning the Philistines corroborate the mention of their migration from Caphtor in Deut 2:23 and Jer 47:4.3 Consequently, the claim in Amos 9:7 acknowledges that the Israelites were not the only nation whose emergence involved YHWH in the Early Iron Age. Modern scholarship generally denies that this claim has any special importance, interpreting it as a demonstration of YHWH’s sovereignty over the whole world.4 Another explanation is that it became an expression against people arguing for a privileged status of Israel,5 of the impartiality of YHWH, or a warning concerning the threatening power of YHWH through his control of Israel’s enemies.6 These explanations are not entirely satisfying, however, because the first half of Amos 9:7 refers to a people (the Cushites) no less attached to YHWH than the Israelites: “‘Are you not like the Cushites to me, O people of Israel?’ declares YHWH.” And a few verses later, the same oracle refers to peoples other than Israel attached to YHWH, under the leadership of Edom. The oracle even foresees that the Israelites “may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name, declares YHWH who does this” (Amos 9:12). Such a claim is so difficult to reconcile with the classical perspective of the exclusiveness of the YHWH–Israel relationship that this verse is frequently emended, and its content transformed into a promise that Israel, in calling the name of YHWH, will inherit their neighbor nations.7 The reference to David and his kingdom (v. 11) has suggested that this oracle recalls the conquests of David and the subsequent diffusion of the cult of YHWH in the Southern Levant.8 Also the segmentation of Amos 9:7–15 into two independent oracles (vv. 7–10 and vv. 11–15) avoids the problem of YHWH’s commitment to other nations.9 However, arguments toward the

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integrity and redactional unity of Amos 9:7–15 challenge this view.10 They invite us to leave aside the paradigm of the exclusivity of the Israel–YHWH relationship, and instead to consider the divine sponsoring of most (if not all) the newly emerging nations in the Southern Levant in the Early Iron Age.

Indications from Deuteronomy 2–3 Deuteronomy opens with a brief retrospective of the conquest of the Promised Land. There, the divine covenant in Horeb (Deut 1:6) is immediately followed by the instruction to conquer the country of the Amorites (Deut 1:7).11 Deuteronomy 1 then relates the reluctance of the Israelites to conquer the land, frightened by the military power of the Amorites, and the forty-year postponement of the potential conquest. The next section (Deut 2:1–3:20) narrates the earliest stages of the conquest. It begins with a prolonged period of “settling” near Mount Seir interrupted only by the divine instruction to move northward and begin the conquest (Deut 2:1–3). This directive is followed by an explicit prohibition of attacking and conquering any territory belonging to the nations of Edom, Moab, and Ammon (Deut 2:5–23). These admonitions are preceded by a divine commandment that inaugurates the conquest: “Rise up, set out on your journey and go over the valley of the Arnon. Behold, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take possession, and contend with him in battle” (Deut 2:24).12 Explicitly targeted against an Amorite kingdom, this injunction is followed by the Israelite victory against Sihon the Amorite (Deut 2:25–36), against Og the Amorite king of Bashan (Deut 3:1–7), and the settlement of the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and half of the tribe of Manasseh in their territories (Deut 3:8–20). The reference, in the El Amarna correspondence, to Amorite kingdoms on the east bank of the Jordan and the Golan Heights13 indicates that the conquest of the Amorite kingdoms of Sihon and Og is not pure literary fiction. The biblical sources preserved the memory of genuine historical events, even though they occurred many centuries before the redaction of Deuteronomy.14 This rapid survey reveals that the Amorite kingdoms and the newly emerging nations have neither the same status nor the same legitimacy, to the eyes of the Israelites. Whereas the Amorite kingdoms are doomed to destruction and conquest, Edom, Moab, and Ammon cannot be conquered by the Israelites, notwithstanding their military superiority (Deut 2:4). Such a distinction suggests that the birth of Israel integrated a movement of emancipation from the foreign authority of the Amorites and their Egyptian patrons. Some indications support this premise. The first is the parallel between the emergence of Israel, Edom, Moab and Ammon in Deuteronomy 2. The Emim and the Zamzumim, who previously inhabited the land of Moab

THE POLEMIC AROUND THE CONQUEST OF SIHON’S KINGDOM

and Ammon, are identified as Rephaim (Deut 2:10–11 and Deut 2:20–21, respectively). The mention of the Moabites (and their Ammonites brothers) as sons of Seth (Num 24:17) designates them as the indigenous, nomad population present in this area in the second millennium BC and called the sons of Suthu in Egyptian sources.15 It means that Moab and Ammon arise from indigenous movements of subversion against Amorite authority. The second indication comes from YHWH forbidding Israel to conquer Ammon, Moab, and Edom. This edict does not only reflect the wish for peaceful relations among these newly emerging nations. Rather, Deuteronomy 2 considers the territories of Edom, Moab, and Ammon as having been apportioned to these peoples by YHWH, as was the “Promised Land” to the Israelites.16 The divine injunction to the Israelites is explicit concerning the land of Edom: “Do not contend with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as for the sole of the foot to tread on, because I have given (natatî) ̄ Mount Seir to Esau as a possession” (Deut 2:5).17 A similar warning concerns the land of Moab: “And YHWH said to me: Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land for a possession, because I have given (nat̄ atî) Ar to the people of Lot for a possession” (Deut 2:9). Deuteronomy 2:19 reveals that YHWH protects also the Ammonites against any Israelite attempt to conquer their territory: “And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon, do not harass them or contend with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot for a possession (ne˘tatîâ ye˘rūšâ)” (Deut 2:19). Beyond the repetitive use of the verb ntn (=to give) in Deuteronomy 2 for mentioning YHWH apportioning these lands, the god “fights” the Amorite inhabitants of Ammon (v. 21) exactly as he “fights” the Amorite kingdoms of Sihon (Deut 2:25, 2:30–31, 2:36) and Og (Deut 3:3) on behalf of the Israelites. He supports the Israelite conquest in parallel with other Southern Levantine movements of emancipation from the Amorite sovereignty. This conclusion is generally ignored in modern scholarship, in which the involvement of YHWH in the emergence of other nations is interpreted as the monotheistic expression of his supremacy and control over the historical processes of the entire world.18 However, Deuteronomy is not the only source explicitly expressing this singularity. THE POLEMIC AROUND THE CONQUEST OF SIHON’S KINGDOM

The Israelite victory over the kingdoms of Sihon and Og is also described in Numbers 21:21–35. Some significant differences exist, however, in the way the events are here related. The first concerns the divine injunction of conquering these territories, explicit in Deut 2:24 but absent from Numbers 21. Also the ban on the people of Sihon’s kingdom following the victory

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(Deut 2:34–35) is ommited in Numbers 21. Whereas the appropriation of Sihon’s kingdom is clearly the first event of the conquest of the Promised Land in Deuteronomy, these missing elements in Numbers call for a deeper look into the significance of this issue.

YHWH in the Conquest Narrative The war against Sihon is not treated in Numbers as a classical war of conquest. On the contrary, it results from the inappropriate reaction of the Amorite king (Num 21:23) to the request of the Israelites to peacefully cross his kingdom (Num 21:21–22), en route to the land of Canaan. In Numbers, the first conquest event is, therefore, the incidental consequence of a defensive war (Num 21:23–32), rather than a divine commandment of liberation of the land from Amorite hegemony. Its opportune nature appears at the beginning of the report (vv. 23–24): 23But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. He gathered all his people together and went out against Israel to the wilderness and came to Jahaz and fought against Israel. 24And Israel defeated him with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as to the Ammonites, for the border of the Ammonites was strong.

Curiously, the victory is not attributed here to YHWH, the god being absent from the narration. This situation contrasts with the claim of divine support of this war, formulated again and again in Deuteronomy 2 (Deut 2:24, 2:25, 2:31, 2:33, 2:36, 3:20). The anomaly identified in Numbers is especially striking because the subsequent conquest of Og’s kingdom (Num 21:33–35) was granted of divine support, and because these two wars have similar motivations (compare vv. 21–22 and v. 33) and issues (compare vv. 25–32 and v. 35). The difference between the two conquests, concerning divine support, probably does not result from a mere omission. A verse joining the two events expresses their difference concerning the divine involvement: “But YHWH said to Moses: ‘Do not fear him [Og], for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land. And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Hesbon’” (Num 21:24). Here, YHWH supports the Israelites in their conquest of Og’s kingdom but is silent concerning his involvement in the previous victory of the Israelites. Does this difference reflect a problem concerning the legitimacy of the Israelite conquest of Hesbon? In Deuteronomy 2, the conquest begins with the war against Sihon, a feature integrating these territories into the boundaries of the Promised Land.19 This view justifies why this war is necessarily supported by YHWH in Deuteronomy: 24Rise up, set out on your journey and go over the Valley of the Arnon. Behold, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to take possession (haḥ̄ e˘l raš), ̄ and contend with him in battle. 25This day I

THE POLEMIC AROUND THE CONQUEST OF SIHON’S KINGDOM

will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you. (Deut 2:24–25)

The situation differs in Numbers, where the boundaries of the Promised Land do not include the kingdoms of Sihon and Og. In Numbers 34, the first twelve verses that trace the limits of the Promised Land (with the explicit mention of the Jordan River as the eastern frontier in verse 12) are followed by three verses detailing the lands allotted to the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and half the tribe of Manasseh. Their geographical exclusion from the “Promised Land” is confirmed in Num 32:19, where the people from these tribes renounce their allotted portion in the Promised Land (“For we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan”) in favor of their settlement on the east bank of the Jordan River. Is the silence, in Numbers, concerning YHWH’s involvement in the conquest of Sihon’s kingdom explained by this situation?

The Allocation of the Conquered Territories Divine participation in war is not limited to the conquest of the Promised Land in the Bible. It is why the silence concerning divine support, in the war against Sihon (Numbers 32), might even reflect disapproval of the conquest of this land in Numbers, unlike its approbation in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy 3, Moses apportions the conquered lands of Sihon and Og to the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh (vv. 12–17). This event is immediately followed by Moses ensuring that YHWH approves of this allocation: “And I [YHWH] commanded you [Moses] at that time, saying, ‘YHWH your God has given you this land to possess’” (Deut 3:18a). The situation differs in Numbers 32, where the initiative comes neither from YHWH nor from Moses, but from the tribes concerned: 1Now

the people of Reuben and the people of Gad had a very great number of livestock. And they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for livestock. 2So the people of Gad and the people of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the chiefs of the congregation. (Num 32:1–2)

It is difficult here to dismiss the dissonance between the preoccupations of these tribes for their livestock and the divine project exposed in ExodusNumbers. The way theses tribes “recruit” YHWH for legitimizing their request confirms this impression: 4The land that YHWH struck down (hikkâ) before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock. 5And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let be given (yūttan) this land to your servants for a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan.” (Num 32:4–5)

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Here, the use of jussive (let be given) for alloting these lands contrasts with the claim of divine support by those interested in settling there. But this jussive corroborates the silence regarding the divine involvement in Numbers 21. The absence of divine consultation following this unsupported claim (Num 32:5) leaves the uncomfortable impression that asking YHWH might have disappointed the Israelites. The fact that Moses links this request to the refusal to conquer the Promised Land following the spy reports (Num 32:6–15) confirms the depiction of the conquest of Sihon as a transgression, and even a sin. The narration continues with Moses agreeing to the request without consulting YHWH (Num 32:28–33), and the immediate transformation of this decision into divine agreement: “And the people of Gad and the people of Reuben answered, ‘What YHWH has said to your servants, we will do’” (Num 32:31). These many incongruities suggest that the silence concerning the divine participation in the conquest, in Numbers 21, is probably not incidental. Rather, it expresses a latent criticism of the appropriation of the territories east of the Jordan River and their integration into the “Promised Land” granted to the Israelites.

The Abnormal Controversy Two theological positions coexist in the Bible concerning the legitimacy of the Israelite appropriation of Sihon’s kingdom. A first one, articulated in Deuteronomy 2–3, approaches it as the first event in the conquest of the Promised Land sponsored by YHWH. The other, identified in Numbers, condemns this approach through criticizing the attitude of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh (Numbers 32). It rejects the accession of these territories into the Promised Land and the divine participation in this war. Traces of this antagonism are visible even in Deuteronomy 2. There, the divine instruction for conquering Sihon’s kingdom (Deut 2:24–25) is not followed by any preparation for war. Rather, the Israelites inform Sihon that they intend to cross his kingdom to reach the Promised Land (Deut 2:29). This request is unexpected if the Israelites approached this area as an integrative part of their dominion promised by YHWH. This anomaly suggests that the narration in Deuteronomy 2–3 is a reinterpretation of an ancient opinion expressed in Numbers 21.20 Further indications support this premise. The reference to the conquest of Sihon’s kingdom in Deut 4:46 does not mention any divine participation or support given to the Israelites. It merely informs us that Sihon was the king “whom Moses and the people of Israel defeated when they came out of Egypt.” The same absence of divine support is visible in Jos 13:8–12, a section relating the appropriation by the Israelites of the kingdoms of Sihon and Og. Here again, the war and victory are resumed (v. 12b) by a laconic formula devoid of any reference to YHWH: “Moses smote and cast them

EARLY ISRAEL COMMITMENTS

out” (wayakke ̄m mo ̄šeh wayo ̄rišem ̄ ).21 If crossing the Arnon River, in Deut 2:24, symbolizes the entry of the Israelites into the Promised Land, this conflicts with the tradition of the entry into the Promised Land by crossing the Jordan River, near Gilgal, extensively detailed in Jos 3:7–4:23. Furthermore, the lands given by YHWH to the people installed west of the Jordan River, and the territories allotted by Moses to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh do not have the same status in the Book of Joshua. This becomes clear when Joshua calls these three tribes to participate in the war of conquest “until YHWH gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also take possession of the land that YHWH your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession and shall possess it, the land that Moses the servant of YHWH gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise” (Jos 1:15). These observations confirm that the tradition related in Deuteronomy 2–3 is probably more recent than its homolog from Numbers 21. This conclusion is intriguing. With the early assimilation of the Jordan’s eastern bank into Israel, we might expect this area to be rapidly integrated into the dominion identified in the Bible as the Promised Land, without arousing controversy many centuries later.22 This anomaly suggests that the conquest of Sihon’s kingdom raises some fundamental questions concerning the emergence of Israel and its theological background.23 EARLY ISRAEL COMMITMENTS

The Conflict Surrounding the Appropriation of Heshbon Immediately after the defeat of Sihon (v. 24) and the appropriation of his dominion (v. 25), Numbers 21 suddenly introduces a historical notice, informing us that this Amorite kingdom is located in the northern part of the land of the Moabites (v. 26). Such detail is exceptional in the biblical narratives devoted to the Israelite conquest. And instead of limiting the information to this neutral report, the author quotes an old Moabite lament bewailing the loss of their land (Num 21:27–30). This unusual reference is especially incongruous here because it arouses empathy for the tragic fate of the Moabites at the time of the Israelite conquest of this territory. Since no pejorative connotation of Moab transpires from these verses, their insertion becomes highly subversive. Identifying the Moabites as the historical owners of this land, it immediately nullifies the legitimacy of its conquest by the Israelites. Deuteronomy 2 instructs us that YHWH sponsors the other emerging nations, and forbids the conquest of their land by the Israelites. This situation might justify the singular position expressed in Numbers concerning the Israelite conquest of the region of Heshbon formerly affiliated with the Moabites. It seems that the Israelites cannot conquer it, even from the

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Amorites. But unlike Moab, the territory of the Og’s kingdom was not previously the possession of anyone of the newly emerging nations. Consequently, the Israelites may invade their territory, and its conquest may even be sponsored by YHWH. Further indications corroborate this interpretation. The Motivations for Balaam’s Curse In Numbers, the Israelite conquest of the land of Sihon (Chapter 21) is immediately followed by the attempt of Balak, the king of Moab, to curse the Israelites. Numbers 22 accounts for the fear of the Moabites that the Israelites will conquer their land after their victory on Sihon: 2And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. 3And Moab was in great dread of the people, because they were many. Moab was overcome with fear of the people of Israel. 4And Moab said to the elders of Midian, “This horde will now lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.”

These presumptions are unjustified, as the Book of Numbers explicitly formulates the peaceful intentions of the Israelites in their regard (Num 21:12–20). However, Balak’s fear becomes fully justified if the Moabites still regarded the kingdom of Sihon as an integral part of their territory that remains to be liberated from Amorite authority. The first verse of the story of Balak, describing the Israelites staying in the southwestern part of Sihon’s kingdom as standing in the plains of Moab (Num 22:1), advocates for this interpretation. It also confirms that the author of Numbers considered Sihon’s domain as an integral part of Moab’s territory. The Jephthah War against Ammon Judges 11 relates a conflict between Ammon and Israel, and details its origin. This chapter informs us that the Ammonites asked their Israelite neighbors to restore the province of Heshbon to their owners. This request refers explicitly to the Israelite conquest of this territory after defeating Sihon: “And the king of the Ammonites answered the messengers of Jephthah, ‘Because Israel on coming up from Egypt took away my land, from the Arnon to the Jabbok and to the Jordan; now therefore restore it peaceably’” (Judg 11:13). The narration extends in presenting the Israelite leader, Jephthah, forwarding three counterarguments to this request: • First argument (vv. 17–20): The conquest was not a deliberate decision, but merely the result of a defensive war against the Amorites. In offering this argument, the Israelites acknowledge that the intentional conquest of this land is unjustifiable. It confirms that this territory was not regarded as an integral part of the “Promised Land.” • Second argument (vv. 21–22): Jephthah defends the legitimacy of this conquest in arguing that it merited YHWH’s support. However, as mentioned above,

EARLY ISRAEL COMMITMENTS

such a claim was questioned for centuries, even in Israel. The addition of a third argument confirms the weakness of this second one. • Third argument (vv. 25–26): The lack of protest for two centuries of Israelite appropriation of the land of Sihon expresses the tacit agreement of Ammon and Moab. By this means, again, the Israelites acknowledge that this land was historically the possession of the Moabites, but their renunciation of its recovery legitimizes its possession by the Israelites.

These arguments leave little doubt that the Israelites acknowledged the original Moabite ownership on the land of Heshbon. They justified their appropriation of this land not by the wish to steal it from the Moabites but by its liberation from Amorite hegemony, with the tacit agreement of the Moabites. Heshbon in Oracles and Laments The Mesha stele, which mentions the destruction of Israelite cities and their population, probably refers to a Moabite campaign of reconquista of their historical land conducted by King Mesha.24 Therefore, it represents the reaction of the Moabites to the Israelite refusal to restore the land of Heshbon to their former indigenous owners.25 This Israelite defeat is silenced in the historical corpus of the Bible, despite its dramatic consequences. Even more, the city of Hesbon is cited in oracles devoted to Moab (Isa 15:4, 16:8; Jer 48:2, 48:34, 48:45) without any reference to the Israelite presence in this region.26 In these verses, the prophets bemoan the destruction of the city and the subsequent collapse of Moab. But these circumstances do not incite any retaliation on the part of the Israelite prophets against the Moabites. This situation is inconceivable if the land of Heshbon was truly considered in Israel as an integral part of their “Promised Land.” Curiously, the violent expulsion of the Israelites reported in the Mesha stele is not considered in the Isaiah and Jeremiah oracles as a justification for the destruction of Moab by YHWH.27 It confirms that most Israelites believed that the land of Heshbon was granted to the Moabites by YHWH, up to the end of the monarchic period.

Traces of the Fraternal Alliance The controversy surrounding the legitimacy of the conquest of Sihon’s kingdom reveals that Israel was not isolated in the Southern Levant. Rather, it seems that all the newly emerging nations shared the same ideal of emancipation from the Amorite authority. The problems inherent in the Israelite conquest of the region of Sihon, together with the identification of Abraham as the mythical founding father of this movement, even suggest that the newly emerging nations were all committed to the same ethical principles patronized by YHWH.28

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table 3.1 The sins of the nations in Amos 1:1–2:6

Verses

Nation

Sin

Interpretation

1:3–5

Damascus (Aram)

1:6–8

Philistines

1:9–10

Tyre

1:11–12

Edom

1:13–15

Ammon

2:1–3

Moab

2:4–5

Judah

2:6

Israel

they have thrashed Galaad with Overall destruction of a iron wains (1:3b) neighbor country they carried into exile a whole Enslavement and people to deliver them up to deportation of Edom (1:6b) neighbor peoples they delivered up a whole people to Enslavement and Edom (1:9b) deportation of neighbor peoples he pursued his brother with the Overuse of violence and cruelty regarding sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and their neighbors he kept his wrath forever (1:11b) they have ripped open pregnant Conquest through the women in Gilead, that they exercise of violence might enlarge their border (1:13b) he burned to lime the bones of Exaggerated acts of the king of Edom (2:1b) vengeance they have rejected the law of Rejection of YHWH’s YHWH and have not kept his alliance statutes (2:4b) they sell the righteous for silver, Lack of social justice and the needy for a pair of sandals (2:6b)

The first oracle from Amos corroborates this conclusion. It formulates the divine anger against the Southern Levantine nations for their mutual conflicts, including the conquest of new territories, cruel behavior, servitude, and enslavement, all regarded as violations arousing YHWH’s anger (see Table 3.1). Such a grievance is relevant only if these actions violate the rules commonly accepted by all these nations. The oracle condemns Tyre for infringing a charter involving all these nations, here designated as the fraternal alliance/covenant of brotherhood: “Thus says YHWH: ‘For three transgressions of Tyre, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they delivered up a whole captivity to Edom, and did not remember the covenant of brotherhood (be˘rîtʾaḥîm)’” (Am 1:9). The divine injunction addressed to the Israelites not to conquer the territory of Edom, Moab, and Ammon in Deuteronomy 2 is probably a consequence of this covenant. Such a “fraternal alliance” enables us to clarify the curious issue of the war against Moab conducted by Israel and its allies, Judah and Edom (2 Kings 3). The story relates a general indignation after the armies extensively destroyed the land of Moab (v. 25) and led them to acts of despair (v. 26): “Then he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place and offered him for a

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burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath (qe˘ṣe˘p gado ̄ ̑l) against Israel. And they withdrew from him and returned to their own land” (2 Kgs 3:27). The narrator remains silent concerning the motivation of such a sudden withdrawal.29 But it may have resulted from a violation of the fraternal alliance by the Israelites, and the fear of YHWH’s curse as punishment.30 The affiliation to Abraham of most Southern Levantine emerging nations reflects a similar trend. Abraham’s war against the foreign kings for rescuing Lot and his family in Genesis 14 may be a literary expression of a commitment of solidarity of all these nations in the face of external threats. The surprising message sent by Jeremiah to Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Siddon, in the name of YHWH, not to fight the king of Babylon who was threatening Judah and Jerusalem (Jer 27:1–11) indicates that they were expected to participate in the war and that YHWH normally sponsored this commitment. The lament on Moab in Jeremiah 48 corroborates these conclusions. There, the prophet suddenly reproaches Moab for its neutrality in the conflict between Judah and Babylon: “Cursed is he who does the work of YHWH with slackness, and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from bloodshed” (Jer 48:10). The accusation makes sense, here again, only if solidarity was expected, in the name of YHWH, vis-à-vis an external threat. IMPLICATIONS CONCERNING YHWH’S AUTHORITY

The first oracle in Amos suggests that the fraternal alliance included laws of war prohibiting the overall destruction of the land, acts of excess cruelty, prolonged hostilities, exaggerated retaliation, and enslavement of “brother” peoples. These commitments are not surprising between peoples emancipated from the same Amorite domination. They express a collective banishment of the practices anciently exerted by foreign tyrannical powers against the local populations. What is of importance, however, is the sponsorship of this alliance by YHWH. Traces of YHWH’s commitments to non-Israelites are visible in biblical oracles addressed to the nations.31 Using the monotheistic key for reading, these prophecies are frequently interpreted as an aspiration for the extension of YHWH’s sovereignty over the whole world.32 However, the existence of a fraternal alliance invites us to examine whether these oracles merely reflect a specific commitment of YHWH regarding these nations. Some oracles express a divine wish addressed to neighbor peoples through the voice of Israelite prophets.33 The Jeremiah oracles to Moab, Ammon, and Elam announce that YHWH will punish them by exile for their sins (Jer 48:46, 49:5, 49:36, respectively), but they also promise that YHWH will bring them back to their land in the future (Jer 48:47, 49:6, 49:39, respectively). The same dynamic of exile for sins and return applies to Tyre in Isa 23:13–18 (and even to Egypt in Ezek

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29:13–15). These claims are similar to those from the oracles on Israel, a feature stressing the parallel commitment of YHWH to all these nations.

Moab The Mesha stele (ninth century BC) declares that the king of Moab carried off “[the ve]ssels of YHWH (wʾqḥ.mšm.ʾ[t.k]ly.yhwh) from the Israelite sanctuary of Ataroth, and dragged them before Kemoš (wʾsḥb.hm.lpny.kmš).”34 This act is generally understood as a transfer of precious spoils from the Israelite sanctuary of YHWH to the Moabite sanctuary of Kemoš. However, as Juan Tebes notes, this report “is hardly evidence of the Moabite recognition of YHWH as ‘the official god of the Israelites’, as some have argued.”35 Rather, it may merely specify that king Mesha preserved the cultic vessels of YHWH from the spoils of the destruction and lodged them in the temple of Kemoš.36 This interpretation is especially relevant regarding the biblical indications of Moabite deference to YHWH. In Numbers 22, Balak attempts to curse the Israelites in the name of YHWH, not Kemoš. The mention of this Moabite king making sacrifices to him (Num 23:2–3, 23:15) concurs. Even more, Balak does not approach YHWH as a foreign deity in Numbers 24:11. The laments over the fall of Moab corroborate this conclusion. In Isaiah 15–16, the collapse of Moab is not presented as the punishment for the destruction of the Israelite cities and YHWH’s sanctuary recounted in the Mesha stele. Instead, YHWH highlights his “empathy” for these people and their fate: “11Therefore my inner parts moan like a lyre for Moab, and my inmost self for Kir-Hareseth.12And when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, when he comes to his sanctuary to pray, he will not prevail (we˘lo ʾ̄ yûkal̄ ). 13This is the word that YHWH spoke concerning Moab in the past” (Isa 16:11–13). Identifying Moab as the sumptuous vine of the divine garden, in both the Isaiah and Jeremiah laments (Isa 16:9; Jer 48:31–32), reveals that this nation and Israel are granted the same metaphor in the same prophetic books.37 The parallel with Israel becomes even more explicit in the Jeremiah lament on Moab: “Then Moab shall be ashamed of Kemoš, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, their confidence” (Jer 48:13).38 Accordingly, the Jeremiah 48 lament should be approached as a sincere elegy rather than a divine mockery for the fall of an enemy of Israel.39 The three causes for the fall of Moab in Jeremiah 48 strengthen this closeness to YHWH: • Hubris: The first grievance against Moab, hubris, appears in verse 7 (“For, because you trusted in your works and your treasures, you also shall be taken; and Kemoš shall go into exile with his priests and his officials”). The confidence of Moab in its warriors (v. 14) and their legendary pride (v. 29) amplifies this interpretation.

IMPLICATIONS CONCERNING YHWH’S AUTHORITY

Later in the lament, this hubris becomes a sin against YHWH: “Moab shall be destroyed and be no longer a people, because he magnified himself against YHWH (kî ʿal YHWH higddîl)” (v. 42).40 This grievance is meaningful only if the Moabites were committed to YHWH.41 Verse 26 adds that wine consumption will be a part of their punishment for hubris: “Make him drunk, because he magnified himself against YHWH, so that Moab shall wallow in his vomit, and he too shall be held in derision.” In the Bible, the prohibition on wine consumption is reserved for people who consider themselves close to YHWH, both in Israel (nazir in Num 6:2–4 and Judg 13:5, 13:13) and outside of it (Rekhabites in Jer 35:6, 35:19). Here, this status also concerns the elite among the Moabites. Self-indulgence accompanied by overconfidence in their closeness to YHWH is, therefore, the first sin of the Moabites exposed in the Jeremiah lament. • Violation of the fraternal alliance: Verse 10 unveils the second justification for the fall of Moab: “Cursed is he who does the work of YHWH with slackness, and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from bloodshed” (Jer 48:10). This grievance remains so obscure in the context of the exclusivity of the Israel–YHWH relationship that most scholars consider this verse to be a late gloss.42 However, this motivation is clarified in the context of the fraternal alliance, in which Moab becomes condemned by YHWH for its neutrality during the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Another reference to this sin, in verse 27, mixes the neutrality of the Moabites with mockery concerning the bitter fate of the Israelites. • Overconfidence in secondary deities: The lament includes a third motivation for the fall of Moab: the devotion of the Moabites to their gods: “And I will bring to an end in Moab, declares YHWH, him who sacrifices in the high place and burns incense to its gods” (v. 35). Such an accusation does not refer to a sin of idolatry because the gods of Moab are not mocked or denied. It is meaningful only if a devotion to YHWH may be expected from the Moabites. The other formulation of this sin, in verse 13, incriminates the Moabites for their exaggerated confidence in Kemoš. This last sin is especially interesting. It condemns this form of devotion to Kemoš without denying his legitimacy as patron-god of the Moabites. In verse 7, the complaint even bemoans the exile of Kemoš, together with his priests and his people.43

These indications reveal that YHWH was apparently committed to Moab, and that most people there did not venerate him directly but through Kemoš, their patron deity. It is not surprising to see this indirect worship approached as a sin in a prophetic book defending an exclusive worship of YHWH.

Ammon Ammon is frequently twinned with Moab in the Bible, where both peoples are called “the sons of Lot” (Deut 2:9, 2:19; Ps 83:9). Even Kemoš, the

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patron deity of Moab, is occasionally identified as the god of Ammon (e.g., Judg 11:24). These homologies suggest that YHWH’s commitment to Moab probably extended to Ammon. The parallels between the lament on Moab (Jeremiah 48) and Ammon (Jer 49:1–6) support this premise. The similar fates of Kemoš in Jer 48:7b (“and Kemoš shall go into exile with his priests and his officials”) and Milkom in Jer 49:3b (“For Milkom shall go into exile, with his priests and his officials”) coincide. The prestige of YHWH in Ammon is confirmed by the integration of this nation, in Jer 9:24–25, along with the Judahites into the list of circumcised peoples. The punishment by exile of Ammon’s sin (Amos 1:15) confirms this feature. More compelling is YHWH’s promise of returning the Ammonites from captivity in the future (Jer 49:6), which unveils the divine commitment to this nation. That YHWH was the supreme authority acknowledged by the Ammonites may be deduced from the quarrel concerning the legitimacy of Israel’s conquest of the land of Heshbon reported in Judges. Jephthah answered the call to restore this land to its Moabite owners by inviting Israel’s neighbors to a trial by war that was expected to reveal the position of YHWH in this conflict: “I therefore have not sinned against you, and you do me wrong by making war on me. YHWH the Judge, decide this day between the people of Israel and the people of Ammon” (Judg 11:27). This verse suggests that the Israelites did not consider YHWH as only their patron-god, but also as the judge and supreme authority concerning the conflicts within the fraternal alliance, to which Ammon was committed.

Tyre The appellation of Tyre as “Eden, Garden of God” in the Ezekiel elegy on the city (Ezek 28:13) implies that YHWH was also worshiped there. The mention of the prince of Tyre being not only circumcized (Ezek 28:10) but also sitting on the “seat of gods” (mo ̑šab e˘lo h̄ îm) (Ezek 28:2), acknowledges his participation in the divine council, like the Israelite prophets.44 The outstanding wisdom inherent in this privilege is also mentioned in the lament (Ezek 28:4–5). The worship of YHWH in the Tyrian colonies (frequently designated as “islands” in the Bible45) is mentioned in Isaiah and Psalms.46 It is likely, therefore, that Tyre was the matrix for the dissemination of the cult of YHWH into her colonies.47 The Tyrian expectation of becoming the “gate of the nations” after the fall of Jerusalem (Ezek 26:2) was not motivated by any economic competition with the city of David. Rather, it probably reflects a challenge to the status of the holy city of YHWH at the mid-first millennium BC. The parallel holiness of Tyre and Jerusalem may explain why none of the biblical authors denounces the Tyrian involvement in the construction of the temple of Jerusalem related in 1 Kgs 7:13–45. Nor does anyone criticize

IMPLICATIONS CONCERNING YHWH’S AUTHORITY

Solomon’s gift to Hiram of the land of Cabul as the counterpart of this Tyrian contribution (1 Kgs 9:11–12), although such a gift implies the transfer of allegiance for its inhabitants from the god of Israel to the god of Tyre. It is also noteworthy that the cult of Melqart is never explicitly condemned by biblical prophets, although he was probably worshipped in territories of mixed Israelite and Phoenician influence.48 This intriguing silence suggests that Melqart was probably the Phoenician homolog of the ‘Emissary of YHWH’ acknowledged in the Bible for protecting the Israelites.49

Edom The case for Edomite worship of YHWH has been debated for quite some time.50 Sufficient is the evidence that Seir, the “homeland” of YHWH in Deut 33:2 and Judg 5:5, was attributed to the Edomites by YHWH (Deut 2:5) for arguing it. And there is a parallel divine commitment to Israel and Edom. YHWH is the guardian (šo m ̑ e r̄ ) of Israel in Ps 121:4 and of Edom in Isa 51 21:11–12. YHWH is even the god of Edomite salvation in Jer 49:11.52 The assumption of Edomite worship of YHWH finds support in the inscription from Kuntillet Ajrud mentioning “YHWH from Teman,” a term used in the Bible to designate Edom (Amos 1:12; Jer 49:7, 49:20; Ezek 25:13; Obad 9) or a part of it (Gen 36:11, 36:15, 36:42).53 The specific mention of Edom in Amos 9:12 before all the nations “who are called by YHWH’s name” even acknowledges an Edomite leadership in the worship of YHWH in the Southern Levant.54 Also in Israel, the first oracle in Malachi denounces those acknowledging the prominence of Edom in the cult of YHWH: “‘I have loved you’, says YHWH. But you say, ‘How have you loved us? Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?’” (Mal 1:2).55 The Edomite vanguard in the worship of YHWH is confirmed by the content of the blessing that Isaac initially intended for Esau, claiming that nations ̆ û) to Edom (Gen 27:29). Since this nation was a ‘will bow down’ (we˘yišttaḥa w tiny entity devoid of imperialistic ambitions, such a blessing necessarily refers to a leadership of religious nature.56 References to Edomite wisdom (Jer 49:7; Obad 8), together with the Edomite location of the Book of Job, reveal that these people were recognized for their knowledge of YHWH, even by the Israelites.57 The Edomite origin of some poets and singers appointed to the Jerusalem temple confirms their prestigious status, even when compared to the Israelite religious elite.58 Scholars challenged these conclusions because Qos, rather than YHWH, appears in the Edomite theophoric names. They identify Qos, not YHWH, as the patron-god of Edom.59 This argument does not disprove the Edomite commitment to YHWH, if Qos was the local counterpart of Melqart in Tyre and the divine emissary of YHWH protecting the Israelites.60

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Philistines Assuming a worship of YHWH among the Philistines is especially challenging due to their designation as uncircumcised people61, because circumcision is the typical marker of alliance with YHWH in the Bible (e.g., Gen 17:4,10). Furthermore, the Philistines are not indigenous people who liberated themselves from a foreign power, but immigrants of Mediterranean origin. It is why the mention of the Philistines among those peoples committed to the fraternal alliance in the first Amos oracle (Am 1:6–8; see Table 3.1) is, at first sight, surprising. However, the last Amos oracle (Amos 9) mentions that YHWH sponsored their exodus from Caphtor (Crete) and their settlement in Canaan: “Did I not bring up Israel from the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor and Aram from Kir?” (Amos 9:7a). Additionally, Deuteronomy 2 includes the Philistines (Deut 2:23) among all peoples (Israel, Edom, Moab, and Ammon) granted a heritage by YHWH. These prophecies testify to the fact that, besides the indigenous nations, foreign peoples newly installed on the ashes of the Amorite kingdoms may have joined the fraternal alliance. Some allusions suggest that YHWH was a prestigious deity among the Philistines. The mention of the Philistine (Carites) guardians swearing in the name of YHWH in the Jerusalem temple (2 Kgs 11:4, 11:19) corroborates this conclusion.62 The mention of sons of Qorah dwelling among the Philistines, in Ps 87:4, also suggests that they organized the musical worship of YHWH there.63 We read in Genesis that King Abimelekh encounters YHWH in a dream and is instructed by him (Gen 20:3–7). Like the Israelite prophets, this Philistine king defends his people against YHWH’s anger: “My Lord ( ʾa d̆ o ̄naȳ ), will you kill an innocent people?” (Gen 20:4). Later, the same king Abimelekh invites Abraham (Gen 21:22–23) and Isaac (Gen 26:28) to ally with him in the name of YHWH. The meeting of Abraham and Isaac with the Philistines is obviously an historical fiction, but the presentation of Abimelekh in Genesis as YHWH’s faithful servant and even prophet is not an exceptional event. In the Book of Samuel, the king of Gath (also called Abimelekh)64 likens David to the emissary of YHWH, himself mentioned as a beneficent deity: “I know that you are good in my sight as an emissary of God (malʾak ʾe˘lo ̄hîm)” (1 Sam 29:9). As with the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28, the Philistine king interacts with YHWH and seems to be the guarantor of the fraternal alliance among his people. These conclusions are apparently challenged in 1 Samuel 17 by the Goliath’s mocking the Israelites as being godless people, which is deduced from David’s answer: “And that all this assembly may know that YHWH saves not with sword and spear; For the battle is YHWH’s, and he will give you into our hand” (1 Sam 17:47). However, the injunction grasps another meaning once freed from the context of exclusivity of the YHWH–Israel relationship. Instead of scorning the Israelites for believing in an inefficient deity, Goliath taunts them

IMPLICATIONS CONCERNING YHWH’S AUTHORITY

for their hope in YHWH’s protection, whereas his status of patron of the fraternal alliance warrants his neutrality in internal conflicts. Thus, calling for YHWH, instead of any local patron-god, renders the Israelites unprotected by any deity.65 The integration of the Philistines into the fraternal alliance may explain the divine empathy expressed in the Jeremiah lament about their destruction (Jer 47:5–6). The prophecy addressed to the Philistines in Ezek 25:15–17 confirms this point by ending with the formula “and they shall know that I am YHWH” (v. 15). This claim closes the parallel messages addressed to Ammon (vv. 5, 7), Moab (v. 11), and Seir/Edom (v. 14), all belonging to the fraternal alliance. The biblical sources quoted here reveal that something guided the emergence of early Israel besides the ideology of conquest and appropriation of the land of Canaan. This principle integrated Israel into a broad movement of emancipation from Amorite/Egyptian authority in the Southern Levant. This alliance committed all its members to an ethical code identified here as the “fraternal alliance,” which prohibited wars of conquest among its members and introduced the principles of solidarity. This conclusion has many implications. • YHWH’s commitment to the newly emerging nations suggests that this god was among the most prestigious deities in the Southern Levant. Consequently, their worship of a patron-deity invites us to treat all of them as YHWH’s emissaries, each one appointed for protecting a specific nation. • Most testimony about interactions with YHWH among the nations concern the king, who is eventually granted prophetic powers. This situation contrasts with Israel, where closeness to YHWH involves the whole people, at least theoretically. • If YHWH did aid the emancipation movement, it is likely that the hostility to Baal-Haddu in the Bible does not reflect any religious exclusivity, at least in early Israel. Rather, it expresses rejection of the Amorite cultural markers, especially the quintessence of their hegemony. • The integration of Israel into the movement of emancipation does not necessarily betray their indigenous origin (e.g., the Philistines), but it explicitly rejects the idea of appropriating the land of indigenous people from the Southern Levant. It is therefore incompatible with the narrative of conquest of the “Promised Land” from the Canaanite inhabitants and their expulsion or extermination. These contrasting views suggest that at least two Yahwistic ideologies coexisted concerning the emergence of Israel. • All biblical authors do not harbor the same attitude regarding the movement of emancipation. Whereas the Israelite conquest of Hesbon and its region is disapproved of in Numbers 21 and 32, it becomes an Israelite victory granted by YHWH in Deut 31:4. It means that the commitment to the fraternal alliance prevails for some authors, whereas the competing ideology of conquest and exclusivity of the YHWH–Israel relationship is more important for others.

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3.1 Incense burner with dotted serpents from Beth Shean. Photo Zev Radovan/Bible and Land Pictures.

The biblical sources referring (generally discreetly) to the fraternal alliance do not fulfill any apologetic purpose promoting any Israel leadership as the people of YHWH. Their counterproductive incidence in this regard suggests that the references to the fraternal alliance and the non-Israelite worship of YHWH are historically grounded. Even biblical sources of postexilic composition have preserved the memory of critical events belonging to the early history of Israel. The case of Numbers is especially instructive. This book preserved reminiscences of historical realities, exemplified by the commitment to the fraternal alliance in the matter of the Israelite conquest of Hesbon, even though this account undermines the ideology of conquest of the “Promised Land” defended in this book. This conclusion extends to Deuteronomy, Joshua, and most prophetic books. Although theologically oriented and

IMPLICATIONS CONCERNING YHWH’S AUTHORITY

composed later, these books encompass information of critical importance for the reconstitution of the early history of Israel. Identifying a fraternal alliance sponsored by YHWH in the whole Southern Levant enables us to clarify the question of the origins of this deity. Whereas both an Amorite and indigenous origin remain theoretically possible from the data exposed in the previous chapter, the historical fundaments of the fraternal alliance lead us to position the worship of YHWH in the indigenous, Southern Levantine culture. It means that the positive representation of the serpent in cultic context, during the early Israelite period (see Figure 3.1, for example), should not be regarded as a marker of deviant fertility cults of Canaanite origin, but rather as the expression of the renewal of pre-Amorite, Yahwistic values. It also means that the Baal-like approach to YHWH and the claim of an Amorite cultural ancestry for the people of Israel are either the expression of a minor Yahwistic trend dating from the early Israel period, or the marker of a Babylonian exilic influence on the Israelite theology. The conjunction of both eventualities should not be excluded.

NOTES 1 Wolff (1979: 347) locates Kir in the Habur region (Upper Euphrates). In this case, the oracle claims the Amorite origin of the Aramean people, and the religious transformations they have undergone in the Early Iron Age. 2 Identifying Caphtor as Crete results from the appellation of the Philistines as Cretans in 1 Sam 30:14, Ezek 25:16, and Zeph 2:5, and from the designation of Caphtor as the island of the Philistines in Jer 47:4. 3 These quotations acknowledge the preservation of the memory of historical events dating from the emergence of Israel, even in writings composed many centuries later. See Wolff 1979: 347; Malamat 1983: 306; Paul 1991: 283; Wazana 2005: 234. Contra, Peter Machinist (1994: 50) argues that the parallel stressed in Amos 9:7 is a literary argument. 4 Andersen and Freedman 1989: 869, 873; Bramer 1999: 273. 5 Paul 1991: 282–3. 6 Wolff 1979: 347. 7 Andersen and Freedman 1989: 888–90. 8 Wolff 1979: 353; Paul 1991: 292. 9 Wolff 1979: 345. 10 Hadjiev 2009: 122–3. 11 The reference to the Promised Land as the country of the Amorites is reiterated in Deut 1:19, 20, a feature confirming this message. 12 For Moshe Weinfeld (1991: 170), “The crossing of the Arnon River is perceived as the beginning of the conquest and the fulfillment of the promises to the Patriarchs.” 13 EA 197, 246. 14 Bartlett 1970: 258, 266–7; Luke 1983: 231; Miller 1989: 578; Mendenhall 1992: 201. 15 ANET: 329; Day 2009: 339. Additionally, the integration of the Dead Sea and its surrounding landscape in the myth of the origin of Moab and Ammon (Gen 19:30–8) advocates their indigenous nature. Nili Wazana (2005: 226) concludes that “this fantastic tale reflects a native concept of the origin of Moab and Ammon.” This indigenous nature becomes explicit in the Jeremiah Lament on Moab, mentioning that this people has never moved from its native land before: “Moab has been at ease from his youth and has settled on his lees (še˘mārāyw); he has

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16 17

18 19 20

21 22

23

24 25 26

27

28 29 30 31

not been emptied from vessel to vessel, nor has he gone into exile; so his taste remains in him, and his scent is not changed” (Jer 48:11). Sumner 1968: 219–20; Wazana 2005: 227. The former inhabitants of this region are called ḥo ̄rîm in Deut 2:12, an appellation generally identified with the Hurrians, the incomers closely related to the Amorites. This interpretation integrates Edom within the process leading to the birth of Ammon, Moab, and Israel, but the territory of Edom being almost empty in the Late Bronze Age, the Amorites probably did not rule it in the Late Bronze Age. However, ḥo ̄rîm in Genesis 36 designates an indigenous people fully integrated in the Edomite nation. Rather than referring to the Hurrians, it might designate these former inhabitants as diggers (ḥr = hole, mine; ḥrr = to dig, see Amzallag 2017a: 770), an appellation well appropriate for inhabitants of this mining area. Woods 2011: 88–90. Weinfeld 1991: 170. Weinfeld 1991: 175; Glatt-Gilad 1997: 452. Contra: Sumner (1968: 225–6) argues the ancientness of the Deuteronomy’s version regarding the Numbers’ version. Weinberg (1991: 172) identifies the ban on Sihon’s kingdom in Deut 2:34–37 (a treatment reserved to the previous inhabitants of the Promised Land, and absent from Numbers 21) as a segment grafted on an ancient narration. A similar absence of divine participation recurs when the same event is reported in Jos 13:21. For Moshe Weinfeld (1991: 174), “It is strange that Gilead, which was settled hundreds of years by Israelites, was not included within the borders of the Promised Land, while Lebanon and Damascus, which were never settled by the Israelites, are considered to be part of it.” Another singularity in Numbers 21 deserves special attention. Whereas YHWH is absent from the conquest of Sihon’s kingdom, the god of Israel suddenly champions the conquest of Og’s dominion: “But YHWH said to Moses, ‘Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land. And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon’’” (Num 21:34). The almost identical formulation, in Deut 3:2, unveils a convergence of views concerning the legitimacy of an Israelite appropriation of Og’s kingdom. This means that the main problem in this controversy concerns the Israelite possession of Sihon’s kingdom. ANET: 320–1; Lipiński 2006: 337–9. The reference to Hesbon and its surroundings as a Moabite land before the Amorite conquest (Num 21:26) confirms this view. See Wazana 2005: 226. The fall of Ammon is approached in Jer 49:1–6 as a punishment for their conquest of the Gad territory. This feature unchallenges the thesis exposed here because Ammon extends its hegemony not on its original territory, but on a land historically belonging to Moab (like in the Jephthah war). This may explain why the expulsion of the Gadites is reproached to Ammon but not to Moab, as normally expected. In the lament on Moab, Jeremiah does not even counter the recriminations of the Moabites seemingly concerning the Israelite appropriation of Hesbon and its periphery: “Was not Israel a derision to you? Was he found among thieves, that whenever you spoke of him you wagged your head?” (Jer 48:27). The existence in the Iron Age of such an ethical code in the Southern Levant is suggested by McConville (2004: 31) and Brueggemann (1997: 503). Ray 2003: 24. Wiseman 1993: 202; Stern 1993: 11–13; Cogan and Tadmor 1988: 48. Nelson (1987: 169) identifies a correlation between this anger and the restrictions formulated in Deuteronomy 2. Their incompatibility with the classical scheme of the YHWH–Israel exclusivist relationship may explain their minor importance both in exegesis and in modern research. Julie Woods (2009: 12) noticed that “The most notable aspect in the field of OAN [oracles against nations] is the lack of attention that has traditionally been given to the OANs (either Jeremiah’s or the OANs more generally).”

IMPLICATIONS CONCERNING YHWH’S AUTHORITY

32 Jones 1992: 498–507. 33 The way such a request is formulated in Isa 20:3 and Ezek 3:5–6 reveals that it is in no way exceptional. The Israelite psalmists inhabiting among neighbor peoples (e.g., Psalms 42 and 87) and their involvement in the local musical worship of YHWH (Psalm 67) reflect the same reality. See Amzallag 2014a and 2015a. 34 Mesha inscription, line 18. Translated by Niccacci 1994: 4–5. 35 Tebes 2018: 174. 36 The reconstitution ʾ[t.k]ly.yhwh (=the vessels of YHWH) is challenged by Lipiński (1971: 335) and Lemaire (1987: 208–9), who suggest reading ʾ[rʾ]ly.yhwh (=the rams of YHWH). This option even strengthens the interpretation proposed here in claiming that the sacrifices originally devoted to YHWH at Ataroth were performed in the temple of Kemoš. 37 Isa 5:4–7; Jer 2:21; Hos 10:1. 38 Brueggemann 1998a: 442–5. 39 This interpretation now replaces its former approach as a taunt elegy. See Woods (2009: 226) for a review of this opinion. Terence Fretheim (1984: 133) expresses the difficulty of integrating this divine attitude in the paradigm of the exclusiveness of Israel in the worship of YHWH: “To hear such mourning on the part of God for a non-Israelite people is striking indeed. Most of this language is also used to describe the weeping and wailing of the Moabites, so that the impression created is that of a God whose lamentation is as deep and broad as that of the people themselves.” 40 Fretheim 2002: 576–7; Carroll 1986: 795. 41 Brueggemann 1998a: 446. 42 For example, Carroll 1986: 783; Fretheim 2002: 597; Lundbom 2004: 262; Holladay 1989: 342; Woods 2009: 186. 43 The legitimacy of Kemoš as patron-god of Moab is confirmed by the neutral appellation of the Moabites as people of Kemoš both in Jer 48:46 and in Num 21:29. The cult of Kemoš is depreciated in the Bible mainly when the Israelites practice it (see 1 Kgs 11:7; 2 Kgs 23:13). 44 Mullen 1980: 209–25; Lenzi 2008: 251–60. 45 Ezek 26:15. 46 Isa 42:10–12, 49:1, 51:5, 60:9; Pss 72:10, 97:1. 47 Isaiah inviting the Phoenicians to worship YHWH in light (=openly) supports this premise: “14They lift up their voices, they sing for joy; over the majesty of YHWH they shout from the sea. 15Therefore in light (baʾū ̄ rîm) glorify YHWH; in the coastlands of the sea, the name of YHWH, God of Israel” (Isa 24:14–15). 48 Judges 10:6, a verse denouncing the worship in Israel of the divine patrons of all neighbor nations, is surprisingly silent concerning the patron-god of Tyre: “The people of Israel again did what was evil in the sight of YHWH and served the Baals and the Ashtaroth, the gods of Aram, the gods of Sidon, the gods of Moab, the gods of the Ammonites, and the gods of the Philistines. And they forsook YHWH and did not serve him.” An attack against Melqart is likely in the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18–19; see Chapter 9). 49 Amzallag 2012: 128–32. 50 Bartlett 1989: 197–200; Haney 2007; Römer 2015: 312–4. Kelley (2009: 261–5) advocates a parallel between Qos in Edom and YHWH in Israel. 51 The verse is traditionally understood as a call to a watchman, but this meaning makes the text obscure. 52 Haney 2007; Amzallag 2015e: 39–42. 53 Hadley 1987: 186–7; Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 228; Blenkinsopp 2008: 151. 54 The same feature is visible in the story of the war of Jehoshaphat against these nations (2 Chr 20:1–31), identified as a conflict for leadership between Edom and Judah concerning the worship of YHWH. See Amzallag 2016b: 189–92. 55 The meaning of this text has been modified by the pausal indications linking the second question (Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?) to the “declaration of YHWH” condemning Edom in the subsequent verse. This subterfuge transforms the interrogation of the Israelites into a rhetorical question asked by YHWH.

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56 The following element of the blessing confirms it: “Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you” (Gen 27: 29b). It also indirectly evidences a worship of YHWH among the nations. 57 Pfeiffer 1926; Tebes 2009; Amzallag 2015e: 35–8. This point is confirmed by the subsequent conflict between Esau and Jacob, and even by the demonization of Edom in some biblical sources. See Amzallag 2015e: 58–65. 58 Amzallag 2015e: 35–9. 59 Knauf 1999: 674–7; Lipiński 2006: 364, 400–401; Kelley 2009. 60 Qos is curiously ignored even when the Israelites are condemned for following the religious practices of the Edomites (2 Chr 25:14–16). In Lev 17:7, the sacrifices performed to this national god are denounced as “the sacrifices to the Seirites” (with a scornful wordplay between Seirites and goats): “So they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices to the Seirites ( ʾe˘t zibe˘ḥêhe˘m las ˘́e ʿîrim), after whom they whore. This shall be a statute forever for them throughout their generations.” 61 Judg 14:3, 15:18; 1 Sam 14:6, 17:26, 17:36, 31:4; 2 Sam 1:20. 62 The Carites are identified as Philistines in Ezek 25:16. Their Cretan (Caphtor) origin is noticed in 2 Sam 15:18, 20:23 as well as 1 Chr 18:17. 63 Amzallag 2014a: 375–8. It may also explain why the Philistines coming from afar rapidly adopted the local culture. For Alexander Bauer (1998: 161), “Another characteristic that has been noted about the ‘Philistine’ settlement in the Southern Levant is its swift acculturation into the region, so that by the end of the eleventh century, ‘Philistine’ sites are barely distinguishable from ‘Canaanite/Israelite’ ones.” 64 The Akhish–Abimelekh likeness appears by comparing Ps 34:1 with 1 Sam 21:14. 65 An oracle from Zechariah corroborates this conclusion: “I will take away its blood from its mouth, and its abominations from between its teeth; it too shall be a remnant for our God; it shall be like a clan in Judah, and Ekron shall be like the Jebusites” (Zech 9:7). Here, the main difference between the Philistines and the Israelites does not concern the acknowledgment of YHWH as the supreme deity, but rather the level of commitment of YHWH and the religious practices attached to his worship.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE SUBSTRATUM OF THE MOVEMENT OF EMANCIPATION

T

he earliest mention of Israel, in the Merneptah stele, points to the existence of Israel at the end of the thirteenth century BC. It positions the emergence of this nation in a period of profound transformations in the Southern Levant, between the thirteenth and eleventh centuries BC, defined here as the transition period. CURRENT VIEWS ON THE BIRTH OF ISRAEL

The Collapse of the Ancient Political Authority A global decline of the feudal Canaanite society characterizes the transition period in the Southern Levant.1 Some Bronze Age cities, such as Tel El Farah (biblical Tirzah) and Shechem, show no sign of violent destruction, but tumultuous events are visible in many others.2 Hazor, one of the most important cities in the Late Bronze Age, was destroyed by fire when people fought feudal authority and erased the Egyptian cultural markers.3 A similar fate was met by cities of the Jezreel Valley, such as Megiddo, Ta’anach, and Qedesh, all of which showing traces of violent destruction at the end of the twelfth century.4 Jokneam became ruined in about 1200 BC,5 followed by Lachish in about 1160 BC.6 The identity of the authors of these attacks and destruction remains debated, but their success undoubtedly reflects a decline of feudal authority deeply embedded in Amorite traditions and ideology. A global trend 119

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of deurbanization appears in the transition period, with people leaving the cities or reusing the ancient structures for new purposes.7 These metamorphoses were accompanied by a global Egyptian disengagement from the Southern Levant. This trend is evidenced by the Egyptians’ withdrawal from the strongholds of Deir el-Balah, Jaffa, and Aphek in the twelfth century BC.8 Rather than the consequence of any military defeat of the Egyptians, this decline looks like a gradual combination of geopolitical considerations specific to the Egyptian empire, with the inability of the Egyptians and their vassals to overcome local upheaval.9 The stronghold of Beth Shean, controlling access to the Jezreel Valley from the Jordan Valley, was among the last markers of Egyptian authority in the transition period. Founded in the fifteenth century, this fortress was the nexus of Egyptian political control for about 300 years. In addition to tax collection, this fortress controlled the fertile, arable lands of the region, and especially the production of olive oil.10 It was also the center of Egyptian authority with respect to the local vassals.11 The fiery destruction of Beth Shean in the mid-fourteenth century suggests that local movements of rebellion against Egyptian authority arose even before the transition period.12 But this condition of chronic insurgence culminated in the thirteenth through the twelfth centuries BC, when traces of local fires as well as abandonment and destruction of buildings from Bet Shean reveal that the Egyptian stronghold was the target of repeated attacks.13 The end of the Egyptian presence in Bet Shean (1140/1130 BC) is marked by traces of violent assaults, which Amihai Mazar attributed to “the local Canaanite population from neighbouring cities such as Rehob or Pehal, or by semi-nomadic groups such as the Midianites.”14 In any case, the findings from Bet Shean attest to a latent hostility of the local population against Egyptian authority, and its withdrawal toward the end of the transition period.15 It means that two centuries were necessary for a complete emancipation from Egyptian power and their Amorite vassals in the Southern Levant.16

The Characteristics of Early Israel At least three powers coexisted in Canaan in the transition period. Two of them, the Egyptian authority and their local vassals, were inherited from the Bronze Age political organization. The third, defined as early Israel, was a newly emerging entity. The Merneptah stele (ca. 1207 BC) includes it within a list of entities neutralized by King Merneptah throughout his military campaign. Desolation is for Tehenu Hatti is pacified Canaan has been plundered onto every sort of woe Ashkelon has been overcome Gezer has been captured

CURRENT VIEWS ON THE BIRTH OF ISRAEL

Yano’am is made non-existent Israel is laid waste, his seed is not Kharu has become a widow because of Egypt All lands have united themselves in peace

Here, Israel is listed among the ethnic and political entities in conflict with Egypt: Libya (Tehenu); Northern Syria (Hatti); Canaan and Kharu, a territorial entity identified with the Northern Galilee, Lebanon, and the region of Damascus.17 In this list, Israel belongs to Canaan, but its last position makes it adjacent to the Kharu region.18 If this ranking has a geographical significance, it localizes a possible core of Israel at the interface between Canaan and the Kharu, that is, in the Jezreel Valley and/or in the northern part of the Samarian hills.19 Among the entities rebelling against the Egyptian authority, the stele mentions three city-states of Canaan (Ashkelon, Gezer, and Yano’am) and a people, Israel, knowing a nonurban political organization. The seed imagery used when mentioning Israel even suggests that it was scattered over large territories probably including the Lower Galilee, Jezreel Valley, and Samaria hills.20 The material culture in these areas displays partial continuity between the Late Bronze Age and the transition period. It displays similarity also with the contemporary material culture of the eastern side of the Jordan Valley.21 This Late Bronze Age culture is characterized by simplicity in the pottery repertoire and an apparently low social hierarchy level.22 In these territories, the main change regarding the Late Bronze Age period is a wave of sedentarization especially visible in the Samaria highlands. A multiplicity of new villages emerge there, leading to a threefold increase in population throughout the transition period.23 This reality betrays a gradual process of sedentarization in the territory of early Israel during the transition period.24 This account transforms early Israel into a multiethnic entity combining the local population emancipated from the feudal authority with newcomers. These latters – by the simplicity of their material culture, their installation in areas previously noninhabited, and their isolation from the city-states – display characteristics of new migrants gradually mixing with the local population.25

The Proposed Explanations Interpreting the collapse of the Amorite feudal society through the lens of the biblical conquest of the Promised Land is challenged by modern research. Though the destruction of some cities finds an echo in archaeology (e.g., Hazor in Jos 11:10), too many discrepancies exist between the related conquest in Joshua and the archaeological data from the transition period.

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The rapid demographic increase in the highlands and the material culture of these new inhabitants promoted models of the emergence of Israel based on a peaceful infiltration of pastoral incomers. This perspective approaches the first Israelites as nomads who settled in new villages, constituting a society with its own cultural values, distinct from the “Canaanite” one.26 Based on similarities between the trends of sedentarization in the Samaria hills in the transition period and before (MBA II; EBA I), Israel Finkelstein assumed that the rise of Israel corresponds to a new phase in the longrange cyclic process of migrations between the lowlands and highlands of Canaan.27 Alternatively, the new inhabitants of the highlands were identified as nomads originating from the desert area of the Southern Levant, Northwestern Arabia, or Sinai – all people designated as Shasu by the Egyptians. In this scenario, the Israelites become a branch of the Shasu nomads settling in the Samarian hills and the surrounding areas. This interpretation fits the Exodus narrative promoting a southern origin of the Israelites. It also corroborates the mention of “Shasu-Yahu” in a Late Bronze Age Egyptian inscription, which suggests a worship of YHWH among this people.28 However, the peaceful infiltration models may account only with difficulty for the global movement of emancipation in the Southern Levant, identified here as a constitutive component of the early Israelite theology. Early Israel has been also identified as the outcome of a social revolt against Egyptian power and its feudal vassals.29 This model accounts for the many revolts and the political instability in Canaan attested to in the El Amarna correspondence and by the destruction of the centers of feudal and Egyptian authority throughout the transition period.30 In this perspective, early Israel was mainly comprised of indigenous people (Canaanites), especially the outcasts and victims of the exploitative feudal society.31 This model authorizes the integration of Israel into a wide movement of emancipation, but it hardly explains the accounts in Exodus and the biblical references to a southern origin of YHWH. In the absence of a single satisfying theory about the emergence of early Israel, blending two theories enables the gathering of findings that are unexplained by each one considered individually. Many scenarios of the emergence of Israel blossomed on such a basis.32 For example, scholars assumed that the local insurgents were joined by newcomers migrating from the southern desert, who bolstered the revolt and introduced the Exodus epic.33 Such a representation accounts for the continuity of the material culture between the Late Bronze Age and the transition period, the rapid development of the highlands (the country where the outcasts settled), the waves of destruction of the feudal society, and the movement of emancipation. It conciliates the

THE EARLY IRON AGE GLOBAL RECESSION

southern location of the epos of Exodus with the withdrawal of Egyptian authority in Canaan. However, a general problem challenges all of these models. We cannot ignore that the two most crucial centuries for the emergence of Israel (the thirteenth through the eleventh centuries) are a period of global recession in the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean. In such circumstances, the collapse of Late Bronze Age powers and authorities would spontaneously lead not to the emergence of new political entities, but to a Dark Age. Consequently, the rise of newly emerging nations (including Israel) throughout a period of global economic recession and societal decline necessarily involves a Southern Levantine reality that is ignored or minimized by all the current models accounting for the emergence of Israel. THE EARLY IRON AGE GLOBAL RECESSION

Global changes occurred during the transition period. In Anatolia, the Hittite empire fragmented into a constellation of independent city-states. The Kassite kingdom collapsed in Mesopotamia, and many palaces and cities of the Aegean, Crete, and Cyprus declined or became abandoned. The main cities of the Northern Levant experienced a similar recession. Egypt was not spared, as the fall of the Nineteenth Dynasty (late thirteenth century BC) announced the end of the Egyptian empire. Understanding the origin of this crisis might illuminate why the Southern Levant remained so surprisingly preserved.

Climatic Changes The first factor capable of explaining simultaneous transformations on a large scale is a substantial climatic change. From the thirteenth century BC, a transition toward a hot and dry climate occurred in Europe, Asia, and even Africa, which is evident in a transient high sea versus low lake level.34 This trend seriously affected the Mediterranean and the Near East, where alternating summer drought and cold winters provoked conditions of aridity.35 Pollen records from the thirteenth century BC indicate a decrease in agricultural activity, especially in the Balkans, Greece, Anatolia, the Upper Euphrates, Cyprus, and the Levant.36 At the same time, the drop in amplitude of Nile floods reduced the surface of cultivated lands in Egypt.37 This period of aridity did not cease until approximately 850 BC in the Near East, with an increase in annual precipitation and a decrease in temperature.38 Documents from the thirteenth century BC speak about these changes. They attest to an unusual trade of cereals across long distances and their subsequent abnormally high prices – all symptoms of scarcity.39 The resultant

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starvation and famine are explicit in documents from this time.40 They indicate that the climatic changes were a crucial factor in the fall of Bronze Age societies, especially in the Near East.41

War, Piracy, and Conquests Famines and other natural catastrophes stimulated conflicts that amplified the impact of the climatic crisis. They provoked massive destruction, a substantial worsening of the famine, the collapse of local authority, waves of migration, conquests, and secondary conflicts. They also disrupted the international network of trade. These factors can all be seen in the Eastern Mediterranean, where piracy disrupted maritime trade in the thirteenth century42 and deprived many cities of their main source of wealth.43 The military campaigns of piracy even extended to hinterland cities and kingdoms.44 The invasion of the Levantine coast by the Sea Peoples probably belongs to this trend, though the origin of this wave of migration is still debated today.45 Its consequences are clear enough, however: the invasion of Cyprus and the Levantine coast by the Sea Peoples caused a drop in the production and trade of copper from Cyprus for about three centuries. In light of its importance in the Late Bronze Age economy, this collapse contributed substantially to the disintegration of trade networks between palatial societies, which in turn led to their decline.46

Bubonic Plague The recurrence of plague epidemics every ten to thirty years, which especially affected the Mycenaean palatial society and the Hittite kingdom throughout the transition period, is also considered a factor in the economic recession.47 The Black Death had such an effect on medieval European societies.48 A previous pandemic event, the Justinian plague (probably the bubonic plague) is even more similar in its impact. It appeared in Egypt in 541 AD and spread to the entire Mediterranean area through the maritime network of international trade.49 Such a network already existed at the end of the Bronze Age, making a similar scenario of plague extension likely. Recent DNA analyses suggest that the pathogen strain that caused the bubonic plague (Yersina pestis) emerged in the sixteenth to fifteenth centuries BC in the Near East from a bulk of less virulent strains originating in Central Asia or India.50 These findings pinpoint the time when this pathogen became highly virulent for humankind.51 They also reveal that a few years before the collapse of Bronze Age societies, the conditions for the sudden emergence of a bubonic plague pandemic existed in the Near East in general, and in the Nile Valley in particular.52 Severe pandemics are attested to at the end of the second millennium BC. A letter of the Hittite king Mursili dated from 1322 BC mentions the devastating

THE SOUTHERN LEVANT ABNORMAL RESILIENCE

effect of a plague on the population: “O Gods! What is this that you have done? You have allowed a plague into Hatti, and the whole Hatti is dying. No one prepares for you the offering bread and the libation anymore. The plowmen who used to work the fallow fields of the gods have died, so they do not work or reap the fields of the gods.”53 In the same period, an El Amarna letter (EA 35) sent by the king of Alashia to his Egyptian counterpart indicates that a severe disease decimated his people so much that copper production ceased: “Behold, the hand of Nergal is now in my country; He has slain all the men of my country, and there is not a (single) copper-worker.” A similar reality is also related in the Bible, when the spies sent by Moses to explore the land describe it “as land that devours its inhabitants” (Num 13:32). The mention of YHWH participating in the conquest of Canaan by killing or weakening the inhabitants might reflect the memory of a severe pandemic in the Southern Levant throughout the transition period: “Know therefore today that YHWH your god goes over before you as a consuming fire. He will destroy them and subdue them before you. So you shall drive them out and make them perish quickly, as YHWH has promised you” (Deut 9:3). The story of the plague that erupted among the Philistines because of the presence of the ark of YHWH (1 Samuel 5–6) confirms that lethal epidemics spread easily at this time. The ritual offerings of golden representations of rats and ʿāpōlîm (protuberances, buboes) for the eradication of this scourge (1 Sam 6:4–5) leave litttle doubt that the disease decimating the Philistines (and also the Israelites; see 1 Sam 7:19–20) was bubonic plague.54 This overview suggests that the collapse of the Bronze Age societies was a multifaceted process in which the instability created by one detrimental factor facilitated the eruption of the others.55 The initial factor is probably climatic, because the phase of relative aridity corresponds to the temporary breakdown of the Babylonian kingdom (1200–900 BC)56 and to the Dark Age in continental Greece.57 It generated situations of chronic famines that led to a proliferation of diseases as well as social disorders, piracy, pillaging, and migrations. Moreover, the chronic and basic question of survival in a chaotic environment destabilized the cohesiveness of the community and prevented the collective restructuring of agriculture and its adaptation to arid conditions. This interrelation is especially relevant because none of the cited factors is able, by itself, to justify such a collapse of the Bronze Age societies.58 Furthermore, this web of detrimental factors leaves few opportunities for spontaneous regeneration for societies already drowning in the Dark Age period of recession, depopulation, and migration. THE SOUTHERN LEVANT ABNORMAL RESILIENCE

In Greece, the dismemberment of Mycenaean feudal society is a gradual process marked in the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC by the abandonment of sites, depopulation, a fall in living standards, and the return to a

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low technological level.59 But at the same time, the Southern Levant, though affected by the same plagues, experienced a rapid increase in population, the development of new settlements, and the emergence of new nations – Moab, Ammon, Edom, Israel – even in the arid region of the Northern Negev.60 The Southern Levant also attracted foreigners at this time. A massive migration of the Sea Peoples is attested to at the end of the transition period (eleventh century BC), concomitant with the Egyptians’ withdrawal from this region.61 This heterogeneous group comprises newcomers originating from many areas in the western and eastern Mediterranean (the Aegean, Crete, and Anatolia and Cyprus).62 People from Northern Syria, especially the coastal cities, were probably among the Philistines.63 The settlement of the Philistines in the southern coastal region and the Northern Negev is intriguing. Whereas the migration of newcomers originating from Northwestern Arabia would be expected during a phase of aridification, the settlement of people originating from less arid areas is unexpected. An inverse trend, the migration from the semiarid areas (the Negev, southern shore) of the Southern Levant to the Northern and Western Mediterranean areas, is rather forecasted. The Philistine settlement in the Southern Levant is sometimes justified as an indirect consequence of their plundering activity in the Nile Delta, a region rich in food storage. Seen in this manner, the resettlement of the Philistines in the Southern Levant becomes a consequence of their defeat by Ramses III (ca. 1175 BC).64 But several observations challenge this assumption. First, some Hittite and Ugaritic letters disclose the export of grains from Northern Syria to countries severely affected by drought and famine.65 For this reason, it was not necessary for the “proto-Philistines” originating from these areas to reach the Nile Delta to obtain a supply of grain. Furthermore, recent analyses date the massive settlement of the Philistines to about 1140 to 1130 BC. It occurred not only after the withdrawal of the Egyptians from this region but also decades after Ramses III’s victory over the Sea Peoples in the Nile Delta.66 It means that these two events are not necessarily correlated. Finally, the Philistine settlement was a gradual process extending over many decades in the Southern Levant. As in Samaria’s highlands, it does not show any signs of conflict with the local population, as would be expected for an invasion and/ or a struggle between two distinct groups competing for limited resources.67 Consequently, it seems that the Philistine settlement in the Southern Levant was not motivated by any search for optimal conditions for agriculture. Nor was it a pis aller for people failing to conquer the Nile Delta. Rather, the Philistine migration to the Southern Levant was apparently intentional and occurred with the consent of the local population. Today, there are multiple explanations for the remarkable resilience of the Southern Levant. Scholars have argued that the conquest of new arable lands

THE RESURGENCE OF THE ARABAH COPPER INDUSTRY

in the hills of both sides of the Jordan Valley promoted the emergence of a new type of egalitarian society, whose principles gradually diffused to the whole Southern Levant.68 Others identified the rise of iron metallurgy as a technological novelty that produced advancements in agriculture that compensated for the limitations imposed by the climatic crisis.69 Another angle is that the extensive use of a new process of plastering cisterns for waterproofing was the factor that stimulated the occupation of new areas, and by extension, stimulated the rise of a society emancipated from the feudal mode of organization.70 Persuasive these explanations might be, none of these factors are specific to the Southern Levant, however. The occupation of new lands, especially the mountain areas, is a frequent consequence of migrations and conquests, and it occurred in other areas at this time as well. Iron metallurgy is also attested to in the Dark Age societies of Anatolia, the Northern Levant, and Greece, where it did not stimulate any substantial societal development. Furthermore, the use of iron tools was not customary in the Southern Levant before the eighth century BC, so it cannot account for the renaissance attested to many centuries before.71 The use of plastered cisterns is not an invention dating from the transition period. In the Southern Levant, this type of water reservoir had been in use from the sixteenth century BC.72 Philistine settlement experiences rapid economic development that cannot be explained solely by agro-pastoral activities, especially during a period of climatic crisis. This means that another factor is probably essential for the surprising local resilience that was in stark contrast with the global recession. THE RESURGENCE OF THE ARABAH COPPER INDUSTRY

Since the thirteenth century BC, the Arabah had gradually become the site of intense exploitation of copper ore, a situation that climaxed in the ninth century BC.73 This is revealed by traces of mining activity, remains of furnaces, and slag found at sites such as Timna and Nahal Amram in the Southern Arabah74 and in the Wadi Faynan area (mainly Khirbet en-Nahas, Khirbet alJariyeh, and Khirbet Hamra Ifdan) in the Middle Arabah (Figure 4.1).75 The estimated amount of slag in the Faynan area (up to 80,000 tons),76 together with high levels of heavy metal pollution discovered in Early Iron Age sediments from the Arabah,77 testify to significant production of copper at the end of the second millennium BC.78 The existence of a complex chain of ore processing and smelting at these sites indicates industrial organization of the production.79 The importance of this industry in the Early Iron Age is evidenced by the copper ingots originating from the Arabah (instead of Cyprus as before) that have been identified in most of the Southern Levantine sites of metalworking.80

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4.1 The copper mining areas in the Southern Levant and Sinai exploited in Antiquity.

The finding of copper from the Arabah in the Aegean reveals that the Southern Levant even became a copper production center of international importance at this time.81 The industrial activity in the Arabah between the thirteenth and ninth centuries (see Figure 4.2) corresponds to the temporary decline of the Cypriot copper industry from the end of the Bronze Age. This synchronicity suggests that the development of a copper industry in the Arabah valley became possible because of the lack of copper competition from Cyprus at this time.82

THE RESURGENCE OF THE ARABAH COPPER INDUSTRY

4.2 Copper production at the Faynan district during the Early Iron Age. Recalculated from Finkelstein (2013: 114) on the basis of a total production of 80000 tons of slag.

Paradoxically, the collapse of the Cyprus network of copper production and distribution provided an opportunity for developing a new source of wealth and economic development in the Southern Levant.83 The exploitation of the copper resources from the Arabah valley was not new, however. The Southern Levant is one of the most ancient homelands of metallurgy, with smelting activities identified from the fifth millennium BC, both in the Arabah valley and in the Beer Sheba area.84 This early Southern Levantine metallurgy was prestigious and highly developed, as evidenced by its techniques of furnace smelting, metal purification, and lost-wax casting.85 The hoard from Nahal Mishmar, a series of more than 400 items produced locally in the Southern Levant in the fifth millennium BC, reveals the outstanding achievements of this local metallurgy, even with respect to the other homelands (see Figure 4.3). The production of copper evolved in the fourth millennium BC toward a highly organized proto-industrial activity located in the Arabah, especially in the Faynan area.86 The impact of this activity extended far from the Arabah valley: sites of copper purification, standardization, alloying, and working are identified in the Negev and Northern Sinai, on the routes of transportation of copper to Egypt and the Mediterranean.87 This Southern Levantine metallurgical activity ceased toward the end of the third millennium BC,88 probably due to the development of the Cypriot copper industry from the mid-third millennium BC.89 So the rapid

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4.3 Copper artifacts from the Nahal Mishmar hoard, Southern Levant. Photo Nahum Slapak. Courtesy of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

development of the Arabah copper industry, in the Early Iron Age, represents the temporary resumption of a golden age that ended with the birth of the Cypriot industry.

The Edomite Nation In the absence of important cities in Edom prior to the Assyrian period, scholars in the past doubted that this nation truly emerged in the Early Iron Age. But the recent dating of slag, burial remains, and soil pollution challenge these

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premises.90 These measurements reveal that most remains of copper production in the Arabah valley belong to the twelfth through the ninth centuries. And lacking any trace of a foreign power exploiting this mining resource, the mere existence of this highly organized industry speaks to the existence of an Edomite national entity in the Early Iron Age.91 But who were the early Edomites? They seem to be emerging from nowhere in this desert area, and their traces subsist mainly in mine holes, furnace remains, slag, workshops for copper production, and burials. Some Egyptian documents from the Late Bronze Age mention “the Shasu clans of Edom”92 and associate these people with the region of Mount Seir.93 They invite us to identify the Shasus as the majority of proto-Edomite people.94 The nation of Edom did not emerge as a classical kingdom with centralized power. Nevertheless, signs of coordination on a large scale are visible in the Arabah, including fortifications, large workshops, and extensive mining activities.95 However, Bozrah, the city that became the main center of Edom from the eighth century BC, was still of a small size in the Early Iron Age.96 At this time, Edom was probably a confederation of scattered tribes cooperating in the production of copper, rather than a genuine kingdom. The rarity of permanent structures in the Arabah valley and the eastern mountains (the Edomite plateau) in the Early Iron Age suggests that most people belonging to the Edomite confederation lived in the Negev highlands, an arid region that flourished in the Early Iron Age, though agriculture and breeding did not guarantee independent subsistence.97 The domestic pottery of this people, characterized by inclusions of slag originating from the Arabah copper industry, confirms this premise.98 Edom was, in those days, a confederacy of seminomadic tribes whose people journeyed to the Arabah valley in winter to produce copper; they spent the hot summer months at a higher altitude, especially in the Negev plateau.99

The Findings from Timna The exploitation of copper resources did not entirely cease in the Arabah after the development of the Cyprus copper industry during the third millennium BC. A small production of copper is identified in Timna in the Late Bronze Age. The presence at this site of Egyptian seals, and especially of a small sanctuary dedicated to Hathor, indicates that this activity was controlled by the Egyptians.100 Copper production increased considerably in Timna from the twelfth century, concurrent with the renewal of the copper industry in the Northern Arabah (Faynan).101 And here too, the archaeological findings suggest that this renewal was not an Egyptian initiative. Rather, it coincides with emancipation from their authority. This trend is accompanied with the intentional eradication

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4.4 Remains from the tent sanctuary replacing the Hathor chapel in Timna. Photo: Uzi Avner.

of Egyptian markers in the local shrine (including the defacing of the Hathor figure on pillars).102 Nevertheless, the furnaces at the entrance to the shrine, where ritual metallurgy was apparently practiced, survived the metamorphosis (Figure 4.4).103 The discovery of a copper serpent among the remains of the tent sanctuary replacing the Hathor chapel (Figure 4.5) confirms that those people rejecting the Egyptian markers intentionally referred to rituals and beliefs rooted in the Southern Levantine religious traditions.104 The findings from Timna combine an emancipation from Egyptian authority (including the rejection of Egyptian beliefs and 4.5 Copper serpent from the Timna symbols) with a substantial increase in the producsanctuary (site 200). Photo Zev tion of copper and the recovery of the indigenous Radovan/Bible and Land Pictures. markers of religious identity and cult. Here, the simplest interpretation is to assume that the indigenous workers of this copper industry rebelled against their Egyptian patrons. However, the rapid increase in copper production in Timna, combined with the sudden renewal of the copper industry in other sites from the Arabah, suggests a much broader motivation. The religious transformations,

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4.6 Qurayyah ware from Timna. Photo Zev Radovan / Bible and Land Pictures.

including the rejection of foreign markers or beliefs, imply that the movement was ideologically guided. A unique painted genre of pottery, defined as Midianite/Qurayyah ware, has been discovered at Timna (Figure 4.6). The Qurayyah ware is not a domestic vessel. Its abundance in Timna in the sanctuary and its frequent association with luxury goods and rituals (including burials) in many other sites highlight its cultural importance.105 The painting and ornaments of these items, including elaborated motifs and intricate geometric patterns, confirm their status as prestigious artifacts accompanying the resurgence of the indigenous copper industry.106 It is why this pottery might be a material marker of the new ideology arising there in the Early Iron Age.107 The appellation of this ware denotes its origin from Qurayyah, an oasis in Northwestern Arabia, located about 200 kilometers south of Timna.108 It suggests that the people who introduced it enjoyed an elevated status in the Arabah valley and were involved in the resurgence of the local copper industry.109 This premise is especially interesting because Late Bronze Age metallurgical activity (involving ore smelting, metal purification, and alloying) has been found in Qurayyah.110 The use of arsenical copper instead of bronze suggests that Qurayyah metallurgy was quite ancient and isolated from the worldwide network of exchange and distribution of copper existing in the Late Bronze Age.111 The prerequisites for a rebellion against Egyptian authority, for the renewal of ancient indigenous traditions in Arabah, and for the emergence of a new religious fundament coalesce in Timna.

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That a region involved in copper production was prosperous is not surprising. Nevertheless, the wealth generated by the copper industry extended outside of the Arabah valley and the Negev highlands. Beyond the development of the infrastructure necessary for the caravans transporting the metal across long distances, the trade of raw copper from the Arabah stimulated the emergence, along the routes, of workshops that specialized in purification, alloying, and working the metal.112 This peripheral activity, organized around two networks of transportation, propelled economic development in all the newly emerging nations in the Southern Levant.113

The Southern Network The Beer Sheba Valley In the Early Iron Age, the rise of the copper industry in the Arabah coincides with the development of the Beer Sheba valley and the Northern Negev.114 Their interrelation results from the southern road of copper transportation linking the Arabah production area with the Mediterranean shore via the valleys of the Northern Negev (Figure 4.7).115 The large capacity for cereal storage in some of the sites positioned on these roads points to their involvement in the food supply for caravans.116 Remnants of metallurgical workshops along this road reveal that people from the Northern Negev participated not only in the transportation of the copper produced but also in its purification, alloying, and working. The Qurayyah wares identified along these roads even suggest a cultural influence of copper metallurgy in these areas.117 The development of Tel Masos, especially in the twelfth to eleventh centuries BC, illustrates the importance of copper metallurgy in this region. This site, the largest in the Beer Sheba valley (6 hectares) in the Early Iron Age, is a central node in the distribution of copper in the Northern Negev area, the Southern Shephela, the Judean hills, and the Mediterranean coast (Figure 4.7).118 The development of the city, the remains of ceramics of a multiplicity of origins (Arabah, the Negev Highlands, Judean, Philistine, Egyptian, Aegean), and the prestige goods originating from afar that have been discovered in the city, all reveal long-range trade activities.119 The metallurgical remains found at the site indicate that raw copper from the Arabah was transformed there.120 The parallel decline of Tel Masos and copper production in the Arabah valley in the eighth century BC support the assumption that copper was the essential source of the city’s prosperity.121 Judah The renewal of economic activity did not occur rapidly in the Judean highlands at the beginning of the Iron Age. Instead, sedentarization declined at

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this time, a feature that revealed a recession that characterized the transition to the Dark Age. The reverse trend in the tenth century BC is a consequence of the expansion of the economic activity of the Beer Sheba valley to the southern hills of Judea.122 This trend coincides with the development of new axes of transportation and the treatment of metals throughout the Arad valley and the Hebron hills, bringing the metal to the shores of the Mediterranean through the Shephelah (Figure 4.7).123 It is likely that the Judean hills’ agricultural potential for supplying food and fuel for this activity contributed to this development.124 For this reason, the extension of the metallurgical network is probably involved in the development of Judea.125 As in the Arabah and the Beer Sheba valleys, the Judea area did not at first organize around any central authority that consolidated powers and resources; rather, it was a confederation of small autonomous tribes and clans that gradually bonded.126 The emergence of Judah finds an echo in the genealogy of this tribe in the Bible, which points to a broad ethnic diversity.127 It also reflects the presence of many clans of metalworkers and their central importance in this tribe’s leadership:128 • Qenites: According to Judg 1:16, the Qenite clan of Jethro joined the tribe of Judah once settled in the Arad valley and the southern hills of Judea. • Qenizzites: This clan of metalworkers originating from Edom (Gen 36:15, 36:42) was installed in the Hebron area (Judg 3:9–11) and the region of Debir, in the southern hills of Judea (Jos 15:17; Judg 1:11–15).129 The association of Caleb, the first prince of Judah (Num 13:6), with this clan and his control of Hebron (Jos 14:14, 14:24) makes the Qenizzites the dominant clan of early Judah. Othniel, another Qenizzite, is acknowledged as the leader of the “conquest” of Judea and the expulsion of the Amorites (Judg 3:9–10). • Jerahmaelites: This small group allied with the Qenizzites (1 Chr 2:42) is mentioned living in the southern hills of Judea and the Northern Negev together with the Qenites (1 Sam 27:10; 1 Sam 30:29). • Tirahites, Shimeathites, Sucathites: These Judean families are identified as Qenites in 1 Chr 2:55. They are also affiliated with Rekhab, a clan of metalworkers who were probably long-time residents of Canaan.

The southern origin of most of these clans and their settlement in the southern hills of Judea corroborates the idea of the gradual development of this region from the Beer Sheba valley. It supports, therefore, the assumption that the southern metallurgical network was of prime importance in the emergence of the confederation of Judah. Philistia The southern network of transportation, trade, and transformation of copper from the Arabah reached the Mediterranean shore through the territory of the Philistines (Figure 4.7). It is why these people were probably occupied

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with its conveyance and even its maritime transportation.130 The presence of Philistine ceramics in the Arabah valley and in the Negev highlands confirms their participation in the southern metallurgical network.131 The discovery of Qurayyah ware in Gaza (tel El-Farah), one of the Philistine harbors from which copper was exported, supports this basic assumption.132 Furthermore, the metallurgical activity identified in Nahal Besor, the area controlled by the Philistines between the Beer Sheba valley and Gaza, confirms their involvement in metal transformation and working.133 The prestige goods from the Aegean world unearthed in the Philistine cities, as well as the mixed Phoenician, Israelite, and Philistine culture identified in Dor, argue for their participation in the Mediterranean network of exchanges.134 This reality explains the rapid development of the Philistine cities.135 From the Early Iron Age, these cities are characterized by an elaborate level of urbanism, a diversity of economic activities, and the presence of prestige goods – all of which attest to their wealth.136 In the ninth century BC, the Philistine city of Gath became the most significant urban center of the Shephelah (up to 40 hectares). It comprised an abundance of workshops and luxury items of cosmopolitan origin.137 The parallel observed in the Early Iron Age between the development of Gath and the rate of copper production in the Arabah valley suggests, again, that the integration of this city within the southern copper network was a substantial source of its prosperity.138 Even more, it is likely that the Philistine conflicts with Judah and Israel were guided by a strategy for expanding their involvement in this network.139 Later, the decline of the political power of the Philistines, from the ninth century BC, is probably conditioned by the collapse of the Arabah copper industry.

The Northern Network Another network linked the Arabah valley to the northern part of the Mediterranean coast, especially the harbors of Dor and of Tyre (Figure 4.7). Along this northern route, the metal was first conveyed through the Jordan Valley and the King’s Highway. From Yenoam, a westward route reached the Mediterranean shore (the Carmel/Akko area) through Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley, the most important east–west axis of communication in this region. An alternative northern route reached the region of Tyre from the Sea of Galilee through Bet Anat and Hazor.140 The importance of the cities of Megiddo and Hazor in the Bronze Age indicates that the northern network of transportation exploited routes of communication that had previously been in use. As with the southern network, the raw copper produced in the Arabah was purified, alloyed, and worked as it was transported on the King’s Highway and the Jordan Valley. And here too, the northern network brought substantial sources of wealth, along with the need for coordination in trade, transportation of the metal, and protection of roads and cities. As with Judah and the

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Philistines in the south, these requirements encouraged cooperation between clans and tribes, leading to the emergence of new national entities. Moab The scarcity of remains from Moab in the Late Bronze Age suggests that this land was mainly inhabited by pastoral nomads in these times. This conclusion validates the Egyptian documents referring to the country of Moab as the homeland of the Shasus.141 The situation changes from the twelfth century BC, with the beginning of sedentarization and the demographic expansion that led to the emergence of the Moabite nation.142 Here too, this trend is apparently closely related to metallurgical activity. Settlement in the southern part of Moab (e.g., Wadi Mujib) suggests a situation similar to the one observed in the southern network and the Beer Sheba valley, with a population involved in the treatment, work, and transportation of the copper produced in the Arabah.143 The similarities between the patterns of sedentarization in Moab and the Beer Sheba valley confirm this view (including the typical construction of houses along the circumference of the site, following the pattern of enclosed nomad encampments encircling a central communal area).144 These parallels suggest that involvement in the production and trade of copper from the Arabah valley is probably the stimulus for such a wave of sedentarization.145 Especially interesting for the emergence of Moab are the remains from Khirbet Baluʿa, which reveal a sizeable fortified city (22 hectares) from the Early Iron Age positioned near the King’s Highway, over the Arnon River. The stele discovered there depicts gods conferring authority on a human leader, suggesting that it was the first center of the emerging nation.146 The representation of the ruler with typical Shasu attributes strengthens the case for their involvement in the rise of Moab.147 The Karak plateau, situated between the two main axes of communication (King’s Highway and the eastern desert route) is also one of the earliest areas of sedentarization, and the probable epicenter from which Moab emerged as a nation.148 The discovery of a series of small fortified sites from the Early Iron Age, many of them controlling access from the eastern desert, affirms the emergence of a coherent political organization at this time.149 Ammon The emergence of Ammon at the end of the second millennium BC follows a period of recession of urban life and prosperity, and the return to a nomadic lifestyle from the mid-second millennium BC.150 As in the other regions of the Southern Levant, this trend probably resulted from overexploitation of the local resources by the Egyptian authority and their Amorite vassals.151 However, a relative continuity exists between the material culture of the nomadic society from the Late Bronze Age and the sedentary population of

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the Early Iron Age.152 It suggests that the emergence of favorable conditions was the main factor in the settlement of the Shasu nomads.153 Here again, the long-distance trade of metal along the King’s Highway was apparently a central factor in this sedentarization process.154 The history of the site of Deir Alla, located on the nexus between the King’s Highway, the route to Aram, and the Mediterranean coast, supports this premise. This site was a marketplace controlled by the Egyptians during the Late Bronze Age.155 But from the Early Iron Age, large amounts of ash and slag along with remains of furnaces and crucibles reveal an intense metallurgical activity in this site.156 The size of the installations and the technical innovations observed in Deir Alla suggest that the city became a center for purifying, alloying, and casting the copper produced in the Arabah valley and conveying it through Moab.157 The Book of Kings attests to the importance of metallurgy in the region of Deir Alla, specifying that the outstanding copper artifacts of the temple (the Sea of Copper, the two copper columns, Boaz, and Yakhin) were produced there (the Sukkot area, on the east bank of the Jordan River; see 1 Kgs 7:45– 46 and 2 Chr 4:17). According to Jos 13:24–28, this region belongs to the territory of Gad, but the text also specifies that this whole area (which includes a part of the territory of Sihon’s kingdom) belonged to Ammon (Jos 13:25). Israel Unlike the other emerging nations mentioned above, Israel was a large confederation of tribes inhabiting an extensive territory, from Jerusalem to Lebanon, and from the Mediterranean shore to the Bashan and the eastern mountains of the Jordan Valley. To imagine that all these regions were directly involved in the transportation, trade, and transformation of the copper originating from the Arabah valley is irrelevant. Nevertheless, there is evidence suggesting that metallurgy was important for at least some of the Israelite tribes: • The tribes of Reuben and Gad were geographically close to Ammon and shared aspects of their material culture and mode of development in the Early Iron Age.158 • The Jezreel Valley, the main route for the transportation of copper between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean, constituted the core of Early Israel, together with the Samarian hills.159 This region shows substantial growth in the Early Iron Age.160 • The harbor of Dor experienced rapid development in the Early Iron Age.161 Contiguous with the Jezreel Valley, it was involved in the trade and export of precious goods, including copper, that were carried along this route. • Copper ingots originating from the Arabah have been found on the shores around Mount Carmel.162 This feature confirms that raw copper was conveyed through the Jezreel Valley and that the Israelite harbors were involved in its trade.

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The importance of the Jezreel Valley in the network of transportation may have also extended to the Samarian hills, the other central locale in early Israel. Although the main roads are distant from this highland, archaeologists have found the notable abundance of pits and silos in the early Israelite settlements from Samaria. In contrast with the rarity of these structures in Late Bronze Age villages, this situation denotes food storage in quantities far beyond the needs for local subsistence.163 This singular feature remains unexplained as long as early Israel remained exclusively a nation of agropastoralists. However, if the Samarian hills and the Jezreel Valley together constituted the core of early Israel, it is likely that the surplus from the Samarian highland fed the caravans involved in the transportation of copper and the workshops of transformation of this metal along the road. Some biblical indications reflect the importance of metallurgy in early Israel. Genesis 32 claims that the name Israel was given to Jacob (v. 29) in Penuel (v. 31), a site positioned near Mahanaim (v. 3). While the exact position of these sites remains debated, both are positioned in the Deir Alla region (the Sukkot valley; see Judg 8:5,8).164 The reference to this region concerning the birth of Israel highlights a metallurgical background to its emergence. The mention of Jacob building a house in Sukkot (Gen 33:17), after his transformation into Israel even symbolically expresses the link between metallurgy, the sedentarization process, and the birth of the nation. Locating the founding event in Penuel adds two further symbolic messages. The first one concerns the encounter of Esau immediately following the event (Gen 33:1), suggesting that the father of the nation producing copper in the Arabah (identified in Gen 33:10 with the divine being that “gave birth” to Israel) promoted the emergence of Israel. His invitation addressed to Jacob to join the “Seir company” (Gen 33:12–14) even suggests that the birth of Israel is conditioned upon its participation in the network of trade and transformation of the copper produced in the Arabah. The second element concerns the position of this site, located at the boundary between Ammon and Israel. This location announces that the emergence of Israel begins where the function of Ammon terminates, it stresses the interdependency of the nations participating in the metallurgical network. Phoenicia With the collapse of the Late Bronze Age, political powers in the Eastern Mediterranean experienced impressive gowth in the Phoenician cities in general, and in Tyre in particular. This trend led to the emergence, from the twelfth century BC, of a network of exchange spreading across the whole Mediterranean.165 The preservation of many of the Phoenician cities from destruction by invasions, and their involvement in ship building, navigation, and trade, probably contributed to this rapid expansion during the transition

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period.166 The destruction of Ugarit, in the early twelfth century BC, transferred to Phoenicia a part of its maritime activity. However, these explanations do not clarify why Tyre, a harbor of relatively minor importance in the Late Bronze Age, became such a prominent city. If the replacement of Ugarit was the driving force, we would expect cities closer to Ugarit, such as Arvad or Byblos, to dominate. A reference to the Arabah metal networks offers a possible explanation.167 Tyre, by its geographical position, is the city best positioned for exploiting this new opportunity. It was the terminus of the northern network (via Hazor). The city was closely related to the Carmel area, the other egress on this route, and to the Philistine harbors (Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Jaffo), the terminus of the southern road. Metallurgy remained the driving force in the development of Tyre and its main source of wealth throughout the Iron Age.168 The creation of the first Tyrian colonies for metal production in Spain and Cyprus, from the twelfth century, reflects this reality.169 The pattern of Phoenician expansion in the Mediterranean, with colonies devoted to the production of metal (Cyprus, Spain, Aegean)170 and its transformation, transportation, and trade (Crete, Italy, North Africa), looks like a huge marine extension of the terrestrial network organized around the Arabah copper industry. Metallurgy was the activity propelling the development of the Southern Levant when the Near East and Mediterranean were plunging into a Dark Age. It was a lucrative activity for the people involved in its production, transport, and transformation. Two factors spread this wealth to the whole Southern Levant. The first is the distance from the sea of the areas of production, which stimulated the emergence of networks of transportation and trade throughout the whole area. The second element comes from the limited wood supply for fuel in the Arabah valley. This restriction, inherent in the arid climate, probably necessitated the delocalization of the final stages of copper production, such as purification and alloying, to workshops scattered across the network. Consequently, the fraternal alliance is not merely a political chart of solidarity concluded by neighbor peoples participating in a shared process of emancipation from foreign hegemony. Beyond this common ideal, it reflects the cooperation between peoples involved in networks of metal production, transportation, transformation, and trade. NOTES 1 2 3 4 5

Mullins 2015: 519. Dever 2003: 6162. Ibid.: 66–7. Ibid.: 58–9, 61. Ibid.: 60.

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Ibid.: 65. Burke 2018: 242. Mazar 2011: 182; Burke 2018: 229; Gadot 2019: 40. Beyond the conflict with the Hittite empire, from the thirteenth century BC the Egyptians had to confront the threat of incursions from marauders from Lybia and from the Sea Peoples in the Nile Delta. See Emmanuel 2021: 169–94. Mazar 2011: 178. Though the Egyptians controlled the main routes of communication and fertile arable lands, the El Amarna correspondence reveals the involvement of local vassal kingdoms in exerting this authority. See Redford 1990: 269; Noll 2001: 119. Each local ruler was in charge of tax collection, the recruitment of the local population working on the Egyptian royal lands, and the supply of warriors. See Killebrew 2005: 33; Noll 2001: 119–20; Na’aman 2005b: 236. Mazar 2011: 159–60. According to Amihai Mazar (2011: 166), “This may have been caused by turmoil and perhaps attack on the town resulting from the unstable situation in Egypt at the end of the 19th Dynasty and during the transition to the 20th Dynasty.” Mazar 2011: 171. Gadot 2019: 40. Both events seem correlated, the withdrawal of the Egyptians depriving their vassals of military assistance. See Burke 2018: 237. Dever 2003: 202–4. Hasel 1994. Na’aman 1994b: 248–9; Faust 2006: 164; Mullins 2015: 523; McCarter 1992: 119. Monroe and Fleming (2019: 19) identify this early Israel with the Samaria highland and the Jezreel Valley. Dever (2003: 212) excludes the Jezreel Valley from early Israel, assuming that its Israelite occupation did not occur before the tenth century BC. McCarter 1992: 123. Faust 2006: 45–6, 159; Mullins 2015: 521; Dever 1992: 55. Finkelstein 1996; Stager 1998: 134–5; Dever 2003: 99. Finkelstein 1996; Dever 1992: 56; Monroe and Fleming 2019: 19. Burke 2018: 242; McCarter 1992: 122. Abraham Faust (2015: 476), for example, assumes that “[a]ncient Israel was composed of peoples who came from various backgrounds: a semi-nomadic population who lived on the fringe of settlement, settled Canaanites who for various reasons changed their identity, outcast Canaanites, tribes from Transjordan and may be even from Syria, and probably even a group who fled Egypt.” This theory was first formulated by Alt in 1925 (English edition 1989) and was later defended by scholars such as Noth (1960) and Weippert (1971). Israel Finkelstein (1996: 208) argued that the “settlement process in both Cis- and Transjordan was part of a cyclic mechanism of alternating processes of sedentarization and nomadization of indigenous groups in response to changing political, economic, and social circumstances.” Concerning the inscription mentioning the Shasu-Yahu, see Giveon (1971: 26–8). This representation of early Israel is argued by Redford (1992: 275–80), Albertz (1994: 51), and Levy and Holl (2002). Robert Mullins (2015: 520) concludes that “[s]uch a scenario is not unreasonable. The Shasu are no longer mentioned in texts after the end of the Late Bronze Age, suggesting that they assimilated into the general population during Iron Age I, whether in Transjordan, Cisjordan or both.” Mendenhall 1962; Gottwald 1979. According to Killebrew (2005: 32), Lipiński (2006: 23), and others, the many revolts related in the El Amarna correspondence announce this general atmosphere of troubles and social disorders, generating the substratum from which early Israel emerged. William Dever (1992: 56) accounts for these early Israelites as “a motley lot – urban refugees, people from countryside, what we might call ‘social bandits,’ brigands of various kinds, malcontents, dropouts from society.”

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32 See, for example, Lemche 1985; Liverani 2005; Stager 1998; Dever 2003; Faust 2006; Killebrew 2005. Robert Mullins (2015: 522) concluded, “Of all the theories presented above, the dissolution model [withdrawal of the Egyptian authority and the subsequent indigenous revolt] provides a more satisfying explanation for the complex historical processes that lay at the heart of Israel’s ethnogenesis.” 33 Gottwald 1985: 272–6. 34 Drake 2012. The palynological records as well as the foraminiferal/dinocyst records in sediments and the oxygen–isotope ratio confirm this climatic change. 35 Baillie 1998; Woldring and Bottema 2003; Kaniewski et al. 2010; Bernhardt et al. 2012; Litt et al. 2012; Drake 2012: 1866; Langgut et al. 2013: 164. 36 Migowski et al. 2006; Drake 2012: 1866; Kaniewski et al. 2013: 4–6; Langgut et al. 2013. 37 Halpern 2007: 19; Noll 2001: 136. 38 Palynological data confirm the ninth-century BC increase in wild biomass and crop diversity and production in the Aegean, Anatolia, Cyprus, and the Levant. See Kaniewski et al. 2010 and 2013; Drake 2012; Litt et al. 2012. From pollen measurements in coastal sediments, Langgut et al. (2013: 161) assume a gradual recovery of the wet climate in the Southern Levant as soon as 1000 BC. 39 Singer 1999: 716 and 2000: 24; Lipiński 2006: 23–4; Liverani 2005: 34. 40 See, for example, the 1185 BC letter from the king of Emar to his peer from Ugarit (RS 34.152). The Hittite king expresses similar urgency when he asks the king of Ugarit to send 450 tons of grain, as a “matter of life or death” (RS 20.212). A similar famine occurs at the same time as the severe drop in Nile discharges, which reduced the cultivated surface throughout the reigns of Merneptah and Ramses III. See Kaniewski et al. 2010: 213. 41 Weiss 1982; Neumann and Parpola 1987; Tainter 2006; Kirlis and Herles 2007; Drake 2012. David Kaniewski et al. (2013: 9) concluded that “[t]his climate shift caused crop failures, dearth and famine, which precipitated or hastened socio-economic crises and forced regional human migrations at the end of the LBA in the Eastern Mediterranean and Southwest Asia.” 42 Moreu 2003: 108–15; Emmanuel 2016 and 2021: 169–76, 244–5. 43 Zaccagnini 1990; Killebrew 2005: 25. 44 Hoftijzer and van Soldt 1998: 343–4; Artzy 2013: 344. In Ugarit, for example, the palatial correspondence from the late period (reign of Ammurapi) mentions enemies coming from the sea, pillaging the kingdom, and threatening the city (RS 20.18; 20.238). 45 Halpern 1983b: 98–100; Thompson 1999: 155–61. Halpern (2007: 15–19) and Kaniewski et al. (2011) assume that inhospitable conditions (due to local war, aridity, or epidemics) fuelled these waves of migration. For Moreu (2003: 119–21), the coming of the Philistine is an extension of the Sea Peoples’ conquest of Cyprus for controlling the international production of copper. 46 Killebrew 2005: 21–9. 47 Watson-Williams 1962; Walloe 1999. 48 The Black Death, the name given to the bubonic plague pandemic that begun in Sicily in 1347 AD and spread across Europe within three years, ravaged the continent for more than three centuries. It impacted not only the demography but also the fundaments of European societies, including their beliefs and ideologies. See Scott and Duncan 2001: 6–8, 81–6. 49 Scott and Duncan 2001: 4 50 Rasmussen et al. 2015: 574–5; Marciniak and Perry 2017: 10. 51 Panagiotakopulu 2003 and 2004. 52 Remains of the plague flea (the agent involved in diffusion of the bubonic plague) and insects originating from the Indian continent were identified among cereals from Amarna (fourteenth century BC). Eva Panagiotakopulu (2004: 273) concluded that Egypt is “the most probable place of origin of bubonic plague as an epidemic disease.” 53 ANET: 394–6. It was thought that the plague that affected the Hittites for more than twenty years came from Egypt (via prisoners), which has now been identified as the homeland of the bubonic plague in the Ancient Near East.

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54 Concerning this diagnostic, see Blondheim 1955: 338; Conrad 1984; Walloe 1999: 123–4; Griffin 2000; Freemon 2005. 55 Liverani 2005: 37; Drake 2012: 1867. The occurrence of such global collapses is theorized by Renfrew (1979). 56 Weiss 1982; Neumann and Parpola 1987; Haggis 1993. 57 Morris 2004: 711; van der Steen 1999: 185; Lemos 2006: 87–8. The end of the Dark Age (the Early and Middle Geometric Stages, 900–770 BC) corresponds in Greece with the gradual recovery of a wet climate. 58 As Drake (2012: 1868) noticed, the drought period beginning in the thirteenth century is of minor amplitude compared to the climate change that had affected the Ancient Near East seven to eight centuries before (at the end of the third millennium BC). 59 Carter and Morris 2014. 60 For Enzel et al. (2003), Bar-Matthews and Ayalon (2004) and Rosen (2007: 42–3), the emergence of complex societies at the end of the second millennium BC occurred in a rainfall regime and climate even less compatible with agriculture and the keeping of livestock than the current climate. 61 Halpern 1992: 96; Mazar 2011: 182; Ben Dor Evian 2017: 279. 62 Maeir et al. 2013; Carter and Morris 2014: 20; Ben Dor Evian 2017: 278. 63 The discovery of the local production of Aegean-like pottery in the Orontes Valley in the early twelfth century BC has modified our understanding of the ethnic composition of the Philistines. The similarities between this pottery and the Philistine ceramic reveal a substantial North Syrian component among the Sea Peoples. See Carter and Morris 2014: 21; Ben Dor Evian 2017: 273; Emmanuel 2021: 200. This reality might explain the biblical references to temples devoted to the god Dagan among the Philistines, in Gaza (Judg 16:23) and Ashdod (1 Sam 5:2–5), as well as his mention as their main deity (1 Chr 10:10). Also the presence of Rephaim among the Philistines (2 Sam 21:15–22; 1 Chr 20: 4–8) supports this premise. 64 Mazar 1985; Dothan 2000. 65 Liverani 2005: 34. 66 Ben Dor Evian 2017: 269. 67 Ben Dor Evian 2017: 269, 272. 68 Finkelstein 1989: 58–60. 69 Lemche 1985: 428; Muth 1997: 85; Liverani 2005: 43. 70 Dever 2003: 115–117. 71 Yahalom-Mack 2015. 72 Dever 2003: 117. 73 Finkelstein et al. 2015: 201. 74 Ben-Yosef 2018; Ben Yosef et al. 2012; Avner 2014: 135; Avner et al. 2018. 75 Levy 2009: 152; Ben-Yosef and Levy 2014; Yahalom-Mack and Segal 2018: 314–15; Levy et al. 2018: 251–3. 76 Levy, Adams, Najjar, et al. 2004; Levy 2008. 77 Grattan et al. 2007. 78 For example, the slag mound from Timna smelting site 30 revealed considerable metallurgical activity during the twelfth through eleventh centuries BC in a post-Egyptian context (Ben-Yosef et al. 2012: 64). Concerning copper production in the Middle Arabah mining area (the region of Faynan), see Ben-Yosef et al. 2014. 79 Ben-Yosef et al. 2012; Ben-Yosef 2018: 36–7, 40–2. 80 Yahalom-Mack et al. 2014; Ben-Yosef and Sergi 2018: 468. 81 Kiderlen et al. 2016. 82 Finkelstein 2005: 122. 83 Ben-Yosef and Sergi 2018: 461, 464. Copper production is attested to in Cyprus at the end of the second millennium BC, but it remains of minor importance compared to the previous metallurgical activity. See Sherratt 1994.

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84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

92 93 94 95 96

97 98

99 100 101 102 103

104 105 106 107 108

109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

Shugar 2000; Ben-Yosef 2018: 33; Shaw and Drenka 2018: 81–2. Rowan and Golden 2009: 41–7; Amzallag 2009b: 502–6. Adams 2002; Löffler 2018. Haiman 2018: 272–3; Yahalom-Mack et al. 2014: 173; Golani 2014: 127–30. Löffler 2018: 264–5; Yahalom-Mack et al. 2014. This is attested to by the discovery of copper ingots of Cypriot origin in Hazor workshops in the seventeenth century BC. See Yahalom-Mack et al. 2014: 173. Levy, Adams, Najjar, et al. 2004; Levy 2008; Grattan et al. 2007. For Edward Lipiński (2006: 381), “The Edomite economy and even the State itself seem to be derivatives of this ‘international’ trade, while the internal exchange of goods appears to have been minimal in Edom, as shown by the great variety of pottery assemblages.” Papyrus Anastasi VI, lines 51–61. See Levy, Adams, Najjar, et al. 2004: 66–7. See Kitchen 1964; Giveon 1971, documents 25, 37–8. Levy, Adams, and Muniz 2004; Levy 2009. Levy, Adams, Najjar, et al. 2004. The position of Bozrah near the mining complex of Faynan, at the nexus of the network of copper distribution, confirms the centrality of this activity in the emergence of Edom. See Tebes 2007a: 81, 85–6; Lipiński 2006: 373–5, 392; Gottlieb 2018: 451. Martin and Finkelstein 2013: 6–8; Shahack-Gross and Finkelstein 2015: 256; Gadot 2019: 39. Martin et al. 2013: 3790; Finkelstein 2007: 133. This practice (also attested to in the preparation of furnace walls, tuyeres, and crucibles in the Arabah) suggests the participation of this highland population in the copper industry. Mario Martin and Israel Finkelstein (2013: 36) concluded that “the import of handmade pottery into the Negev Highlands was a result of the movement of people; this pottery arrived as ‘baggage’ of its pastoral-nomadic owners, who ‘commuted’ between the Negev Highlands and the Wadi Arabah (both regions dominated by a nomadic milieu). These people must have been employed in the Arabah copper districts as miners and smelters.” Such involvement of the population of the Negev Highlands in the Arabah copper industry is already attested to in the Early Bronze Age. See Haimann 1996. Levy 2009: 159; Avner 2014: 141–3. Rothenberg 1988: 276–7. A similar Egyptian control is observed in the Sinai mining site of Serabit el-Khadem, where a sanctuary to Hathor is identified. Ben-Yosef et al. 2012. Rothenberg 1972: 150–1; 1999: 171. According to Rothenberg (1999: 172), this workshop was still in activity in the tent sanctuary (stratum II). Rothenberg (1988: 273) also noticed the addition of another metallurgical workshop at the entrance of the tent sanctuary (locus 101). Rothenberg 1988: 270–6. Tebes 2015: 257. Tebes 2014: 188. Rothenberg 1998, 2003; Tebes 2014: 163; Kleinman et al. 2017: 251. The Qurayyah pottery was already identified at the Egyptian phase of occupation of the site, but in a lesser extent. Rothenberg and Glass 1983; Rothenberg 2003; Daszkiewicz 2014. This painted ware was typically present in Timna between the fourtheenth and eleventh centuries BC and has also been encountered in other Arabah sites of metallurgical activity. See Malena 2015: 272–5. Parr 1997; Tebes 2007b: 19–22; Liu et al. 2015: 493. Liu et al. 2015: 500. Ibid.: 501. Tebes 2007a: 74–80. Tebes 2007a: 81; Finkelstein and Lipschits 2011: 145. Finkelstein 2005: 121; Lipiński 2006: 393; Ben-Yosef and Sergi 2018: 466. Tebes 2006: 84–5. Herzog 1994: 130. Malena 2015: 269–75; Tebes 2013: 319 and 2014: 188.

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118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139

140 141

142 143 144 145

146 147 148

Herzog and Singer-Avitz 2004: 222; Malena 2015: 270. Dever 2003: 78; Finkelstein 2005: 122; Tebes 2006: 85; Master 2014: 90. Kempinski et al. 1983: 21. Tebes 2006: 85. Herzog and Singer-Avitz 2004; Sergi 2013. This is evidenced by the discovery of Qurayyah ware in Hebron and other settlements from the Judah highlands. See Tebes 2013: 319. Israel Finkelstein (2014: 69) concludes that “the main phase of expansion into the south Hebron Hills took place together with the construction of the administration centers in the Beer-Sheba valley…” Herzog and Singer-Avitz 2004. Faust 2013; Maeir and Shai 2016: 324–5. The integration of the Bet Shemesh area (Shephela) within this network denotes its extension far beyond the vicinity of the Beer Sheba valley. See Faust and Katz 2011. Knoppers 2001: 18–19. Concerning these clans, their origin, and their integration in Judah, see Knoppers 2001; Blenkinsopp 2008: 144–9; Mondriaan 2010: 417–35. See Gen 36:11, 36:15, 36:42. See Mondriaan (2010: 432–6) concerning the affinities of the Qenizzites and Jerahmeelites with the Qenites and their metallurgical activities. Ben-Yosef and Sergi 2018: 461. Lipiński 2006: 378; Martin and Finkelstein 2013: 29. Bloch-Smith 1992: 174–5; Barako 2000: 518–20; Yannai 2002. Ben-Yosef and Sergi 2018: 470. Metallurgical workshops in this region are mentioned in 1 Chr 14:14. See Amzallag and Yona 2018a: 10–15. Bauer 1998: 156, 160; Bell 2005: 40–1, 95; Gilboa 2015: 52. The cooperation between the Philistines and Tyrians is reported in Jer 47:4; Joel 4:4; Ps 83:8. Bauer 1998: 154–5. Faust and Katz 2011: 231–2. Maeir et al. 2013: 23–6; Sergi 2013: 228. Ben-Yosef and Sergi 2018: 469. Malena (2015: 82–90) suggests that the stake of the battle of Mikhmach (1 Sam 13) was control of the road connecting the Arabah zone of production with the Shephelah cities of Bet-Shemesh and Gath via the Jerusalem area. Additionally, the battle at Aphek between the Philistines and Israel (1 Sam 29:1; 31:1–7) was probably motivated by control of the Jezreel Valley, the main pathway in the northern network to the Mediterranean shore. Master 2014: 89; Malena 2015: 88, 322. Redford 1992: 273; Younker 1999: 199. Finkelstein and Lipschits 2011: 141. Gass (2009: 102, n. 523 and ref therein) assumes that the Sutu and Shasu designations of the inhabitants of Moab are equivalent in the Egyptian documents. The affiliation of the Shasus, in Egyptian documents, with toponyms identified as Moabite in the Bible supports this premise. See Gass 2009: 114. Mazar 2003: 88. Finkelstein 2014: 94; Porter 2014: 134 and ref therein. Swinnen 2009: 30; Finkelstein and Lipschits 2011: 145. From these findings, Israel Finkelstein and Oded Lipschits (2011: 145) concluded that “it seems reasonable to link the prosperity of Southern Moab to the sudden rise in copper production at Khirbet en-Nahas (and neighbouring sites) south of the Dead Sea and the transportation of large quantities of this copper through the ‘King’s Highway’ along the Transjordanian plateau to the north.” Finkelstein and Lipschits 2011: 146–7. These authors date the stele to the eleventh to tenth centuries BC. Gass 2009: 232–8, esp. 236. Mattingly 1997: 219; Lipiński 2006: 322. See Finkelstein and Lipschits (2011: 140) concerning dating the Karak remains to the Early Iron Age (instead of the Late Bronze Age, as suggested before). Traces of agricultural activity, especially on the Karak plateau, accompany

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149

150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164

165 166 167

168 169 170

the emergence of Moab. However, the closeness of the first Moabite cities to the principal axes of north–south communication (the King’s Highway and Desert road) suggests that the activities of metal transportation and transformation were the main factor leading to sedentarization and the development of agriculture in these areas. See Lipiński 2006: 321; Mattingly 2015. Glueck (1940: 134–5) was the first author dating these sites to the Early Iron Age and interpreting them as a chain of fortresses protecting the eastern boundary of Moab against nomad incursions and plundering. For recent views concerning this interpretation, see Finkelstein and Lipschits 2011: 139, 146. Killebrew 2005: 166–8. Lipiński 2006: 299–300. Van der Steen 1996: 60. Younker 1999: 199–201, 206. Tyson 2014: 186–93. Van der Steen 1999: 181. Kochavi 1968: 1036; van der Steen 1996: 55, 60: Veldhuijzen and van der Steen 1999: 195, 198. Veldhuijzen and van der Steen 1999: 195, 198; Negbi 1998: 196; Tebes 2007a: 82. Mazar 2003: 88. Monroe and Fleming 2019: 18–19. Van der Steen 1996: 63; Gadot 2019: 39. Stern et al. 1997: 41–4; Gilboa and Sharon 2001. Avner 2014: 142. Dever 2003: 115; Burke 2018: 242. HALOT 2: 753; van der Steen 1996: 55. Furthermore, Mahanaim became from the eleventh century BC an important administrative center for the metallurgical industry and metal distribution in the Israelite kingdom. See Coughenour 1989. Bell 2016: 91. Niemeyer 2004: 250; Bell 2016: 102. Susan and Andrew Sherratt (1993: 364) concluded that “[t]he area which recovered most rapidly was the Southern Levant (Philistia and Phoenicia), linked both to Cyprus and now also to the incenseproducing areas of Southern Arabia via the West Arabian coast route. This Southern Levantine focus was the core region of the expansion at the start of the first millennium.” Van Berchem 1967: 81, 107; Beitzel 2010: 51; Bell 2016: 102. Van Berchem 1967; Negbi 1992; Bell 2016: 96. Gonzalez de Canales et al. 2009; Bell 2016: 98.

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PART II

THE PRIMEVAL IDENTITY OF YHWH

CHAPTER FIVE

THE METALLURGICAL BACKGROUND OF ANCIENT YAHWISM

T

wo main conclusions emerge from the first part of this book. First, that YHWH was the god sponsoring the South Levantine movement of emancipation to which Israel belonged. Second, that the renewal of the Arabah copper industry transformed copper into a source of wealth for the whole region, and provided the stimulus for the rise of new national entities, including Israel. Combining these two issues invites us to examine whether or not YHWH’s prominent status ensued from a special connection with the copper industry.

THE PATRON OF THE METALWORKERS

The God of Mining Areas Metal is generally produced in the vicinity of zones of ore extraction. It is why a god involved in metallurgy is expected to reign first of all over mining areas. This attribute seems to characterize YHWH in the Bible, whose land of origin is indicated in Deut 33:2 as follows: “YHWH came from Sinai and glowed (zaraḥ ̄ ) from Seir upon us; he shone forth (hȏpî ʿa) from Mount Paran.” Although pinpointing these sites remains challenging today, it is noteworthy that all three regions encompass areas of copper production in antiquity (see Figure 4.2). The mountains of Seir border on the Faynan mining area;1 the mining areas of Bir Nasib/Wadi Megara/Serabit el Khadem are located in the mountainous region of Sinai (South Peninsula); and the wilderness of 151

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Paran, an area between the eastern Negev and Sinai, includes the copper mining areas of Beer-Ora, Yotvata, and Timna in Southern Arabah.2 In Deuteronomy, the “Promised Land” is strangely described as a giant mining area, “a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig copper” (Deut 8:9). This description belies the geological reality because iron ore is rare and copper ore is absent from the territory of Israel. However, it might fulfill a theological need: If YHWH was traditionally present in mining areas, the transfer of his dominion to Israel requires the transformation of the latter into a giant mining area, at least theoretically. Further indications support this premise. • Numbers 21:2–10 relates the curious story of burning serpents attacking and killing the Israelites. This narrative localizes the event between the stations of Mount Hor and Obot (Num 21:4, 21:10). Further details about the Israelite itinerary (Num 33:41–43) inform us about two additional locations, Zalmonah and Punon (=Faynan), between these stations. They reveal that the episode occurred near the mining area of forbidden access, and following an eventual attempt of the Israelites to go across it.3 This story recalls, therefore, the function of guardian of the mining areas attached to the serpents in antiquity.4 Since YHWH is the god sending these animals to bite the intruders in Num 21:6, we may conclude that he was the divine being who restricted access to these mining areas, and protected them. • In the oracle to Cyrus (Isa 45:1–5), YHWH instructs the king of Persia on the manner in which he intends to reveal himself: “I will give you the treasures of darkness (ʾȏṣe˘rȏt ḥo ̄še˘k) and the hoards in secret places (ûmaṭe˘mun̄ ê mise˘ttarîm), that ̄ you may know that it is I, YHWH the God of Israel, who call you by your name” (Isa 45:3). This claim reveals that YHWH was mainly identified, outside of Israel, through his ruling on the mining areas scattered around the earth. • In the oracle from Zech 6:1–5, verse 1 mentions mysterious chariots coming out of mountains of copper: “Again I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains. And the mountains were mountains of copper.” Thereafter, verse 5 reveals that these chariots concretize the four winds emanating from the domain of YHWH, a feature identifying it with mining areas (the mountains of copper).

YHWH as a Qenite Deity A god dwelling in areas of copper production is especially close to miners, smelters, and metalworkers. The Qenite hypothesis concerning the origin of YHWH, argued for more than a century, corroborates this premise.5 This theory posits the former worship of YHWH among the Qenites on the basis of the following indications:

THE PATRON OF THE METALWORKERS

• YHWH participates in Cain’s birth, the forefather of the tribe and first-born of humankind (Gen 4:1).6 • Cain is the first man offering to YHWH (Gen 4:3–4). • The sign ensuring divine protection to Cain and all his descendants (Gen 4:15) reflects YHWH’s commitment to this tribe.7 • Moses “discovered” the genuine identity of YHWH that was hitherto unknown to the Israelites (Ex 6:3) after living for years near Jethro, his Qenite father-in-law.8 • Traces of a zealous worship of YHWH among the Qenites exist in the Bible (e.g., 2 Kgs 10:15–16).9 Caleb and Othniel, two members of the Qenizzites clan allied to the Qenites, are praised for their enthusiastic worship of YHWH (Num 32:12; Jos 14:13–14; Judg 3:9–11). • A Jeremiah oracle addressed to the Rekhabites (another clan of Qenites living among the Israelites; see 1 Chr 2:55) promises them the enduring commitment of YHWH (Jer 35:18–19).

The metallurgical activity of the Qenites is not explicit in the Bible. It may be deduced, however, from allusions in 1 Chr 2:55, from their way of life, and from their social marginality.10 Also the name qeȳ nî (Qenite) is instructive because it derives from the Semitic root qyn designating the actions of smelting and metalworking.11 Genesis 4 is the clearest source for this identification, because a smith, Tubal Cain, is explicitly mentioned in the genealogy of Cain (Gen 4:22). Furthermore, the subdivision of the Qenites into two groups, the sons of Ada and of Zilla (Gen 4:19–22), apparently reflects the differentiation of the Southern Levantine metalworkers into smelters, the producers of raw copper (the sons of Ada). and smiths, the producers of copper artifacts (the sons of Zilla).12 Beyond explicit references to the Qenites, the Bible accentuates the special closeness of the metalworkers to YHWH. For example, Ex 31:1–5 mentions Bezalel and Uri, the metalworkers involved in the construction of the Tabernacle, being filled with “the spirit of god.” The text does not provide any explanation concerning the source of this prophetic skill, but an Isaiah oracle unveils its origin: “Surely, I am (YHWH) who have created the smith, blows (nop̄ eā ḥ) on the fire of coals and casts (ûmȏṣî ʾ) the instrument of his work” (Isa 54:16a).13 In this verse, a grammatical ambiguity makes it unclear whether it is YHWH or the smith who blows on fire and casts the molten metal into molds. However, the context of this claim, combined with the promise that the weapons arrayed against Israel will be ineffectual (v. 16b), corroborates YHWH’s affinity for the smith, the active participation in his work, and even of his theophany in the workshop.14 The inference of Qenite partiality to YHWH is apparently challenged by the drama related in Genesis 4 concerning Cain, the forefather of this

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congregation. First, YHWH rejects Cain’s offering (v. 5). Then Cain kills Abel, his brother (v. 8), and YHWH blames him for this crime (v. 10). Thereafter, YHWH curses him explicitly in verse 11, and this malediction even extends to the entirety of the earth (v. 12). This damnation is abrogated only after the birth of Seth, the Abel substitute (v. 25) and founder of a new human lineage and a new mode of worship of YHWH (v. 26). That Cain and his lineage are discredited in this narrative is undeniable. But this depreciation might be an artifice intended to undermine the legitimacy of this archaic form of Yahwism, in favor of the Israelite one. This interpretation is especially tempting because in Genesis, Cain and his lineage become excluded from the postdiluvian world flourishing in Seth and his descendants.15 This is further confirmed by the integration of the Qenites, in Gen 15:19–21, within the list of peoples to be dispossessed by Abraham and his lineage. But this claim upholds an extremist position, the Qenites never having appeared on similar lists of peoples related in the other books.16 This odd demotion of the Qenites is therefore introduced in Genesis, in contrast to most other biblical books. The murder of Abel is exposed as the source of the divine curse of the Qenites for eternity. However, this pivotal event acknowledges other possible connotations. For example, a primeval murder is typically attached to the Kaberoi, the congregation of North Aegean metalworkers.17 The participation of Prometheus in this drama reveals that it concerns the first metalworker, exactly as Cain in Genesis 4. But unlike the biblical narrative, this primeval murder had a positive significance in Ancient Greece, where it was interpreted as an integral part of the esoteric traditions of the Kaberoi and other guilds of metalworkers. In Samothrace and Lemnos, the primeval murder even represents the constitutive event of the mysteria, festivals of initiatory nature leading the metalworkers’ enigmatic deity to self-reveal to the participants.18 The commemoration of this drama was apparently a crucial stage in the revelation of the deity, precisely as the sign of Cain expressing closeness to YHWH (Gen 4:15) after Abel’s assassination. Its significance becomes clear upon noticing that many initiatory processes (such as those characterizing the mysteria in Northern Aegean) begin with a symbolic death-like event, the prerequisite for the revelation of a hidden holy reality relative to mysteries.19 A similar esoteric dimension is suggested in Cain’s declaration following the murder: “from your face I shall be hidden” (ûmippan̄ êka ̄ ʾe˘ssate ̄ r)̄ (v. 14) immediately followed by the mark of divine protection (v. 15).20 These parallels suggest that the author of Genesis 4 may have extruded authentic elements of the Qenite traditions from their original arcane context in order to ratify the derogation of this group of pre-Israelite worshippers of YHWH.

YHWH’S METALLURGICAL ATTRIBUTES

YHWH’S METALLURGICAL ATTRIBUTES

The Celestial Furnace Ezekial’s initial vision (Ezekiel 1) describes the prophet reaching the celestial throne of YHWH. The first phenomenon he relates is intense fire, flames, and embers, combined with a unique phenomenon he refers to as ḥašmal: “And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, with a fire flashing up, so that a brightness was round about it; and out of the midst thereof as the color of ḥašmal, out of the midst of the fire” (Ezek 1:4). The Greek term translating ḥašmal in the LXX, ἠλέκτρου, designates both amber and a metal alloy of a pale yellow color. The same dual meaning characterizes cognate terms, such as the Egyptian ḥasmn, the Akkadian ešmarû, and the Elamite išmalu.21 Consequently, ḥašmal likely retains one of these two meanings in Ezekiel as well. Amber is a fossil resin, so it releases dark smoke instead of shining light once set amid embers. It is why ḥašmal, in Ezekiel’s vision, probably designates a metal. Being mixed with glowing embers, this metal is doubtless in a liquid state, so the mention of brightness surrounding it (we˘nogah fits bet̄ l ȏ sabîb) ̄ ter the pale yellow halo of radiance emanating from molten metal than the brilliance reflected by polished solid metal. Consequently, the opening vision in Ezekiel presumably describes a divine furnace in which molten metal produces a halo of radiance.22 The vision continues with the description of a celestial throne positioned upon this fiery furnace (Ezek 1:26–28), which corroborates the metallurgical nature of YHWH’s domain.

The Nature of kābȏd-YHWH In biblical Hebrew, the term kab̄ ȏd unambiguously means glory in a human context. It is why kab̄ ȏd-YHWH is generally understood as designating the glory, splendor, or majesty attached to the deity. However, the appellation of YHWH as the “god of kab̄ ȏd” (ʾel-hakkabȏ ̄ d, Ps 29:3) or the “king of kabȏ ̄ d” (melekh hakkabȏ ̄ d, Ps 24:7–8,10) suggests the reference to a specific attribute. Consequently, the notion of kab̄ ȏd-YHWH may differ from the concepts of glory and magnificence, two attributes attached to every divine being, and even to mortals. Additionally, the theophanic dimension of kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH (e.g., Ex 16:7, Num 14:21–22) is hard to reconcile with an anonymous expression of glory attached to every god. For these reasons, kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH may be a technical term describing a characteristic exclusively ascribed to YHWH, rather than a form of praise indiscriminately attributed to mortals and deities.23 The expression “the kab̄ ȏd-YHWH was seen/revealed” frequently encountered in the Bible refers to a visible reality rather than to an abstract notion.24

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Its combination with ḥašmal in Ezekiel’s vision (Ezek 1:28) indicates that it may account for the thermal radiance emitted by molten metal. Exodus 24:17, a verse linking the vision of kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH with its fiery environment, supports this premise in claiming that “The appearance of kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH was like 25 devouring fire.” The radiant nature of kab̄ ȏd-YHWH is also explicit in Isa 60:1 (“The kab̄ ȏd-YHWH is shining [zara ̄ h̄ ̣] upon you”) and in Ezek 10:4b (“And the court was filled with the radiance [nogah] of kab̄ ȏd-YHWH”). ̄ The linking of kabȏ d with the sun, in Isa 59:19, supports its radiant nature: ̄ “So shall they fear the name of YHWH from the west, and His kabȏ ̄ d from the rising of the sun.” The triangular association between YHWH, his kabȏ ̄ d, and the sun in Ps 84:12 confirms it: “For sun and shield YHWH Elohim; Grace and kab̄ ȏd YHWH will give”.26 In Ps 19:2–7, the sun is even praised as the ultimate expression of kab̄ ȏd-YHWH.27 At first sight, these associations promote a primeval identity of YHWH as a solar deity. But a metallurgical alternative arises from the fact that this luminary was approached, in antiquity, as a giant piece of molten metal.28 This metallurgical dimension is confirmed by the cauldron symbolism of the sun in antiquity.29 The widespread combination of connotations of birth and creation on one hand, and in death and destruction on the other, transform the cauldron into the symbol of the rejuvenation and vitalization process in antiquity.30 A parallel emerges between this symbolism and the furnace, the only site where a rejuvenation of matter (here the recycling of rust copper through its remelting) may occur.31 It is why the cauldron symbolism of the sun probably denotes its metallurgical representation in antiquity. Consequently, if the abstract concepts of glory and magnificence are included in the expression kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH, this notion may first designate a dense liquid with fiery and radiant properties, such as molten metal or molten slag.32

The Blowing Activity Scholars have derived the name YHWH from the Semitic root hwy expressing both the action of blowing and the wind resulting from it.33 Most interpret this etymology in the context of a storm-god identity of YHWH.34 However, in assisting the smith in his work, YHWH is first of all depicted as blowing in Isa 54:16, a representation devoid of storm connotations. Blasting is the essential feature required for boosting the normal combustion process (about 700 to 800 °C) to the temperatures required for the fusion of gold or copper (1000 to 1100 °C) and silicates (up to 1200 °C). It is why the god sponsoring metallurgy is at first a blowing deity. The combination of wind and fire, in a divine context, is frequently observed in the Bible. A divine wind-induced fire is mentioned in Ps 104:4 (“He makes

YHWH’S METALLURGICAL ATTRIBUTES

his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire”) and in Job 4:9 (“By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his ‘nose’ [ ʾappȏ] they are consumed”). It is also explicit in Isa 66:15, where the first hemiverse acknowledges divine action through wind and fire (“For behold, YHWH in fire will come, and like the whirlwind his chariots”), and the second one combines them (“to blow [le˘haš̄ îb]35 his ‘nose’ [ʾappȏ] in heat, his roaring in flames of fire”). A similar powerful wind is visible in Ezek 21:36a, where a metallurgical connotation is explicit: “And I will pour out upon you my indignation; With the fire of my wrath I will blow [ʾap̄ îaḥ] upon you; I will give you into the hands of fiery men, smiths of destruction.” As in the work of a furnace, the divine blowing leads to the pouring out of an allconsuming molten substance.36 For a smelting god, blasting is not only an essential attribute but also his modus operandi par excellence. This feature is apparent in the Bible, where YHWH blasts an all-consuming fire to destroy his enemies: “His ways writhe (yah̄ ̣îlû) at all time, Your judgments are on high, against him; All His enemies, He [YHWH] will blast (yapîaḥ ̄ ) on them” (Ps 10:5). The metallurgical context of this mode of action is confirmed in Ezek 22:20, where the Israelites are likened to metals to be purified by YHWH in a furnace: “As silver and bronze and iron and lead and tin gathered into a furnace, to blow the fire on it (lapaḥ ̄ at ʿala ̄ yw ̄ ʾeš) ̄ in order to melt it; so I will gather you in my ‘nose’ and in my fiery wrath (ḥa˘matî), ̄ and I will put you in and melt you.”

The Divine “Nose” In Ezek 22:20, the blowing activity is generally not interpreted in association with metallurgy; rather, it is regarded as a demonstration of divine anger expressed through the mention of ʾap (nose/anger) and ḥamâ ̄ (heat/fury). Also in Job 9:5, YHWH melting the mountains with his ʾap is generally understood as the expression of divine anger: “He who removes mountains, and they know it not (we˘loʾ̄ yada ̄ ʿû); ̄ when he overturns them in his ʾap.” However, this verse belongs to a speech in which Job refutes the correlation between human and divine actions. For justifying this view, Job refers to volcanic eruptions (the removal of mountains by their melting), a divine intervention occurring in the Arabian Peninsula, far from the human eye and unrelated to human actions. Consequently, the interpretation of ʾap in Job 9:5 as a figurative expression of anger is no more appropriate than a reference to his “nose.” Rather, ʾap apparently refers here to a process.37 Psalm 21:10 reveals its metallurgical nature: “You will make them as a );̄ YHWH, through his blazing furnace (ke˘tannûr ʾeš), ̄ ̄ 38 When you appear (le˘ʿet̄ panêka ʾap (be˘ʾappȏ), will swallow them, And fire will consume them.” Further examples reveal how ʾap, in a divine context, may designate not only the divine nose or anger, but also the divine blowing apparatus.39 Isaiah

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48:8–11 is an oracle that explains in detail the way YHWH intends to reform the Israelites. 8You

have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a wrongdoer (poše ̄ ̄aʿ). For my name’s sake I will extend the length of my ʾap (ʾaʾa˘rîk ʾappî), and my majestic power 9 (te h̄ ı̄llātî) I will restrain (ʾeḥe˘ṭom) for you, that I may not cut you off. 10Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. 11For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

This oracle begins (v. 8) with a complaint about the Israelites’ innately treacherous nature (with a clear allusion to the substitution of Jacob for Esau as YHWH’s people).40 It concludes (v. 11) with YHWH’s need to improve the people now bearing his name and prestige. Between these two claims, YHWH specifies the steps necessary to the process (vv. 9–10). He begins by deferring his ʾap in order to prevent the summary destruction of the people through his fiery intervention (v. 9). It remains difficult here to interpret ʾap only as an expression of wrath because, in this case, the locution “I will enlength my ʾap” (ʾaʾa˘rîk ʾappî) would express escalation of the divine anger, a meaning that clashes with the literary context of this prophecy.41 Consequently, this expression is understood by most translators and exegetes as I defer my anger or I remove my wrath or even I am patient, although it is difficult to deduce these meanings from the Hebrew formulation.42 In contrast, the idea of muzzling strength by lengthening fits perfectly here the interpretation of ʾap as a set of nozzles (ʾappayı ̄m), because the pressure of the air blast from a nozzle is inversely proportional to the tube length.43 Consequently, long tubes and nozzles are less efficient than short ones in stoking combustion. This assumption is confirmed by the details of the process that ensues after YHWH lengthens his ʾap. The metallurgical process evoked in verse 10 is frequently identified as cupellation, a mode of purification associated with YHWH in many biblical sources.44 In Isa 48:10, however, it is specified that YHWH purifies the Israelites not through cupellation (the normal process for silver), but via another process involving a furnace (kûr). This mode is clearly differentiated from cupellation in Proverbs: “The cupel (maṣrep̄ ) is for silver, and the furnace (kûr) is for gold, and YHWH tests (boh̄ ̣en̄ ) hearts” (Prov 17:3).45 The only technique of gold purification in a furnace that was known in antiquity is cementation. Its use for gold purification is identified from the Bronze Age both in Egypt and in Mesopotamia.46 Whereas the cupellation process occurs within a few hours at high temperatures (1000 to 1200 °C),

YHWH’S METALLURGICAL ATTRIBUTES

cementation requires temperatures of about 800 °C and lasts for days.47 It is gentler than the violent and destructive process of cupellation, in which the metal melts. This fits precisely the description of YHWH lengthening his nozzle in verse 9, especially appropriate for gentle processes requiring a wellcontrolled temperature (such as metal purification and soldering) or preventing excessive oxidation. Therefore, interpreting ʾaʾa˘rîk ʾappî in Isa 48:9 as I will lengthen my nozzles clarifies the meaning of this oracle. This interpretation also elucidates the liturgical formula that lauds YHWH’s “long nostrils” (ʾerek ʾappayı ̄m). This claim is first introduced in Ex 34:6, in the context of a divine encounter with Moses: “YHWH passed before him and proclaimed, ‘YHWH, YHWH, a God merciful and gracious, long in nostrils (ʾerek ʾappayı ̄m), and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.’”48 Instead of following the literal meaning (“long in nostrils”), ʾerek ʾappayı ̄m is generally translated as “slow to anger.” This understanding fits the general context of YHWH’s loving-kindness (ḥesed). However, the link between long nostrils and this moral quality remains obscure. Interpreting ʾerek ʾapayı ̄m as “long nozzles” instead of “long nostrils” projects an explicit image of how YHWH restrains himself. Like a metallurgist, the god can moderate his strength into gentle processing to avoid the destruction of the worked item, here the Israelites. If the terms ʾap/appayı ̄m refer to the blowing apparatus by which YHWH blasts on a hearth, he should be approached as a smelting god rather than a storm-god.49

Volcanism The mention of YHWH overturning mountains by blowing on them (Job 9:5) is not the only reference to this geological reality. A volcanic theophany is visible also in Ps 46:7 (“He utters His voice, the earth melts”) and in Psalm 97:5, where the poet even considers volcanism as an unavoidable consequence of the divine presence: “The mountains melt like wax at the presence of YHWH, at the presence of the master of the whole earth.” Volcanism became a privileged mode of divine action for modifying the landscape (Mic 1:3–4; Job 9:5) and provoking extensive destruction (Deut 32:22; Ezek 22:31; Hos 5:10; Zeph 3:8).50 Similarly, volcanism also reveals YHWH to humankind (Joel 4:15–17; Zeph 3:8–9). This essential relationship between YHWH and volcanism may explain its many expressions in biblical poetry and prophecy,51 and in the eschatological visions.52 The divine revelation following volcanic activity is inherent in the observation of the kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH during the eruption. This linkage is explicit in Isa 40:4–5: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the rugged shall be made level, and the rough places a plain. And the kabȏ ̄ dYHWH shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of YHWH has spoken it.”53 This description corroborates the interpretation of kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH

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as a physical reality, the visible thermal radiance. Also in Psalm 97, the first six verses account for a volcanic eruption beginning with the emission of smoke which darkens the sky (v.2), followed by an eruption of lava (v. 3) accompanied by lightning and earthquakes (v. 4). Thereafter, a massive flow of molten lava (v. 5) reveals the kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH to everyone (v. 6): “5The mountains melted like wax at the presence of YHWH, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. 6The heavens declared His righteousness, and all the peoples saw His kabȏ ̄ d.” Volcanism was, in antiquity, closely related to metallurgy.54 Hephaestus, the Greek smith-god, was called the prince of Etna.55 The Cyclopes, his servants, dwelled around Etna and Lipari.56 Their metallurgical activity was supposed to occur in the core of these volcanoes.57 The Etruscan and Roman counterparts of Hephaestus (respectively Sethlans and Vulcan) are also fully identified with volcanoes.58 This commonality is based on the observation that lava flowing from the crater of a volcano and slag released from a furnace at work both radiate a similar yellow-orange light. These fiery materials have a similar viscosity and sulfur smell, and they are much alike once solidified. This homology might explain the presumed essential function of winds in volcanism in antiquity. The anonymous poet of the Aetna (first century AD) even identifies erupting volcanoes as great furnaces, with sulfur and bitumen serving as fuel and with a fire enhanced by the bellow-like action of winds.59 Also in the Bible, the divine ʾap kindles a fire that consumes mountains: “For a fire is kindled (qad̄ ḥâ) by my ʾap, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth and its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains” (Deut 32:22).60 The link between divine ʾap and volcanism is even more explicit in Isaiah: “Behold, the name of YHWH comes from afar, burning is his ʾap, in thick rising smoke (we˘kob̄ ed mas´aʾ̄ â); His lips (s´e˘pat̄ ayw) are full of fury (zaʿam), and his ̄ tongue (ûle˘šȏnȏ) is like a devouring fire” (Isa 30:27). Here again, the interpretation of ʾap as anger is challenged by the mention of two other “anatomical” components that are also interpretable in the volcanic context: the lips as borders of the crater and the tongue as flowing lava.61 This insertion of volcanism among the most essential attributes of YHWH deserves special attention because volcanism was unknown in the Levant during the historical period in question. Consequently, this trend does not reflect any necessity to integrate into the divine sphere an overwhelming reality for everyone in Israel. Rather, it might reflect theological considerations unveiling the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism.

Qanna in Divine Context The Bible identifies qnʾ as a divine attribute (Ex 34:14), even equating it to YHWH’s holiness in Jos 24:19. Such prestige is striking as long as qnʾ is

YHWH’S METALLURGICAL ATTRIBUTES

interpreted as envy, jealousy, and uncontrolled passion, because these sentiments are negatively connoted in the Bible: Conjugal jealousy is “the rage of man” (Prov 6:34), anger is “the rottenness of the bones” (Prov. 14:30), and passion is a divine fire devouring the lovers (Cant 8:6). Even if it expresses zeal for YHWH, qnʾ cruelly devours the psalmist (Pss 69:10; 119:139).62 Several authors reject the interpretation of divine qnʾ as jealousy, maintaining that it reflects the divine zeal for the exclusivity of his cult,63 and/or a divine anger following the violation of his alliance.64 However, likening such a character trait with holiness is hard to reconcile with the lack of expression of such a “jealous” character of YHWH concerning the other nations of the fraternal alliance, each one worshipping a patron-god. Furthermore, unlike the human qnʾ restricted to the psychological domain, its divine counterpart comprises a mode of action revealed by the expression “YHWH’s qnʾ will do it (taʿa˘s´eh zʾot̄ )” (e.g., 2 Kgs 19:31; Isa 9:6, 37:32).65 Psalm 79:5 and Ezekiel 36:5 liken the divine qnʾ with fire. Rather than a metaphor, this fiery element is often presented as a genuine, all-consuming reality (Num 25:11, Ezek 38:19), an all-devouring fire (Isa 26:11, Nah 1:4, Zeph 1:18). This latter phenomenon is even an essential dimension of the divine qnʾ in Deut 4:24: “YHWH your god is a devouring fire, a qnʾ god.” In Deut 32:19–22 and Nah 1:5, the devouring fire of YHWH is endowed with a volcanic aspect, a feature suggesting a possible metallurgical dimension.66 In ancient Hebrew, qnʾ also designated metal corrosion.67 Consequently, through its fiery and all-destructive nature, the divine qnʾ might refer to the process of remelting in a furnace, by which the metal of corroded artifacts is recycled without any loss of matter.68 This interpretation enables us to clarify why the divine qnʾ, though initially destructive, is expected to bring forth a renewed, purified, and even improved reality (e.g., Isa 37:22–32, Zech 7:11–8:6). The vision of the “day of YHWH” in Zeph 3:8–9 expresses this surprising paradox: 8Therefore

wait for me, declares YHWH, For the day when I rise up to seize the prey. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, To pour out upon them my indignation (zaʿ mî), all the burning of my ʾap; For in the fire of my qînʾâ Shall be consumed all the earth. 9For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples To a pure speech, That all of them may call upon the name of YHWH And serve him with one accord.

In verse 8, YHWH first assembles the nations as a metalworker gathers old copper artifacts for recycling their metal. He thereafter blows on them with his

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nozzles (ʾap) and melts them with the fire of his qînʾâ. A new world, improved and purified, spontaneously emerges from this destructive process in verse 9, just as corroded metal is entirely renewed through the process of remelting. Many metallurgical processes are attached to YHWH in the Bible. Whenever identified, this feature was generally justified in the past as the use of the outstanding physical conditions of metallurgy for illustrating the overwhelming powers of the deity. The present observations invite us to revisit this opinion. Here, metallurgy appears as an essential attribute synonymous with YHWH’s holiness, denoting the divine universe, determining the modus operandi, and even conditioning the appellation of the deity. In the Bible, metallurgy is therefore one of the most essential components of the divine reality. The metallurgical background of YHWH confirms, therefore, that he was formerly the patron of South Levantine metalworkers. TESTIMONIES FROM THE ISRAELITE RELIGION

The references to divine metallurgy in the Bible knows two possible explanations. It might be a throwback to Bronze Age traditions, in which case their survival in the Bible is devoid of any theological consequence concerning Israelite religion. Alternatively, this metallurgical dimension might be a constitutive element of Israelite theology, at least in its early stages. These eventualities are now examined.

The First Leaders We learn from 2 Kgs 18:4 that the copper serpent set in the Jerusalem temple was attributed to Moses. In Num 21:8, it is even YHWH who “instructs” Moses to forge by himself (ʿa˘s´eh̄ le˘ka)̄ this copper artifact. These details highlight the metallurgical skill of the first leader of Israel. Also Aaron, the first priest of YHWH among the Israelites, is described in Exodus as an accomplished metalworker: He is the craftsman who prepares the mold of the Golden Calf and casts the metal (Ex 32:4). His son Eleazar exhibits the same expertise by hammering the copper censers of Qorah and his company and using these plates for coating the copper altar (Num 16:37–39). The description of Moses’ vocation, in Exodus 3–4, reveals that this skill was of significance for the Israelites. This chapter positions the first encounter with YHWH on Mount Horeb, a holy site in the vicinity of the camp of Jethro, the priest. The preternatural combustion described there (Ex 3:3), once combined with the Qenite affiliation of Jethro, suggests that a site of cultic metallurgy on the heights is described here through the burning bush.69 The staff-serpent transformation, a wonder revealed to Moses by YHWH, corroborates this premise. Performing this miracle is presented as a way of

TESTIMONIES FROM THE ISRAELITE RELIGION

demonstrating that Moses truly speaks in the name of YHWH (Ex 4:1–5). The wordplay between copper and serpent (both designated as nah̄ ̣aš̄ ), the metallurgical connotations of this animal symbolism, and the fiery context of occurrence of the wonder, once linked, invite us to interpret the reversible transformation of the scepter of Moses into a serpent (Ex 4:1–5) as the remelting of an old copper artifact (the scepter), its transformation into raw copper (the serpent), and its reuse for the production of a new scepter.70 In Ex 4:1–9, the scepter–serpent transformation is followed by a second wonder intending to illuminate the meaning of the first one (Ex 4:8). This second one, the reversible appearance of leprosy on Moses’ hand, also has a metallurgical connotation attached to the process of rejuvenation/revitalization.71 Here again, Moses has to demonstrate his understanding of the metallurgical processes and their significance in order to convince the Israelites that he truly speaks in the name of YHWH. This story is conceivable only if YHWH was formerly acknowledged as the patron of metalworkers, if these latter were the only people authorized to speak in his name, and if this tradition was still vivid among the Israelites up to the time of the composition of Exodus.

The Sinai Theophany YHWH’s revelation at Sinai is among the most essential events in Israelite theology. This theophany is described in Ex 19:16–19 as an extraordinary occurrence, beginning with lightning bolts, thick smoke, and a terrifying noise that gradually amplifies in volume. Then an intense fire associated with violent quakes causes the whole mountain to shudder. Both biblical scholars and geologists identify in this description the successive phases of a volcanic eruption.72 The revelation of kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH corroborates this volcanic interpretation: “And the appearance of the kab̄ ȏd-YHWH was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel” (Ex 24:17).73 The report of the Sinai theophany in Deuteronomy confirms this volcanic representation of the event: “The mountain burned with fire unto the heart of heaven, with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness” (Deut 4:11). This covenant also looks like a volcanic event in the Song of Deborah: “The mountains melted (naze ̄ ˘lû) before YHWH, Sinai before YHWH the God of Israel” (Judg 5:5). Volcanic activity being unknown in the Sinai Peninsula for millions of years, this description is frequently interpreted as a literary device introduced for exhibiting the terrifying and exceptional nature of the Sinai covenant. However, the description of the volcanic reality does not serve here the purpose of an impressive background: It is instead the totality of the revelation. In both Ex 20:18–19 and Deut 4:10–11, the vocal theophany of YHWH is constitutive of the volcanic reality. Furthermore, the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire that accompany the Israelites look like the epitome of the

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volcanic theophany of YHWH, although they are devoid of any spectacular expression.74 Even more explicitly, the Book of Exodus emphasizes the metallurgical dimension of this volcanic theophany in comparing the smoking mountain with a furnace at work: “Mount Sinai was altogether on smoke, because YHWH descended upon it in fire. The smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace (kibšan), and the whole mount quaked greatly” (Ex 19:18).75 Consequently, volcanism may hardly be restricted in this instance to pyrotechnics introduced for literary purposes. Rather, here volcanism serves as a marker of the genuine presence of the deity. It is a way for the Israelites to guarantee that the Sinai covenant involved YHWH himself, not merely one of his emissaries.76 This imagery therefore confirms that metallurgy remained for the Israelites an essential attribute typically associated with YHWH.

The Jerusalem Temple The Isaiah oracle identifying the Jerusalem temple as “the furnace of YHWH” (Isa 31:9) is sometimes interpreted as an expression of the divine anger against Assur and future enemies.77 However, this claim refers to something constantly present in Jerusalem, rather than occasional wrath, so the literal meaning is preferable. The parallel between the description of the celestial universe as a divine furnace (Ezekiel 1) and the divine presence in the Jerusalem temple (Ezekiel 10) supports this premise and compels us to look at the artifacts with metallurgical connotation set in the Jerusalem temple. • Copper serpent: The copper serpent (Nehushtan) set in the temple (until Hezekiah removed it as a part of his religious reform) has a strong metallurgical connotation. This affinity is even strengthened by its association with the copper serpent made by Moses (2 Kgs 18:4), itself in close relation with the Arabah mining copper area (Numbers 21).78 • Holy cauldrons: The Book of Kings mentions ten copper-made chariots positioned at the entrance to the Jerusalem temple, each one supporting a coppermade basin (kiyyȏr) (1 Kgs 7:27–39). These artifacts contained the water used by the priests for purifications.79 Beyond this practical function, however, one should keep in mind that the purifying virtues of the liquid of these basins probably emanated from its symbolic association. In the Bible, the term kiyyȏr also designates a cauldron (1 Sam 2:14) and even a site of combustion (Zech 12:6). This homonymy is especially relevant in light of the furnace symbolism of cauldrons in antiquity.80 • Sea of Copper: The copper basin of outstanding dimensions positioned near the entrance to the Jerusalem temple (1 Kgs 7:23–26) looks like a giant cultic cauldron. Its appellation as “Sea of Copper” (yam ̄ hanne˘ḥoš̄ et; 2 Kgs 25:13; Jer 52:17; 1 Chr 18:8) even suggests that the water filling it symbolized this metal in a molten state.81

METALLURGY AS TRANSCENDENT PRINCIPLE

• Copper columns: Two giant columns of copper, 59 tons of copper each,82 flanked the entry of the temple. Named Boaz and Yakhin, they resemble two huge ingots, thus promoting the homology between the sanctuary and an area of copper production.

Beyond these preliminary indications, the temple artifact with the strongest metallurgical connotation is probably the copper altar.83 This artifact was extremely rare in the Near East, a feature suggesting that it has a special significance in the worship of YHWH. Most features concerning this copper altar are nonexistent in the Book of Kings. However, the description of the copper altar of the Tabernacle, in Exodus and Leviticus, probably inspired by this temple artifact, unveils invaluable information concerning its nature and functioning. The copper altar is also called the altar of burnt offerings in Exodus (Ex 30:28, 31:9, 35:16, 38:1, 40:6, 40:10, 40:29), whereas no appellation associates it specifically with the other types of sacrifices. This singularity suggests that the copper coating of this altar was especially designed for the sacrifices that involved the burning of the whole animal (burnt offerings). Unlike all the other sacrifices, a burnt offering requires an elevated temperature (close to 1000 °C) for the total disintegration of bones into ashes. At these temperatures, the copper coating on the altar is close to its melting point. It glows with an orange light, the thermal radiance identified with kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH, and characterizing a furnace at work. In Leviticus 9:6, Moses announces that following his instructions for the sacrifice of burnt offerings on the copper altar will cause YHWH to make himself known: “And Moses said, this is the thing that YHWH commanded you to do, that kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH may appear to you” (Lev 9:6). Consequently, the explicit presence of a copper-coated altar in the Jerusalem temple confirms that the metallurgical background of primeval Yahwism did not rapidly disappear in ancient Israel. METALLURGY AS TRANSCENDENT PRINCIPLE

The former identity of YHWH as a patron of metallurgy might surprise, today, because this activity is acknowledged as a craft rather than the foundation of religious beliefs. However, metalworking, and especially the metallurgy of copper, was approached differently in the past. Instead of being simply artisans, the metalworkers were in the Bronze Age the representatives of a mysterious, powerful, and transcendent divine being.84

The New Dominion of Kothar The prestigious status of YHWH and the exclusivity of his cult do not fit the portrait of the smith-god from Ugarit. Although his skill and powers

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are unchallenged, Kothar is mainly a second-rank deity, a divine artisan fulfilling the instructions of the other gods. However, this first impression disappears once we remember that Kothar, in Ugaritic mythology, did not inhabit the city, but had his residence in Crete and Egypt. The motivation for this intriguing situation is silenced in the Ugaritic sources. Metallurgy had indigenous roots in the Levant, suggesting that the smith-god left his land of origin for new horizons, where his prestige was better acknowledged. Indeed, Ugaritic literature acknowledges that Kothar was a famous god in his foreign residences. Egypt is called the land of his inheritance “of all of which he is god,” and Crete is named “the seat of his dwelling” (e.g. KTU 1.3 vi 13–16). The elevated status of metallurgy in Egypt and Crete supports this assertion. • Egypt. Ptah was the Egyptian homolog of Kothar. His epithet, qeser (=Kothar), even suggests that the Egyptians equated these two deities.85 Echoing the Ugaritic sources, the Egyptian homolog of Kothar was among the most famous deities. In the New Kingdom, Ptah integrated the essential triad (Amun, Re, Ptah) of the pantheon. He also combined with Osiris and Sokaris, two of the main Egyptian divine figures,86 and with Shu and Tefnut, among the most primeval gods of Egypt.87 Ptah was even the demiurge, the civilizing deity, and the organizer of the cult of the Memphite theology.88 The appellation of Ptah as Lord of Maat confirms his prominence, Maat being the ultimate ideal of worldly governance.89 Ptah was also the master of the ka, the principle providing vitality and regeneration to the whole universe, an attribute that even transformed him into a healing deity.90 • Minoan Crete. Velkhanos was the god sponsoring metallurgy in Crete.91 His metallurgical dimension is revealed by his likeness to Hephaestus in Greek literature as well as his close relationship with the local congregations of metalworkers.92 As with Ptah in Egypt, Velkhanos was so famous in Crete that he was even considered the great god of the island.93 His affinities with Kothar may be traced through his acquaintance with the Cypriot patron of metallurgy,94 the latter being himself a local version of the Ugaritian smith-god.95

The overwhelming importance of Ptah and Velkhanos in their respective countries reveals that the status of their homolog in Ugarit was abnormally low. This situation, a probable consequence of the Amorite conquest, may explain why Ugaritic mythology acknowledges Kothar living in foreign countries where metallurgy preserved its prestige and religious importance. In this perspective, the rise of YHWH in the Early Iron Age was probably not the result of any circumstantial promotion of an artisan-god formerly belonging to the second tier of the pantheon. Rather, it looks like the recovery of the prerogatives of a great god whose prestigious status the Amorites had disposed of.

METALLURGY AS TRANSCENDENT PRINCIPLE

The Patron of Metallurgy as Super-God Neither the Nile Valley nor Crete are known for having large deposits of copper or other metals. Consequently, the overwhelming importance of Ptah and Velkhanos, including their mastering of the vital forces of the universe, attests to metallurgy being regarded as the central religious foundation, independent of the ability to produce metals and its contribution to the local economy. The cultural dimension of copper metallurgy becomes clearer when we investigate the symbolic significance of the smelting process. In the Arabah, copper was produced from malachite, a green-blue sandstone devoid of any visible trace of metal. Consequently, if the slag obviously derives from the sandstone molten in the furnace, the metal accumulating on the bottom of the furnace seems to emerge from nowhere. In a universe ignorant of the principles of modern chemistry, this sudden presence of copper in the furnace looks like a creation of matter. In antiquity, it was virtually the only craft that may have been interpreted in such a fashion. Consequently, with the help of metallurgy, humankind experienced the powers of creation, the highest form of holy activity. The furnace was also the site of another wonder no less impressive: the recycling of corroded copper (through the process of chemical reduction) without any loss of matter. Through furnace remelting, humankind experienced the powers of rejuvenation, the other divine prerogative.96 Beyond these powerful achievements, the two wonders transform the god sponsoring metallurgy into the most important deity, the one in whom the quintessence of divine attributes resides. In Egypt, the supreme position of the god of metallurgy finds support in the claim that the flesh and bones of the gods were made of gold and silver.97 This representation implies that the divine producer of these metals has mastered the processes bringing forth the gods into existence. It also reveals an essential distinction between this Supreme Being and all the other deities. The divine producer of metals is not a procreator, the “father” of the family of gods. Instead, he remains remote from all the other gods exactly as an artisan remains aloof from all his creations. This reality transforms the god of metallurgy into an ultimate being providing life and vitality to the gods, but transcending them in essence and nature. This being should be approached as a “god of gods,” a super-god.

The Egyptian Super-God Attempting to look for an Egyptian super-god brings us to first consider the figure of Ptah. In Memphite theology, this deity was not only the creator of the Universe but also the one granting all the other gods and goddesses

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their vitality, their ka.98 The Memphite representation of Ptah as a god at rest confirms his superior position. Resting, for a demiurge, attests to the perfection of his creation, his unchallenged supremacy, and even his distance from the created world and the gods ruling it.99 Despite these special attributes, Ptah is not radically different in nature from all the other deities. Even in Memphis, his representation is similar to that of all other deities. The use of the same hieroglyphic determinative for designating all of them is evidence enough. Consequently, Ptah was probably not the super-god of the Egyptian pantheon. At best, he was his representative in Memphis, the divine smith giving shape to the raw metal created by the super-god. The search for a transcendent principle in Egypt brings us to the figure of Aten. This supreme entity is mainly known from the short Amarna period (1353–1336 BC), during which a religious reform, Atenism, transformed this figure into the ultimate, autonomous principle, the origin of everything. Nevertheless, Aten was not an innovation of the New Kingdom period.100 This entity is already mentioned in Coffin Texts (ca. 2200–1800 BC)101 and represented in the Old Kingdom period as an uraeus associated with most Egyptian deities.102 The uraeus set on the heads of gods and goddesses probably expresses the preeminence and/or transcendent nature of Aten.103 Aten’s uniqueness with respect to all the other gods is confirmed in the Amarna inscriptions lack of any determinative of god.104 This characteristic, combined with the holiness attached to it, suggests that Aten was apprehended as the transcendent reality that granted the gods their divine essence. Consequently, the doctrine of Atenism appears to be a veneration of this transcendent principle at the expense of the worship of all gods. The first allusions to Aten (4th–5th Dynasties) are concomitant with the development of the solar theology in Egypt.105 The solar sign (two concentric circles) used as a classifier of Aten in Coffin Texts confirms its solar affinities.106 It also explains why Aten was first defined in modern research as a solar deity. Today, however, we find that Aten, in the Old Kingdom, designated merely the circle, the disk, with radiance as its most essential attribute.107 Its solar implications gradually spread throughout the Middle Kingdom,108 but even in this period, the old meaning of Aten as a disk was still preserved.109 In the Bronze Age, the only material reality shaped as a disk, looking like the sun and emanating hot orange-yellow radiance, was molten gold or copper in a crucible. Consequently, if Aten was not primarily conceived as a solar deity but as a hot and yellow radiant disk, it probably had an initial metallurgical dimension. This hypothesis is especially relevant due to the widespread representation of the sun as a mass of molten metal in many Bronze Age cultures, including Egypt.110

METALLURGY AS TRANSCENDENT PRINCIPLE

Further observations confirm this metallic dimension attached to Aten: • A spell from the Coffin Texts (spell 355, CT IV 292b–294b) likens Aten to the yellow substance of an egg from which it reemerges: “O Re (who is) in his egg! Dawning from his Itn! Shining in his Horizon! Swimming in his firmament!”111 This description indicates that Aten was depicted as a liquid matter of orange-yellow radiance. Its metallic nature emanates from the parallel of the representation of the sun as a mass of molten metal (see above). • In some versions of spell 355, the gold determinative is introduced for designating the cosmic egg identified with Aten. It promotes a metal significance of the yolk element associated with Aten.112 • From his earliest appearance in texts, Aten is associated with the cosmic serpent (Mehen) and the uraeus.113 The flaming/metallurgical symbolism of the serpent, in the Near East,114 combined with the fiery characteristics of Aten, promotes a metallurgical interpretation, once again. The depiction of the halo of radiance by a serpent in archaic representations of the disk corroborates this view.115 • Red dots emanating from the center of the disk are visible in some representations of Aten. The same symbolism is used in Egypt for representing furnaces in activity.116 • Aten is sometimes drawn as a winged disk.117 This symbolism may obviously refer to the daily journey of the sun in the sky. However, if it antedates the solar dimension of Aten, wings surrounding the disk become an efficient representation of blowing air, the essential operation in metallurgy. • The disk is sometimes represented with a nose in its midst.118 As in ancient Hebrew, where the nose designated not only the breathing organ but also nozzles blowing on furnaces (see above), šrwt designated in Egyptian both the nostrils and artificial orifices used for ventilation.119

Together, these points suggest that Aten was formerly identified with clumps of molten metal emitting light and heat. This interpretation helps us to understand why Aten was only represented as a disk.120 Every shape other than the clump eliminates the representation of the metal in molten state, that is, the way to reveal Aten and its transcendent position vis-à-vis the gods, all made of solidified metal that originated from it. We may deduce from these speculations that the disk of molten metal was probably not the deity but rather its revealer. This divine being was neither named nor represented in ancient Egypt, but indirectly revered through the product of his activity, molten metal, and its radiant theophany. Through the disk of molten metal, the mysterious being generating it was honored as super-god.

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THE SUPER-GOD NATURE OF YHWH

In the Bible, YHWH is at once a lonely deity (Deut 4:35; Ps 148:13) and the god of gods (Deut 10:17; Ps 136:2), a combination identifying him as a deity transcending all other divine beings.121 This super-god dimension confirms his homology with the anonymous god revealing himself through Aten in Egypt. Further indications support this parallel. Identifying Aten as the clump of molten metal emitting thermal radiance stresses a homology with kab̄ ȏd-YHWH. Furthermore, as Aten in Egypt, the divine radiance is associated with the sun in the Bible. YHWH is even addressed in Amarna-like fashion in Hab 3:4, where he is praised as an enigmatic being reaching the earth through his rays of light: “His brightness (noḡ ah) was like the light; Rays flashed from his hand; and there he veiled his power.” Similarly, the oracle in Isa 60:1–3 explicitly associates the radiance emanating from YHWH with his revelation to the whole world: 1Arise, illuminate (ʾȏrî), for your light (ʾȏre ̄k) has come, and kabod-YHWH radiates (zara ̄ ḥ̄ ) upon you; 2For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but YHWH will arise upon you, and his kabod will be seen upon you. 3And nations shall come to your light (le˘ʾȏre ̄k); and kings to the brightness of your radiance (le˘noḡ ah zare˘ḥek). ̄

In Egypt, Aten was formerly distinct from the sun, and conceived as the material constituting it. The Book of Isaiah puts forth a similar distinction, in foreseeing that the radiance of YHWH will, in the future, replace that of the sun: 19The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but YHWH will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your splendor.20Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for YHWH will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended (Isa 60:19–20).122

The autonomy of kabȏ ̄ d-YHWH regarding the sun is visible also in the Genesis epic of creation. This story accounts for an intense light produced by YHWH’s first demiurgic activity (Gen 1:3), which is replaced by solar radiance only on the fourth day (Gen 1:16–18). These homologies raise the question of the interactions between these two religious traditions. In light of the anteriority of Atenism with regard to the Israelite religion, the simplest answer is to assume that the former influenced the emergence of the latter, at least in part.123 Nevertheless, the assumption that the Israelites borrowed Atenism from the Egyptians seems unlikely. The negative attitude toward Egypt expressed in Exodus renders improbable the  assumption that the god of Israel was formerly the esoteric super-god of the Egyptian religion. Furthermore, Atenism reached its climax during the Amarna period, a phase of Egyptian hegemony in Canaan and of severe

THE SUPER-GOD NATURE OF YHWH

repression of the indigenous rebellions. Hence, it is unlikely that a South Levantine movement of emancipation would promote the cult of the master deity of the empire exerting their authority and oppression. Metallurgy was not an indigenous activity in the Nile Valley, a region devoid of copper ore resources. This craft was introduced there from the Southern Levant as early as the fourth millennium BC124 and with it, its cultural aspects. Already in pre-Dynastic Egypt, the demand for copper from the Southern Levant influenced not only the commercial exchanges125 but also the universe of beliefs.126 This is revealed by the discovery in pre-Dynastic Egypt of cultic artifacts displaying affinities with Southern Levantine, Chalcolithic culture (Ghassulian),127 itself characterized by a noteworthy religious dimension of metallurgy.128 Consequently, the metallurgical beliefs elaborated in the Southern Levant from the Chalcolithic period (4500–3700 BC) might have contributed to the emergence of the Egyptian figure of the super-god. Later, from the early third millennium BC, an Egyptian copper industry emerged in Sinai. However, even though the Egyptian kings controlled this activity, it did not develop independently of the Arabah technical and cultural context.129 Consequently, a South Levantine influence on Egyptian cultural metallurgy is more likely than the opposite trend. It is why the metallurgical component of the Egyptian religion might cast light on the religious conceptions in the Southern Levant prior to the Amorite conquest, and even of their survival in the figure of YHWH in the Bible. The metallurgical attributes of YHWH provide the simplest justification of why this god sponsored the movement of emancipation and the fraternal alliance in the Southern Levant in the Early Iron Age. His prominent position coincides with the wealth resulting from metallurgy when the Near East and the Mediterranean were otherwise being plunged into a recession. Beyond this rationale, the biblical sources suggest that an essential motivation underlies this trend: the recovery of the pre-Amorite religious system rooted in the oldest indigenous metallurgical traditions, those promoting the status of supergod to the patron of metallurgy. NOTES 1 From the parallel reference to Edom and Seir in the Bible, most scholars locate Seir in the mountain area eastward of Arabah. The toponym s´e ̄ʿîr (=hairy) might account for the forest covering this mountain, an outstanding feature in this desert area (which contrasts with the toponym ha ̄r ḥa ̄la ̄q [=bald mountain] of the desert mountain facing the “hairy” one, and located on the west side of the Arabah). Nevertheless, Bartlett (1989: 41–4, followed by Edelman 1995: 8) located Mount Seir westward of the Arabah valley. But even here, Axelsson (1987: 4) includes the mining areas in the region of Seir. 2 Axelsson 1987: 59; Dozeman 1998: 39–40. The reference to the Timna mining area is especially relevant if, as already suggested, the toponym Eil-Paran (Gen 14:6) belongs to the region of Eilat. See Bar-Deroma 1964: 118.

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3 Lagrange (1900: 284–5) already localized the attack of the fiery serpents at Punon/Feynan. This opinion is now defended by Sawyer (1986: 156) and Tebes (2009: 108). Others (Maneschg 1981: 157; Milgrom 1990: 175; Fabry 1999: 380; Charlesworth 2010: 17, 327) suggest that this story carries the memory of an incident at Timna. 4 See Chapter 2, note 59, and Amzallag 2015d: 114–16. 5 See Introduction, note 88. 6 The comparative analysis of the genealogies in Genesis 4 and 5 led scholars to assume that Cain, not Seth, was formerly the ancestor of Noah. See Lewy 1956: 431; Sawyer 1986: 158; Knohl 2004: 63–70. According to Sawyer (1986), Genesis 4 accounts for the closeness to YHWH of Cain and his lineage, and their status of civilizing heroes. 7 Blenkinsopp 2008: 141–2; McNutt 1990: 239–41. This sign is also mentioned in Ezek 9:4. 8 Concerning the Qenite religious influence on Moses, see North 1964: 381; Albright 1963; Garbini 1988; Weinfeld 1988; Blenkinsopp 2008: 133–6. 9 See also Ex 18:10–12. 10 The Qenites were identified as Canaanite metalworkers by Abramsky 1953; Lewy 1956; Albright 1963; Mazar 1965; Miller 1974; Sawyer 1986; McNutt 1990: 235–49; Blenkinsopp 2008: 140–1; Day 2009: 337; Mondriaan 2010: 312–20; Amzallag and Yona 2017. 11 Amzallag and Yona 2017. 12 Amzallag 2018b: 34–5. 13 See van Leeuwen 1986 concerning the meaning of yṣʾ as to cast. Also in Prov 25:4, Ex 32:24, and Job 23:10, the verb yṣʾ (qal) relates the flowing of molten metal from its source (a crucible or a furnace). See Clifford 1999: 222–3; Propp 2006: 662. 14 Verse 15 claims that YHWH does not participate in the plans and actions of the enemies of Israel, and verse 17 ensures that the weapons they produce will be inefficient against Israel. Consequently, verse 16 is especially meaningful if metallurgy was sponsored by YHWH outside of Israel. See Amzallag and Yona 2018b. 15 Amzallag 2018b. 16 Ex 3:8,17; 13:5; 23:23; 33:2; 34:11; Deut 7:1; 20:17; Jos 3:10; 24:11; Neh 9:8. 17 Blakely 2007, 2012; Bremmer 2014: 42–8. The Semitic origin of the name Kaberoi betrays a Levantine origin of this congregation, a feature confirmed by the migration of Levantine metalworkers to Greece in the early first millennium BC. See Morris 1995: 146; Blakely 2013: 163–4. 18 According to Clement of Alexandria (Protreptikos II, 15), the founding event in the Kabeiroi mysteries in Samothrace was a drama in which two brothers killed the third one, buried him, and then celebrated this event. This testimony is confirmed by Julius Firmicus Maternus (De errore profanarum religionum 10.11), who recounts a similar drama in Kabeiroi ceremonies performed on Mount Olympus. See Blakely 2013: 170. 19 Eliade 2005: 226–7; Amzallag 2018b: 41–2. In ancient Greece, a veil of secrecy embodied the nature, the attributes, the representation, and even the name of the divine beings involved in the metallurgical mysteries. This anonymity is confirmed by the names given in dedications to the divine entities celebrated in the mysteria: “gods,” “great gods,” or “gods of Samothrace” (Bremmer 2014: 34). For Hughes Bowden (2015: 34), “This would indicate that the identity of the gods was not revealed even during initiation into their cult, nor to initiates afterwards.” 20 Such a secret cult of YHWH is also suggested in Isa 8:17, 45:15; Ps 143:7; Prov 25:2. 21 Bodi 1991: 82–90. 22 Driver (1951: 62) already concluded that the Ezekiel vision identifies the celestial throne of YHWH with a copper smelting furnace. 23 Collins 1997: 580–4; Kutsko 2000: 80. 24 Ex 33:22–23; Lev 9:6, 9:23; Num 16:19, 17:7, 17:20, 17:6; Isa 35:2, 40:5. 25 See also Deut 4:36, 5:19–20. 26 Mark Smith (2002: 152) concluded, “Psalm 84 and other evidences for solar language predicated of YHWH militate against interpreting solar worship in the temple as non-Yahwistic.”

THE SUPER-GOD NATURE OF YHWH

27 See Boyd-Taylor 1998: 78–9. The heavens declaring ka ̄bȏd-YHWH (v. 2) echo the mention of the sun rising daily from his “tent” (ʾoh̄ el, v. 5) or his “canopy” (ḥu ̄patȏ ̄ , v. 6). 28 The sun was approached in ancient Egypt as a mass of copper arising daily from the primeval ocean. See Sauneron and Yoyotte 1959: 38. A similar metallurgical symbolism is visible in Bronze Age societies from Northern Europe. See McCulloch 1930: 198–9; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005: 294–6. 29 The cauldron is typically represented in the Bronze Age as the recipient of the sun, the site of its radiance and daily rejuvenation. The wheels (and occasionally the wings) attached to these cultic artifacts symbolize the daily motion of the sun in the sky, whereas its boat shape apparently symbolizes the night migration of the sun through the underworld and its daily regeneration process. See Goldman 1961: 245–6; Davidson 1969: 174–5; Litvinskij 2002: 141; Panchenko 2012: 10. 30 See Goldman 1960; Hopkins 1960; Suhr 1971; Erdy 1995. The rejuvenation power of cauldrons is evidenced by the Janus-headed attachments of many cauldrons from the Ancient Near East, ancient Greece, and Italia. See Goldman 1961: 245; Muscarella 1962: 318. The same symbolism of rejuvenation of the cauldron appears in China. See Louis 2006: 210–1. The centrality of this artifact in sacrifices promoting vitality, explicit in Central Asia and Anatolia, corroborates this function of rejuvenation. See Litvinskij 2002: 138. 31 See Chapter 5. 32 Collins 1997: 580–4; Kutsko 2000: 80; Amzallag 2015f. 33 Knauf 1984; van der Toorn 1999: 915–16; Smith 2017: 37. This blowing meaning of hwy is preserved in Arabic. See DRS 5: 386. 34 See Anderson 2015: 101; Müller 2017: 209; Berlejung 2017: 75; Krebernik 2017: 65. For Karel van der Toorn (1999: 916), “The interpretation of the name Yahweh is not entirely devoid of meaning, then, when it comes to establishing his character. If yhwh does indeed mean ‘He blows’, YHWH is originally a storm god.” 35 The text remains obscure as long as lhšyb is understood as the hifil of šwb (=to return). However, lhšyb is also the hifil of nšb (=to blow, e.g., Gen 15:11; Isa 40:7; Ps 147:18), and this windy context clarifies the meaning of the second hemiverse. 36 Koenig 1966; Grant 2015: 149. 37 Also in Job 4:9, ʾap refers to a genuine mode of action rather than a psychological disposition: “By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast (rûaḥ) of his ʾap they are consumed (yike˘lû).” 38 For the translation of tannûrʾ e ̄š as a fiery furnace, see HALOT 4: 1763. 39 Amzallag 2018c. 40 Jacob’s strategem for substituting Esau in Isaac’s blessing (then enjoying leadership concerning the Yahwistic traditions; see Gen 25:25–26) is explicitly approached in Isa 43:27 as a primeval sin for the Israelites. In Genesis, this attempt by Jacob to substitute Esau as firstborn recurs in the story of Peretz (=Jacob) stuggling with Zerah (=Edom) for birth (Gen 38:29). See Zakovitch 1981: 127–35. 41 Gruber 1980: 504–6. Nevertheless, this interpretation is promoted by the Septuagint, which translates ʾap as θυμός (indignation/ferocity) after emending ʾaʾa˘rîk (=I will elongate) into ʾarʾeka ̄ (=I will show you [my indignation]). See Koole 1997: 571. 42 For recent translations, see Koole (1997: 552) and Brueggemann (1998b: 103). This interpretation, already suggested by medieval exegetes, is performed on the basis of a mingling of ʾap as anger and ḥt ̣m (=to muzzle). See Kotzé 2004: 84. 43 The law of Darcy–Weisbach rules that the decrease in pressure of air flowing from a tube is proportional to its length and inversely proportional to its diameter. 44 See Koole 1997: 572; Blenkinsopp 2000: 290. This process, mainly used for silver, is performed in a crucible where the metal is molten and lead is generally added to bond impurities and remove them. During this process, heavy metals become oxidized and combine with lead so that they aggregate on the bottom of the crucible or evaporate (Nriagu 1985: 668). Divine cupellation is also visible in Jer 6:29; Ezek 22:17–22; Zech 13:9; Mal 3:3.

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45 See also Prov 27:21: “The cupel (maṣre p̄ ) is for silver, and the furnace (kûr) is for gold, and a man is tested by his praise.” 46 Levey 1959: 33–5; Notton 1974: 53. This technique consists first of coating the gold fragments to be purified with a special cement. Then this preparation is sealed in an earthenware vessel set in a furnace. See Hunt 1976: 27. 47 Notton 1974: 53–4. 48 See also Num 14:18; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; Pss 86:15, 103:8, 145:8; Neh 9:17. 49 See Amzallag (2017b, 2018c) for further details about the interpretation of ʾappayîm as nozzle and ʾap as tuyere, especially in divine context. 50 For further examples of the essential relation between YHWH and volcanism, see Koenig 1966; Dunn 2014; Amzallag 2014b. 51 See, for example, Ps 104:32 (“He looks at the earth, and it trembles. He touches the mountains and they smoke”), Ps 144:5 (“YHWH, bow Your heavens and come down, touch the mountains that they may smoke”), Amos 9:5 (“My Lord, YHWH-Sebaoth, he touches the land and it melts, and all that dwell therein mourn”), Isa 63:19 (“That you would rend the heavens, that you would come down, that the mountains may be liquefied (nazo ̄ l̄ û) at your presence”). 52 For example, Amos 5:18; Isa 13:9–10, 40:4, 42:14–15. 53 Koenig 1966: 22–3. 54 See Virgil, Enneid iii 571,582; Georg. i. 471, Ovide, Metam. xv, 340. Also in Scandinavia, furnaces (aflar) and volcanoes are explicitly likened. See Dieterle 1987: 5; Einarson 2011: 63, 84. 55 Euripides, Cyclops, v. 600. 56 Greene 1992: 79. 57 Polyphemus, the most famous Cyclop mentioned in the Homer Odyssey, is even identified with the volcanic activity of the Etna. See Scarth 1989. 58 Davidson 1958: 158; Dieterle 1987: 3–6; Richet 2007: 201. 59 This opinion is defended by Hesiod, Aristotle, Seneca, and others. See Richet 2007: 201–3; Garani 2009: 104–10. 60 Koenig 1966: 20. Without excluding the meaning as wrath, Sanders (1996: 191, esp. n. 510) suggests that ʾap in this verse designates something else, here identified as the divine nozzles and tuyère. 61 The thick smoke has been interpreted as a storm-god theophany by Oswalt (1986: 567) and Gerhardt (1966: 133–4). However, its conjunction with fire and darkness (through the parallel with v. 29; see Beuken 2000: 181) fits a volcanic eruption, as previously suggested by Koenig (1966: 25–6). 62 As stressed by E. Reuter (2004: 49), “In the human domain qnʾ refers primarily to a violent emotion aroused by fear of losing a person or object.” 63 Dohmen 1990. 64 Peels 1997: 938. 65 It is confirmed in Ezek 23:25, where the verb to give, used in the expression we˘natattî qinʾatî̄ ̄ bak, ̄ refers unambiguously to a mode of action. See HALOT 3: 1111. 66 For example, Ex 20:5, 34:14 (twice); Deut 5:9, 6:14; Jos 24:19. Concerning the volcanic dimension of divine qannʾa, see Koenig 1966: 31; Spronk 1997: 42; Barker and Bailey 1998: 175. 67 Driver 1934: 276. It is revealed in Sirah: “Never trust an enemy; his wickedness is as destructive as rust (qnʾh). Watch out, and be on guard against him, even if he acts ever so humble. He is like a metal mirror that rusts away (qnʾ) if you don’t keep it polished” (Sir 12:10–11 [Good News translation]). The same meaning of qnʾ is found in Arabic (see DCH 7: 266, 602). 68 For further details about the meaning of qnʾ as furnace remelting, see Amzallag 2015c (contra: Schlimm 2017). 69 John Laughlin (1975: 16, n. 41) concluded that “the ‘burning bush’ could very well have been a metal altar of the Kenites. The presence of such an altar would explain both the cultic nature of the site prior to Moses, and, of course, the reason why the ‘bush’ did not burn.” 70 Amzallag 2009a: 396. The mode of expression of this wonder supports this metallurgical interpretation: The scepter–serpent transformation is exclusively attached neither to the

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Horeb revelation nor to the figure of Moses. Rather, Aaron and the Egyptian specialists reproduce it without difficulty in Ex 7:9–11. If, as assumed in antiquity, the heart (=bosom) was the source of heat for the body (with air flow from the lungs likened to the action of blowing on a hearth), Moses’ arm covered with white leprosy after putting it into his bossom (Ex 4:6) likens the mild heating performed by metalworkers for identifying a form of corrosion defined as “copper disease.” See Scott 1990; Robbiola et al. 1998. This mild heating stimulates the formation of a white powder (the dehydrated copper oxides) on the surface of the corroded artifacts. This symptom announces an advanced stage of degradation which urges a regeneration of the metal through furnace remelting. This operation is here symbolized by the second heating of Moses’ arm making it healthy again (Ex 4:7). See Amzallag (2015c: 243–5) and JeanBaptiste (2015: 129–35) for further details. The volcanic dimension of the Sinai revelation is acknowledged by many scholars from the nineteenth century to the present day. See Dunn 2014: 388–97 for a review of the history of this interpretation. See also Deut 5:19–20. Accompanying the Israelites in their wanderings, the column of smoke by day and fire by night (Ex 13:21, 16:10, 40:36–38; Num 14:14; Neh 9:12, 9:19; see Mann 1971) fits a volcanic reality: the alternating sight of a thick cloud of volcanic ash, gas, and steam heading skyward at day and a reddish light emanating from the crater at night. This volcanic interpretation has long been proposed. See Lewy 1945: 442; Noth 1962: 109; Bentor 1990: 334, and Humphreys 2003: 164–71. Amzallag 2014b: 18–20. According to Avishur (2000: 119–203), the story of Sinai revelation, in Exodus 19, is structured as a chiasm centered on verse 18, making its content the key for interpretating the whole event. In Greek mythology, the moving of Hephaestus to the islands of Rhodes and Lemnos is followed by sudden volcanic activity. As in Sinai, the absence of recent volcanism in these islands challenges this description. See Burkert and Jason 1970; Capdeville 1995: 272; Newbold 2006: 3. Volcanism remains in Lemnos and Rhodes a pure fiction whose occurrence reveals the divine presence. Watts 1985: 479. See Chapter 2 (notes 58–59) and Amzallag 2015d: 114–6. The copper basin at the front of the Tabernacle (Ex 30:18–21, 40:30) fits this interpretation. Suhr 1967, 1971. This metallurgic dimension of the copper basins is alluded to in the Ezekiel oracle approching the temple as an immense copper cauldron overcoming a complete remelting process (Ezek 24:3–14). Similar cauldron carts were discovered at Enkomi (Cyprus, eleventh and tenth centuries BC), here again in context of cultic metallurgy. See Hopkins 1960, Fig. 8. In biblical Hebrew, mayim designates both water and every other liquid. It evokes molten silicates in Ps 114:8 (Amzallag and Avriel 2011: 312–4). Molten lava poured by YHWH is explicitly likened with water in Mic 1:4 and Hos 5:10. See Koenig 1966: 16–7. Moisa 2011: 174–87. 1 Kgs 8:64; 2 Kgs 16:14–15; Ezek 9:2; 2 Chr 1:5–6. Amzallag 2021a. Wyatt 1998a: 43, n. 20. te Velde 1971: 81; Kakosy 1980: 48. Kakosy 1980: 53 Smith 1951: 15; Brandon 1963: 42; Finnestad 1976: 83, 93; Kakosy 1980: 48–53. Goelet 2003: 19–20. Brandon 1963: 38; Finnestad 1976: 102; Gordon and Gordon 1996: 32, 35. It corroborates the affinities between Ptah and the cosmic serpent (Ir-ta/Mehen), the carrier of this vitalizing power. See Joines 1974: 22; Piccione 1990. Willetts 1962: 250; Capdeville 1995: 167, 178, 191, 275–82. Capdeville 1995: 187.

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93 94 95 96 97

98 99

100 101

102 103

104 105 106 107 108 109

110

111 112

113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121

Capdeville 1995: 179–80; Bloedow 1991: 166. Capdeville 1995: 254–9. Franklin 2016: 443–88. Amzallag 2019b. Aufrère 1991: 310–3. Gold was undoubtedly the holiest metal. Its inalterability, its magnificence, and the unability to smelt it from ore were all regarded as markers of its divine origin. However, in the Near East, copper was considered the humanmade counterpart of gold, produced with the help of the divine metallurgist. See Amzallag 2019a and ref therein. Budge 1904: 510–13; Smith 1951: 15; Finnestad 1976: 102. Batto 1987: 155–6. Bernard Batto (1987: 159) recalls that “[t]he ability of the divine king to sleep undisturbed was accordingly a symbol of his unchallenged authority as the supreme deity. A corollary concept was also present: to interrupt or to disturb the sleep of the supreme deity was tantamount to rebellion against his dominion.” The religious importance of Aten increased before the reign of Akhenaten, especially during the reign of his father, Amenhotep III (1390–1353 BC). James Hoffmeier (2015: 4) assumes that “in order to understand fully the foundations of Atenism and some of the factors that motivated Akhenaten’s unusual religious activities, one has to go back nearly 1,500 years before his day to the early dynasties of Egyptian history, especially to the Old Kingdom (ca. 2700–2200 BC), when the sun ruled Egypt.” Redford 1976: 47; Miatello 2014: 87; Hoffmeier 2015: 13, 78. Goldwasser 1997: 83. One of the first mentions of Aten (Story of Sinuhe, 12th Dynasty, ca. 1875 BC) concerns the deification of the dead king (Amenemhet I) reaching Aten in the sky. See Hoffmeier 2015: 4. Goldwasser 1997: 83. Hoffmeier 2015: 31. Hoffmeier 2015: 77. Orly Goldwasser (2010: 159) specifies that in these Coffin Texts, “the sign ʘ does not classify the word Aten in any way into the category [DIVINE].” Redford 1976: 49; Goldwasser 2010: 161; Hoffmeier 2015: 80. Redford 1976: 47; Goldwasser 2010: 160; Miatello 2014: 72. Donald Redford (1976: 48) concluded that Aten had three meanings in the Coffin Texts, that is, “(a) the disc as a vehicle or manifestation in which a god or person can reside, and which can be ‘opened’ to that person; (b) the tangible disc ornament which is used as a headdress; (c) the disc as an individualized ‘power’, a hierophany in its own right.” In Ancient Egypt, the sun is sometimes identified as a mass of copper arising daily from the Nun, the primeval ocean. See Sauneron and Yoyotte 1959: 38. This belief probably emanates from the parallel radiance, heat, and shape of the sun and molten copper/gold in a crucible. It is even confirmed by the similar orange-red radiance of the sun at dawn and sunset, and molten gold/copper during solidification. See Brown 1968: 37–42; Kristiansen and Larsson 2005: 294–6. Translated by Goldwasser (2010: 79). Orly Goldwasser (2010: 80) concludes that “[t]he notion ‘made of gold’ associates the primeval egg with the second part of the sentence, creating an image which immediately refers to the other ‘golden’ entity in the sentence – the Itn.” Redford 1976: 48; Goldwasser 2010: 80; Miatello 2014: 76. Amzallag 2016a. Miatello 2014: 77. Ibid.: 77–8. Miatello 2014: 77; Hoffmeier 2015: 23–4. Miatello 2014: 77. Monnier 2013. Cornelius 1997: 28–9. Schenker 1997.

THE SUPER-GOD NATURE OF YHWH

122 See Taylor (1993: 191–6) concerning the parallels between YHWH and Aten in biblical prophecy. 123 Propp 1999a; Yamauchi 2010. 124 In the fourth millennium BC, copper was first exported to the Nile Valley as a raw material produced in Arabah, then refined and worked in Ashkelon. See Gophna and Milevski 2003; Golani 2014. The existence of metal refineries in the Gulf of Eilat (Red Sea) reveals another route, via Sinai, of the transformation and trade of copper produced in Arabah. See Hauptman et al. 2015. During the pre-Dynastic period, Bouto and especially Maadi (Lower Egypt) were the main centers benefiting from the importation of raw copper and metallic implements from the Southern Levant, which were then redistributed in the Nile Valley. See Maczynska 2014: 185. 125 Maczynska 2014: 193–4, 201. 126 Ibid.: 183. 127 Golani 2014: 123–5; Maczynska 2014; Amzallag 2022. 128 Gošic´ 2013; Gošic´ and Gilead 2015a; Amzallag 2018a, 2019b. 129 Ben-Tor 1986: 17–18. According to Mumford and Parcak (2003: 85–6) and Hikade (2007), South Levantine involvement in Sinai copper production never ceased in the Bronze Age.

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I

n the previous chapters, the identity and essential attributes of the god of Israel were investigated independently of his biblical denomination, El (variants Eloah, Elohim) or YHWH. They are not necessarily equivalent, however. Whereas the name YHWH is typically associated with Israel, El is in the Levant the classical designation of the chief god. The question of whether YHWH and El were in origin the same deity is still being debated. Scholars who assume their identity at origin interpret YHWH as a rare epithet of El around which the religion of Israel developed.1 The mention of the Israelites ignoring the name YHWH prior to the exodus (Ex 6:3) easily supports this premise: “I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as El Shadday, but by my name YHWH I did not make myself known (lōʾ nȏdaʿtî) to them.”2 Contrary to this opinion, other scholars assume the independence of the figures of El and YHWH at origin.3 They argue that YHWH was a god coming from the south (Seir, Paran, Sinai, Deut 33:2; Judg 5:5; Hab 3:3), whereas El’s dominion is located in northern mountainous areas (e.g., Mount Hermon, Afqa, but also the sources of Euphrates, and even the Caucasus).4 They also note that YHWH frequently expresses a warlike character, whereas El remains distant from human affairs. Even the power of YHWH over storms contrasts with El’s neutrality concerning meteorological phenomena.5 From these observations, they deduce that YHWH was formerly a “junior” deity who achieved a prominent position in the local pantheon, and merged with the figure of El, the original leader of the Canaanite gods.6

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The status of YHWH as super-god emanating from the previous chapter better fits the first than the second scenario. It is especially valid if the name YHWH represents the undisclosed appellation of the super-god, which remained hidden until the rise of Israel. On the other hand, the assumption of a super-god nature of YHWH challenges his identity with El because this latter does not express in Ugarit the expected characteristics of a super-god. This complex situation invites us to reexamine both the relationships between El and YHWH and to look for traces of a super-god dimension in the figure of the Canaanite El. FIRST COMPARISONS

Parallels with the Ugaritian El The way YHWH is approached in the Bible displays many affinities with the figure of El, the old leader of the Ugaritian pantheon. • Supreme position: Both El in Ugarit and YHWH in Israel enjoy the highest position in the divine council (1 Kgs 22:19; Isa 6:1–3; Ps 29:1; Job 1:6). • Residence: Unlike the other gods of Ugarit, El does not dwell in a palace but in a tent (e.g., KTU 1.1 iii 23–24; 1.2 iii 1–5; 1.3 v 6–9). The same singularity characterizes the figure of YHWH, at least at the time of the presumed origin of his cult by the Israelites (Exodus 25–31). The negative reaction to David’s desire to build a temple for YHWH (2 Sam 7:5–7) confirms this view.7 • Liturgy: The same liturgical formulae are attached to El in Ugarit and YHWH in Israel. For example, El is called in Ugarit the compassionate and merciful deity.8 Similarly, YHWH is designated as a merciful and gracious deity (ʾel̄ raḥûm we˘ḥannûn),9 whose compassionate character is frequently signaled in the Bible.10 • Communication: Their mode of communication with mankind displays some similarities, too. El is the Lord of dreams and prophetic visions in Ugarit.11 The same prophetic dimension of dreams is attached in the Bible both to El/ Elohim12 and to YHWH.13

These few parallels do not alone ensure a previous identity between YHWH and the Ugaritian El (or his South Levantine expression), because these findings potentially also fit the alternative premise. After all, the characteristics of the old leader of the Canaanite pantheon may easily survive a fusion with the figure of YHWH, even if he was formerly a secondary deity. Even the parallel mention of YHWH as the source of prophetic dreams in 1 Sam 28:6 and of Elohim a few verses later (v. 15), does not necessarily reflect their identity at origin. The same ambiguity affects the nature of the deity in the meeting between Melchisedeq, the king-priest of Salem (a pre-Israelite city identified with

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Jerusalem or Shechem) and Abram, in Genesis 14. There, the priest blesses Abram in the name of El-Elyon, creator of heavens and earth (ʾel̄ ʿelyȏn qōneh̄ šam ̄ ayîm waʾ̄ ar̄ eṣ, Gen 14:19). This formulation refers explicitly to El, the supreme deity of the Levantine pantheon. In the following verse, however, Abram offers tithes to this supreme god, then identifying him with YHWHthe-god-of-Abram. Two verses later (Gen 14:22), Abram swears in the name of the deity who blessed him moments before, called here “YHWH, El-Elyon creator of heavens and earth.” This tetrad of verses clearly advocates for equivalence between YHWH and El/Elyon/Elohim. But it remains difficult to determine whether the interchangeability reflects an initial identity or unanimity of the two that is promoted in the Bible.

YHWH and El/Elyon in Deut 32:8 Verses 8–9 of the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32) are frequently enlisted in the scholarly debates about the early relationships between El and YHWH in Israel. This fragment speaks of the supremacy of Elyon and shows how he granted every group on earth a patron-god. Elyon gave inheritance (be˘hanḥel)̄ to the nations, when he divided the sons of Adam, He fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Elohim.14 9For (kî) YHWH’s portion is his people, Jacob, his allotted heritage (naḥa l̆ at̄ o ̑).

8When

Most scholars argue that these verses preserve an original separation between YHWH and El, the leader of the Levantine pantheon here referred to by the poetic appellation Elyon.15 Hence, if Elyon truly allocates patron-gods to peoples in verse 8, and if YHWH is mentioned in the exclusive context of Israel in verse 9, the simplest conclusion is to assume that YHWH originally belonged to the family of divine emissaries sent by Elyon for ruling the peoples of the earth.16 However, the approach of Elyon and YHWH as two distinct deities in Deut 32:8–9 is problematic for at least two reasons. The first concerns the name Israel. If El (Elyon), the supreme god, allocates YHWH to this nation, we may wonder why the theophoric name of this nation integrates El (IsraEl) instead of YHWH (IsraYah). It is especially unexpected if El is the leader of all the patron-gods and their respective peoples. This is no longer a problem once El and YHWH are two appellatives for the same deity. Then Israel is unique among nations because of its close relationship with the supreme deity (El, v. 8), who also has the status of being the patron-god (YHWH, v. 9). Viewed in this manner, these verses clarify the difference between these two appellations. The first one, El, is openly used by the nations, whereas the second one is reserved for his relationship with Israel.

FIRST COMPARISONS

The second reason concerns the replacement of the mention of the sons of Elohim by the sons of Israel in the MT version of Deut 33:8. Today, this change is not considered a mere scribal error, but rather a deliberate modification performed in order to remove any trace of the existence of deities besides YHWH.17 If so, we may wonder how our scrupulous scribe, who does not hesitate to erase traces of polytheism or words promoting a misleading reading, may have dismissed the mention of two distinct gods, Elyon in verse 8 and YHWH in verse 9, and the subordination of the latter to the former. Rather, we should conclude that this scribe (and the following generations that copied the text) assumed that YHWH and Elyon are identical beyond doubt, so no emendation is required. Further examination of the Song of Moses supports this conclusion: • In verse 6, YHWH is mentioned as the god who created the sons of Jacob. This challenges the idea that Israel (like other peoples) was created first by Elyon and thereafter granted to YHWH. • In verse 10, the poem describes YHWH finding the sons of Jacob in a desert. This detail is meaningless if Israel is one of the indigenous peoples to whom a son of El is affixed. The fate of Israel coincides with its exceptional status as the only people being in direct relationship with the supreme god. • In verse 15, the god of Israel is called not YHWH but Eloha, another appellation of El. This promotes the equivalence between the two. • In verse 16, the Israelites are accused of worshipping gods other than YHWH. But here again, this latter is called Eloha. This confirms the equivalence between El and YHWH promulgated in the preceding verse. • In verse 21, YHWH intends to take revenge on the Israelites for their worship of other deities called “no-gods” (lōʾ ʾel), ̄ and “non-existing beings” (habe˘lêhem). These appellations are inconceivable if verses 8–9 mention YHWH as one of the sons of Elyon originally enjoying a status similar to all of them. • In verse 22, the fiery anger of YHWH (speaking continuously from verse 19) is expected to bring about a cataclysmic event on the world. This overwhelming reaction is not plausible for a patron-god of one specific nation that inhabits a limited territory. Such global destruction is even impossible without the agreement of Elyon, if he was the creator and master of the world distinct from YHWH. If Elyon and YHWH are truly separate deities, verse 22 transforms this song into a taunt-oracle mocking YHWH for megalomania. This interpretation is uneasy to argue.

For all these reasons, the hypothesis of the equality of Elyon and YHWH, in Deut 32:8–9, should be preferred to its alternative.18 This solution stresses the singularity of Israel in regard to all the other nations discussed in this song: Whereas the relationship with El/YHWH occurs through an intermediate patron-god in all of them, a direct worship of El (acknowledged under his genuine name, YHWH) is the exclusive privilege of Israel.

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The YHWH–Elohim Equation In biblical Hebrew, El is the name of the chief god, but it is also the designation of any god, and by extension, of the divine essence. This broad semantic spectrum generates ambiguities that complicate the interrelations between El and YHWH in ancient Israel. Does El, once mentioned beside YHWH, designate the supreme god of the Levantine pantheon, or does it merely refer to the divine essence of YHWH? In Ps 10:12 (“Arise, YHWH; God (El), lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted”), for example, does the poet call YHWH to intervene in the world as a god does, and not a super-god distant from human affairs? Does he call YHWH through his other name, El? Does the poet evoke the god El, besides YHWH, in reference to his mode of worship in all other nations? Does he refer to a former, theological reality in which YHWH and El may have been distinct deities? Most sources claiming that YHWH and Elohim are identical by quoting the biblical formula “YHWH is Elohim” share a similar ambiguity.19 This claim may promote a merging of YHWH with El or alternatively reveal that YHWH is the esoteric name of the great god previously known as El. The multiple meanings of the waw conjunction in Hebrew further extend the ambiguity. In Isa 43:12, for example, we read: “I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange (zar̄ ) god among you; and you are my witnesses, declares YHWH, waʾa ̆nî ʾel.” ̄ If the waw conjunction in waʾa ̆nî (12b) is connective, we may deduce that this verse promotes the idea of a former distinction between YHWH and El.20 Alternatively, the waw conjunction in waʾa ̆nî (12b) may also be a waw explicativum, introduced for specifying that YHWH and El are two appellations of the same deity. But even in this case, we cannot determine whether YHWH and El were two deities initially distinct, or originally two appellations of the same deity. A few examples, however, will enable us to clarify these questions. In 1 Kgs 8:60, equating YHWH with El is followed by the claim of uniqueness: “That may know (le˘maʿan daʿat) all the peoples of the earth that YHWH is Elohim; there is no other.” This claim explains that YHWH is the genuine identity of the god acknowledged by the nations as El/Elohim. The alternative, announcing to the whole world a syncretism between YHWH and El as it is understood in Israel, is less convincing by far because the YHWH–Elohim equation exposed here does not attempt to convince us that the two deities have merged in order to annihilate all the other gods of the pantheon. Deuteronomy 4:35 advances the YHWH–El equation by referring to the deeds in Exodus: “To you it was shown that you might know that YHWH is Elohim, there is no other besides him.” The same equation is formulated again in verse 39. Between them are three verses resuming the divine promise and deeds, in which the deity is referred to by the third person singular. The use

FIRST COMPARISONS

of the third person plural is rather expected if the YHWH–Elohim equation was introduced to promote a syncretism between two previously autonomous deities. Furthermore, the equation in verse 35 between El and YHWH is preceded by a verse claiming the incomparability of El (Elohim, v. 33) and another verse claiming the incomparability of YHWH (v. 34). Since both claims refer to the same deeds (the Exodus and the Sinai covenant), the equation between El and YHWH in verse 35 necessarily refers to one original deity with multiple appellations. Fostering the premice of identity between YHWH and Elohim is especially justified if one of the two appellations, YHWH, was previously unknown. In this case, the YHWH–Elohim equation integrates the general trend of revelation to the Israelites of the secret name of YHWH, among people knowing the god only as El/Elyon/Elohim. This explanation finds support in Deut 4:39 and 7:9 as well as 1 Kgs 18:37, three verses in which the YHWH–Elohim equation is the complement of the verb ydʿ. The root ydʿ has a wide range of meanings (to know, to hear, to learn, to understand). However, when introduced in a divine context, it generally refers to a deep knowledge/revelation of YHWH.21 It is especially used for signaling the recondite nature of the name YHWH. In Ex 6:3, for example, ydʿ (niph.) mentions that YHWH did not announce himself to the patriarchs under his authentic name (lōʾ nȏdaʿtî lahem). ̄ The verb ydʿ is introduced again a few verses later (Ex 6:7) in the context of the revelation of the genuine name of YHWH to the Israelites. It is why the use of ydʿ probably refers here to arcane traditions concerning the equivalence between YHWH and El, rather than a merging between two originally distinct deities.

YHWH and Elohim in Jonah The Book of Jonah opens with the prophet embarking on a boat in Jaffa to flee as far as possible from his prophetic mission and from YHWH (Jon 1:1–3). Then YHWH provokes a violent storm (v. 4), and the mariners implore, each to his own god, to help them escape. Jonah refuses to join (v. 5), an attitude arousing protests among the crew: “So the captain came and said to him, ‘What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call out to your god (ʾe˘lōhêk)! Perhaps The God (haʾē ˘lōhîm) will bear us in mind (yitʿašet), ̄ so that we may not perish’’” (Jon 1:6). This verse mentions two divine realities. The first is a protecting god whom Jonah is invited to supplicate. The second entity, named The God, is expected to hear the supplications addressed to the personal god, and consequently to prevent a disaster for the boat and its passengers. These gods are expected to protect and rescue the supplicants, or to transmit the supplications to the supreme god. This situation coincides with the one described in Deut 32:8, in which the supreme deity, Elyon, appoints divine beings to care for the peoples of

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the earth. The Book of Jonah adds to this function their role as messengers transmitting supplications to him, in cases of great distress. It also reveals the all-beneficent character of the supreme deity: The captain has no doubt that a successful transmission of their message to The God is enough to rescue them (v. 6). This belief corresponds to the mention of El in Ugarit as a merciful, gracious, and all-compassionate deity. A few verses later, Jonah reveals to the crew that he is a worshipper of YHWH. He presents him not as his personal god and/or protector of the Israelites, but rather as the supreme deity already mentioned in verse 6 by the captain: “And he said to them, ‘I am a Hebrew, and I fear YHWH, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land’’” (Jon 1:9). The equivalence of YHWH and El is acknowledged immediately by the mariners in the subsequent verse. Even more so, after understanding that the supreme deity is directly involved in this storm, they address their prayers to him without any intermediary in verse 14. They call him YHWH and even swear to offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to him (v. 16). Therefore, these few verses argue for an equivalence between YHWH and the supreme god worshipped in the Southern Levant through intermediate deities. This narrative confirms what the previous observations have already suggested: Two main differences distinguish the Israelites from their neighbors. The first concerns the relationship with the supreme deity. In Israel, it is direct, whereas it remains indirect in all the other nations. Except in Israel (at least for most biblical authors), a patron-god always intervenes to communicate the supplications of peoples in extreme distress to the supreme god. The second difference concerns the name of the supreme deity, which is openly mentioned by the Israelites but not among all the other peoples. This means that Israel introduces a theological revolution in divulging the genuine name, YHWH, of the supreme deity. Eventually, they invite all people to worship him directly, rather than with the help of intermediate deities. This is probably the significance of the address in Isaiah to the Phoenicians living in Mediterranean colonies: “Therefore, in light (baʾûrîm) give glory to YHWH; in the ̄ islands of the sea, give glory to the name of YHWH, the God of Israel” (Isa 24:15). The promotion of the YHWH–Elohim equation should be regarded as an expression of this revolution, rather than proof of any syncretism between two separate deities. EL IN THE EARLY IRON AGE

In the Early Iron Age, the rise of YHWH in Israel is accompanied with the renewed prestige of El in the neighboring nations. In Ammon, the many personal names integrating ʾl as a theophoric element reveal the popularity of this god.22 The appellation El the creator of the earth (ʾl qn ʾarṣ) is also encountered

EL IN THE EARLY IRON AGE

in inscriptions from Palmyra and Hatra, and in a list of gods from Karatepe (KAI 26 A III.18).23 Similar trends are also attested to in Tyre, where El is sometimes listed as the first god in treaties, suggesting that he is their main guarantor.24 In a treaty from the Hittite archives from Hattusa (twelfth century BC), El is mentioned as the creator of the earth (Elkunirsa, derived from ʾl qn ʾarṣ) who dwells in a tent at the fountainhead of the Euphrates.25 These observations suggest that El is no longer a deus otiosus in the Early Iron Age.26 While remaining aloof, this god now recovers his prestige and omnipresence, exactly as YHWH did in Israel. The bilingual lists of gods from Ugarit reveal that Ea, the Mesopotamian patron of the metalworkers, was identified with Kothar during the Late Bronze Age.27 Their homology is confirmed by the attribute ḫasis (or even atra ḫasis [=exceeding in wisdom]) given to Ea in Mesopotamia and attached to Kothar (Kothar wa-ḫasis) in Ugarit.28 But a change begins in the Iron Age. Though El and Ea were not equated in Ugarit,29 they are homologs in the eighth-century BC bilingual (Phoenician-Luwian) inscription from Karatepe (KAI 26).30 This change can hardly be motivated by the promotion of Ea to the rank of a supreme deity in Mesopotamia. The parallels traditionally acknowledged between El and Ea include their function as creators of the inhabited world,31 gods,32 and mankind.33 However, if Ea was formerly identified with Kothar, his metallurgical background was the determining factor for the homologies. Thus, the transfer of homology from Kothar to El, in the Iron Age, indicates the recovery of the metallurgical background and attributes of El, with regard to Ugaritian religion. The discovery of an inscription from Kuntillet Ajrud, dated from the ninth– eighth century BC, supports this premise. The inscription is a fragment of a poem or liturgical formula praising El. The mention of Baal as the emissary blessed by El, and carrying his name, suggests a religious context distinct from the one classically expounded in the Bible, and probably the official religion of Israel:34 […]l wbzrḥ ʾl br[ʾš hrm (?) …] […]l wysmn hrm l wydkn.g*bh*m[…] […]wšr*š ʾly [….] […]lbrk bʿl bym mlḥ[mh? …] […]lšm ʾl bym* mlḥ[mh? …]

… and when El appears on the sum[mits of the mountains …] … then the mountains melt and the hills are pounded … … and my God uprooted… … in order to bless Baal on the day of the bat[tle …] … for the namesake of El on the day of the bat[le …]

The radiance of El is interpreted in the context of solar worship.35 However, a radiance combined with the mention of El liquefying mountains probably refers to metallurgy. This description even displays similarities with YHWH’s theophany reported in Ex 19:16–19, Deut 33:2, Judg 5:4, and Hab 3:4. The resurgence of popularity of El in the Early Iron Age, combined with the

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transfer of essential attributes of metallurgy previously related to Kothar, displays a striking parallel with the emergence of the cult of YHWH in ancient Israel. If we gather these considerations along with the YHWH-El equation promoted by the Israelites, we may conclude that YHWH was acknowledged and honored as El among the Southern Levantine nations other than Israel. He was probably the great deity sponsoring the fraternal alliance in the Southern Levant, corroborating the biblical reports granting YHWH this function. THE UGARITIAN FIGURE OF EL

The god El acknowledged in the Southern Levant, in the Early Iron Age, is probably the continuation of the figure of El in Ugaritic literature. Consequently, if El and YHWH are identical, we would expect to find in the Ugaritian El traces of a primeval relationhip with metallurgy, as well as the characteristics of a super-god.

Metallurgical Acquaintances Traces of El’s involvement in metallurgy are visible in Ugaritic mythology. In the Karet (Kirta) epic, for example, the god addresses the hero in a dream and promises to grant him gold and silver (KTU 1.14 i 35–ii 3). The detail claiming his participation in gold production is especially intriguing (KTU 1.14 i 23). It means that El intends not merely to bless Karet with prosperity, but also to reveal to him the location of these precious metals.36 The acquaintance of El with mining areas is confirmed a few verses later, when Karet reaches the land of Udum with his army. This country is considered by his king, Pabel, both as a well-watered country and as a gift of El to mankind (KTU 1.14 iii 30–31), an extension of his holy garden.37 A few lines before, the story announces that Udum is a land where gold is mined (KTU 1.14 iii 23). This information promotes a linkage between El, gold, and the divine abode, which recalls a similar association between YHWH, the Garden of Eden, and the source of gold (Gen 2:10–12).38 It also transforms El into the master of this most precious metal, the holy matter of which the other gods are made. Furthermore, the Ugaritian El displays special affinities with Kothar, the smith-god. The function of the Kotharatu (identified as “daughters” of Kothar) as goddesses of birth mirrors the power to give birth attributed to El. The epithets of hyn and ḫss attributing cleverness and wisdom to Kothar are on a par with the infinite wisdom of El.39 Furthermore, El was the patron of the diviners and prophets, and Kothar was the magician and diviner among the gods. This attribute may be deduced from his appellation as ḥrš, designating both a craftsman and the activity of divination.40 The designation of Kothar as ḥrš

THE UGARITIAN FIGURE OF EL

even echoes the mention of El’s abode as bt ḥrš or ḥršn (ḥuršan̄ u).41 This term identifies the tent of El, the location of his divine decisions, as a workshop where metallurgy is practiced for divination and oracular functions, and where the gods meet for receiving his oracles.42 Although these indications are no more than meager details, their existence suggests that a vestigial metallurgical background was ascribed to the figure of El in Ugarit.

Super-God Attributes Ugaritic mythology describes El in a very human fashion. He attends, along with all other deities, the liturgies accompanying various festivals, and nothing attests to his transcendent status.43 Furthermore, like all the other gods, El is represented with human traits in Ugarit. He eats, drinks, and organizes banquets (marzeaḥ) for the community of gods (KTU 1.2 i 21), with food and alcoholic beverages (KTU 1.1 iv 25–35). During these festivities, El may become drunk and even incontinent (KTU 1.114 R 15–22). He seduces Athirat44 and is sexually potent or, on the contrary, his virility might be questioned.45 All these details challenge the potential of El becoming a super-god in Ugarit. Nevertheless, a few traces of another status of El are perceptible in Ugaritic literature. This god is called “the creator of the creation” (bny bnwt), a title designating him as the supreme demiurge and master of the powers of creation. It introduces a distancing from all other gods, which recalls an essential super-god dimension.46 In addition, El in Ugarit might signal an essential distinction from the impersonal and anonymous character of all the gods participating in the council.47 The El appellation as holy (qdš), or beneficent and holy (lṭpn wqdš), denotes a difference in nature regarding all the other deities. Holiness being the quintessence of the divine, this attribute highlights the redoubtable status of El among the gods.48 Even the appellation El (=God) identifies him as the epitome of the divine. Expressing the idea of strength, force, power, vitality,49 the term El subsumes the qualities of all the other gods, and even their holiness. The status of El as the creator and lord of the gods (qny w ʾdn ʾilm, KTU 1.3 v 9) is thus established.50 Here again, these elements are no more than allusions. However, they suggest that the anthropomorphic descriptions of El in Ugarit are not necessarily constitutive. Rather, the representation of El as a procreator may reflect the downgrading of his super-god status throughout the second millennium BC, eventually following the Amorite religious influence. The appellation ʾil ṣpn at the head of the canonical lists of gods might reflect such an adaptation, suggesting a process of comingling of the characteristics of El and Baal-Haddu.51 Similarly, the inclusion of El and Dagan in lists of gods advocates for their

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comparison, and the attempts to conflate them.52 In fact, a merging of these two religious systems necessarily requires the downgrading of El from a supergod dimension, if it had previously existed. ASHERAH, THE DIVINE MEDIATOR

A super-god is a lonely deity who transcends every divine or human creature. For this reason, the question of the divine consort of El and YHWH is crucial for determining whether the god was originally bequeathed a super-god nature, and whether such a dimension existed throughout the ages.

Fluidity of the Asherah Identity The Levantine traditions from the second millennium BC speak of a great goddess, Athirat/Asherah.53 Identified in Ugarit as the creatress of the gods (qnyt ilm),54 Athirat was also called Elat (the goddess). This appellation would immediately invite us to approach her as the consort of El. This is evident in the figures of a divine couple reigning over the city.55 Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that none of the Ugaritic literary sources explicitly designates Athirat as El’s wife.56 She does not dwell in the vicinity of El, as is expected for a consort.57 These contrasting features suggest that the representation of a divine couple in Ugarit might belong to the series of transformations downgrading the original super-god dimension of El in Ugarit and reducing his original status of creator to a function of procreation. This interpretation implies that the great Levantine goddess, like El, might have enjoyed another status prior to the Amorite conquest. Two inscriptions from Northern Sinai (Kuntillet Ajrud, ninth–eighth centuries BC) mention a blessing “in the name of YHWH […] and his Asherah (lyhwh […] wlʾšrth).”58 Another inscription from Khirbet el Qôm (Judea) mentions “YHWH and his Asherah.”59 Here again, it is tempting to interpret these inscriptions as referring to Asherah as the official consort of YHWH.60 The mention in Kings of the eradication of the cult of Asherah from the Jerusalem temple by Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18:4) and Josiah (2 Kgs 23:4, 23:6–7) is compatible with this interpretation. However, one should remember that the formulation “YHWH and his Asherah” (ʾšrth) from Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el Qom is unusual for mentioning deities as a couple because a pronominal suffix is not attached to a proper noun in biblical Hebrew.61 This is why Asherah and her relationship with YHWH in these inscriptions are no less enigmatic than Athirat and El in Ugarit. The impreciseness in the Bible concerning the worship of Asherah in Israel is intriguing, too.62 In most quotations, it remains impossible to determine whether Asherah designates a goddess, a symbol, a cultic artifact, or even

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a shrine for the worship of other deities.63 Even the etymology of Asherah remains obscure.64 The Semitic root ʾtr (=a place) suggests that Athirat designates first of all a holy place, a sanctuary.65 The Ugaritic ʾatr (to advance, to walk) promotes an interpretation of Athirat as the trace, the remainder (=following after/in the footsteps of someone).66 The fluidity of the goddess’s attributes is revealed by her interaction with the figures of Anat and Astart, the three goddesses being called Elat in Ugarit.67 Their syncretism is confirmed in Egypt by the representation of a Levantine goddess on a lion with the classical attributes of Asherah and the inscription designating her as qdšt-ʾstrt-ʿnt.68 This fluidity explains how the goddess may be worshipped by the Amorites (as Anat), and simultaneously exhibit attributes that undermine the Amorite ideology, such as the serpent symbol.69 These characteristics show that the original status and attributes of the great goddess may hardly be deduced only from her mention in the Ugaritic epics from the Late Bronze Age.

Parallels with Hathor Asherah/Athirat displays many affinities with Hathor, the great Egyptian goddess. Both are similarly represented as nursing young deities and/or kings.70 An Ugaritian ivory panel even represents the goddess with a typical Hathor coiffure, suckling two boys/young deities.71 Also in Gebal, the great goddess is typically represented with a Hathor coiffure. The title of Baʿalat Gebal (Mistress of Byblos) given to Hathor in an Egyptian inscription dated from the twenty-fifth century BC confirms the antiquity of their homology.72 This motivates an examination of the figure of Hathor, as it may inform us about the pre-Amorite identity and attributes of this prominent Levantine goddess. Hathor is one of the most ancient deities in Egypt.73 She was called the “primeval goddess,” the “queen of the gods,” the “mistress of the Universe,” and the “mistress of the stars.”74 She is a lonely goddess from the earliest times, created even before the sky and the earth.75 She has no male consort and the hieros gamos is absent from her cult, although the female consort of many male deities is inspired by the figure of Hathor (e.g., Tefnet, Nut, Sekhmet, Maat, and Isis).76 This trait underlines the fluidity characterizing Asherah, her Levantine counterpart. Hathor was the goddess of mining activities, to whom the main shrine of Serabit el Khadim (the mining district of Sinai) is devoted.77 Snefru, the Egyptian king (4th dynasty) who conquered this mining area, held the title of “Servant of Hathor.”78 The essential relationship of the goddess with mining is confirmed by the votive inscriptions from Serabit naming her “the green,” “the lady of turquoise” (mafek), “the golden,” or “the mistress of galena.”79 The other sanctuaries of Hathor identified in the mining areas from Nubia and

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the Arabah confirm this dimension of the goddess.80 This essential attribute is also acknowledged outside of the mining areas, the goddess also being named “the golden one”81 and “the mistress of turquoise” in the Nile Valley.82 The bluish color of her votive artifacts confirms this crucial relationship with mining, and especially with copper ore.83 Hathor is lauded not only as the patroness of mines, but also as “the mistress of jubilation, the mistress of music, the queen of harp-playing, the lady of the dance, the mistress of the chorus dance, the queen of wreath-weaving.”84 This musical attribute was apparently accompanied by an ecstatic fervor, suggested by her title of “The bestower of the inebriety that knows no end.”85 Hathor was also closely related to wisdom, and sometimes addressed as Maat, or praised as “the mistress of the Universe who lives by Maat.”86 This conjunction is not surprising, since wistom, song-poetry, dance, and metallurgy coincided in antiquity.87 They corroborate the idea that the worship of Hathor was originally anchored in the metallurgical sphere. Accounting for the Levantine ascendant on the religious dimension of metallurgy in Ancient Egypt, this essential attribute should extend to her counterpart, the great Levantine goddess.

Asherah as Intercessor Deity Hathor enjoyed a hybrid status in Egyptian religion. On the one hand, the birth of the goddess even before the created universe and her aloofness suggest a special closeness to the Egyptian super-god. On the other hand, her representation with an Aten-disk upon her head, like all other deities, reveals her homology in nature with them all. This ambivalent status makes her a potential interface between the super-god and his creatures, both gods and mortals. The tree symbolism may be an expression of such an intercessory function. Hathor displays an essential relationship with trees.88 She was called “the lady of the date palms” and also “the mistress of the southern Sycamore.”89 In Memphis, she was symbolized by a sycamore planted in the courtyard of the temple of Ptah.90 The Egyptians identified this tree by its majestic and evergreen nature as the cosmic tree protecting both the underworld gods existing below its roots and the celestial deities dwelling in its branches.91 Such a representation corresponds to the function of Hathor as the universal mediator between the different domains of the universe. Like Hathor in Egypt, her Levantine counterpart was typically an interceding deity. This function is visible in Ugarit. In the story of Karet, El promises a son to the hero if he marries the daughter of the king of Udum. En route to Udum, Karet halts in Tyre to pledge a votary for the successful fulfillment of his promise. However, he does not address this vow to El, as expected, but to Athirat, although the goddess had not been mentioned before.92 We may conclude that Karet asked Athirat to intercede with El in ensuring the success of his oath.93

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Athirat also served as the intermediary between El and the gods. When Baal needs the agreement of El to build his palace, he comes to Athirat. Accompanied by Anat, he first submits his requests to the goddess. Thereafter, he offers her precious gifts, slaughters suckling animals, and consumes them with wine in her company.94 Then the goddess visits El and persuades him to agree Baal’s request.95 In Ugarit, Athirat is the intercessor par excellence between men, gods, and El, the supreme deity.96 In Kuntillet Ajrud, the analysis of the drawings (and their comparison with the accompanying text) led Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger to conclude that the essential function of Asherah is to act as a mediator between YHWH and humankind: “YHWH’s Asherah does not have equal rank with YHWH but is rather a mediating entity that brings his blessing, and is conceived in the mind in the shape of a stylized tree that was thus subordinate to YHWH.”97 Biblical sources express a similar reality. The identification of Lady Wisdom, in Proverbs 1–9, with Hathor/Asherah emanates from her comparison with a tree of life (Prov 3:18, 11:30, 15:4) and from her designation as the goddess of happiness. It becomes blatant in Prov 3:18, where the term me˘ʾûššar̄ , denoting happiness, introduces a wordplay with Asherah: “She is a tree of life (ʿe s̄ ̣ ḥayîm) to them that lay hold upon her, and happy those who hold her fast are happy (me˘ʾûššar̄ ).”98 As Hathor in Egypt, Lady Wisdom is created at first in Prov 8:22–31, even before the sky and the earth (vv. 22–29). This primordial appearance argues for her closeness to YHWH (v. 30) and even for her role as mediator between the creator and humanity (v. 31). Additionally, the mention of ores (ʿap̄ ar̄ ) in Prov 8:26 strengthens the parallel between Lady Wisdom and Hathor.99 These observations suggest that Asherah was not the consort of YHWH in the Bible. Through her role as mistress of mining, song-poetry, and wisdom, she was probably the ideal intermediate for accessing the mysterious figure of YHWH, exactly as Hathor was the mediator for accessing the mysterious supreme deity of Ancient Egypt. This conclusion does not exclude the possibility that material representations of Asherah as the consort of YHWH may have existed in the Southern Levant. But it suggests that these expressions are probably not constituent of the figure of the great goddess. Rather, they might be remnants of external influences, and among them the religious transformations promoted by the Amorites. Examining the figure of El suggests that the Amorite influence had a profound impact on the foundations of Levantine religion. Although the supreme divine being preserved his leadership, he apparently lost most of his super-god attributes. He became the progenitor of the gods, and his anthropomorphic representations eradicated his transcendent dimension with respect to all other deities. A  similar evolution affected the great goddess. Initially ensuring  the

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mediation between this super-god and the created universe, it seems that she gradually metamorphosed into the consort/mistress of El. This new status transformed El into a procreator. This transformation might represent an adaptation of the indigenous beliefs to the political situation of Amorite hegemony. From an Amorite perspective, the loss of the super-god dimension of El authorized his homology with Dagan. This process includes a demotion of metallurgy from the status of a religious cornerstone to the realm of a craft, a situation leading Kothar to leave his homeland for countries where metallurgy still preserved its prestige. The demise of the Amorite influence combined with the resurgence of copper production stimulated a rehabilitation of the original dimension of El. From the Early Iron Age, Kothar became a central deity in the Levant again, so that many centuries later, Philo from Byblos still acknowledged Kothar (Cushor) as the great god of this city.100 The Pseudo-Meliton even assumes that he was the king-god of the Phoenicians.101 The resurrection of the metallurgical attributes of El validates his worship in Israel under his hidden name, YHWH. It also clarifies how the biblical authors may have seen the god of Israel being revered in the neighbor nations, and even as the sponsor of the fraternal alliance in the Southern Levant. NOTES 1 Cross 1973: 60–75; Miller 2000: 25; de Moor 1990: 234–7; Kraus 1992: 23. For Dijkstra (2001b: 101–2), “The cluster YHWH was originally one of the many epithets of the god El, which during the emergence of Israel developed into an independent divine name and deity. Israelite Yahwism had its origin in the early history of Israel, when YHWH became an independent Israelite manifestation of the pluriform Canaanite El.” 2 In reference to cognate languages, šadday is interpreted as deriving from šadê ̄ (field), šadû (mountain), *ṯaday (breasts), šedu ̄ (protective spirit), šdj (savior), šadıd̄ (strong), šdy (to throw, to rain), sdy (to help, to confer a benefit). See Wilson-Wright 2019: 154–9 for a survey of these opinions. 3 For example, Eissfeldt 1956; Dussaud 1957: 239; Mettinger 1990: 409–10; Herrmann 1999: 277; Day 2000: 14; Smith 2003: 272; Römer 2015: 312–3; Benz 2016: 421. 4 Mullen 1980: 158; Pope 1955: 75–6; Smith 2001: 136. Considered alone, this criterion is insufficient because the god originating from the South (Teman) is called Eloah (=El/ Elohim) and not YHWH in Hab 3:3 and Job. 5 These points are resumed in Day 2000: 13–14. 6 Smith 2001: 49; 2003: 272; Benz 2016: 421. Otto Eissfeldt (1956: 26) even suggested a rampant predation process, in which YHWH gradually “devoured” the figure of El: “Indeed, there is no lack of evidence to show that YHWH who invaded Canaan, the sphere of El in the first instance, acknowledged the superior status of El but then progressively supplanted him and so became the highest and even the sole god.” For Dussaud (1957: 239), such mingling process was completed up to the eighth century BC. 7 Mullen 1980: 134–6; 168–71. 8 This attribute is mainly derived from the interpretation of the formula lṭpn ʾil dpʾid (KTU 1.1 iii 6; 1.1 iv 13, 18; 1.4 ii 10; 1.4 iv 58; 1.5 iv 11; 1.6 i 50; 1.6 iii 4, 10, 14; 1.6 iv 10, 11). See Smith 1994: 184; Walls 2016: 264. Contra, Nick Wyatt (1998a) suggests it refers to El

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9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17

18

19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37

38

as “wise and perceptive.” Nevertheless, Wyatt (1998a: 132) acknowledges a reference to El as “the Compassionate, the god of mercy” in KTU 1.6 i 50. Ex 34:6; Joel 2:13; Jon 4:2; Neh 9:31; Pss 103:8, 111:4, 116:5, 145:8; 2 Chr 30:9. Deut 4:31; Isa 14:1, 49:13, 54:10, 55:7; Jer 30:18; Ezek 39:25; Hos 1:7. Wyatt 1998a: 136; Dijkstra 2013: 84. This is deduced from KTU 1.6 iii, a section mentioning El as a seer who interprets dreams concerning the comeback of Baal from the Netherworld. Gen 20:3, 20:6, 31:11, 31:24, 40:8; Job 33:15. Num 12:6; Deut 13:2, 13:4, 13:6; Judg 7:13–15; 1 Kgs 3:5; Jer 23:28; Joel 2:27–3:1. Qumran and Septuagint versions. The mention of “sons of Israel” instead of “sons of Elohim” in the MT is generally regarded as a late substitution of the original formulation. Smith 2001: 48–9. Eissfeldt 1956: 29; Dussaud 1957: 238; Day 2000: 22–3; Smith 2001: 157. Tov 1992: 269; Day 2000: 23. A parallel trend is observed in Ps 96:7, where the expression “families of nations” replaces “sons of gods” in the original source (Ps 29:1). For Smith (2001:  48), this emendation reflects a theological discomfort with the “polytheistic approach” exposed in the original version of Deut 32:8–9. This thesis is defended by Mullen 1980: 204–5; Schenker 1997: 439–40; Heiser 2006. As a variant, Elnes and Miller (1999: 295–6) identify in Deut 32:8–9 the use of the name Elyon for designating YHWH. For example, Deut 4:35, 4:39, 7:9; 2 Sam 7:28; 1 Kgs 8:60, 18:37–39; Isa 37:16; 1 Chr 17:26. This interpretation is argued by Dussaud (1957: 235). HALOT 2: 390–1; Bergman 1986: 462, 469. See, for example, Ps 76:2; Isa 64:1; Jer 16:20; Ezek 39:7. Bordreuil 1979. According to Daviau and Dion (1994: 164) and Tyson (2019: 5), the mention of El in personal names is even more frequent than Milkom, the patron-god of this nation. Cantineau 1938: 78–9; Levi Della Vida 1944: 8; Caquot 1952: 102 and 1963: 15; Ingholt et al. 1955: 32. Clifford 1990: 56. Otten, 1953; Röllig 1999: 280. Dijkstra 2013: 86–7. Lipin´ski 1988: 137–8; Herrmann 1999: 275; Dijkstra 2013: 82; Franklin 2016: 448–9. Lipin´ski 1988: 138; Morris 1995: 85. Lipin´ski 1988: 143. Lipin´ski 1988: 143; Dijkstra 2013: 82; Casadio 1992: 71. Tsumura 2005: 133. Ibid. Clifford 1994: 32. Text and translation from Dijkstra 2001a: 24. For Meindert Dijkstra (2001a: 25), El’s radiance refers to “the solar character of the Canaanite god El, who rose as the sun-god setting the mountains aglow and making them look as though they were melting.” See also Noll 2007: 74. See de Moor 1990: 231; Wyatt 1998a: 185. The same promise is found in Isa 45:3, where YHWH self-reveals to Cyrus through unveiling the location of mineral treasures. The invitation of Pabel to Keret and his army to offer sacrifices and leave the country thereafter (KTU 1.14 iii 26–29) even suggests that Udum was regarded as a part of the holy domain of El. The location of Udum remains uncertain. It may be identified with the Caucasus mountains, with the sources of Euphrates (two of the possible locations of the Garden of God) or with the Bashan. Alternately, Udum may even be a reference to the land of Edom. See Wyatt 1998a: 193, n. 80 for the debate concerning this location.

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39 Smith 1994: 170–1. 40 Smith 2001: 172. See, for example, KTU 1.2 iv 11–23. Such homonymy is not surprising in light of the magic powers attached to metalworkers in antiquity. See Morris 1995: 89; Jeffers 1996: 49. 41 KTU 1.12 ii 60–61. See Lipin´ski 1988: 142. 42 The parallel designation of the mountain of El as ḥuršanu ̄ and ḥr ll supports this interpretation if, as suggested by Mullen (1980: 166–7), ll is a Sumerian loan word designating a kind of ore. Another possible meaning is luxuriance, designing the domain of El as a Garden of Eden. These interpretations are not exclusive, the Garden of Eden being a place rich in gold (Gen 2:11–12) and precious minerals (Ezek 28:13). 43 KTU 1.41. See del Olmo Lete 1999: 66–71, 107–11. 44 KTU 1.2 i 10. According to KTU 1.65, this pairing of El with Athirat is ancient in Ugaritian religion. See Amzallag and Yona 2014. Wyatt (1998a: 57) suggests that Rahmay is not another name of Athirat, but rather another wife of El. 45 For example, KTU 1.10 i 4; 1.23.30. See Miller 1967: 411; Becerra 2008: 56; Smith and Pitard 2009: 39. 46 Dussaud 1957: 233. 47 Mullen 1980: 142, 178. 48 KTU 1.16 i 11, 22. See Herrmann 1999: 275. Marwin Pope (1955: 43) concluded, “It may be inferred that holiness pertains to El in a greater degree than to any of the other gods, since to none of the others is the word [qdš] applied directly as an epithet.” 49 Herrmann 1999: 274. 50 Pope 1955: 47. 51 Del Olmo Lete 1999: 74. 52 For example, KTU 1.118, 1.47, 1.148. See del Olmo Lete 1999: 72–3. 53 Del Olmo Lete 1999: 47; Binger 1997: 47–51. For the homology between Asherah and Athirat, see Day 2000: 47–8; Korpel 2001: 130, 149. 54 In parallel, the Ugaritian gods are globally called “the seventy sons of Athirat” (sbʿm bn athrt). See Coogan 1978: 97; Day 1986: 387; Binger 1997: 50; del Olmo Lete 1999: 47–8. 55 Stuckey 2002: 9–30. Nevertheless, according to Korpel (2001: 148), Elat also designated Anat and Ashtart in Ugarit, so it cannot serve as an indication of her consort status. 56 Binger 1997: 83; Stuckey 2002. 57 Wiggins 2007: 6–7. In KTU 1.4 iv 1–19, Athirat rides an ass a considerable distance to meet El. 58 Naveh 1979; Dever 1984. 59 Lemaire 1977; Zevit 1984. 60 For a review of the authors defending this opinion, see Smith 2001: 125–6; Day 2000: 59–61; Stuckey 2002: 37–9. 61 This singularity may find explanations preserving the interpretation of Asherah as YHWH’s consort in these inscriptions. See Stuckey 2002: 37. It is enough to interpret Asherah as a common name anonymously designating the consort of YHWH (Margalit 1990: 276) or to identify the suffix as an archaic emphasis of the feminine genre (Zevit 1984). It cannot, however, serve as support for evidencing the existence of a consort to YHWH. 62 Miller 1986; Tigay 1986: 26–30; Smith 2002: 126–7. 63 Patai 1965: 39–41; Day 1986: 392, and 2000: 52–9; Binger 1997: 129–30; Wyatt 1999: 103; Korpel 2001: 129; Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 230–3; Smith 2002: 121; Wiggins 2007: 241–53. 64 See Hadley 2000: 49–51 for a review of the opinions concerning the etymology of Asherah. 65 Day 1986: 388 and ref therein; Wiggins 2007: 221–2. 66 Margalit 1990: 268, 273, 277; Wyatt 1999: 99. 67 Stuckey 2002: 29–31; Korpel 2001: 148. 68 Edwards 1955; Cornelius 1994, pl. 20–23.

ASHERAH, THE DIVINE MEDIATOR

69 The goddess was known in Mesopotamia as Ašratum/Aširatu/Aširtu, in the early second millennium BC and she is even identified as the consort of the god Amurru. See del Olmo Lete 1999: 47; Binger 1997: 47–51; Day 1986: 385; Wyatt 1999: 100; Margalit 1990: 268. Her appellation belet ̄ ṣerī (Lady of the steppe) confirms these Amorite acquaintances, together with the Amorite theophoric name mentioning her. See Day 1986: 386. The goddess is already mentioned in Ebla, in the second half of third millennium BC (Pettinato 1976: 48). But the serpentine affinities of the goddess, including in Ugarit, challenge an Amorite origin. See Wiggins 2007: 227–8; Negbi 1976: 100, 176. 70 KTU 1.15 ii 25. See Mesnil du Buisson (1973: 167–200) and Korpel (2001: 138–9). The parallel stressed between Athirat and Anat is challenged by Wyatt (2008a: 209), who suggests instead a closeness between Athirat and Rahmay. 71 Mesnil du Buisson 1973: 182–4; Korpel 2001: 139; Stuckey 2002. Asherah is also represented with a Hathor coiffure on a gold pendant from Ugarit. See Figure 1.20. 72 Lipin´ski 1995: 70, 72. 73 According to Budge (1904: 428), Gillam (1995: 215), and Al-Ayedi (2007: 23), Hathor was apparently worshipped from the pre-Dynastic period. 74 Coffin Texts V, 298; VI, 48. See Bleeker 1973: 20, 27, 58. 75 McGill 2008: 30. 76 Bleeker 1973: 28, 99–100. Concerning the birth of Horus, Claas Bleeker concludes (1973: 62–3) that “Hathor’s motherhood is therefore conceived of as parthenogenesis or as being purely symbolical.” 77 The shrine located in this mining area is organized around a cave, with the holy precinct communicating with mining galleries. See Valbelle and Bonnet 1996: 65, 85; Al-Ayedi 2007: 26. 78 Gillam 1995: 215; Valbelle and Bonnet 1996: 7. 79 Valbelle and Bonnet 1996: 37; Al-Ayedi 2007: 23–5, Budge 1904: 430. 80 See Valbelle and Bonnet (1996: 8–10) concerning Nubia, and Rothenberg (1988: 274 and 1999: 168) concerning Timna. The Egyptian smith-god, Ptah, is represented with Hathor in the holy cave of Serabit. See Valbelle and Bonnet 1996: 39. Their twinning is confirmed by the frequent interference of their cult in the Ancient Egyptian religion. See Bleeker 1973: 66–7, 75. Nevertheless, the cult of Ptah at Serabit apparently started only at the Middle Kingdom, while Hathor was already worshipped there during the Old Kingdom. See Valbelle and Bonnet 1996: 31, 39. This suggests that Hathor, rather than the Egyptian smith-god, was initially considered by the Egyptians as sponsoring mining and smelting activities. 81 Bleeker 1973: 26. 82 Hathor is also called “lady of the turquoise country” or “lady of good color.” See Al-Ayedi 2007: 23. 83 Pinch 1982: 139–40. 84 Bleeker 1973: 54 and ref therein. 85 Budge 1904: 435. 86 Coffin Texts, IV, Spell 331. See Bleeker 1973: 69. 87 Kinyras, the local figure of Kothar in Cyprus, was the god of metallurgy and song-poetry. See Franklin, 2016: 443–88. The designation of female singers as Kotharat in Ugarit and the parallel between metallurgy and song-poetry identified in the Cain genealogy (Gen 4:19–21) reflect this acquaintance. See Amzallag 2018b: 31. 88 Buhl 1947. This affinity might even justify the epithet of Hathor as “the mistress of Gebal” (Byblos), the city supplying precious wood (cedars and cypress from the Lebanese mountains) to Egypt. 89 Buhl 1947: 86. 90 Budge 1904: 430; Buhl 1947: 96; Bleeker 1973: 66. 91 See the Pyramid Texts 916a and 1485a, respectively (quoted by Buhl 1947: 88). 92 KTU 1.14 iii 45–52; 1.14 iv 35–43.

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93 Such an indirect turn to El via Athirat enables us to understand why Karet forgot so quickly to fulfill his vow to the goddess after the birth of his son: The latter was given by El, not Athirat. See KTU 1.15 ii 20–25 for the accomplishment of the blessing and KTU 1.15 iii 26–30 for the unaccomplished votary to Athirat. 94 KTU 1.4 iii 9–40. 95 KTU 1.4 iv 1–v 2. 96 Coogan 1978: 98–101; Stuckey 2002. 97 Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 237. 98 Smith 2002: 134. 99 Amzallag 2017a: 775–7. This linkage finds support in Job 28 through the parallel between the mining activity and looking for wisdom. 100 Quoted by Eusebius from Caesaria, Preparatio evangelica, I 10, 11. 101 Franklin 2016: 469. This claim becomes meaningful once Melqart and the patron-gods of the other Phoenician cities are identified with Kothar. The homology between Melqart and Milkom in Ammon (Lipin´ski 2006: 317) and with the emissary of YHWH in Israel (Amzallag 2012: 125–6) corroborates this interpretation.

PART III

THE CONCEPTION OF ISRAEL

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE ISRAELITE SINGULARITY

T

he previous section identified YHWH as a super-god, a divine being transcending the physical universe and the domain of gods. It portrayed him as a distant deity, intervening on the earth through divine and human intercessors. However, these conclusions do not account for the figure of YHWH in Israelite theology, whose direct intervention in the exodus from Egypt is the cornerstone. The simplest way to reconcile these contrasting features is to assume that a patron-god dimension of YHWH developed in Israel at the expense of his super-god nature. In such a case, the evolution of the Israelite religion would resemble the downgrading of El from super-god to father of gods identified in Ugarit. This explanation, however, is hardly satisfying because YHWH retains in the Bible the most essential characteristics of a super-god. For example, he remains the supreme being for whom any form of representation is forbidden. Consequently, it seems that Israelite theology combined the super-god nature of YHWH with two trends that challenge it. The first postulates a possible intervention of YHWH in favor of the Israelites. The second claims the possibility of a direct relationship with YHWH, thus abolishing the need for intermediary deities. These novelties transform the Israelites into the new people of YHWH and account for his terrestrial residence among them. This chapter aims to identify the origin and the grounds that warrant such a collection of contrasting features. 199

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THE TIMNA MAKEOVER

The Cultic Reform Copper ore was already being mined from the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries BC in Timna (Southern Arabah), but the main metallurgical activity occurred there in the Early Iron Age, mainly between the twelfth and tenth centuries BC.1 As detailed in Chapter 4, this reality points to the renewal of the local copper industry accompanying the movement of emancipation. One of the most exciting findings from Timna concerns the sanctuary area (site 200). The furnaces involved in the cultic metallurgy at the Egyptian period were preserved thereafter, but the Hathor chapel became replaced with a tent sanctuary.2 This new shrine reused some pillars from the ancient one, but not before defacing the Egyptian identity markers, including the figure of Hathor.3 Instead, the naos of the tent-sanctuary stratum contained a copper serpent, an artifact specifically encountered in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age.4 These findings express the essential characteristics of the movement of emancipation: the eradication of foreign hegemony accompanying the renewal of the local copper industry, and the revival of ancient indigenous values attached to cultural metallurgy. YHWH being both the patron of the South Levantine metalworkers and the sponsor of the movement of emancipation, it is likely that he was the god worshipped in the tent sanctuary from Timna. This shrine displays unique features, however. No similar structure has been discovered in the other sites of renewal of the copper industry in the Arabah. Furthermore, the defacing of Hathor in Timna is not followed by any representation of Asherah, her Levantine counterpart. It suggests that the mediator function of the great goddess did not characterize the renewal of the ancient local traditions in Timna. Such a particularity advocates for a direct worship of YHWH, the marker of the Israelite religion with respect to its neighbors’.

The Midianite Connection Timna is the site with the most abundant remains of Qurayyah ware in the Southern Levant.5 Their profusion in the tent-sanctuary area (even in the naos, loci 110–111) suggests that this ware accompanied the renaissance of local, cultic practices.6 This signifies that the people who introduced this pottery to Timna were probably involved in the religious transformations observed in this site. The oasis of Qurayyah was among the largest ones in Northwestern Arabia. Already fortified in the third millennium BC, Qurayyah was especially prosperous in the Bronze Age.7 This oasis had the most sophisticated system of

PARALLELS WITH THE EMERGENCE OF ISRAEL

water collection, resurgent drainage, and irrigation in Arabia.8 Its size, wealth, and position even suggest that Qurayyah was the foremost city in the territory of Midian, at the end of the second millennium BC.9 An ancient metallurgical activity existed in this oasis in the Late Bronze Age.10 Distant from the international network of the production and trade of metal, it was apparently steeped in old South Levantine traditions.11 The renewal of the cult of YHWH in ancient Israel might therefore be fashioned by such archaic traditions. PARALLELS WITH THE EMERGENCE OF ISRAEL

Located in an arid region, the mining area of Timna was far from the district of Faynan and its transportation network (see Figure 4.6). It thus remained a site of secondary importance in the renewal of copper production in the Arabah. The relative autonomy of Timna with respect to the Edomite copper industry finds a possible echo in the Bible. In Genesis 36, the chapter detailing the genealogy of Edom, Timna is the sister of Lothan (Gen 36:22), one of the sons of Seir (Gen 36:20–21). This affiliation bestows antiquity and prestige to the people associated with this mining area and their traditions. The mention of a “chief of Timna” among the Edomite leaders (Gen 36:40) and the union of Timna with Eliphaz, the son of Esau (Gen 36:12), inform us that the Timnaites belonged to the Edomite confederation. However, the status of Timna as Eliphaz’s concubine, instead of his wife, may stress the marginal position of Timna and its people within this confederation. This relative independence recalls the distance of Israelite theology from the classical worship of YHWH within the fraternal alliance (see Chapter 3).

The Timna Tent Sanctuary and the Israelite Tent of Meeting A comparison between the Timna tent sanctuary and the configuration of the earliest Israelite sanctuary mentioned in the Pentateuch reveals the parallel between them: • The tent as first sanctuary: The Timna tent sanctuary reminds us the “tent of meeting” related in Ex 33:7–11.12 First mentioned in Exodus 18 as a space where the Israelites may ask for (lide˘rōš) YHWH (Ex 18:15), it is the earliest Israelite shrine.13 • Rejection of the Egyptians: The Timna tent sanctuary arises in the context of emancipation from Egyptian authority and the eradication of Egyptian cultural markers. A similar anti-Egyptian bias accompanies the first mention of the Israelite tent of meeting (Ex 18:8–9). It emerges immediately after the partition of the sea (Exodus 14–15), the event symbolizing the definitive liberation from Egyptian authority and harassment.

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• Midianite affinities: The abundance of Qurayyah ware in the Timna tent sanctuary suggests a Midianite involvement in its construction and functioning. Similarly, the Israelite tent of meeting displays Midianite affinities. It is first mentioned near Horeb (Ex 18:5), the mountain of God located near the camp of Jethro, the Qenite priest of Midian (Ex 3:1). Furthermore, this shrine is inaugurated in Exodus 18 not by Moses, Aaron, or any other Israelite official, but by Jethro: “And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt-offering and sacrifices to God; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God” (Ex 18:12).14 The instructions given by Jethro to Moses for optimizing its use (Ex 18:14–23) corroborate this ascendancy. • Encounter with YHWH: The ground of the tent sanctuary from Timna was full of crushed ore, hammers, and fragments of mortars. So we may deduce that the inner space of the sanctuary was the site of preparation for the cultic metallurgy performed outside, near the entrance, where the furnaces were set. A similar organization is observed in the Israelite tent of meeting. Exodus 33 reveals that the encounter between Moses and YHWH occurred near the entrance of the tent, not within it: “When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the entrance of the tent, and spoke with Moses” (Ex 33:9). Furthermore, the text mentions that Joshua, Moses’ assistant, never left the tent of meeting (Ex 33:11), without specifying that he had encountered YHWH. This indicates that the inner space of the tent of meeting was the site of preparation only.15 • Cultic metallurgy: The tent sanctuary from Timna was organized around cultic metallurgy. While such a feature is not explicit in the Bible, the description in Exodus 33 reveals that the encounter with YHWH involved a pillar of cloud outside of the tent (v. 9), visible from afar (vv. 8, 10).16 The metallurgical/volcanic connotations of the pillar of cloud (see Chapter 5) reveal a metallurgical activity performed at the entrance of the tent of meeting, which apparently stimulated the divine presence (kabod-YHWH as radiance). Thus, exactly as in the tent sanctuary from Timna, cultic metallurgy is probably the feature promoting the encounter with YHWH in the Israelite tent of meeting.17 • The copper serpent: The copper serpent unearthed in the Timna tent sanctuary was probably an element of the cult.18 Whereas a similar serpent is not mentioned in the description of the Israelite tent of meeting, the Book of Kings relates the existence, in the Jerusalem temple, of a copper serpent (ne˘ḥu ̄štan) ̄ “made by Moses,” that is, rooted in the earliest period of the Israelite religion (2 Kgs 18:4). It also associates its production with the episode of burning serpents guarding the Arabah mining areas (see Chapter 5). It is another affinity with the copper serpent from Timna.19

These parallels reveal that the events occurring in Timna in the thirteenth and twelfth centuries BC might be closely related to the emergence of Israel

PARALLELS WITH THE EMERGENCE OF ISRAEL

and its worship of YHWH. They also suggest that the Book of Exodus, though composed centuries after the birth of Israel, has probably preserved (at least in part) the memory of historical facts relating to the birth of Israel.

The Amalekite Connection Beyond the tent sanctuary and its Midianite associations, the site of Timna bears another linkage with the early history of Israel. It is revealed in Genesis 36, identifying Amalek as the son of Eliphaz and his concubine Timna (Gen 36:12), the daughter of Seir (Gen 36:20–22). This affiliation grants the Amalekites a prestigious origin and antiquity, a feature confirmed in Num 24:20. It also suggests that the Amalekites, a nomadic people inhabiting the desert areas of the Southern Levant, were active in the transformations observed at Timna in the Early Iron Age.20 This conclusion is especially interesting because the Bible has preserved some traces of the involvement of Amalek in the birth of Israel. In Exodus, the Amalekites fight with Israel immediately after the partition of the sea (Ex 17:8). And curiously, YHWH is not involved in this war (Ex 17:9–13), the victory depending only on Moses being able to hold up his rod. This nonparticipation of YHWH indicates that we might do well to interpret it as a domestic war between two closely related groups. Further allusions support this premise. The Song of Deborah claims an Amalekite origin of the tribe of Ephraim (Judg 5:14). The mention of a Mount Amalek within the territory of Ephraim (Judg 12:15) corroborates this claim.21 These observations suggest that the tribe of Ephraim, or substantial parts of it, originated from the southern Negev/Arabah area. This conclusion is especially significant, due to the crucial importance of Ephraim, this tribe being frequently mentioned alone, in oracles, and sermons, for designating the whole nation of Israel.22 The role of Ephraim seems especially important in the early history of Israel. Joshua, the chief of the Ephraimites, is also the leader conducting the conquest of the Promised Land. The mention of Joshua assisting Moses in the tent of meeting even adds an Ephraimite connotation to the emergence of the early worship of YHWH in Israel. The importance of Shiloh, the Ephraimite city mentioned as the first site where the Ark of the Covenant was first set down, supports this conclusion. It seems, therefore, that Ephraim had special importance not only in the narrative of the exodus and conquest of Israel, but also in the theology underlying them. In light of these indications, Timna and its surroundings might have been the area where a Yahwistic ideology of exodus and conquest emerged. With these considerations in mind, we may now look for the origins of the unique theological features promulgated by the Israelites: the direct intervention of YHWH in history, and the transformation of Israel into the (new) people of YHWH, a feature culminating in his public worship.

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THE OASIS REPRESENTATION OF THE DIVINE RESIDENCE

The narrative in Exodus is not the only testimony of a cultural influence originating from arid regions. Such ascendancy on the theology of Israel is also visible in the myth of origin of humankind, and more specifically in the representation of the Garden of Eden as recounted in Genesis 2–3.

The Mountainous Abode of God The religions from the ancient Near East typically identified the high mountains as navels of creation, channels of communication between earth and heaven, and even as the holy places of divine residence. By extension, the community of gods was generally represented as living in a luxuriant, wellwatered garden situated in the heights, atop a holy mountain.23 This view encouraged the edification of sanctuaries in the mountains, or denoting them symbolically. In Mesopotamia, for example, the Ziggurat reproduced within the city this cosmic mountain and residence of gods.24 In other instances, the temples were surrounded by gardens conceived as symbolic representations of the holy garden of the gods.25 Traces of these traditions are visible in ancient Israel. YHWH is a god of mountains (1 Kgs 20:28),26 and Zion the mount of YHWH (Isa 2:2–3, 30:29). The Garden of Eden likewise displays a mountainous character, attested to by the cedar trees growing in it (Ezek 31:8–9).27 The mention of four streams flowing from the Garden of Eden and fertilizing the whole earth (Gen 2:10–14) even positions it at the highest possible elevation.28 Integrating the Gihon, the spring flowing from Jerusalem, among these four streams is instructive. It promotes the homology between the royal garden this spring watered and the Garden of Eden.29 These observations reveal the existence in ancient Israel of a tradition locating the Garden of Eden in the heights. But the description of the vegetation and climate of the Garden of Eden, in Genesis 2–3, undermines this premise. Rather, it suggests the placement of this divine garden in a different environment altogether. • Vegetation: All the trees of the Garden of Eden bear edible fruits for Adam (Gen 2:16–17).30 This transforms the Garden of Eden into an orchard. This description does not fit the mountainous representation of the garden of God, where cedars and other nonedible plants are mentioned. • Seasons: Seasonal variations are especially accentuated at a high altitude. However, nothing in the story of the Garden of Eden refers to any alternation of seasons, and especially not a cold and windy winter. Rather, the milieu seems exceptionally stable in the Garden of Eden, where fruits ripen on trees throughout the whole year.

THE OASIS REPRESENTATION OF THE DIVINE RESIDENCE

• Climate: That man and woman lived naked in the Garden of Eden reveals that the climate is always warm. Such a lifestyle evolves not because the winter is coming but as a consequence of a sin (Gen 3:7). Again, this description is not appropriate for a mountainous location of the garden.

An easy way to account for these inconsistencies is to keep in mind that the Garden of Eden is a mythic place, whose description is constrained by symbolic rather than realistic considerations.31 Alternatively, introducing contrasting realities may be a literary device emphasizing the extraordinary and supernatural dimension of this divine space, distinguishing it from any terrestrial milieu. These justifications are not utterly convincing, however, because the divine abode refers not to mythic geography but to genuine mountains (such as Mount Zaphon, Mount Hermon, Mount Zalmon, or Mount Seir). Furthermore, the reference to identifiable streams in Gen 2:10–14 anchors the myth in verifiable geography.32 Consequently, in the absence of a realistic milieu accounting for the contrasting features in Genesis 2, we should conclude that verses 10–14 belong to a classical representation of the garden of God positioned atop a mountain, whereas the other verses refer to a different location.33

The Oasis as a New Garden of God The new location of the Garden of Eden exists in a hot climate throughout the whole year. The absence of rain before its emergence (Gen 2:5) suggests its setting in an arid, desert area: “No shrub (s´îaḥ has´s´adeh) was yet in the land and ̄ no herb (ʿe s̄´eb has´s´ad̄ eh) had yet sprung up – for YHWH-Elohim had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the soil.”34 The absence of vegetation before its occurrence confirms this premise.35 No rain is associated with the emergence of the Garden of Eden, and none follows its creation. That this lush garden is situated in a desert area (Gen 2:5) invites us to identify it as an oasis.36 The root ʿdn expresses fertility, luxuriance, abundance, and happiness in West-Semitic languages.37 Eden is, therefore, an appropriate denotation for a desert oasis, where the contrast between luxuriance and the surrounding desert is most striking. The way in which the Garden of Eden emerges bears out this interpretation. In Genesis 1, the desert nature of the earth (v. 2) ceases with the creation of vegetation (vv. 11–12). But in Genesis 2, the emergence of the Garden of Eden has another origin. The description of the arid environment (v. 5) is immediately followed by the mention of a source of water moistening the soil on which the Garden of Eden subsequently emerges: “[A] ʾed̄ was going up from the ground (ha ʾ̄ ar̄ es´) and was watering (hišqâ) the surface of the soil (pe˘nê ha ʾ̄ a˘damâ)” ̄ (Gen 2:6). The conditions for the emergence of the garden depend on a reality here designated as ʾed. ̄ Four possible interpretations have been suggested:

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• ʾed̄ as mist/dew: This meaning accounts for a moistening of the land prior to the emergence of the Garden of Eden.38 However, this interpretation cannot explain why the surrounding area remains arid.39 • ʾed̄ as stream: The designation of river/stream as edû in Akkadian suggests a similar meaning in Gen 2:6. It transforms ʾed̄ into the cosmic river irrigating the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:6–9) before splitting into four streams flowing in the world (Gen 2:10–14).40 However, if ʾed describes a mighty river upstream of Eden, we may wonder why its banks above the garden remain arid. This is why ʾed̄ and nahar are probably distinct phenomena in Genesis 2.41 • ʾed̄ as spring: The noun ʾed̄ denotes a spring or a fountain in ancient translations (LXX, Vulgata, Peshitta).42 However, if ʾed̄ designates an abundant spring of underground water that fertilizes the land, the large area is expected to be luxuriant even before the creation of the Garden. • ʾed̄ as flood: The Akkadian edû designates a flood of large amplitude.43 This interpretation of ʾed̄ in Gen 2:6 may explain why no vegetation grows in the area despite the presence of water. However, this interpretation is difficult to justify in the absence of any rainy event. Furthermore, ʾed̄ or cognate terms never describe a flood of large amplitude or a violent inundation in the Bible.

This overview shows that none of the four proposed solutions is able to account for the emergence of an oasis. But in a desert environment, the ʾed̄ phenomenon may easily designate a small resurgence of water that provides local watering. The description in verse 6 supports this view. If ʾed̄ becomes the subject of the verb yʿl (qal, to go up, to make the way up, an interpretation suggested by the MT vocalization44), it describes a local elevation of the aquifer inducing water saturation.45 The distinction in Gen 2:6 between ʾar̄ eṣ, the whole desert land, and ʾa˘dam ̄ â, the area watered by the ʾed̄ resurgence, substantiates this interpretation.46 Furthermore, the term šqh (hiph) designating how the ʾed̄ watered the land in verse 6 is reencountered in verse 10 for expressing the irrigation (activity leading to soil water saturation) of the Garden, rather than its inundation. For these reasons, ʾed̄ in verse 6 probably designates a spontaneous upsurge of underground water that hydrates but does not flood a limited soil surface.47

The Theological Consequences The random discovery of a small marshy area is only the first step in the emergence of an oasis. A true oasis results from the skillful management of this water resource through the digging of wells and irrigation canals.48 This requirement may explain why the verse accounting for the creation of Adam (v. 7) is curiously inserted between the mention of the god discovering the ʾed̄ resurgence (v. 6) and planting the trees (vv. 8–9). The creation of man in verse 7,

THE OASIS REPRESENTATION OF THE DIVINE RESIDENCE

combined with the absence of the participation of any divine being in the works of drainage, is highly instructive. It stresses that human intervention is a prerequisite for the emergence of the oasis and its preservation.49 This constraint has serious implications for the status of the Garden of Eden and the man–god relationship. The mountainous Garden of Eden is a wild environment whose human access remains restricted and even exceptional. It mainly concerned a small elite knowing the rare pathways to the top. But such a prerequisite disappears in the new representation. The oasis is not only an accessible location, but also the site of the permanent residence of mortals. Consequently, the esoteric knowledge initially required to access the deity becomes replaced here by the mere condition of residence in the oasis. In other words, moving the divine garden to an oasis spontaneously transforms its inhabitants into a new “society of God.” It introduces a new man–god relationship freed from the restrictions requiring the mastering of arcane knowledge. The oasis introduces another innovation. The Garden of Eden becomes an artificial milieu created by man for the residence of the gods. From a theological point of view, it becomes the homolog of a sanctuary, the human-made residence where an encounter with the divine becomes possible. The idea is not entirely new, however. The work around the furnace also stimulates the divine presence through the thermal radiance (kabod-YHWH) emitted by molten metal or slag. However, unlike the transient character of this metallurgical theophany, the creation of an oasis makes this divine presence potentially permanent, a place where people are unfettered from specialized knowledge and the experience of metallurgy.

The Israelite Extension The two theological novelties attached to the oasis representation, the emergence of a new “society of God” and the idea of a permanent residence of the divine on the earth, are akin to the two theological innovations of the Israelites promulgated in the Book of Exodus. By means of the Sinai covenant, Israel defines itself as a new people of YHWH transcending the restrictions of previously dictated access to the deity. Furthermore, the Israelite tabernacle, in its appellation of miškan (=residence), announces the creation on earth of a permanent residence for the divine. The oasis image of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2 signifies the importance of these parallels. It suggests that these novelties of Israelite theology were influenced by an oasis-shaped form of Yahwism of Midianite origin, and/or by its expression in Timna. An examination of the Tabernacle/Jerusalem temple and their symbolism supports this premise. As in other cultures from the ancient Near East, the Israelite sanctuary symbolically reproduced the Garden of God, site of the divine presence and of the man–god communication.50 Both enclose an area

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of forbidden access: the holy of holies in the temple and the tree of knowledge/life in the Garden of Eden. In both, cherubim prevent access to this forbidden area (Gen 3:24; Ex 26:31–33).51 However, in conjunction with the representation of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2, some elements of the Israelite sanctuary express an oasis symbolism. The Book of Kings mentions the palm trees and cherubim decorating the inner and outer walls of the Solomonic temple: “Around all the walls of the house he carved engraved figures of cherubim and palm trees and open flowers, in the inner and outer rooms” (1 Kgs 6:29).52 The omnipresence of these ornaments confers upon the whole temple an oasis-like atmosphere (the palm trees) intermingling with the symbolism of the divine abode (the cherubim).53 Ezekiel’s vision of the future temple of Jerusalem reiterates this representation, with the palm-tree symbolism of the pillars (Ezek 40:16).54 As in the Jerusalem temple, palm trees are represented together with cherubim all over the walls of this future sanctuary, providing the evidence for luxuriance. 17bAnd

on all the walls all around, inside and outside, was a measured pattern. 18It was carved of cherubim and palm trees, a palm tree between cherub and cherub. Every cherub had two faces: 19a human face toward the palm tree on the one side, and the face of a young lion toward the palm tree on the other side. They were carved on the whole temple all around. 20From the floor to above the door, cherubim and palm trees were carved; similarly the wall of the nave. (Ezek 41:17b–20)

The man–god relationship characterizing the Israelite religion and the symbolism of their sanctuary both indicate the influence of an oasis-inspired form of Yahwism on Israelite theology.

VOLCANISM AND YHWH’S MODUS OPERANDI

In Chapter 5, we have identified the volcanic theophany and divine mode of action as privileged expressions of the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism. Such a choice is somewhat surprising in the Levant, a region known for being devoid of volcanic activity in the historical period.55 The utilization of a distant but important volcanic reality is, of course, always a possibility. This occurrence is visible in Greece, where the struggle between Zeus and the Titans related in Hesiod’s Theogony involves pyroclasts, fire, lava, and earthquakes. The succession of events, in this myth, fits an eruption that occurred long before Hesiod: the giant explosion of the Santorini caldera in the fifteenth century BC (the Thera eruption).56 Additionally, details relative to the Etna eruption are identifiable in the mythic struggle between Zeus and Typhon.57 They point to the fact that the memory of an exceptional volcanic event may survive for centuries in poetry and myths, and then spread into the Mediterranean area.

VOLCANISM AND YHWH’S MODUS OPERANDI

However, the biblical descriptions of volcanic eruptions are too realistic to be reconstituted on the sole basis of myths. For example, the description of the Sinai theophany (Ex 19:16–19) comprises no fewer than seven phases of a volcanic eruption, all related in their chronological order of appearance.58 It means that the probable source of this imagery is a genuine observation of volcanic events. Two areas of volcanic activity may be a source of knowledge for the biblical authors. The first is the Western Mediterranean, especially Sicily. The Philistines coming from this area (the Sherden and Sekelesh of the Egyptian documents),59 or even the Phoenicians installed in Southern Italy and Sicily from the beginning of the first millennium BC,60 may have introduced reliable knowledge about volcanism into the Southern Levant. The other source is the Arabian Peninsula, one of the largest active volcanic fields in the world (more than 180,000 square kilometers) with numerous attested eruptions throughout the past 10,000 years.61 The long memory of volcanic events in archaic cultures makes these repeated events especially pertinent for the Arabian inhabitants in prehistoric and historic periods.62 Arabian volcanism is localized on the western side of the peninsula, along a north–south axis. One of the most massive hot-points of this volcanic area, Harrat Rahat, is located about 600 kilometers eastward of the Arabah valley.63 Even closer to the Southern Levant are the volcanic fields of Harrat arRahah and Harrat al-Uwayrid.64 Furthermore, the most important trade routes in Northern Arabia traversed volcanic fields, even in the vicinity of volcanoes that were active during the historical period (see Figure 7.1). The Book of Jeremiah speaks of contacts between Israel and the kingdoms of Dedan and Tayma (Jer 25:23, 49:8), located near these volcanic fields. The Book of Job explicitly refers to volcanic activity conducted by YHWH in these areas, far from human eyes: “He who removes mountains and they know it not; When he overturns them with his tuyère (be˘ʾappo ̑)” (Job 9:5). Combined with the oasis-inspired representation of the Garden of Eden, these sources substantiate that the volcanic areas from Northwestern Arabia were probably an important source of knowledge about volcanism for the biblical authors. They verify a Midianite influence on the theology of the Israelites, and especially on its foundations.65 An emphasis on the volcanic dimension of YHWH’s theophany has significant consequences. His super-god nature basically marks the aloofness of the deity from terrestrial events. This premise is visible in the first myth of creation in Genesis (Gen 2:1–3), which concludes with YHWH’s nonintervention on the earth after the completion of the creation process. But the prominent importance of volcanism challenges this premise. Moreover, the radical transformations of the landscape following a volcanic event imply that the demiurgic action of YHWH did not finish on the sixth day of creation.

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Karkemish Alep

Ugarit

Assur Mari Damascus

Jerusalem Gaza Memphis

Babylon

Tel Masos To Ur

Timna Dumah

Qurayyah

Tayma Dedan Al-Hawra Yathrib Trade routes Volcanic fields Volcanoes To Yemen

7.1 Volcanic fields, recent volcanic activity, and the trade routes from Northern Arabia in the end of the second millennium BC.

Rather, it protracts the creation process in the historical period, and with it, the idea of divine intervention. Consequently, the central importance of volcanism in the divine sphere advances the most essential innovation of Israelite theology: the compatibility of YHWH’s involvement in history with his nature of super-god and his metallurgical background. Volcanic eruptions are unpredictable events with terrible consequences. For this reason, the integration of volcanism among the essential attributes yields a new approach to the deity. Besides his traditional character of an all-beneficent deity, YHWH now becomes a god of an explosive nature,

THE NEW STORM ATTRIBUTES

provoking massive and blind destructions of his own creation. This development deeply influences the man–god relationship. In Exodus, the Israelites refuse to meet YHWH on Mount Sinai, which has been transformed into an erupting volcano, because they fear for their lives (Ex 20:18–19). The subsequent verse reveals that this fear is fully exploited by the promoters of the Israelite theology for spreading their views: 18Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off. 19And said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” (Ex 20:18–20)

Amos tells the Israelites, who are experiencing the same fear, to follow the divine commandments in order to postpone as much as possible YHWH’s intervention on earth. The latter, accompanying his revelation, is envisioned as a great volcanic event with tragic consequences for humanity and life in general (Am 5:18–20).66 The volcanic, blindly destructive nature of this ultimate revelation is explicit in Zeph 1:14–17: 14The great day of YHWH is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of YHWH is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there. 15A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. 16A day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. 17I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against YHWH; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung.

The representation of the god of Israel as an avenging deity punishing those who reject his authority and commandments may easily be a result of this volcanic-induced perspective.67 It challenges the alternative view of an allbeneficent super-god distant from terrestrial affairs.68 The impact of volcanism on Israelite theology reveals a Midianite influence of even greater impact than the oasis-inspired representation of the Garden of Eden. THE NEW STORM ATTRIBUTES

The Phenomenon of a Volcanic Storm As super-god, YHWH stood apart from storms and rain. At best, he potentially contributed to moving the clouds through his action upon the winds, themselves issued from the blowing on his celestial furnace. Besides this distance, an antagonism may have existed between the agriculturally based

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religion rooted in Neolithic beliefs and the metallurgical traditions that constituted a new set of beliefs in the Bronze Age. The taboo on agriculture affecting the South Levantine metalworkers (Gen 4:12; Jer 35:7) probably reflects such a religious shift. The volcanic dimension of YHWH’s theophany had the potential to modify this situation. Abundant lightning bolts are visible during a volcanic eruption, each one accompanied by thunder.69 Together with the volcanic cloud arising from the crater, they occasionally generate a mesocyclone coated on its surface by lightning.70 Furthermore, storm-like events, including rain and hail, frequently accompany volcanic eruptions, even in desert areas. Volcanic storms display almost all the characteristics of a violent thunderstorm, but the simultaneous fall of hailstones and magma generates a mix of fire and ice.71 This unique combination is related in the Bible, revealing that the Israelites were well acquainted with this reality.72 From a theological perspective, this phenomenon challenges the traditional idea of YHWH being distant from storms, rainfall, and agriculture. It fuels alternative developments especially interesting for the metamorphosis of Israel, a people of agropastoralists, into the new “society of God.”

Volcanism and Storm in the Sinai Theophany The reference to volcanic storms clarifies the meaning of some biblical descriptions. For example, the mention of thunder, lightning (Ex 19:16), and thick cloud (Ex 24:15–16, 24:18) in Sinai theophany is frequently interpreted as evidence for the storm-god identity of YHWH.73 In this instance, the volcanic element becomes the marker of a juncture in Exodus 19 of two traditions of ancient Yahwism, that of a storm-god (northern tradition) and of a volcanogod (southern tradition).74 Here, the reference to a volcanic storm provides a simpler explanation, in agreement with the literary cohesiveness of the narration in Ex 19:16–19.75 It also clarifies further descriptions of this fundamental event in Israelite theology. The Sinai theophany is also understood as a volcanic event in the Song of Deborah: “The mountains melted (naze ̄ ˘lû) from before YHWH, that Sinai from before YHWH God of Israel” (Judg 5:5). The previous verse (where Seir substitutes for Sinai) accounts for an earthquake, the preliminary phase of a volcanic eruption, combined with a stormy event: “[T]he earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water” (Judg 5:4b). Here again, identifying storm volcanism is simpler than assuming the merger of two independent traditions. The Sinai theophany is described in Deut 4:11 as a volcanic event combining two types of clouds: “[A]nd the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven, with darkness (ḥoš̄ ek), clouds (ʿan̄ an), ̄ and thick darkness (waʿa˘rap̄ el).” The term ʿan̄ an̄ generally designates a cloud bearing water,76 whereas ʿa˘rap̄ el

THE NEW STORM ATTRIBUTES

occasionally signifies a cloud of smoke and thick darkness (e.g., Ps 18:9–10).77 Here again, identifying wet volcanism is simpler than assuming the coalescence of two independent traditions.78 The mention, a few verses later, of these two types of clouds in further descriptions of volcanic events confirms this interpretation: “These words YHWH spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud (heʿan̄ an̄ ), and the thick darkness (we˘haʿa ̄ ˘rap̄ el), with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me” (Deut 5:22).79

Wet Volcanism in Psalm 18 In both the Exodus and Deuteronomy accounts of the Sinai revelation, the volcanism is restricted to a purely theophanic dimension. It is why no flow of lava or of hot gases and their destructive consequences are related in these descriptions. All these elements combine, however, in Psalm 18 (=1 Samuel 22). In this song, the supplication of the I-voice (identified with David) for divine intervention (vv. 5–7) is immediately followed by a theophanic event (vv. 8–16) that anticipates a divine intervention for destroying the psalmist’s enemies (vv. 17–25). The theophany (vv. 8–16) explicitly involves volcanism. Verses 8–9 relate the flowing up of mountains expressed by the double use of the verb gʿš (=to flow up). Also, the poetic description of the fiery crater as a divine “mouth” with divine “nostrils” fiercely blasting air fits a volcanic eruption:80 the earth overflowed (watirʿaš) and quaked; The foundations also of the mountains trembled; They overflowed (wayyitggaʿ̄ a˘ šû) because he was enflamed. Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; 9 Glowing coals flamed forth from him”. 8Then

This volcanic element extends through the description, in verses 12–15, of a violent storm initiated by YHWH: 12He

made darkness his covering, his canopy around him; Dark water (ḥeškat mayim) in thick clouds. 13Out of the brightness (minnōgah) before him The clouds passed, hailstones and coals of fire. 14YHWH thundered in the heavens, The Most High uttered his voice (qōlo)̑ ; Hailstones and coals of fire. And he sent out his arrows and scattered them; 15 He multiplied lightning and dispersed them.

Here too, this latter description is frequently interpreted in the context of a thunderstorm and is adopted in order to justify the storm-god nature of YHWH.81 It occasions a Chaoskampf reading of Psalm 18, inspired by

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the hymns praising the warrior dimension of Baal in Ugarit.82 As for the Sinai theophany, this interpretation transforms verses 8–16 into a compilation of a northern tradition referring to a former storm-god identity of YHW, and a southern one identifying him as a volcano-god.83 However, by 1926, George Franklin already identified a reference to wet volcanism in these verses.84 Verse 12 mentions the rainfall of “dark water.” This description is meaningless in reference to a thunderstorm, but it easily accounts for dirty rain (volcanic ash mixed with water) during a volcanic storm. Furthermore, the storm coexists with an intense source of light in verse 13. Again, this reality is meaningless in the context of a thunderstorm, but it accurately describes the radiance emanating from an erupting volcano visible even during the violent rainfall. Finally, the mix of hail and coals of fire (gaḥa˘lê ʾeš ) in verses 13–14 matches the description of a volcanic storm, not a thunderstorm.85 In Psalm 18, YHWH exerts an undeniable power over storms. But this emanates from volcanism, so it does not transform YHWH into a storm-god. Here, the volcanic theophany is the premise of a divine action in which the lightning, hail, and coals of fire are targeted specifically against enemies. In advancing the phenomenon of volcanic storm, Psalm 18 promotes the idea of harnessing volcanic action without challenging YHWH’s nature of supergod, and even without challenging the metallurgical dimension of his modus operandi. Apparently, the most prominent changes in Israelite theology regarding the traditional form of Yahwism should be anchored in a Yahwism located in a desert and inspired by oases from Northwestern Arabia. The first one derives from the central importance devoted to volcanism in the knowledge of YHWH, his character, and his modus operandi. This innovation provides the opportunity for divine intervention in history without challenging the supergod nature of YHWH. Simultaneously, it credits YHWH with the power to intimidate, which had previously been moderated. In introducing storm volcanism into the divine sphere, it also adapted Yahwism to the lifestyle of the Israelites. The second concerns the transformation of the traditional representation of the divine garden into an oasis. This new construction introduces a relationship to YHWH emancipated from metallurgy and its esoteric knowledge. It creates the opportunity for redefining the people of YHWH, independent of metallurgical background and experience. Furthermore, this oasis-based representation indicates that the story exposed in Genesis 2–3 is not borrowed from a Sumerian/Akkadian original, such as the myth of Enki and Ninhursag, despite similarities between them.86 Furthermore, it suggests an emergence of the myth of the Garden of Eden in early Israel, rather than in the late monarchic or even postexilic period.87 Finally, this myth is probably at the

THE NEW STORM ATTRIBUTES

heart of one of the most essential features of Israelite theology, the search for proximity to and even familiarity of the Israelites with YHWH as super-god, and the claim of his dwelling in their midst.88

NOTES 1 Ben-Yosef 2018. 2 The addition of a new furnace at the front of the tent sanctuary (locus 101) even suggests that this cultic activity extended after the Egyptian period. See Rothenberg 1988: 192–8, 276–8 and 1999: 172. 3 Rothenberg 1988: 276–8. 4 Ibid.: 147 and pl. 11. 5 Dayton 1972: 31; Dumbrell 1975: 323; Rothenberg and Glass 1983. 6 Rothenberg 1988: 299–301. 7 Hüneburg et al. 2019: 223. 8 Ibid.: 215–6. 9 Al-Ghazzi 2010. 10 Liu et al. 2015. 11 Before aridification completed (up to the fourth millennium BC), the Arabian Peninsula was in geographic and cultural continuity with the Southern Levant. See Gebel 2013: 112–3; Pokrandt 2014: 270; Dinies et al. 2015. The gradual process of the emergence of oases and the similarity of their techniques of water harvest, management, and irrigation with those already in use before (Pokrandt 2014: 274–5) even suggest a continuity between the first inhabitants of the emerging oases and the pastoral population preceding them. 12 Beno Rothenberg (1972: 184), the discoverer of the tent sanctuary from Timna, already stressed the parallel between the two. 13 This shrine discharges the same instructive functions as does Moses’ tent of meeting in Ex 33:7. See Amzallag 2019c: 302–3. This tent has been identified as Moses’ tent (Cassuto 1967: 215; Houtman 1996: 394), Jethro’s tent (Janzen 1997: 127), or a tent sanctuary in use before the Sinai revelation (Fretheim 1992: 197). An analysis of Exodus 18 and its parallels with Exodus 33 reveal that the tent mentioned in Exodus 18:7, where Moses and Jethro meet, became the tent of meeting. See Amzallag 2019c: 300–4. 14 Weinfeld 1988. Blenkinsopp (2008: 135) quotes many scholars rejecting the classical exegesis assuming that Jethro was merely invited to an Israelite ceremony. The oracular function of the tent, announced in Ex 18:13, begins with the expression on the morrow (mimaḥ̄ o˘rat̄ ), indicating that it probably follows an inauguration event occurring the day before (Ex 18:12). 15 Haran (1960: 56) deduces from the report that Joshua departed not from the tent (Ex 33:11), even though it is mentioned nowhere that he encountered the deity there. See Haran (1978: 266–7) for an overview of such a preparatory function of the tent. 16 Haran 1960: 55. 17 The location of Horeb, the mountain of YHWH, in Midian confirms that YHWH was worshipped by the Midianites (probably through the Qenites living among them). Joseph Blenkinsopp (2008: 144) even considers the Qenites as a Midianite subgroup. See also Dozeman 2009: 96, 150, 153. 18 Rothenberg 1988: 147 and pl. 11. 19 Amzallag 2015d: 114–6. 20 Gen 14:7; Ex 17:8; 1 Sam 15:7, 27:8. 21 Smith 2001: 145; Benz 2016: 375. 22 Isa 17:3; Jer 31:9; Ezek 37:16, 37:19; Hos 5:3, 5:9, 6:10, 7:1, 10:6, 13:1. 23 Van Dyk 2014; Wyatt 2014. 24 Eck 1995; Morales 2012: 7.

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25 Stordalen 2000: 158; Morales 2012: 9. Lemaire 1981: 319; Römer 2012b: 586. These divinelike gardens represented the navel of the world so that the king and/or priest accessing them was symbolically transformed into the first man. 26 See, for example, the appellation mountain(s) of god (har ha ʾ̄ e˘lōhîm in Ex 3:1, 3:12, 4:27, 18:5; Ps 68:16 and har qad̄ šî in Isa 11:9, 65:25; Ps 99:9). 27 Day 2000: 30–31; Dijkstra 2013: 83. 28 Fishbane 1979: 17; Keel 1997: 118; Mettinger 2007: 16; Morales 2012: 14–5. The idea of a single source of the four streams watering the whole earth does not fit the current geography. However, it might refer to an early mythic phase in which earth was unified around a mythic mountain, the divine residence from where all the streams of the earth originated. 29 Wenham 1986; Stager 1999; Stordalen 2008; van Dyk 2014: 660. 30 The description of the fruits of every tree as being pleasant for the sight and good for food (Gen 2:9) confirms this point. 31 Cassuto 1961: 118; Cothenet 1993: 1186–90; Sarna 1972: 23–8; Wallace 1985: 70–89. 32 Wenham 1987: 61–2; Hamilton 1990: 162–5; Mathews 1995: 200–202. 33 Scholars have already suggested that verses 10–14, the cluster locating the Garden of Eden atop a cosmic mountain, are grafted into another representation in Genesis 2–3. See McKenzie 1954: 554–5; Hamilton 1990: 162; Mettinger 2007: 16; Ska 2008: 7. David Carr (1993: 577–8) advances two arguments supporting this view: first, “The section regarding the rivers, in vv. 10–14, disrupts the narrative style of the overall story and is only loosely integrated with its context”; second, “most of v. 15 duplicates v. 8b (placing the human in the garden) and seems to be part of the redaction that inserted the rivers section into its context.” 34 Tsumura 1989: 91. 35 Tsumura 1989: 88; van Wolde 1989: 152–3; Stordalen 1992: 10. 36 Kennedy 1990: 4. 37 The derivation of ʿeden from the Sumerian edin (=steppe, desert) proposed by Albright (1922: 26) is now rejected. See Lemaire 1981; Millard 1984. 38 See BDB 15; DCH 1:118; Dahood 1981. This meaning is already found in the Aramaic translations of ʾed̄ in Gen 2:6 as ʿa˘nan̄ a.̄ 39 Tsumura 1989: 92; Van Wolde 1989: 149. 40 Albright 1939: 102–3; McCarter 1973: 403; DCH 1:118. 41 Tsumura 1989: 118. 42 Scholars accepted this interpretation. See, for example, DRS 1: 8; HALOT 1: 11; Reymond 1958: 169–70, 201; Tsumura 1989: 112–7; Stordalen 1992: 13; Morales 2012; Wenham 1987: 58. 43 Speiser 1955. This interpretation was already argued in the nineteenth century by Dillmann and Delitzsch. 44 The alternative hypothesis, of a hiphil verbal form transforming YHWH into the subject, and the ʾed-water ̄ phenomenon into the object, is rejected by van Wolde (1989: 147–50) for syntactic reasons. Ellen van Wolde (1989: 150) concluded, “In 2:6 this ʾed̄ acts independently of God, even though ʾed̄ is not a separate deity like the corresponding Sumeric deity id which rules the waters of the depths.” 45 Such an interpretation of ʾed̄ in Gen 2:6 as a local resurgence of groundwater is already suggested by Andersen 1987: 139. 46 Tsumura 1989: 120–3. 47 Reymond 1958: 169–70, 201; Tsumura 1989: 118; Stordalen 1992: 13. 48 Reymond 1958: 120–1. 49 Van Wolde 1989: 153–4. For Ian Hart (1995: 331), “[Gen] 2:5–6 state that without man to irrigate and work the land, the available water was useless; so here the focus is on man as a worker.” Terje Stordalen (1992: 13–14) underlines the silence concerning the divine involvement in creating the oasis, a feature indirectly promoting the central role of man in its emergence: “Since the lack of irrigating water in the land is a specific deficiency within this plot, we would expect a removal of that problem to be emphasized. But this is certainly not the case in Gen. 2.6. The story

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50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57

58

59 60 61

62 63 64 65

66 67 68

69

reports neither the blessing potential, nor any subsequent emergence of vegetation. We learn simply that ‘the face of the soil’ becomes wet.” Stordalen 2008; Wenham 1987: 61; Lanfer 2012: 133. Stordalen 2008: 34; Lanfer 2012: 128. 1 Kgs 6:32, 6:35, 7:36; 2 Chr 3:5. Stager 2000: 39–41. Stordalen (2000: 121) even suggests that Boaz and Yakhin, the two pillars at the entrance of the Solomon temple, were symbolic representations of palm trees. Volcanoes are visible on the Golan Height, but their activity ceased thousands of years before the historical period. The only known exception is the eruptions from the Kra volcanic field, 100 kilometers eastward of Galilee, in the third millennium BC (2880–2460 BC). See Trifonov 2007: 133–42; Camp and Roobol 1989: 71–95. Nevertheless, the Levantines were probably aware of a volcanic activity in the past, through the volcanic shape of the Golan Height mountains and the abundance of basalt. Defining the Bashan’s hill (ancient volcanoes) as “mountains of God” (Ps 68:16) might reflect this understanding. However, these observations cannot serve as source for the description of volcanic eruptions in the Bible. Greene 1992: 49–63. Ibid.: 63–71. The latter example is especially interesting because the Near Eastern mythology profoundly influenced the Typhonomachy, as revealed by the location of Cilicia or the Northern Levant (Corycian cave, Mount Cassius, Orontes River) as the land of origin of Typhon. Even the name of this animal seems derived from the Semitic sạ phon. See Burkert 1987: 21. Burkert (1987: 20) also compares Typhon with the Hittite monstrous serpent Illuyankas. Penglase (1997: 163–4) identifies affinities with the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish and the Ninurta myth, and likens Typhon to Anzu and Asag. See also West 1997: 303–4; Ogden 2013: 76. The Sinai theophany has for a long time been identified as a volcanic eruption. See, for example, Franklin 1926: 192–6; Noth 1962: 156; Koenig 1964, 1966, 1968; Humphreys 2003: 84–7. See also Dunn 2014: 388–97 for a review of this opinion. Concerning the accuracy of the description, see Bentor (1990: 336). Woudhuizen 2006: 34, 38, 95–8, 111–5. Nijboer 2008; Tykot 1994: 73. See Camp et al. 1987: 489–90. These authors identified about twenty-one volcanic eruptions in Arabia during the last 1500 years, and an average lag of about 200–300 years between two massive volcanic events in this area, from the Paleolithic up to our days. See also Groucutt (2020). For example, Wilkie et al. (2020) evidenced the outstanding memory of the Aborigens concerning volcanic events that ceased in Australia 5000 years ago. Camp and Roobol 1989: 71, 79. Whittaker 2003: 18–39; Dunn 2014: 398–401. Koenig 1966; Amzallag 2014b. Furthermore, it should not be excluded that Mount Horeb (whose name signifies destruction) was one of the sites of such volcanic activity. Some scholars (Philby 1955: 125–6; Noth 1962: 156) located Mount Sinai in the Tabuk volcanic field, north-west of the Arabian Peninsula. Others identified the Biblical Sinai with the volcano Hala’ al-Badr, Harrat ar-Raha or Jabal al-Lawz or Al-Jaw. See Sivertsen 2009: 59–66, Hoffmeier 2005: 131–6, Whittaker 2003: 85–145, Koenig 1971: 67–102 respectively. A similar cataclysmic view of the day of YHWH’s revelation is advanced in Isa 13:6–9 as well as Joel 1:15, 2:31. Isa 40:3–5, 66:15–16; Amos 5:18–20; Nah 1:2–6. This belief is quoted in an orcale from Zephaniah: “At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, YHWH will not do good, nor will he do ill’” (Zeph 1:12). This phenomenon is consecutive to the accumulation of the ash particles’ positive charges and the variation of their density consecutive to local variations in air pressure during the

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70

71

72 73

74

75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82

83

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release of hot gases from the crater. See Mather and Harrison 2006; James et al. 2008; Behnke et al. 2013; Cimarelli et al. 2014: 81. Chakraborty et al. 2009. According to these authors, the volcanic mesocyclone displays the three essential characteristics of a tornadic thunderstorm: a buoyant updraft, rainy downdraft, and deep mesocyclonic vortex. This storm-like event is the consequence of the rapid elevation of humid air of atmospheric origin, or it is generated when the volcanic flow crosses an aquifer or sediments rich in water. See Todesco and Todini 2004; Mather and Harrison 2006: 393. The rapid elevation of these clouds in the atmosphere freezes water and stimulates abundant rain around the volcano. The presence of fine ash even accelerates ice nucleation, a phenomenon that frequently generates hail. See van Eaton et al. 2015. Ex 9:23–24; Isa 30:30; Pss 18:13–14, 105:32, 148:8. Cross 1973: 167–9; Cassuto 1967: 231–2; Propp 2006: 164. For Frank Cross (1973: 169), “Such experiences stand behind the highly imaginative poetry of the storm god’s epiphany.” For Propp (2006: 164), the superposition of a storm and a volcanic dimension is introduced to stress the miraculous and exceptional nature of the event. Also for Othmar Keel (1997: 227), “Volcanic elements served only to make evident that power of YHWH which, it was felt, was experienced in them.” Albright 1957: 262–3. Martin Noth (1962: 159–61) associated the volcanic tradition with the Yahwist source and identified it in verses 16a, 18, and 20. He traced the storm tradition in claims from verse 16. With minor variants, this interpretation is now defended by scholars such as Kingsbury (1967: 207–10), Dozeman (1989: 25), Houtman (1996: 430), and Keel (1997: 218). Noth (1962: 160) and Keel (1997: 218) also identified the volcanic tradition as the most ancient one, the storm-god identity of YHWH becoming a theological novelty inherent to his worship by the Israelites. Durham 1987: 270. Also Houtman (1996: 429) considers the volcanic and storm phenomena as complementary images in the Sinai theophany of YHWH. Gen 9:13–14, 9:16; Isa 44:22; Ezek 1:28; Hos 6:4, 13:3; Job 26:8, 37:11. This term, however, may exceptionally be associated with smoke (Ezek 8:11) and ash/dust (Nah 1:3). HALOT 2:888; see, for example, Jer 13:16; Job 22:13. But ʿa˘rap̄ el is also found in a watery context in Job 38:9. The ʿa˘rapel ̄ designation of the cloud in Ex 20:21, immediately after smoke emanates from the Sinai mountain (Ex 20:18), confirms its interpretation as a thick cloud of ashes, hot gases, and pyroclasts. See also Zeph 1:15: “A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness (ʿana ̄ n̄ waʿa˘rap̄ el).” Concerning the volcanic character of this description, see Koenig 1966: 5, 25; Leslie 1956: 260; Kraus 1988: 260; Keel 1997: 218. Tsumura 2005: 150–1; Craigie 2004: 173–4; Klingbeil 1999: 73; Maré 2010: 108; Brueggemann and Bellinger 2014: 97; Dahood 1966: 108; Kraus 1988: 261; Keel 1997: 215. Craigie 2004: 173–4; Maré 2010: 106–8; Green 2003: 269–71. Tsumura (2005: 150–1) challenges the Chaoskampf interpretation, in stressing that the struggle described in these verses concerns the psalmist, rather than YHWH. Jeremias 1965: 34–6; Mann 1971: 16–7; Kraus 1993: 260–1; Keel 1997: 217–8. Their combination became interpreted as the survival of a vestigial South-Canaanite tradition of volcanic theophany in a religious universe conditioned by the storm-god dimension of YHWH, and adapted to the Israelite agricultural reality. The blending of these contrasting realities even emphasizes the supernatural character of the divine intervention. See Maré (2010: 111). Alternatively, the description of the devouring fire and smoke emanating from the ‘mouth’ and ‘nose’ of YHWH respectively (v. 9) became interpreted as a figuration of YHWH as a dragon deity. See G.H. Wilson 2014: 431; Kim and Trimm 2014: 169–73; Müller 2017: 214–5. “Should we misunderstand the meaning of this description? It is indeed a volcanic eruption, with most of its expressions: invading darkness, thick clouds yielding a whirlwind, blazing flames, hail, incandescent

THE NEW STORM ATTRIBUTES

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stones, a tsunami, and even the thunderstorm with the lightning and thunder that usually accompany this paroxysm of nature” (Franklin 1926: 189; author’s translation). Further indications concur. For example, YHWH scattering (waye˘pîsẹ m) ̄ his lightning (v. 15) suggests that the bolts originate from a single source, the crater identified as YHWH’s fiery mouth (v. 8) emitting intense light (v. 13). This description fits a storm volcano, in which the lightning emanates from the crater and not from the sky, like for thunderstorm. Kramer and Albright 1945: 8–9; Lambert and Tournay 1949. A postexilic dating of the myth in Genesis 2–3 is also defended. See, for example, Stordalen (2000: 212) and Ska (2008: 16). Michael Morales (2012: 1) identifies this quest as the central element of the Israelite theology: “At the heart of the theology of the Bible is the kernel of its principal theme: dwelling in the divine Presence, a theme that sprouts up and branches out in various directions yet never severed from its root.”

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I

srael is the only nation where a public worship of YHWH, including the revelation of his name, has been discovered. Consequently, the theology of early Israel cannot be defined by a desert-inspired form of Yahwism that was transposed to the fertile region of Canaan. A theological innovation of its own characterizes this nation. This chapter aims to identify it and to examine the foundations on which it became a major and legitimate religion, mainly through an analysis of the Book of Exodus. This opus narrates the Qenite/Midianite ascendant on the earliest form of Israelite Yahwism, and it expounds on the two main principles involved in the Exodus–Conquest theology: the metamorphosis of Israel into the new people of YHWH, and the project of Israelite settlement in the land of Canaan that became transformed into the terrestrial residence of the super-god.

ISRAEL BEFORE THE EXODUS

The first chapters of the Book of Exodus recount the situation preceding the transformation of Israel into the people of YHWH.1 They relate that the Israelites were ignorant of the genuine name of YHWH (Ex 3:13–14), although they considered him a prestigious god (Ex 3:15). That the Israelites did not worship YHWH before is revealed in Exodus 5. There, the request for authorizing the Israelites to celebrate a YHWH festival in the desert (Ex 5:1) is interpreted by the Egyptians as a mere excuse (dibrê šāqer, Ex 5:9) to stop 220

ISRAEL BEFORE THE EXODUS

working (Ex 5:17). This reaction is irrelevant if YHWH was known as being already worshipped by the Israelites. Further indications corroborate this conclusion. For example, Moses foresees that the Israelites will not believe that YHWH actually intends to deliver them from bondage (Ex 4:1). But curiously, this expectation does not make YHWH indignant. Instead, he grants Moses the wonders required to convince the Israelites to accept the authenticity of his pronouncements (Ex 4:2–9). In these first chapters, YHWH is a god the Israelites feared but did not worship, and who they did not expect to intervene on their behalf. The change introduced in Ex 2:23–24 supports this conclusion because, at this point, the divine reaction stems not from requests addressed to him by the Israelites, but rather from hearing their suffering. 23During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help (wayyizʿaq̄ û). Their cry for rescue came up to the God (haʾ̄ e˘loh̄ îm) from slavery. 24And God (ʾe˘loh̄ îm) heard their groaning, and God (ʾe˘loh̄ îm) remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.2

The first dialog between YHWH and Moses confirms this view. YHWH acknowledges the suffering of the Israelites (Ex 3:7) without mentioning any supplication or call for his intervention: “I have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows” (Ex 3:7b).3 The first chapters of Exodus provide further information about how the Israelites approached YHWH prior to their “theological revolution.” He was clearly regarded as a prestigious god of old (Ex 3:6, 3:13, 3:15, 3:16, 3:18, 4:5, 5:3). Although the Israelites and their ancestors were ignorant of his genuine name (Ex 6:3), they acknowledged at least three of his essential attributes: • Master of life and procreation: Exodus 1 relates that the midwives did not fulfill Pharaoh’s instruction to kill the newborn sons of the Israelites. Verses 17 and 21 even specify that “fearing the God” motivated this disobedience, revealing that YHWH was acknowledged as the god who opens the womb (as in Gen 29:31, 30:22) so that killing the newborns offends him. The consecration of every first-born, human or animal, to this god (Ex 13:1) confirms his status as master of life, vitality, and procreation.4 • Source of plagues and death: YHWH was also the god who caused death. This is revealed when Moses asks Pharaoh to allow a three-day festival for the worship of YHWH, “lest he fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword” (Ex 5:3). Also in Ex 16:3, where the Israelites doubt the possible involvement of YHWH in their deliverance, they nevertheless acknowledge his power to provoke death everywhere, and at any time: “The people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of YHWH in the land of Egypt, when we sat

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by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Ex 16:3).5 • Metallurgical background: Exodus 4 claims that Moses had to perform wonders to convince the Israelites that he speaks in the name of YHWH (Ex 4:1–9), making clear that the Israelites already associated these wonders specifically with this god.6 Among them, the first one is considered sufficient for identifying Moses as the chosen emissary. Rather than a “magic trick” intending to reinforce the prestige and authority of Moses,7 this wonder exposes his metallurgical skill (see Chapter 5). Therefore, the Israelites clearly identified the metalworkers as being the emissaries of YHWH.

Before the Exodus, the Israelites approached YHWH as an ancient and prestigious deity of mysterious nature they feared but did not worship, like the mariners in the Book of Jonah (see Chapter 5). THE PARTITION OF THE SEA AS THEOLOGICAL NOVELTY

The deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian servitude is the central event of Israelite theology. Beyond the story of the birth of the nation, it is also an act of faith claiming that YHWH intervened in the course of events in delivering the Israelites out of slavery, and fighting their enemies. The importance of the latter dimension is highlighted by the author of Psalm 78: 2I

will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, 3Things that we have heard and known, That our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation 4 The glorious deeds of YHWH, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. […] 7So that they should set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments

These verses confirm that the act of the exodus represents the case study of divine intervention in history. However, divergent opinions coexist in the Bible concerning the splitting of the sea, the most dramatic demonstration of divine intervention in the book.

Transient Return to the Time of Creation The simplest way to account for divine intervention is to assume that this miracle brings the earth back to the period of creation, when the boundaries between seas and dry lands were not yet permanently fixed.8 The emergence of Israel becomes a creation event whose expression is postponed to

THE PARTITION OF THE SEA AS THEOLOGICAL NOVELTY

the historical period. Such an approach is alluded to in Psalm 114, where the fleeing sea (vv. 3, 5) is paralleled with the skipping mountains (vv. 4, 6), a description regarded as a reference to the time of creation.9 Then YHWH commands the sea to flee in Exodus exactly as he did for the waters of the sea to retreat in order to create the dry land (e.g., Job 38:8–11). This solution resolves the problem of divine intervention in history without challenging the nature of YHWH as super-god. However, it restricts divine intervention to a single event, the birth of Israel, instead of claiming a radical theological change concerning YHWH’s involvement in the created universe. This restriction might justify why the temporary return to the time of creation is not the most popular explanation for the partition of the sea among the biblical authors.

Drying Process The partition of the sea is occasionally envisioned as a drying-up process. This modus operandi is present in Jos 2:10a (“For we have heard how YHWH dried up [hob̑ îš] the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt”) and in Ps 106:9, where the ground of the opened sea is like a desert (“He rebuked the Red Sea, and it became dry [wayyeḥe˘rāb], and he led them through the deep as through a desert”). in Isa 51:10, such a drying-up process even summarizes the entire exodus, providing the evidence of the overwhelming powers of the god now intervening in history: “Was it not you who dried up [hammaḥa˘rebet] the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to pass over?” The mode of action attached to this wonder is not specified in these sources. However, an examination of the drying-up action of YHWH on pools of water suggests two possible explanations. The first one is a drying process through a very hot, east wind (sirocco) of divine origin, as mentioned in Hos 13:15 (“The east wind, the wind of YHWH shall come, rising from the wilderness, and his fountain shall dry up; his spring shall be parched; it shall strip his treasury of every precious thing”).10 The other one is volcanism, which provokes intense drying (e.g., Amos 7:4; Isa 50:2–3; Nah 1:3–4; Ps 18:16). Volcanism is already present in Exodus in the pillars of fire and smoke and the Sinai theophany, whereas no sign of an outstanding sirocco is identifiable during this event. For these reasons, if a drying process is employed for explaining the partition of the sea in Jos 2:10 and Isa 51:10, it might be associated with volcanism.

Splitting The Song of the Sea (Ex 15:1–21) envisions the opening of the sea as a splitting process.11 Such a representation also exists in Psalm 78:13 (“He divided [bāqaʿ] the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap

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[ne ̄d]”) and in Neh 9:11 (“And you divided [bāqaʿtā] the sea before them”). The sources diverge, however, concerning the “dry ground” that the Israelites walked upon once the sea opened. Psalm 78 remains silent on this point, but the author of Neh 9:11 assumes that the Israelites “went through the midst of the sea on dry land.” The Song of the Sea proposes a striking alternative: a congealing of the seawater, and the formation of a transient solid substratum on which the Israelites walked between the two “banks” of water (Ex 15:8).12 The Song of the Sea is probably the oldest of the biblical sources mentioning the partition of the sea.13 For this reason, it cannot be regarded as a late, fanciful development of an earlier, more realistic representation. Rather, it is probably an original representation of this “miracle” so singular that alternatives were proposed thereafter.14 The process exposed in the Song of the Sea is especially intriguing. The splitting of a liquid element combined with a congealing event is hardly the result of a blast of hot gases released from an erupting volcano, or any other hot wind that evaporates or moves water. No other phenomenon explains it, leaving unresolved the modus operandi of YHWH in one of the oldest representations of the act. DIVINE DEEDS IN THE SONG OF THE SEA

Current Interpretations The Song of the Sea is frequently interpreted through the perspective of a divine struggle against the forces of chaos.15 This theme poses the primeval sea against the leader of the pantheon symbolizing order, the civilizing imperative, and wealth.16 This interpretation upgrades the partition of the sea to the status of a new creation event binding the birth of Israel with the victory against the so-called evil forces of chaos from the precreated universe.17 However, besides the problem with the representation of the ocean as forces of chaos in the Ancient Near East (see Chapters 1-2), this interpretation is not easily compatible with an emancipation movement from Amorite hegemony. Furthermore, no struggle emanates from the Song of the Sea, where water always remains a passive agent.18 Finally, the temporary, congealing event is hard to integrate within such a cosmic perspective. The narration of the miracle of the sea, in Exodus 14, begins with a reference to Baal Zaphon: “Then YHWH said to Moses: Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-Zaphon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea” (Ex 14:1–2). A few verses later (v.  9), the text specifies that the Israelites remained in this place until they started crossing the sea (vv. 21–22). Again, this double mention of Baal Zaphon elicited an interpretation of the miracle in the Chaoskampf context.19

DIVINE DEEDS IN THE SONG OF THE SEA

However, the subsequent verses (Ex 14:3–4) reveal that Israel standing in Baal Zaphon is nothing other than a stratagem employed to confound Pharaoh and his army, who assumed that the Amorite storm-god snared the Israelites for their destruction. If so, both Pharaoh and the god in whom he believes are mocked and defeated here. The partition of the sea, as it is related in Exodus 14, should be regarded as an anti-Baal and even as an anti-Chaoskampf event. Because he blasts on the sea for its splitting (Ex 15:8, 15:10), the god of Israel was portrayed as a desert storm-god blowing hot winds from the east.20 But here too, these explanations are challenged by the congealing event depicted in Ex 15:8.

The Problem of the Congealing–Liquefying Event In the Song of the Sea, the divine blowing has contrasting effects: it splits the sea (v. 8a), then congeals the walls of water (v. 8b), and finally causes the Egyptian army to drown in the sea (v. 10) through decongealing the solidified element: 8At

the blast of “your nostrils” (ʾappêk) the waters piled up; They stood tied up like an heap (niṣs˘ẹ bû ke˘mo ̑ ned̄ noz̄ ˘elîm); The deeps congealed (qāpʾû) in the heart of the sea. 9The enemy said, “I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword; my hand shall destroy them.” You blew with your wind; the sea covered them; 10 They sank like lead in mighty waters (be˘mayim ʾaddîrîm).

To resolve this conundrum, an interpretation of qpʾ as to dry up instead of to congeal was suggested in verse 8.21 Truly, the fiery imagery mentioned in verse 7 evokes the blowing of a scorching wind acting on the sea in the next verse.22 This interpretation is, however, challenged by the description of two wall-like structures emerging from the splitting of the sea, between which the Israelites crossed the sea.23 The situation becomes even more confused if we consider the congealing effects of the divine blow in verse 8, and its drowning of the Egyptian army through a sudden liquefaction of the previously congealed liquid in verse 10.24 Such contrasting effects are so difficult to reconcile that scholars justify their conjunction on the basis of the supernatural dimension of divine intervention.25 If so, we may wonder why this modus operandi is specifically attached in the song to YHWH’s identity and essential attributes: “Who is like you among the gods, YHWH? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, fearful in praiseworthy actions, doing wonder?” (Ex 15:11). This miracle is even approached as a theophany of YHWH in Ex 14:18: “And the Egyptians shall know that I am YHWH, when I shall be glorified (be˘hikkābe˘dî) over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.”

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The Metallurgical Interpretation A metallurgical interpretation of the partition of the sea is disconcerting at first because the liquid element is water, not molten metal or silicates. However, there are a number of indications that warrant their possible homology. Firstly, the term mayim in the Bible designates not only water, but also other liquids, including molten lava (Hos 5:10 and Mic 1:4).26 Secondly, the copper-made basin of giant size at the entrance of the Jerusalem temple is named both “the sea (hayyām),”27 and “the Sea of Copper” (yām hanne˘ḥoš̄ et).28 The first appellation refers to water filling the basin, but the second one promotes a symbolic homology between water and molten copper (see Chapter 5). Thirdly, this same symbolic homology between water and molten metal existed in antiquity. In the copper production sites from Eastern Arabia (Bitnah, Masafi; early first millennium BC), shrines with traces of cultic metallurgy reveal that both the pouring of molten metal and libations of water (or other liquids) were practiced. The representation of serpents on the cultic vessel used for these libations, combined with the metallurgical symbolism of this animal, argues for the homology between the two liquid elements.29 Also in Greek mythology, the mention of the workshop of Hephaestus in an underwater environment, or an erupting volcano, promotes a symbolic homology between seawater and molten metal or silicates.30 And the sudden transformation of the seawater into a fiery allconsuming liquid is a mythic wonder expressing the overwhelming powers of Dionysus confronting his enemies.31 In the Song of the Sea, equating seawater with molten metal is not a claim as extravagant as it may at first appear. Two further indications here support this homology. The first is the men̄ in Ex 15:8, the verse detailing his modus operandi. tion of divine ʾappayım ̄ as anger is unlikely here because nothing in the The translation of ʾappayım preamble of the song infers that anger prompted YHWH’s action.32 This is ̄ is here generally translated as nostrils and understood through the why ʾappayım perspective of an anthropomorphic representation of the deity.33 However, as ̄ also designates the nozzles releasing pressurized shown in Chapter 5, ʾappayım 34 air from pipes. This meaning is especially relevant in the context of using a pressurized air flow in order to divide a liquid. The second indication appears just before the mention of nozzles (v. 8). Verse 7 refers to a fire of divine origin: “In the greatness of your majesty (ge˘ʾon̑ e˘k) you overthrow your adversaries; you send out your fire (ḥa˘rōnek); it consumes them like stubble” (v. 7).35 The all-consuming character of this fire (v. 7), combined with the mention of divine tuyères (v. 8), fosters the metallurgical dimension of this wonder. The contrasting effect of blasting in verse 8 (congealing) and in verse 10 (liquefying) finds an explanation in the context of cupellation, a process performed in antiquity for removing heavy metals and other impurities from

DIVINE DEEDS IN THE SONG OF THE SEA

table 8.1 Comparison of the successive phases of the cupellation process and the divine modus operandi in the Song of the Sea Cupellation process Phase

Action

1

Downward blasting: Feeding air onto the hearth, heating the crucible The downward blasting ceases: Blowing air on the molten metal (upward blasting) The temperature decreases due to the upward blasting and the cessation of downward blasting The temperature decreases gradually as the upward blasting continues Cessation of the upward blasting (inefficient once the metal is solidified on the surface) Reactivation of the hearth by downward blasting

2

3

4

5

6

Metallurgical transformations

Song of the Sea Divine action

The metal melts in the YHWH kindles his crucible fire

Verse 7

Impurities oxidize on the surface of the molten metal

YHWH blows on the surface of the sea

8a

The molten metal thickens

Formation of a “liquid heap” (ned̄ noz̄ e˘lîm)

8b

The metal gradually solidifies

The surface of the sea congeals

8c

The upper layer of metal is in solid state

The Israelites cross the sea; the Egyptians are ready to defeat the Israelites A new blowing provokes the remelting of the surface of the sea; the Egyptians sink into the depths like lead

The metal remelts; the oxidized aggregates (lead/heavy metals) previously trapped now precipitate on the bottom of the crucible

9

10

gold, silver, and even copper. In this technique, the raw metal to be purified is melted in a porous crucible. Once the liquid state is reached, the heavy metals and other impurities become oxidized, then aggregate and precipitate on the bottom and the inner walls of the crucible. This process is substantially accelerated by blowing air onto the molten metal, a process enriching the surface in oxygen and stimulating convection. The discovery of tuyères shaped specifically for this upward blowing, in Tel Dan, confirms this practice in the Southern Levant in the end of the second millennium BC.36 An examination of the sequence of events related in the Song of the Sea shows a salient parallel with the successive phases of the cupellation process as well (Table 8.1).

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Here, the description of YHWH kindling his fire (v. 7) and then blowing on the surface of the sea (v. 8a) corresponds to the transition from downward to upward blasting (phases 1 to 2). The sudden formation of the liquid heap (v. 8b) and its solidification (v. 8c) are the direct consequence of the continuous blowing of pressurized air on a molten metal, gradually thickening it (phases 3–4). This curious interruption of the divine action (v. 9) strongly imitates the sudden cessation of blowing during the transition from upward to downward blasting (phase 5). Finally, the Egyptians sinking into the sea like lead (v. 10) after YHWH blasts corresponds, in the cupellation process, to the precipitation of the lead and heavy metal impurities previously trapped in the solid metal, once the smith reactivates the hearth to remelt it (phase 6). Cupellation accounts for the successive events related in the Song of the Sea, suggesting that this purification process served as a template for the divine modus operandi praised in this hymn.

Parallels with Psalm 66 The Song of the Sea is not the only biblical source identifying the partition of the sea as a giant cupellation process. A similar account appears in Psalm 66, a song mixing the theological history of Israel with the personal experience of the psalmist. A reference to the miracle of the sea is apparent in verses 5–7:37 5Come

and see what God has done: He is awesome in his deeds toward the sons of Adam. ˘yabbāšâ); 6He turned the sea into dry land (hāpak yām le They passed through the river on foot, There did we rejoice in Him. 7Who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations – Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah

Both the miracle of the sea and the crossing of the Jordan River here result from a drying process (v. 6). However, the following verses (vv. 8–12) mention a great deed of YHWH involving cupellation: 8Bless

our God, O peoples; Let the sound of his praise be heard, 9Who has kept our soul among the living; And has not let our feet slip. For you, O God, have tested us; 10 You have refined us (ṣ˘erapttānû) as silver is refined (kiṣ˘erap̄ ). ˘ṣûdâ; 11You brought us into the me You laid hardship (mûʿāqâ) on our loins; ˘ta ̄ ʾe˘noš̑ le˘rʾoše ̄ n̄ û); 12You let people ride over our heads (hirkkabe We came through fire and water; But you have brought us out to overflow (lar̄ ˘ewaȳ â).

THE NEW “SOCIETY OF GOD”

This event was interpreted either as the miracle of the sea in Exodus38 or another nonidentified salvation event.39 The miracle of the sea mentioned just before (vv. 5–7) and the allusions to this mighty accomplishment in verses 9 and 12 support the first possibility. In this case, the psalmist reports two interpretations of the miracle of the sea, a first one (vv. 5–7) recounting a drying process and the other (vv. 8–12) inspired by cupellation. The dual meaning of the noun me˘sụ̂ dâ (designating both stronghold and snare/net) in verse 11a stresses further parallels with the Song of the Sea.40 The image of a stronghold fits the description of two walls of solidified matter flanking the Israelites crossing the sea. And snare, the other meaning of me˘sụ̂ dâ, fits the sudden liquefaction of this stronghold leading to the engulfing of the Egyptian army. The mention, in verse 12a, of enemies positioned on the walls of solidified matter, observing the Israelites downward, recalls the mention of the Egyptians preparing their attack and expecting abundant bounty in Ex 15:9, the verse immediately preceding the remelting of the sea. The process depicted in Ps 66:8–12 and the Song of the Sea reveals an Israelite tradition envisioning the partition of the sea as a cupellation process conducted by YHWH. It is likely that no one in the past believed that seawater might suddenly transform into molten metal, but the accurate description of the cupellation process reveals that this choice should not be considered insignificant.41 Rather, it validates an intervention of YHWH on the Israelites’ behalf without necessitating a well-defined process in which the god fights the Egyptian army or protects the Israelites. In Exodus 15 and Psalm 66, the miracle looks like a decontextualization of the traditional metallurgical activity of YHWH around his holy furnace. It enables minimizing, as much as possible, a deviation from the super-god background of ancient Yahwism inherent in the Israelite claim of divine involvement. THE NEW “SOCIETY OF GOD”

The emergence of Israel as the “people of YHWH” is the other foundation of the Exodus–Conquest ideology. This novelty is even more subversive than the claim of divine intervention on the Israelites’ behalf, because Israel here assumes the traditional status of the metalworkers as emissaries of YHWH. By this means, it also challenges the esoteric dimension traditionally attached to such closeness to the deity. How is such a metamorphosis justified in Israelite theology?

The Passover Transformation In the Book of Exodus, the people of Israel remain almost entirely passive until their deliverance. They do not rebel against the servitude imposed by the

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Egyptians (Ex 1:13–14), nor after the sanctions that intensify their misery (Ex 5:6–19), even after the killing of their newborn males (Ex 1:16, 1:22). They are no longer incited by Moses to initiate any rebellious activity. In this narrarive, the first time that any active involvement is required is the celebration of Passover. As recounted in Exodus 12, this event might enlighten us as to how the Israelites themselves understood their metamorphosis into the people of YHWH. The Passover Sacrifice In Exodus, the Passover celebration is organized around a meal in the house of the Israelites. The instruction of slaughtering a year-old lamb without blemish (Ex 12:5) is akin to the prescriptions for burnt offerings to YHWH.42 Also, daubing with the animal’s blood the posts and lintel of the house’s door (Ex 12:7) echoes the blood smeared on the horns of the altar.43 Passover is therefore a household ceremonial granted a cultic sacrificial dimension.44 We might deduce from Ex 12:27a that the animal is here sacrificed to YHWH: “You shall say, ‘the Passover sacrifice is to YHWH.’” But some details reveal a more complex situation. The first one concerns the treatment of the meat. In sacrifices, the portion devoted to the gods burns on the altar, whereas the participants’ portion boils in a cauldron, a mode of cooking expressed by the verb bšl.45 In the Passover sacrifice, however, the meat eaten by the participants is roasted, not boiled (Ex 12:9). It is therefore analogous to the portion customarily devoted to the gods, and even to YHWH. The second outstanding feature concerns the directive for the total consumption of the sacrificed animal (Ex 12:10). This point is so important that a minimum number of participants is required to carry out the instruction (Ex 12:4). It implies that no part of the sacrificed animal should be devoted to any deity, including YHWH. To avoid any ambiguity, the participants are even asked to destroy by fire all the remains of the animal that are not consumed (Ex 12:10). The Passover sacrifice is therefore an offering that the Israelites have to devote to themselves, exclusively. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that the Passover festival is performed for YHWH (“It is YHWH’s Passover” [Ex 12:11b]), but there is no ceremony in YHWH’s honor that accompanies the sacrifice. No burnt offering is prepared in the name of the whole community, although the instruction given in Ex 20:24 authorizes such a ceremony even in the absence of any consecrated altar, nor is any other deity (such as the emissary of YHWH) mentioned. The exclusion of all gods from this festival is revealed by the detailed description of the way the animal must be eaten: “In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand” (Ex 12:11a). These three instructions are significant. The belt is the artifact holding

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the sword. Thus, fastening the belt calls on the participants to be prepared to defend themselves, ready to fight against any enemy, divine or human. Entering into a holy place and the subsequent encounter with a god requires the removal of footwear (e.g., Ex 3:5). Thus, the instruction to the Israelites to keep their sandals on their feet during the Passover ceremony articulates an explicit rejection of any divine participation in the sacrifice. The staff is a symbol of power and authority of divine or human origin. However, in the context of the two previous edicts, handling the staff claims the supremacy of human authority, that of the participants, over any ascendant. If the Israelites celebrate Passover in the name of YHWH (as specified in Ex 12:11 and 12:27), it is first of all a subversive sacrificial ceremony asserting their emancipation from the authority of all deities, not only from Egyptian control. Passover as a Rite of Passage A century ago, Arnold Van Gennep had already identified the Passover celebration as a rite of passage.46 This interpretation is especially relevant in the Exodus narrative. In ancient cultures, rites of passage accompanied the transition from infancy to adulthood, the joining of a secret society, and even the fulfillment of a mystical vocation.47 Passover easily fits this description, the ceremony promoting a changing of identity and status, the metamorphosis of a group of slaves into the “people of YHWH.” The precipitous manner in which the Israelites performed the ceremonial (Ex 12:11), its occurrence at night (Ex 12:31), and the suddenness of their exodus (Ex 12:33–34) are indications that support this parallel. They generate an atmosphere of crisis, of uncertainty, and even of chaos characterizing the beginning of a rite of passage and accompanying most of its stages. Additionally, the spread of blood on lintels, at the beginning of the Passover celebration (Ex 12:7), is a typical characteristic of rites of passage.48 It erects the boundaries of the given world (the doorpost) to be surpassed by the initiation process. It also symbolizes a death-like process, the prerequisite for the rebirth of the participant under a new identity.49 In the Passover celebration, the blood set on the lintels comes from the sacrificed animal, not from the Israelites. An instruction promotes their homology, however. Whereas slaughtered animals are cut up before cooking or burning, the Passover animal is roasted whole, with its head and legs (Ex 12:9). The need to preserve the integrity of the skeleton of the victim is even explicit in Ex 12:46: “It shall be eaten in one house; you shall not take any of the flesh outside the house, and you shall not break any of its bones.” Integrity of the skeleton was in archaic societies necessary for the regeneration of a new body (=new flesh) from the bones after removing the old flesh. This prescription transforms the Passover sacrifice into a “self-sacrifice,” metamorphosing the Israelites through a death–rebirth initiation process.

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The Metallurgical Background of the Israelite Initiation In Exodus 12, YHWH looks like the god sponsoring the initiation process rather than a worshipped deity. Regarding the significance of the ceremony, YHWH apparently promotes the emancipation from the ascendancy, power, and deterministic contingency imposed by the gods. In light of the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism, this conclusion invites us to look into the ancient metallurgical traditions for clarifying the main elements of this initiation process. The smith was, in Antiquity, the master of arcane knowledge and of initiations.50 This latter obviously includes the rites of passage toward adulthood, but also the initiation to secret societies. In Bronze Age Crete, for example, the mysteries and initiations occurred in mountainous locations (caves and sanctuaries).51 These rituals were organized by the Kouretes and the Dactyloi, two congregations of metalworkers conducting the ceremonies in the name of Velkhanos, the mysterious great deity of the island.52 The discovery of a copper altar and hoards of copper artifacts in these sanctuaries perched on the peaks of mountains supports a metallurgical dimension to these initiations.53 Also in ancient Greece, the congregations of metalworkers (Kabeiroi, Dactyloi, Kouretes, Korybantes, and Telchines) conducted the mystery cults and initiations.54 The Kaberoi, for example, were the guardians and promoters of the religious mysteries practiced in Samothrace, Lemnos, and Thebes from the early first millennium BC.55 Considered the most ancient mysteries in Greece,56 these cults probably prolonged, at least in part, the Bronze Age arcane metallurgical traditions. Although the initiations performed in Thebes and Samothrace are poorly understood today, some affinities with the Passover prescriptions from Exodus 12 are nonetheless evident: • In ancient Greece, the initiation to the metallurgical mysteries comprised a copious meal, celebrated in dining rooms located close to the initiation halls.57 As in the Passover festival, the site of the ceremonial looks like a banquet room more than a sanctuary. • The celebration of the metallurgical mysteries involved an animal sacrifice, mainly a young ram.58 The absence of an altar combined with the banquet suggests that the participants eat the sacrificed animal, as they do in Exodus 12. • In Greece, the meal of the initiation ritual was named theodaisia (=divine meal), but with no altar, the sacrifice was devoted first to the participants, as in the Passover festival. • As Passover in Israel, the theodaisia was frequently a spring festival in Greece.59 • The theodaisia was associated with Dionysus’ festivals,60 exactly as YHWH was in the Passover festival. The parallel is especially relevant because the secret societies of Kabeiroi and other guilds of metalworkers worshipped Dionysus,61 whose attributes display affinities with the figure of YHWH in ancient Israel.62

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• The dance performed during initiations in Crete (and thereafter in Greece) is called geranos (=crane), probably because it imitated the limping of cranes.63 In parallel, the root psḥ, from which the appellation Passover derives, designates the action of limping in biblical Hebrew (2 Sam 4:4; 1 Kgs 18:26).

These parallels are especially significant in light of the Levantine origin of the congregations of metalworkers (Kabeiroi, Telchines, and Daimones in general) involved in the mystery cults and initiations in Greece.64 These observations suggest that the Passover prescriptions from Exodus 12 were probably inspired by the South Levantine ceremonies of initiation rooted in the mysteries of metallurgy.

The Jacob Struggle Like the Passover celebration, the transformation of Jacob into Israel (Gen 32:22–32) is another epic of the birth of a nation fashioned after a rite of passage. This episode includes the three stages typically associated with this type of ritual: (i) the abandonment of the former identity and social relations; (ii) the phase of transformation through the struggle with a divine being, during which a reality previously ignored becomes revealed; and (iii) the emergence of a new identity and the subsequent integration into a new community. Stage 1: abandonment. Rites of passage begin with the separation of the petitioner from his familial environment, symbolizing a new orphaned situation. This prerequisite appears in the Jacob cycle, where Jacob separates himself from his wives and children just before his confrontation with the divine being (Gen 32:22–24). The event occurs at night (Gen 32:22–30), another characteristic of rites of passage. The whole process takes place while crossing the Jabbok (Gen 32:22). River crossings are events frequently cited in rites of passage for divulging the irreversible consequences, and the new world (bank) the petitioner has to access.65 Stage 2: transformation. Initiatory procedures, especially those leading to the integration into secret societies, frequently include torture and cruel trials imposed by a mentor.66 Beyond testing the resistance of the petitioner, this struggle often brings the neophyte to an ecstatic phase involving his exposure to a supernatural reality, such as the sudden apparition of a dead ancestor, divine beings, and even the supreme deity.67 Also in Genesis 32, Jacob encounters a divine being and struggles with him “face to face” (Gen 32:31). Here too, the divine being is not an enemy but a mentor who grants Jacob a new name and even blesses him once Jacob has successfully passed this test (Gen 32:28–29). Stage 3: rebirth. Renaming the petitioner is the climax of the classical initiation process, a way to officially recognize the rebirth under a new,

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acquired identity.68 Mutilations also serve as markers of the new status following a successful initiation.69 Both changes are visible in Genesis 32. The mentor wounds Jacob in the final stage of their struggle, provoking his limping (vv. 25–26). Thereafter, the renaming of Jacob into Israel (v. 28) concludes the epic.70 The transformation of Jacob into Israel and the Passover festival follow the same pattern typically associated with rites of passage. Some homologies suggest that they are inspired by the same kind of initiatory event: • The limping of Jacob following the struggle (Gen 32:31) echoes the limping connotation of pesaḥ, the name in Hebrew of the Passover festival. • In Genesis 32, emancipation from the divine authority emerges from the etymology of Israel, the new name to be substituted for Jacob: “for you have striven (s΄a r̄ îta )̄ with Elohim and with men, and have prevailed” (Gen 32:29). From a linguistic perspective, this explanation may be no more than a popular etymology, but it promotes the emancipation from the authority of gods and men into the main purpose of the initiation process. A similar emancipation from the authority of gods characterizes the Passover ceremony, from which they are explicitly excluded. • Jacob does not call upon YHWH for protection or assistance during the struggle. Even the name of the divine being protecting Jacob (Gen 28:12–22) and guiding him (Gen 31:13) is ignored in Genesis 32. Also in the Passover festival, YHWH is not invited to share the sacrifice with the participants. • No sacrifice of thanksgiving is mentioned after Jacob’s victory, exactly as no thanksgiving is offered to YHWH after Passover and even after the deliverance of the Israelites.

These observations indicate that the parallel between the two stories is not restricted to the similar pattern of the rites of passage. Beyond this general framework, both are expressions of the same process of emancipation from the authority of the gods. This parallel is especially instructive in light of the metallurgical dimension emanating from Genesis 32. The first indication is the limping, an initiatory wounding typically associated with metallurgy in antiquity.71 The second one concerns the location of this struggle/initiation process in Mahanaim/Penuel. These sites are located in the Sukkot valley (Deir Alla area), where an important metal industry existed during the early Iron Age.72 At the end of the tenth century BC, Penuel was even the administrative center of this metallurgical activity.73 The choice of this location, in Genesis, clearly associates this initiation program with the South Levantine metallurgical traditions. The third indication arises from the subsequent encounter with Esau, who invites Jacob to follow him to Seir (Ex 33:12–14). This call is especially meaningful after Jacob overcame his mentor in an initiation rooted in metallurgical traditions. The fourth piece of evidence

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concerns the identity of the divine being that Jacob curiously compared with Esau and mentioned immediately after: “For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God (pe˘nê ʾe˘lōhîm), and you have accepted me (watirsẹ ̄nî)” (Gen 33:10b). This statement corroborates the semidivine status of the metalworkers acknowledged in antiquity, a status that led Jacob to spontaneously identify the people he met in this metallurgical area as emissaries of god (malʾa˘kê ʾe˘lōhîm) (Gen 32:1–3). All of these elements identify the story of Jacob’s transformation into Israel with the local metallurgical traditions. This conclusion is not surprising, however. The Jacob–Israel transformation anticipates the metamorphosis of Israel into a new society of God supplanting the former one that consisted of metalworkers. Hence, it is likely that the Passover celebration, by extending to the entire people the initiation undergone by Jacob, promotes the same transformation by exploiting the same metallurgical inferences. There are, however, significant differences between these two stories. Esau’s invitation to Jacob to join him in Seir (Gen 33:12–16) follows the traditional integration of the new petitioners into the secret society of metalworkers. But in Genesis 33, Jacob does not follow the tradition, reaching Shechem instead of Seir. There, Jacob sets up a new altar for YHWH (Gen 33:17–20). The name of this altar, “El the god of Israel” (Gen 33:20b), resumes the switch promoted in Israel regarding the original tradition. Here, Jacob innaugurates a new cult of YHWH distinct from the original one, but whose legitimacy derives from the success in this initiatory trial inspired by the metallurgical traditions. In Exodus, the entire nation, after the Passover celebration and the subsequent crossing of the Red Sea (a parallel with the crossing of the Jabbok), arrives at Sinai in order to experience a genuine revelation of YHWH. This event probably likens what Jacob was expected to experience by following Esau to Mount Seir, instead of turning off to Shechem. It is why the Sinai revelation might be inspired by the final stage of the original initiation process, which is absent from the Jacob cycle. THE DECALOGUE AS AN INITIATORY PLEDGE

The Passover celebration and the crossing of the sea are the prerequisites for the metamorphosis of Israel into the people of YHWH. However, in Exodus, transforming the Israelites into a kingdom of priests (mame˘leket kōha˘nîm) and holy people (go y̑ qādoš̑ ) is predicated on another event: the Sinai covenant expressing the Israelites’ consent to follow the “word of YHWH” (Ex 19:8–9). The latter is revealed in the Decalogue (Ex 20:2–17), the corpus of commandments that apparently completes the process begun with the Passover celebration.

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The Singularities of the Decalogue Unlike Moses transmitting the divine instructions to the Israelites, YHWH addresses the people directly in the Decalogue. The introductory verse announces this unique feature: “And Elohim spoke all these words, saying” (Ex 20:1). The style of the Decalogue confirms its exceptional status. Unlike the laws and instructions attributed to Moses and formulated in a casuistic style, the Decalogue is imperative, with terse formulations. It also ignores punitive considerations.74 It is why scholars do not approach the Decalogue as an early system of legislation of the Israelites, but rather as the moral basis of such legislation.75 Even this conclusion is unsatisfactory, however. As the basis for Israelite legislations, we would expect some reference to the Decalogue in them. But this is not the case. Even the laws promulgated immediately after the Decalogue (Ex 20:21–23:3) do not mention it.76 It is not difficult to understand why. Nothing in the last six commandments expresses the uniqueness of Israelite laws. The prohibitions against killing, stealing, and lying are universal. Parental respect and the prohibition against adultery are also general.77 The last commandment is especially problematic because it does not prohibit any act or intent but forbids coveting (lōʾ taḥmōd) the house, wife, and property of others (Ex 20:17).78 No penalty can be imposed on thoughts, so this last commandment cannot serve as a support for a specific code of legislation.79 The absence of any directive to worship YHWH and to observe his festivals is another problematic lacuna in the Decalogue. Even the observance of the Sabbath is not treated there in the context of worshipping YHWH. Rather, it is an act of imitatio dei, replicating the cessation of divine activity after the six days of creation (Ex 20:11).80 Finally, there is neither mention of the divine project of settling the Israelites in Canaan, nor any allusion to the myriad of laws attached to this reality. This lack is especially surprising because the settlement in Canaan is the apotheosis of the Exodus–Conquest ideology and the next expected step after the Sinai covenant. All these anomalies suggest that the Decalogue is not introduced in Exodus 20 to serve as a basis for an Israelite legal system.

The Initiatory Dimension The five last commandments of the Decalogue are the prohibitions against murder, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting. This set begins with the prohibition that receives the most severe punishment – murder – and ends with a commandent that can have no juridical punishment whatsoever – coveting. Consequently, the last five last prohibitions are ranked not only according to their punitive consequences but also as a function of the moral elevation

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required to keep each commandment. This is minimal for murder in terms of criminal jurisprudence, then gradually increases with respect to the three subsequent ones. None of them require the punishment to be spelled out, since the consequences are well known. The tenth commandment, on the other hand, requires the maximum level of moral elevation, since it is founded exclusively on the purity of heart needed by the individual to master intentionality and desires, and to free oneself from the feelings of jealousy and envy. Consequently, the five last commandments of the Decalogue, through their ranking, call upon the addressees to gradually replace punitive, juridical legislation by internal principles guiding both thoughts and actions. Such a requirement is typical of secret societies, whose members are instructed to liberate themselves from the determinism of the penal legislation that rules normal societies. An examination of the first five commandments of the Decalogue corroborates this interpretation. The cult of any other deity alongside YHWH (“You shall have no other gods before me [ʿal pānāy]” [Ex 20:3]) does not deny their existence. Rather, it expresses the incompatibility of their worship with a closeness to YHWH. In the absence of any instruction relative to the worship of YHWH, this closeness does even not compete in the Decalogue with the worship of other gods. This situation recalls both the Passover ceremonial and Jacob’s nocturnal struggle, where the renunciation of the worship and authority of the gods is not compensated for by any sacrifice to YHWH. Rather, the closeness to YHWH seems consubstantial with the rejection of divine determinism, as it accompanies the emancipation from the human justice conditionment of behavior (the last five commandments). Elements of blessing and curse are introduced in the first five commandments, but they remain too general for promoting a deterministic relationship with YHWH, and they cannot be regarded as penal sanctions.81 For example, the commandment to honor one’s father and mother is followed by a blessing, but in no way is the latter presented as a divine reward: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that YHWH your God is giving you” (Ex 20:12).82 Here, the mention of YHWH giving land (and life) is not dependent on any form of worship or acceptance of the Decalogue, but is rather presented as a primary feature. Further formulations are no more convincing concerning divine intervention for violating the pledge. For example, that YHWH does not hold guiltless everyone who uses his name in vain (Deut 20:7) remains imprecise in the matter of the punishment and its execution. A similar vagueness characterizes YHWH claiming he is a god “visiting (pōqed̄ ) the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Ex 20:5–6).

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Even the commandment to honor parents might find its motivation in the context of the initiation pledge. Orphaning is a prerequisite for the rebirth of the candidate under a new, acquired identity. This explains why the request of honoring parents is especially important in a context of initiation, thus justifying its place in the Decalogue.

The Identity of the Addressees The presentation of the Decalogue as direct speech, instead of indirect communication of YHWH through Moses, emphasizes its outstanding status. But it may also stress that this pledge existed prior to the Sinai covenant and the birth of Israel. In other words, the Decalogue may be inspired by a pledge concluding the initiation process attributed to the ancient Yahwistic metallurgical traditions. This premise is obviously challenged by the first commandment of the Decalogue, specifically addressed to the Israelites: “I am YHWH your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex 20:2). However, after this opening pronouncement, nothing in the Decalogue refers to an Israelite identity.83 Some of the prohibitions even challenge such an identity: • The restrictions concerning the name of YHWH: The prohibition against “taking in vain” the name of YHWH (Ex 20:7) has two possible meanings: It may condemn false prophecy or the exploitation of the prestige and authority of YHWH to advance some personal claims and opinions in his name.84 This meaning is appropriate for an elite of people identified as mediators, emissaries of YHWH, but not for all of the people of Israel. Conversely, this word may also refer to the secret nature of YHWH as super-god, so that his name should not be divulged outside the circle of initiates. Also, this possibility excludes an Israelite origin of this word because the genuine appellation of the super-god became publicly revealed and diffused in Israel. • The fabrication of statues: Forbidding the worship of gods besides YHWH (Ex 20:3) is followed by a prohibition against making statues and other representations of divine creatures (v. 4) and against worshipping them (v. 5). In an Israelite context, the proscriptions from verses 4 and 5 are redundant regarding the general interdiction formulated in verse 3. However, this problem disappears if the formulation “You shall not make for yourself a statue,” in verse 4, addresses the metalworker casting a figurine representing a divine being. In this context, verse 3 proscribes the worship of gods besides YHWH, and verses 4–5 add new information. They forbid the craftsman from making a divine representation for himself (verse 4) or to worship it (verse 5). But it does not prohibit the production of such statues for other people requesting them.85 It is why this commandment addresses first of all the metalworkers.86

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• The Sabbath day: The cessation of work on the Sabbath is motivated in the Decalogue by the principle of imitatio dei, the end of all demiurgic activity after the six days of creation (Ex 20:8–11). The dictum departs from the Exodus–Conquest ideology advocating divine intervention on the earth in historical time.87 The imitatio dei involves the cessation of all craft activities, the human counterpart of the demiurgic activity of YHWH throughout the six days of creation. This prohibition recurs in Ex 35:2, with a detail revealing that it concerns first of all a craft associated with scorching fire: “You shall not feed fire (lo ̄ʾ tebaʿa˘rû) in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day” (Ex 35:3). In the Bible, the root bʿr (qal) expresses the notion of burning. In a divine context, it refers to a devouring fire (e.g., Num 11:1, 11:3; Jer 20:9), a volcanic fire (Deut 4:11, 5:23, 9:15), and a metallurgical fire (Ezek 1:13). It also combines with the action of fanning a fire in order to boost it.88 Consequently, if the piel stem of bʿr, in Ex 35:3, defends boosting/fanning a fire on the Sabbath, its formulation in the context of craftsmanship (Ex 35:2) becomes, first of all, a prohibition against the practice of metallurgy. And if the mentions of the Sabbath in Exodus 20 and 35 are interrelated, then it is likely that the observance of the Sabbath, as encoded in the Decalogue, concerns metalworkers and predates the Israelites.

This overview identifies the Decalogue as a pledge belonging to the preIsraelite traditions of metalworkers, and especially to the initiation process and mystery cult of YHWH associated with metallurgy. We may infer from its content that it concluded an initiation process focused on the disengagement from the authority of gods (=the worship of intermediate deities) and men (=obedience to a given legal code). Since the Decalogue is given in Exodus 20 in the context of the Sinai theophany, it is likely that the pledge summarizes the conditions for setting the candidate above this deterministic reality, and then authorizing access to YHWH as super-god. The Israelites apparently adapted the Decalogue for their own purposes through modifying the opening claim: “I am YHWH your God; who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex 20:2b). We may presume that the first commandment, in the pre-Israelite version of the Decalogue, was limited to the mere revelation of the genuine name and identity of YHWH (“I am YHWH your God”), the reality previously hidden and suddenly revealed at this climax of the initiation process. The present chapter has shown that the epic of Exodus and the theology underlying it are not a mere extension of the theological shift that took place in oases from South-Western Arabia (Chapter 7). Rather, an examination of the modus operandi in the Song of the Sea indicates that in early Israel, the metallurgical practices remained the reservoir of activities potentially associated with divine action. It also reveals that the promoters of early Israelite

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theology did not consider the metallurgical background of YHWH as vestigial. Instead, they exploited it to argue that the god truly intervened on their behalf, and to promote their new theological tenets. The attachment to the metallurgical traditions is even more apparent in the transformation of Israel into a people of YHWH. In Exodus, this metamorphosis apparently results from an extension to the whole people of the initiation process traditionally leading petitionners to discover the mysteries of YHWH, and to become members of the secret society of metalworkers. This transposition transforms the Israelite saga of Exodus into a collective experience of rite of passage reproducing the main characteristics of the original one: the rejection of all forms of determinism, whether of divine or human origin. NOTES 1 Thomas Dozeman (2009: 94) notices that in Exodus 3, “[t]he most significant development in this section is the entry of YHWH into the story as an active character.” 2 The mention of YHWH’s promise to the Patriarchs is especially instructive because Abraham was identified as the figure of the movement of emancipation from the Amorite hegemony. See Chapter 2. 3 The same assertion is reiterated two verses later: “For the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have seen their affliction, wherewith they are oppressed by the Egyptians” (Ex 3:9). The Book of Deuteronomy advances another opinion, which fits the late religious reforms concerning the super-god dimension of YHWH. There, it is explicitly mentioned that the Israelites in Egypt addressed supplications to YHWH for their deliverance: “Then we cried to YHWH, the god of our fathers, and YHWH heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression” (Deut 26:7). 4 This attribute is not so surprising in light of the metallurgical acquaintances of YHWH. In antiquity, the womb was approached as a lost-wax mold in which new bones were cast from semen, itself identified as the product of bone (or bone marrow) melting. See La Barre 1984; Arnaud 1996: 133–5. 5 Also, in Egypt, the god mastering the ka, the vital force keeping people alive, was regarded as an attribute of Ptah, the god patronizing metalworking. See Chapter 5. 6 See Chapter 5, notes 69–71. 7 This explanation is advanced by many scholars, however. See, for example, Propp 1999b: 226; Houtman 1993: 391–2. For Cassuto (1967: 46), the tricks are performed to persuade the Israelites that Moses is not inferior to the Egyptian enchanters. 8 Gen 1:9–10; Ps 136:6; Prov 8:29; Job 38:8–11. 9 Berlin 2008: 352. See also Prov 8:25. 10 Wiggins 1999. 11 Ex 15:1, 4-5, 8, 10, 12, 16, 19. 12 These two traditions are combined in Exodus 14, where the mention of YHWH blowing on the sea to rebuke and even to dry it (v. 21) is immediately followed by a splitting with the formation of two walls (v. 22): “21Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and YHWH drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. 22And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.” 13 Today, the Song of the Sea is frequently dated to the end of the second millennium BC, in light of its archaic language, expression, and structure. See, for example, Cross 1973: 121–4; Kloos 1986: 132; Watson 2005: 267; Bloch 2009; Leuchter 2011; I.D. Wilson 2014: 128; Hendel 2015:

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71. Alternatively, a few scholars suggest a later composition of this song, or at least assume that the original song was modified at the monarchical and even postmonarchical period. For review and discussion of this opinion, see Houtman 1996: 242 and I.D. Wilson 2014: 127. For example, Jos 2:9; Isa 12:2; Pss 78:13, 118:14. This opening of the sea by the help of wind is even paralleled in the way Marduk destroyed Tiamat in the Enuma Elish. For example, Cassuto 1967: 178; Wakeman 1969; Kloos 1986: 145; Batto 2015: 192. Batto 2013: 227. Cross 1973: 131–2; Watson 2005: 268; I.D. Wilson 2014: 134. John Day (1985: 98) identifies this theme even in the absence of any struggle between YHWH and the mythic element: “[T]he waters, which are in no way personified, are merely the passive instrument used by YHWH in accomplishing his purpose. Nevertheless, it is very clear that the description has been shaped and influenced by motifs deriving from the myth of the divine conflict with the waters. The motif of the victory at the sea is associated with YHWH’s eternal kingship…” Eissfeldt 1932: 66–71. Fitzgerald 2002: 66–70. The mention of YHWH initiating a stupendously strong wind over the sea (Ex 14:21) even suggested a sirocco of exceptional intensity. See Cassuto 1967: 175; Fitzgerald 2002: 151–2; Grant 2009: 57. This position is defended by Carola Kloos (1986: 152): “I think that the crucial point is the translation of the verb qpʾ in Ex. xv 8. Once it is conceded that it means ‘to dry up’ (and not ‘to foam’, as Cross would have it), one must conclude that the sea was treated in the same way as the mythical sea.” For translation of qpʾ as to congeal, to thicken, to foam, see DCH 7: 273–4; HALOT 3: 1117. See also Reymond 1958: 69; Cross and Freedman 1955: 246; Cassuto 1967: 175; Houtman 1993: 283 and ref therein; Propp 1999b: 523–4. Jacob 1992 (1934): 429. This representation is also exposed in Ps 78:13: “He divided the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap.” See also Ex 14:16, 14:21; Isa 63:12; Neh 9:11. This contrasting effect is resumed by William Propp (1999b: 521) as follows: “YHWH’s first blast turns the Deeps to ice. His second (v. 10) melts the gelid waters.” Propp 1999b: 524; Houtman 1993: 284. Koenig 1966: 16–7. Also in Ps 114:8, the transformation of flint into a “divine spring of water” (le˘maʿye˘no ̑ ma ȳ im) apparently refers to molten stone, the volcanic event attached to YHWH’s theophany at Sinai. See Amzallag and Avriel 2011: 312–4. 1 Kgs 7:23–24; 2 Kgs 25:16. 2 Kgs 25:13; Jer 52:17; 1 Chr 18:8. Benoist et al. 2015. Newbold 2006: 12. Newbold 2006: 18–19. This description is especially interesting in light of the parallels existing between YHWH in the Levant and Dionysus in the Aegean. See Amzallag 2011. The Septuagint translates ʾapayım ̄ as wrath (θυμός) in this verse. Medieval exegetes (such as Rashi), modern translations (e.g., KJV), and scholars (e.g., HALOT 1: 77) promote a similar understanding. Sasson 1983: 93–4; Ritchie 2000: 61; Kim and Trimm 2014. Amzallag 2017b. Though the locution ḥa˘ron̄ ek is frequently translated as your fury/your wrath (e.g., LXX; ESV; KJV), the all-burning action of a devouring fire promotes the image of intense burning. See Jacob 1992 (1934): 429; Propp 1999b: 519. Attempting to reconcile the two opinions, Cassuto (1967: 175) here translates ḥa˘ron̄ ek as “Your burning fury.” See Ben Dov 2011: 81, pl. 6 and Figs. 12–16. Reymond 1958: 193; Weiser 1962: 470; Kraus 1993: 37; Gerstenberger 2001: 26; Clifford 2002: 308; Brueggemann and Bellinger 2014: 287. Dahood (1968: 120) and Hossfeld and Zenger (2005: 145) specify that these verses refer to the miracle of the sea, not to the miraculous crossing of the Jordan by the Israelites.

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38 Dahood 1968: 121; Gerstenberger 2001: 28; Tate 1990: 152; Hossfeld and Zenger 2005: 146; Brueggemann and Bellinger 2014: 288. 39 Kraus 1993: 37; Clifford 2002: 308. 40 Hossfeld and Zenger 2005: 144, 146. 41 The miracle of the sea is not the only reference to divine cupellation in the Bible. This process is exploited also for representing YHWH purifying the heart of individuals (e.g., Ps 26:2; Prov 17:3) or the whole people of Israel: “Therefore thus says YHWH Sebaoth: Behold, I will cupellate them (ṣor̄ e˘pa m ̄ ) and purify them (ûbe˘ḥane˘ttîm), for what else can I do for the daughter of my people?” (Jer 9:6). See also Isa 1:25, 48:10; Jer 6:29; Ezek 22:18–22; Zech 13:9; Mal 3:2; Dan 12:10. 42 See Lev 9:3, 14:10, 23:12, 23: 18; Num 6:14, 28:3, 28:9, 28:11, 28:19, 29: 8, 13, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29, 32, 36. 43 Lev 4:18, 25, 30, 34, 8:15, 9:9, 16:18. See Hamilton 2011: 182. The homology is even confirmed by the celebration of the Passover sacrifice in the house of YHWH, in Lev 23:5–8 and in Deut 16:7. 44 Houtman 1996: 174. 45 Ex 29:31; Lev 6:19–21, 8:31; Num 6:19; Deut 16:17; 1 Sam 2:13–15; 1 Kgs 19:21; Ezek 46:20, 46:24; Zech 14:21. See Houtman (1993: 179) for the meaning of bšl as cooking. 46 Van Gennep 1909: 49. 47 Eliade 2005: 4476. 48 Van Gennep 1909: 29. 49 Weckman 1970: 70; Eliade 2005: 4476. 50 Eliade 1977: 82–91; Richards 1981; Blakely 2006: 183–7. Sandra Blakely (2006: 4) even identified parallels between these functions of the smith in traditional Africa and Ancient Greece: “Greek daimones and African smiths both figure in the rites of passage for young men, the Kouretes as divine patrons, the smiths as circumcisers. The African smith can prophesy, reading the patterns in the flow of slag, the Daktyloi and Kouretes had mantic powers, dispensed to men through oracles and sacred caves.” 51 Faure 1997: 297–300. 52 Capdeville 1995: 187, 193, 196. 53 Capdeville 1995: 166–7, 187–91; Faure 1997: 170–3; Blakely 2006: 13; Bloedow 1991: 160–3, 166. 54 Blakely 2006: 13–22; Bremmer 2014: 39. In Crete, the Kouretes and Dactyloi even initiated the Cretan Zeus on Mount Ida, and granted him his divine wisdom and powers. See Capdeville 1995: 187. The Greek myth concerning Hephaestus confirms this initiatory dimension. The god is rejected from Olympus, a feature closely related to his wounding. Then he is instructed in metallurgy during a nine-year reclusion in the depths of the ocean before coming back to the pantheon with his skill and magical powers. See Martin 2005: 17–18; Capdeville 1995: 276–8. 55 Blakely 2006: 13–40; Bremmer 2014: 46–7. 56 Pausinias 1.4.6. 57 Bremmer 2014: 29. 58 Ibid.: 26 59 Capdeville 1995: 212. The homolog ceremony was performed at the end of May in Crete, after the elevated sites of Mount Ida became accessible. 60 Ibid.: 210–11. 61 Dionysus is praised in the first Homeric hymn for being the god who brought Hephaestus to the Pantheon, at the end of his initiation. These features designate him as the master of Hephaestus’ skill and apprenticeship to the esoteric dimension of metallurgy. Dionysus is also subsumed by Euripides (The Cretans, frag. 475) into the great god of Minoean Crete, a feature confirmed by further details of his mythology (Kerenyi 1976: 113). The parallel “union” of Ariane with Velkhanos in Crete and Dionysus in Greece confirms their likening. See Capdeville 1995: 180. The Dionysus appellation as the “father” of the Kabeiroi guild of

THE DECALOGUE AS AN INITIATORY PLEDGE

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metalworkers confirms his metallurgical acquaintances (Schachter 1986 1: 189–90, 2: 93–5). In Thebes, the Kabeiroi guild devoted an esoteric cult to Dionysus distinct from the public worship of the deity. See Schachter 1986 2: 96; Freyburger et al.: 104–9. Amzallag 2011. Capdeville 1995: 245–8. Blakely 2006: 14, 18, 94, 152. Van Gennep 1909: 31. Eliade 2005: 4476. Ibid.: 4476–7. Ibid.: 4476. Van Gennep 1909: 82. Ross 1980: 341; Hamilton 1995: 334. Limping is a singularity typically attached to the figure of Hephaestus. Vulcain, his roman counterpart, is also granted of this infirmity (Capdeville 1995: 421). The mythology of Hephaestus identifies it as a wounding consecutive to his exclusion from the Olympus (= the rejection of the gods), that is, the beginning of his initiatory journey (Martin 2005: 19). Such an initiatory dimension is confirmed by the description of the congregation of metalworkers as limpers in ancient Greece and Rome. See Blakely 2006: 25, 32; Capdeville 1995: 55–7. The discovery of a statuette from Timna with two legs of unequal length suggests that limping was also identified with metallurgical traditions in the Southern Levant. See Rothenberg 1988: 190. Har-El 1977: 76, 83; Tebes 2007a: 82. Coughenour 1989. Childs 1974: 389–95. Fretheim 1992: 222; Houtman 2000: 11; Hamilton 2011: 312, 318. For this reason, the Decalogue has been approached as a compilation of principles driving the redaction of this first legislation. See Nicholson 1977: 423; Houtman 2000: 7; Joo 2016. The Decalogue is mentioned in Ex 20:22b (“You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven”) to justify the request formulated immediately after: “You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold” (Ex 20:23). Concerning the last six words of the Decalogue, Wright (1979: 102) noticed that “[t]he moral and legal requirements they express are neither unique to Israel among her contemporary nations, nor unknown among Israel’s own ancestors before the promulgation of the law at Sinai, as is well illustrated in Genesis.” The verb ḥmd is never used in the Bible for expressing appropriation but reflects merely a desire. See Jacob 1923: 169; Houtman 2000: 68. Wright 1979: 110–11; Houtman 2000: 67. It contrasts with the Deuteronomy version of the Decalogue, where the observance of Shabbat becomes a ritual commemoration of the divine deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt (Deut 5:15). Childs 1974: 396. Fretheim 1992: 232. Brevard Childs (1974: 396) noticed that “[t]he Decalogue is distinguished from most series of Old Testament Laws in having little or no reference to a specific historical period such as post-settlement, or to particular institutions, such as a central sanctuary.” Childs 1974: 410. For Cornelis Houtman (2000: 36), “The misuse also includes the use of YHWH’s name by mediators of revelation, such as prophets […] declaring ‘Thus says YHWH’ and pretend to act on YHWH’s behalf whereas in reality the inspiration for their words comes from their own heart.” This situation is typically encountered in the story of the Golden Calf, where Aaron produces a statuette for the people commanding it (Ex 32:1–4), organizes the cult of YHWH around it (Ex 32:5), but does not himself participate to this worship. The reference to the Decalogue clarifies why Aaron is not punished for having produced the Golden Calf, and why he even remains the high priest after this episode.

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86 Isaiah 44 confirms this interpretation: The prophet blames the metalworkers for making cultic statuettes for others, though they know the inefficiency of their cult: “10Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? 11Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame; the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together” (Isa 44:10–11). 87 This observation may also explain why the justification for keeping Shabbat is modified in the Deuteronomy exposition of the Decalogue (Deut 5:14–15). There, the commemoration of Shabbat is founded on the Exodus epos, that is, the event founding the Israelite claim of divine intervention in history. 88 e.g. qal: Ps 18:9,13; Isa 30: 27, 33, piel: Lev 6:5; Isa 40:16; Jer 7:18. See HALOT 1: 146.

CHAPTER NINE

INTEGRATIVE YAHWISM

T

he previous chapter identified the fundamentals of the Exodus–Conquest ideology, the metamorphosis of Israel into a new society of God, and the superimposition of two dimensions of YHWH, as super-god and as patrondeity intervening on Israel’s behalf. It also revealed how volcanism and/or metallurgical processes and techniques were incorporated in the description of YHWH’s powers, and recruited for the control of rain and fertility. This ideology apparently had a durable influence in Israel. Both Deuteronomy and the prophetic literature warn the Israelites of the angry nature of YHWH, of his avenging character, and of the threat of his imminent intervention. The emphasis of the prophets and the Deuteronomist on these threats is intriguing, however. Their ceaseless endeavor suggests that this message was intended for vast numbers of Israelites whose belief wavered. In Zeph 1:12, for example, the prophet castigates those in Jerusalem who believed that YHWH was a neutral deity: “At that time I [YHWH] will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, ‘YHWH will not do good, nor will he do ill.’” The Book of Isaiah protests vehemently against those defending a similar opinion: “Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from YHWH, and my right is disregarded by my God’?” (Isa 40:27). Calling all these opponents “Israel” indicates that the alternative to the Exodus–Conquest ideology was not a minority opinion. Rather, the position of the prophets defending the Exodus–Conquest ideology seems eccentric and was rejected by many Israelites, even after the fall of Jerusalem. 245

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Today, a simple explanation is proposed: The popular beliefs denounced in the prophecies reflect the corruption of the authentic worship of YHWH, itself preserved only by a small elite of prophets, poets, and biblical authors. This interpretation finds support in the innumerable complaints in the Bible about the deleterious influence of foreign cults on Israelite beliefs and practices. However, there is a problem with this interpretation. The position scorned in Zeph 1:12 and Isa 40:27 fits the traditional approach of YHWH as super-god. This means that an alternative to the Exodus–Conquest ideology might have existed in early Israel. We will try to characterize this alternative in the present chapter. THE DIVERSITY OF YAHWISMS IN THE LEVANT

Like the Exodus–Conquest ideology, an alternative form of Yahwism in ancient Israel probably did not develop independent of its religious environment. This is why a census of all the forms of Yahwism identified here may help us to characterize it and clarify the question of its emergence.

The Bronze Age Period Four forms of Yahwism in the Bronze Age emerge from the analysis performed in the previous chapters. • Primeval Yahwism: This category subsumes the set of beliefs attached to the South Levantine metalworkers. It probably includes the most ancient forms of Yahwism acknowledged in the Levant. This doctrine is mainly esoteric, consigned to a small elite (mainly metalworkers, musicians, and poets). It approaches YHWH as a super-god distant from terrestrial affairs and allows access to the deity only through an initiatory process and the experience of metallurgy. • Distant Yahwism: The status of super-god transforms YHWH into the Supreme Being, transcending the gods of the official religion. Identified in Egypt, in Crete, and probably also in the Levant before the Amorite conquest, this configuration transforms Primeval Yahwism into the esoteric basis of the official religion, and the gods of the pantheon into efficient intermediaries between the super-god and his created universe. In this configuration, YHWH (or his local equivalent) remains the ultimate master of vitality and life, illness and death. He is known only as God (El), his genuine name is hidden in public worship, and the metalworkers remain his privileged emissaries among the mortals. • Amoritized Yahwism: This is a mode of Distant Yahwism influenced by the Amorite religion. Present in Ugarit, it is a downgraded form of Distant Yahwism, in which the local pantheon interacts with the Amorite deities,

THE DIVERSITY OF YAHWISMS IN THE LEVANT

and especially with Dagan and Baal. Because of these constraints, the figure of El becomes deprived of almost all his characteristics of super-god and his metallurgical attributes. It is likely that similar trends existed in the Southern Levant in the Late Bronze Age. • Northwestern Arabian shift: This form is a desert-inspired transformation of Distant Yahwism, shaped by the oasis lifestyle and the volcanic realities of Northwestern Arabia. Without challenging the super-god nature of YHWH and his esoteric dimension, it promotes the idea of his occasional, all-destroying intervention on earth. In reconfiguring the primeval milieu as an oasis, it also promotes an unusual closeness to YHWH freed from the experience of metallurgy.

The Iron Age Period The extreme conservatism of the metallurgical traditions in Antiquity suggests the survival of Primeval Yahwism in the Iron Age, a premise supported by the unconditional attachment of the Rekhabites (a Qenite clan) to their ancestral traditions in Jeremiah 35. Also, other forms of Yahwism probably survived. For example, Psalm 74:12–15 praises YHWH in a surprising Baal-like fashion for his victory, in primeval times, over the serpent and related forces of chaos.1 This trait invited scholars to identify YHWH as being formerly a northern storm-god.2 However, this Baal-like character of YHWH more likely reflects traces of the survival of Amoritized Yahwism among the Israelites.3 In addition, survival of the Northwestern Arabian shift is plausible in oases, as suggested by the oracle addressed in the name of YHWH to these people in Isa 21:13–17. Beyond the survival of these Bronze Age traditions, the renewal of copper production in the Arabah led to innovations in the worship of YHWH: • Emancipation Yahwism: This doctrine emerges with the renewal of the production of copper in the Southern Levant, in the Early Iron Age. In this form, YHWH remains a super-god worshipped in each nation through a patrongod identified as his divine emissary. Its main novelty, with respect to Distant Yahwism, is an apprehension of YHWH as the god arousing a spirit of emancipation from foreign authority, and the renewal of the ancient, pre-Amorite, traditions in the whole Southern Levant. Therefore, YHWH becomes the sponsor of the fraternal alliance between the nations cooperating in the network of copper production and trade, under the leadership of Edom. • Exodus–Conquest ideology: This Yahwism promotes a narrative identifying Israel as the new society of god, and transforming the land of Canaan into the new dominion of YHWH. This doctrine mingles a super-god nature of YHWH with his dimension of patron-deity to and for the Israelites. This innovation leads to his public worship, under his genuine name, and to the belief of his direct intervention on the Israelites’ behalf. This ideology

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apparently emerged in the Southern Arabah (the Timna region) in the Early Iron Age, probably under the combined influence of Primeval Yahwism and the Northwestern Arabian shift.

The Israelites and the Other Yahwisms The present survey identifies no fewer than six forms of Yahwism coexisting in the Southern Levant, two of them newly emerging in the Early Iron Age. It also reveals antagonisms between some of them, and especially the extreme position of the Exodus–Conquest ideology regarding all the others. This singularity may help us to clarify some of the conflicts mentioned in the Bible. For example, the violent opposition of the prophet Hosea to the worship of Baal, many centuries after the emergence of Israel, probably does not express retaliation against the Amorites, the political elite from the end of the Bronze Age. Rather, in rejecting the coalescence of the cult of Baal with that of YHWH, the prophet seems to be railing against the remnants in Israel of beliefs and practices belonging to Amoritized Yahwism. Similarly, the socalled divine request for a total eradication of the memory (=the traditions) of Amalek (Ex 17:14; Deut 25:19) may be an attempt to erase doctrines that compete with the Exodus–Conquest ideology or challenge the Ephraim collective identity. Additionally, why Edom is demoted in many biblical sources remains obscure in the classical context of interpretation conditioned by the use of a monotheistic key for decoding the text. However, this becomes clear once we remember the leading position of Edom in Emancipation Yahwism. This status undermines the transformation of Israel into a new society of God, the basic premise of the Exodus–Conquest ideology. This antagonism also explains why the fall of Edom becomes a prerequisite, in some prophecies, for the ultimate transformation of Israel into the people of YHWH, and for the definitive stability of this nation. In Obadiah, for example, the destruction of Edom (vv. 1–14) precedes the rebirth of Israel (vv. 15–20). The final claim (v. 21) combines these two expectations: “Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Mount Esau, and the kingdom shall be for YHWH.”4 In Isaiah, YHWH’s alliance with Israel (Isaiah 35) appears to depend on the irreversible destruction of Edom (Isaiah 34). The same view is expressed in Ezekiel, where the prophecy concerning the final demise of Edom (Ezek 35:1–36:5) is inserted between the two sections that speak of the ultimate rebirth of Israel (Ezek 34:11–31, 36:6–37:28). Attributing to YHWH the final destruction of the chief nation of Emancipated Yahwism is especially fruitful for the Exodus–Conquest ideology and its further developments: It legitimizes both the claim of divine intervention in history and the transformation of Israel into the new society of God. Many Israelites apparently disagreed with these views, however.

YHWH IN THE SONG OF DEBORAH

This  is revealed in the opening words of Malachi, arguing against those Israelites who acknowledge Esau (Edom), instead of Jacob (Israel), as the leader nation in the cult of YHWH: “2I have loved you,” says YHWH. But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” YHWH declares: “Yet I have loved Jacob; 3But Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” 4If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins”; YHWH-Sebaoth says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom YHWH is angry forever.’” (Mal 1:2–4)

In addition to exposing such a reality, this oracle reflects the incredulity of the Edomites concerning the possible involvement of YHWH in the collapse of their nation, an attitude corroborating his acceptance as a super-god. Furthermore, it confirms the interpretation of the definitive destruction of Edom as revelatory of the ultimate election of Israel as the people of YHWH. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that Israel was part of the fraternal alliance in the Early Iron Age and participated in the network of production and trade of copper. This circumstance does not easily coincide with the isolationist views promoted by the Exodus–Conquest ideology. So, what did constitute mainstream Yahwism at this time in Israel? A simple answer is to assume the spread of a local form of Emancipation Yahwism in early Israel. In such a case, this nation became progressively differentiated from its neighbors throughout the monarchic period, as the consequence of a gradual increase in popularity of the Exodus–Conquest ideology. This explanation is not entirely satisfactory, however. Unlike all the other forms of Yahwism, a popular cult of YHWH probably existed in early Israel, and it included the breaking of the taboo concerning the divulging of his name. If this trend does not accompany any widespread diffusion of the Exodus–Conquest ideology, we should conclude that there exists another, seventh form of Yahwism, specific to Israel. And unlike the Exodus–Conquest ideology, this other doctrine was apparently compatible with Emancipation Yahwism and its premises. This alternative approach, defined here as Integrative Yahwism, will be characterized in this chapter with the help of three biblical sources, the Song of Deborah (Judges 5), the Book of Exodus, and the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 17–19). YHWH IN THE SONG OF DEBORAH

The Song of Deborah is one of the oldest sources (if not the most ancient one) in the Bible.5 It commemorates a famous victory of the Israelites against the kings of Canaan and their armies, in the Ta’anach area, near Megiddo (Judg 5:19). The geographical details and the way the victory is related suggest that

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this song celebrates an actual event that occurred during the twelfth century BC, that is, in the earliest phase of the emergence of Israel.6 The dating of these events is consistent with the time of Shamgar (Judg 5:6), this leader being one of the first heroes the Book of Judges mentions.7 Additionally, the Song of Deborah identifies the enemies of Israel with the Amorites’ feudal elite. Sisera and his army are equipped with chariots (Judg 5:26–28), a typical feature of the Amorite warriors (Jos 17:16–18).8 His king, Jabin, reigned from Hazor (Judg 4:2).9 He is described in Jos 11:1–5 as the leader of a coalition of Amorite kings of Canaan fighting against the new alliance of Israel: 1When Jabin, king of Hazor, heard of this, he sent to Jobab king of Madon, and to the king of Shimron, and to the king of Achshaph, 2and to the kings who were in the northern hill country, and in the Arabah south of Chinneroth, and in the lowland, and in Naphoth-dor on the west, 3to the Canaanites in the east and the west, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, and the Jebusites in the hill country, and the Hivites under Hermon in the land of Mizpah. 4And they came out with all their troops, a great horde, in number like the sand that is on the seashore, with very many horses and chariots. 5And all these kings joined their forces and came and encamped together at the waters of Merom to fight against Israel.

Consequently, the conflict opposing the Amorites, the ancient elite ruling the country, with the newly emerging Israelites constitutes the historical background of the Song of Deborah.

The Challenge of the War At the end of the second millennium BC, the Jezreel Valley was the main axis of communication between the King’s Highway and the Mediterranean shore (see Figure 4.7).10 The control of this route was crucial for the integrity of the northern network for the trade of copper, and the wealth of the nations emerging around it. Some indications in this poem suggest that securing this highway might have been the central motivation for the war.11 • Lack of security on the main routes: The epic begins with the problem of the main routes being unused: “In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were abandoned, and travelers kept to the byways” (Judg 5:6). The location of the battle in the Jezreel Valley suggests that it was the main pathway to secure. • The expected spoil: The defeat of Sisera and his army is summarized in Judg 5:19 by claiming that “They took not spoils of silver.” It suggests that Sisera expected to plunder precious goods from the Israelites. This prospect fits the attack of caravans conveying high-value artifacts and precious materials better than the plundering of indigent peasants and breeders. Furthermore, the Song of Deborah mentions Sisera’s mother and her female companions waiting for

YHWH IN THE SONG OF DEBORAH

rich spoil: “Have they not found and divided the spoil? – A womb or two for every man; spoil of dyed materials for Sisera, spoil of dyed materials embroidered, two pieces of dyed work embroidered for the neck as spoil?” Here again, these expectations fit the pillaging of rich caravans, suggesting that Jabin, Sisera, and their company regularly participated in such plundering.12 • The main participants: The Song of Deborah reveals that the war concerned first of all the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali (Judg 5:18). The leader of the Israelite army, Barak son of Avinoam, belongs to the tribe of Naphtali (Judg 4:6). The territory of these tribes covers the eastern (Naphtali) and western (Zebulun) parts of the Jezreel route.13 The hymn also assigns special importance to Issachar in specifying that even the leaders of the tribe participated in the battle (Judg 5:15a). Their mention together with Zebulun in Moses’ blessing (Deut 33:18) reflects the closeness of these two tribes. In comparison, the other participants (Ephraim, Menasseh [Machir],14 and Benjamin) are only briefly noted (Judg 5:14), suggesting their secondary involvement in this conflict whose epicenter was the Jezreel pathway. • Caravan transportation: In Jacob’s blessings to his sons (Genesis 49), Naphtali is compared to a “freed hind” (ʾayya l̄ â še˘lūḥâ, Gen 49:21). In the Bible, this animal symbolizes agility and rapid movement (2 Sam 22:34/Ps 18:34; Hab 3:19), two attributes especially appropriate for people involved in caravanning. In the same blessing, Zebulun inhabits the shore, so he is involved with harbors and the Phoenician sea trade: “Zebulun shall dwell at the shore of the sea; he shall become a haven for ships, and his border shall be at Sidon” (Gen 49:13). His complementary tribe, Issachar, is mentioned in the following verse: “Issachar is a strong donkey (ḥa˘mor̄ ga r̄ em), crouching between the mišpe˘ta ȳ im.” The term mišpe˘ta ȳ im designates the two saddle baskets carried by a donkey for the transportation of goods, confirming that caravanning was the main activity of Issachar.15 It signifies that the three tribes the most involved in the battle were also those ensuring caravanning through the Jezreel Valley. The precious value of the transported goods is also present in Moses’ blessing of Issachar/Zebulun: “for they draw from the abundance of the seas and the hidden treasures of the sand” (Deut 33:19b). It might describe the valuable goods exchanged in the Phoenician harbors for the metal transported through the northern network. • The missing participants: The Song of Deborah mentions four expected but missing tribes in the war: Dan, Asher, Reuben, and Gilead (Judg 5:16–17). These tribes settled at the two extremities of the Jezreel route: Dan and Asher on the seashore, Reuben and Gilead/Gad at the junction of the King’s Highway. The indignation expressed in the hymn concerning their nonparticipation is especially justified in reference to the copper network. The Jezreel pathway being the source of the prosperity of these four tribes, they were therefore expected to participate in the war whose outcome impacted the trade and transportation of copper.

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Once collated, these clues disclose that securing the Jezreel route was the crucial motivation for the war. Considering the importance of copper production, its working and trade in the emergence of Israel, this interpretation highlights why this victory became famous and was preserved in the Israelite collective memory. In the Southern Levant, the emancipation movement occasioned the demise of Amorite political authority and also of their cultural markers. This latter feature finds an echo in the Song of Deborah in the episode of Sisera and Jael (vv. 24–27). Sisera, the chief warrior, is the human representative of Baal-Haddu in the Song of Deborah. This is reflected by the wordplay in the description of his encounter with Jael: “He asked for water and she gave him milk; in a lordly bowl (be˘se p̄ el ʾaddîrîm) she brought (hiqe˘rîbâ) curds” (Judg 5:25). The verb qrb (hiph) describes Jael bringing the cup to Sisera, but its other meaning, to sacrifice, here superimposes a simulacrum of libation. Baal was traditionally identified as a skull-crusher, and depicted in an aggressive pose, holding a mace head. Consequently, the image of Jael crushing Sisera’s skull, in Judg 5:26, possesses a special significance. The death of Baal’s mortal representative, via Baal’s signature killing method, announces not only the defeat of the Amorites but also the demise of their god, his power, and his authority. Moreover, the fact that a woman, instead of a powerful warrior, killed Sisera proclaims that the terror exerted by Baal and his representatives has vanished. And exactly as metallurgy constituted the driving force of the movement of emancipation, the eradication of Baal’s authority is at the initiative of a Qenite individual. If the military victory (vv. 19–22) declares the demise of the hegemony of the Amorite kings, the episode of Jael and Sisera (vv. 24–27) puts an end to Amorite religious hegemony and to Baal’s legitimacy. In this double message, the Song of Deborah explicitly integrates the emergence of Israel into the south Levantine movement of emancipation.

The Dual Theological Background The preamble to the Song of Deborah (Judg 5:1–5) includes two verses detailing the background of the whole epos: 4YHWH,

when you went out from Seir, when you marched from the region of Edom, The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, yes, the clouds dropped water. 16 5The mountains flowed before YHWH, The one of Sinai; Before YHWH, the God of Israel.

Here, verse 5 refers to the Sinai theophany and it specifically identifies YHWH as the god of Israel. In this manner, it probably refers to the Exodus– Conquest ideology. But the previous verse (v. 4) claims that YHWH comes from the region of Seir/Edom, the homeland of the emancipation movement

YHWH IN THE SONG OF DEBORAH

that associates YHWH with the renewal of copper production. Does this conjunction mean that the theology of the Song of Deborah integrates both elements of Emancipation Yahwism and of the Exodus–Conquest ideology? Two theological markers are meaningful in the Song of Deborah. The first one is the extensive use of the name YHWH. The hymn begins with an invitation to bless YHWH (v. 2, reiterated in v. 9) immediately followed (3a) by an expression of devotion to the god. It also ends (v. 31) with a mention of YHWH. Verse 11 even includes the expression “people of YHWH,” associating the revelation of the secret name of the deity with the transformation of Israel into the society of God. These elements clearly reflect affinities with the Exodus–Conquest ideology. The second marker comes from the question of YHWH’s participation in the war. No supplication to YHWH appears in the song or in its prose counterpart (Judg 4: 4–14). Unlike in the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15), YHWH is not praised as a divine warrior, even after the victory. Instead, the Israelites are those who fight the cause of YHWH: “Curse Meroz, says the emissary of YHWH, curse its inhabitants thoroughly because they did not come to the help of YHWH, to the help of YHWH against the mighty” (Judg 5:23). Similarly, the final verse opposes the supporters and the enemies of YHWH, instead of referring to any divine intervention in the battle: “So may all your enemies perish, YHWH! But your friends be like the sun as he rises in his might” (Judg 5:31). The poet asks the people to bless YHWH in verses 2 and 9. In both instances, however, this invitation follows the Israelites’ participation in and commitment to the war. It is why YHWH is probably blessed here for arousing a spirit of war among the Israelites, rather than for any direct intervention against their enemies. This characteristic fits a profile of YHWH as super-god close to Emancipation Yahwism, rather than the divine warrior intervening on the Israelites’ behalf, as promoted by the Exodus–Conquest ideology. These two markers are skillfully combined in the Song of Deborah in a way that avoids any conflict between the theologies promulgating them. But beyond the coexistence of two distinct approaches, their harmonization might reflect the expression of a coherent theology of its own.

The Question of Divine Participation The Song of Deborah is frequently examined through the lens of Ugaritic mythology. It is even quoted as a case study revealing the homology between YHWH and Baal in early Israel.17 However, the absence of any praise for YHWH’s intervention challenges this opinion. The description of the battle, in verses 19–22, confirms this point:

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19The

kings came, they fought; Then fought the kings of Canaan, At Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo; They got no spoils of silver. From heaven the stars fought, 20 From their courses they fought against Sisera. 21The torrent Kishon swept them away, The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon. March on, my soul, with might! 22Then loud beat the horses’ hooves With the galloping, galloping of his steeds.

The victory is in verse 21 following the sudden overflow of the Kishon river, the probable consequence of a violent storm upstream of the battlefield. The flood transformed the soil into a bog, paralyzing the Amorite chariotry.18 Although this sudden storm may be a straightforward interpretation of YHWH’s intervention, the hymn does not utter this claim. YHWH is approached neither as a divine warrior nor as the god causing the storm.19 Rather, after being mentioned nine times in the thirteen first verses of the song, YHWH is surprisingly absent from the verses describing the preparation for war (vv. 14–18) and the battle (vv. 19–22).20 He reappears immediately afterward, being mentioned three times in verse 23. Scholars justify this “eclipse” by assuming that the noteworthy mention of YHWH in the first part of the hymn naturally implies his participation, but the thanksgiving and praise of YHWH after the victory renders this interpretation unlikely. Furthermore, the momentary absence concerns not only YHWH, but also the storm, which is recounted only elliptically in the hymn. Instead of the expected reference to YHWH, the stars are the only agent mentioned just before the sudden overflow of the Kishon (v. 21): “From heaven the stars fought; From their courses they fought against Sisera” (Judg 5:20). The combination of stars with rainfall in Ugarit (KTU 1.3 ii 41) encouraged scholars to interpret Judg 5:20 as the poetic announcement of a violent storm.21 It was also identified as a reference to falling stars, to the solar eclipse of 1131 BC,22 or to YHWH’s recruitment of the forces of creation to fight against Sisera and his army.23 It is simpler by far, however, to assume that the stars here mention divine beings fighting in the name of YHWH.24 The god Resheph is a possible candidate,25 but the combination of the storm with a star is more consistent with the symbolism of Athtar. Then the victory celebrated in the Song of Deborah becomes the revenge of the local storm-god against Baal, his Amorite homolog who supplanted him and supported Sisera and his army. It promotes the demise of Baal by the local powers, similar to the defeat of Sisera by Jael. This analysis confirms that two forms of Yahwism comingle in the Song of Deborah. The core of the hymn, the battle and the victory, apprehends

THE SKEPTICAL MESSAGE OF EXODUS

YHWH as a super-god who does not intervene in the war. This participation is reserved for secondary deities that are acknowledged in the hymn but are neither identified nor praised for their intervention. YHWH contributes to the war by inducing a spirit of audacity over those fighting his cause, the emancipation from Amorite authority, and the successful development of the copper network of production and trade. A second layer is superimposed on this main theology. It depicts Israel as a new society of God, the “people-ofYHWH” involved in promoting his public worship, and his spirit of emancipation. This second layer does not interfere with the military events, thus preventing theological dissonances in the poem. The theology expressed in the Song of Deborah is a composite. Like the Exodus–Conquest ideology, it maintains the transformation of YHWH into the patron-god of the Israelites. Like Emancipation Yahwism, the song treats YHWH as a nonintervening deity, instilling a spirit of enthusiasm, heroism, and freedom in those who “love” him. It is why this hybrid theology is defined here as Integrative Yahwism. THE SKEPTICAL MESSAGE OF EXODUS

The Book of Exodus is undoubtedly the main biblical opus expounding the Exodus–Conquest ideology. We may, therefore, expect its author(s) to promote it without reservation. But surprisingly, an ambivalent position is observable in Exodus regarding the bases of this doctrine.

The Question of Divine Intervention The Miracle of the Sea The partition of the sea is the founding event of the Exodus–Conquest ideology. It is the critical argument for divine intervention on the Israelites’ behalf, and the central theme of the Song of the Sea (Ex 15:1–21). Just prior to the poem, the Book of Exodus exposes a prose version of the event (Exodus 14) with substantial modifications with respect to divine participation. Whereas YHWH is the only agent performing the wonder in Exodus 15, it is Moses who splits the sea in Exodus 14 (Ex 14:15–17): 15YHWH said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. 16Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. 17And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen.

This report rejects (v. 15) the idea of YHWH’s transformation into a patrondeity that the Israelites may solicit for their salvation. Rather it becomes

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explicit in verse 16 that Moses, and not YHWH, should himself split the sea. Unlike the poet of the Song of the Sea, the author of Exodus 14 asserts that YHWH remains exclusively a super-god. In parallel with the Song of Deborah, YHWH exerts his power only on the spirit of the warriors, here the defeated Egyptian army (v. 17). By this means, Exodus 14 undermines the Exodus–Conquest theology that promotes the idea of divine intervention in history. This challenge becomes explicit through the contrast between YHWH’s position (vv. 15–17) and Moses’ instruction formulated in the context of the Exodus–Conquest theology: “13And Moses said to the people: Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of YHWH, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. 14YHWH will fight for you, and you have only to be silent” (Ex 14:13–14). An examination of the verses describing the victory of the Israelites confirms the distance of the author of Exodus 14 regarding the Exodus–Conquest ideology. In Ex 14:26–28, the destruction of the Egyptian army, the climax definitively eradicating any Egyptian threat, is attributed to Moses, the agent operating under the instructions of YHWH: 26Then YHWH said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.” 27So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, YHWH tossed (waye˘naʿer)̄ the Egyptians into the midst of the sea. 28The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen; of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea, not one of them remained.

In these verses, the only action attributed to YHWH is the overturning of the Egyptians in the midst of the sea (v. 27). Moses, his human emissary, is explicitly acknowledged as the agent performing the miracle. Moses here even cooperates with the divine emissary, who segregates the Egyptians from the Israelites by a pillar of fire and smoke (Ex 14:19). The Supply of Water Immediately after the miracle of the sea, Moses is instructed to provide by himself water for the Israelites using his staff, instead of calling on YHWH for such a purpose (Ex 15:25). Here again, the Exodus narrative promotes a conception of YHWH as a distant, nonintervening super-god. When water is lacking again, the Israelites blame Moses, but they in no way expect YHWH to supply water (Ex 17:2–3). This would mean that unlike Moses promoting the idea of divine intervention in specific instances, the Israelites, in this narrative, follow the classical approach of YHWH as a distant super-god. The narrative exposes the clash between these contrasting views. And curiously, YHWH’s reaction fulfills the expectations of the Israelites rather than

THE SKEPTICAL MESSAGE OF EXODUS

of Moses, when YHWH instructs Moses that he himself has to produce water with the help of his staff: 5And YHWH said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. (Ex 17:5–6)

Here, the mention of god “standing before Moses” indicates that this miracle is performed by Moses, but in the name of YHWH. This combination does not accord with the representation of YHWH as a god intervening on the earth. Rather, it describes a super-god instructing his human emissary how to act in his name. The War against Amalek After the annihilation of the Egyptian army, the Book of Exodus mentions a war with the Amalekites (Ex 17: 8–16) from which YHWH is curiously absent. No one consults him concerning the issue of the war, or even asks him to protect the Israelites from their enemies. Instead, we read that Moses orders Joshua to organize an army to fight Amalek (Ex 17:9–10a). After that, the narration reveals that the result of the battle depends on an operation Moses performed with his staff: “Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed” (Ex 17:11). The efficiency of this mode of action (which recalls the opening of the sea in Exodus 14) is presented here through a correlation between the flux and reflux of the two conflicting armies and the position of Moses’ staff. Beyond praising the powers of Moses, this narrative emphasizes the nonparticipation of YHWH in the battle. It proclaims the inability to involve him, and even to foresee the issue of the battle. The war against Amalek, in Exodus 17, extends the trend previously observed in Exodus 14 and 16 that denies the transformation of YHWH into a patron-deity intervening to defend the Israelites against their enemies, or to fulfill their requests. It confirms that the theology underlying the Book of Exodus fits Integrative Yahwism rather than the Exodus–Conquest ideology.

The Closeness to YHWH The Book of Exodus recounts the Passover celebration, the crossing of the sea, the Sinai revelation, and the Decalogue in a positive fashion. This position confirms the commitment of this book to the other component of the Exodus–Conquest ideology, the idea of the transformation of Israel into a new society of god. This commitment does not prevent the author of Exodus, however, from expressing skepticism concerning this issue.

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The Decalogue being the pledge concluding the collective initiation process, we would expect its reception by the Israelites to be the ultimate step in their metamorphosis. However, this event (Ex 20:1–17) is immediately followed by a contrasting demand, the wish that Moses should serve as the intermediary between the Israelites and YHWH: 18Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off. 19And said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” (Ex 20:18–19)

The Israelites reiterate this request even after Moses reassures them that their fear is unfounded (Ex 20:20–21). This situation introduces an incongruity with the Decalogue that frees the Israelites from any determinism, of divine or human origin, toward a closeness to YHWH. It alters the status of the Israelites as the people of YHWH attained just before, through the Decalogue pledge. This conclusion is confirmed by the new legislation exposed immediately after (Ex 20:22–23:19). Unlike in the Decalogue, Moses is the mediator who formulates a code of laws in the name of YHWH. This constitution comprises most of the themes stated in the Decalogue, but it differs from it by its casuistic style, its punitive dimension, and the reference to a ruler now enjoying the status of interface between the Israelites and the deity: “You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people” (Ex 22:28). The reference to the divine emissary of YHWH whom the Israelites should fear, at the end of the list of laws, confirms the critical importance of the intermediate entity (divine or human) in the legislation: “20Behold, I send an emissary before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. 21Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him” (Ex 23:20–21). In Exodus, the desire for a mediator between Israel and YHWH leads immediately to the replacement of the initiatory pledge by the formulation of a classical constitution. It also transforms the relationship with YHWH. Whereas no cult is mentioned in the Decalogue, the new legislation includes a classical form of worship involving sacrifices.26 This downgrading immediately following the Decalogue confers on the theme of transformation of Israel into a new society of God the status of a religious ideal instead of a reality.

The Question of the Divine Residence The Book of Exodus concludes with the inauguration of the Tabernacle (Chapter 40). The last verses (vv. 34–38) even recount the radiance (kābod) ̑ emanating from the sanctuary, the ostensible marker of the divine presence

THE SKEPTICAL MESSAGE OF EXODUS

among the Israelites. At first sight, this finale announces the completion of the project of divine residence. By extension, it indirectly validates the successful transformation of Israel into the new society of God, notwithstanding the problems encountered during the process. But an examination of the succession of events leading to this finale tempers this conclusion. • First stage – exclusion of divine residence: The request of the Israelites for a mediator in the relationship with YHWH (Ex 20:18–19) downgrades the Israelites from the status of society of God. It yields a legislation in which one of the first instructions concerns the construction of altars for the worship of YHWH (Ex 20:21–22). They are to be made with stones and mud, a feature excluding their identification with the altar overlaid with copper destined for the Tabernacle (Ex 27:1–2). These altars are mentioned in the new legislation independent of any project of divine residence. This project is either irrelevant at this stage or nullified by the Israelites’ request for a mediator. • Second stage – the new conception of divine residence: The entire people accept the legislation (Ex 20:22–23:19) in a new covenant ceremonial (Ex 24:4–8). The idea of a direct relationship with YHWH seems to be definitively canceled. Immediately thereafter, however, we read that Aaron, his sons, and the seventy elders of Israel went up to the mountain for contemplating the majesty of YHWH (Ex 24:9–11). This initiative appears to be an attempt to reintroduce a direct relationship with YHWH, at least with respect to a small elite of representatives. The last verse mentions YHWH keeping them alive (Ex 24:11), suggesting that this initiative is well received. Immediately afterward (Ex 24:12), YHWH instructs Moses regarding the construction of the Tabernacle (Ex 25:1–30:38). The initiative of the representatives is apparently enough for renewing the project of divine residence among the Israelites. • Third stage – new cancellation of the project: The fabrication of the Golden Calf (Exodus 32), at the time YHWH instructs Moses in the construction of the Tabernacle, generates a new crisis. This probably does not revolve around the question of “idolatry,” as is frequently suggested. Indeed, the ceremonial organized around the Golden Calf is announced by Aaron as a festival to YHWH (Ex 32:5), so the god symbolized by the calf looks like a substitute for Moses rather than for YHWH (Ex 32:1).27 The episode of the Golden Calf therefore reiterates the request for a mediator between YHWH and the people.28 As shown in Ex 33:2–3, YHWH fulfills this request but makes it conditional on his retirement from among the Israelites, the cancellation of the project of divine residence, and the reinstatement of the authority of the divine emissary already formulated in the legislation: “2I will send an emissary before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are

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a stiff-necked people” (Ex 33:2–3). At this stage, the religion of Israel becomes similar to that of all other nations integrating the movement of emancipation sponsored by YHWH (Emancipation Yahwism). • Fourth stage – renewing the project: The project of divine residence becomes relevant again after a new encounter between YHWH and Moses. Here, Moses defends the Exodus–Conquest ideology in linking it to his own person: “Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people” (Ex 33:13). This stratagem succeeds (Ex 33:14,17), and YHWH renews his alliance with the people of Israel (Ex 34:10), independent of their desire for a mediator. He provides a new set of instructions (Ex 34:11–26) that differ from the first legislation (Ex 20:22–23:19) by the absence of casuistry. This set is a reformulation of the Decalogue typically adapted to the Israelite reality (sacrifices, worship of YHWH, festivals, principles of the conquest, segregation from the indigenous population), and lacking most of its initiatory dimension. The construction of the Tabernacle begins (Ex 35:6) immediately after the Israelites accept this substitute for the original Decalogue (Ex 35:1–5).

This plot reveals that its author does not entirely acknowledge the second principle of the Exodus–Conquest theology. S/he refuses the simple equivalence between Israel and the traditional society of initiates, a claim regarded as no more than an ideal in this opus. In the real world, however, closeness to YHWH is reserved for a minority among the Israelites. For the whole people, the initial Decalogue (Ex 20:1–17) becomes replaced by a substitute that includes references to classical forms of devotion, including rituals, festivals, and offerings that are now attached to YHWH (Ex 34:18, 34:20, 34:22–26). The vicissitudes of the project of divine residence among the Israelites recounted in Exodus suggest that the construction of a shrine is not the final goal. Rather, the transformation of Israel into a “Society of God” is conditional on the attitude of the Israelites regarding YHWH, and the rejection of intermediate authority (human or divine) affixed to the status of an initiate. Otherwise, the distinction between the religion of the Israelites and Emancipation Yahwism disappears. REACTIONS TO ELIJAH’S ACTIVISM

Being affiliated with the Deuteronomistic School by modern scholarship, the Book of Kings is generally interpreted today in light of the theology expounded in Deuteronomy. This approach is obviously valid concerning many chapters of this historical corpus, including the defense of the religious reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah in 2 Kings 18 and 23. The theology of retribution and the idea of the intervention of YHWH expressed in these

REACTIONS TO ELIJAH’S ACTIVISM

reforms position the Book of Kings (and the Deuteronomistic school, in general) within the sphere of influence of the Exodus–Context ideology. Nevertheless, the Book of Kings also includes texts defending a contrasting opinion. As we will see here, the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel and Horeb (1 Kings 17–19) is an argument for Integrative Yahwism. Even more so, this saga expresses a virulent attack against the Exodus–Conquest ideology and its developments. The episode of Elijah on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18) resembles a trial organized by the prophet for promoting the worship of YHWH in Israel at the expense of all other deities. It opens with informing us that after three years of severe drought, YHWH now intends to give rain to the land: “After many days the word of YHWH came to Elijah, in the third year, saying: ‘Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain (we˘ʾette˘nâ māt ạ r̄ ) upon the earth’” (1 Kgs 18:1). The story tells how this promise was fulfilled. It begins with Elijah leaving clandestinely (a situation related in 1 Kings 17 and in 1 Kgs 18:4–12) to encounter King Ahab, his persecutor (v. 2) who condones the meeting (v. 16).29 Then Elijah proposes organizing a public trial on Mount Carmel (vv. 18–19) for determining who, YHWH or Baal, fulfills the requests of the Israelites and should be worshipped as a patron-god. Ahab accepts the challenge (v. 20) and convokes the participants, and Elijah sets out the conditions of the trial (vv. 21–25). The prophets of Baal fail to demonstrate the power or responsiveness of their god (vv. 26–29), while Elijah succeeds (vv. 30–38). Consequently, the Israelites acknowledge YHWH as their patron-god and Elijah slaughters all the prophets of Baal (vv. 39–40). Thereafter, a violent storm breaks out, ending three years of severe drought (vv. 41–46). At first sight, this saga champions the Exodus–Conquest ideology. It apparently demonstrates YHWH’s superiority over the storm-gods normally fulfilling this function, and acknowledges his commitment to Israel as patron-god.30 But several details challenge these conclusions.

The Carmel Trial The idea that Elijah demonstrates YHWH’s power over storms, in 1 Kings 18, arises from the assumption that storms and rainfall are the expected issue of the trial.31 This point is not specified, however, and there is no prayer for rain during the trial. Its only object, formulated in 1 Kgs 18:37, is the ability of the deity to consume a burnt-offering sacrifice by a fire not kindled by a human hand (1 Kgs 18:22–23). This wonder, rather than rainfall, is supposed to demonstrate whose god answers the supplications of the Israelites. The exegetes arguing for a storm dimension of the trial assume that the fire coming from heaven refers to a thunderbolt preceding the rain.32

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But the cloudless sky, at this stage of the narration, contradicts this view.33 Furthermore, a powerful lightning is accompanied by thunder of amplitude, which is absent from the description. Roaring, the first expression of a storm mentioned in this chapter, is perceived only after the death of Baal’s prophets (1 Kgs 18:40–41), and it is so weak that only Elijah perceives it. Alternatively, scholars suggest that two independent stories became intertwined in 1 Kings 18. The first focuses on the reconstruction of an ancient altar of YHWH on Mount Carmel and its inauguration with a burnt offering (vv. 31–39). The second tells us about contest between YHWH and BaalHaddu for producing rain.34 But this solution cannot justify why the unfortunate priests of Baal are slaughtered (v. 40) even before any rain event or any other preliminary sign announcing the storm. Further, it hardly justifies why no spontaneous expressions of thanksgiving to YHWH accompany the coming of abundant rain, if it was the anticipated outcome of the trial. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah announces to Ahab the coming of rain only after the massacre of the prophets: “Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain” (1 Kgs 18:41). Then the text reveals how Elijah brings about the storm: 42So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down (wayyighar) on the earth and put his face between his knees. 43And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. 44And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’” 45And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. (1 Kgs 18:42–45)

The divine dimension is curiously absent in this narrative. There is neither incantation nor appeal to YHWH to intervene and to provide rain. The massacre of the priests of Baal is not an act of faith toward YHWH, justifying his intervention through atmospheric events. Elijah utters no auditory supplications to YHWH during this trial.35 These particularities reveal two things. First, rainfall is not a part of the trial between YHWH and Baal on Mount Carmel. Second, YHWH is not directly involved in the storm that follows the trial. Rather, the latter is denoted as Elijah’s initiative, an expression of his own powers.36 Magic is, by definition, a process used for mastering wonders usually controlled by gods, independent of their participation or their will to intervene. It is why the magical dimension recounted here is antithetical to the idea of the revelation of YHWH through storm theophany on Mount Carmel. If YHWH is not the rainmaker in this story, we may also guess that the opposing deity, named Baal (=the master) in this account, is neither BaalHaddu nor any other storm-god. The involvement of Jezabel, the Tyrian

REACTIONS TO ELIJAH’S ACTIVISM

wife of Ahab, in promoting his cult,37 identifies him instead with Melqart, the divine patron of Tyre unrelated to rain and crop fertility.38 The ironic comments of Elijah, mentioning the god traveling far away (1 Kgs 18:27), allude to such an identity because Melqart was worshipped both in Tyre and in the Mediterranean colonies.39

The Nature of the Conflict The trial highlights a controversy concerning the way YHWH should be worshipped in Israel: indirectly, via a divine being called Baal/baalim in 1 Kings 18 (and probably identified with Melqart/the Emissary of YHWH40), or directly, as a patron-god fulfilling the requests and supplications of the Israelites. The first way suits the trend identified here as Integrative Yahwism, in which YHWH remains a super-god distant from worldly affairs, while the alternative proposed by Elijah better fits the Exodus–Conquest ideology, in which an intervention of YHWH on earth undermines the need for the Israelites to address divine mediators. The idea of a conflict between these two forms of Yahwism, in 1 Kings 18, is confirmed by further indications revealing that Ahab did not reject YHWH before the trial.41 • Ahab’s son, who replaced him on the throne of Samaria, is called Ahaziah (1 Kgs 22:40), a Yahwistic theophoric name. • The sin of Ahab regarding YHWH concerns the cult of deities introduced by his wife (1 Kgs 21:25–26). However, in no way is Ahab blamed for ignoring YHWH. • The sincere act of penitence by Ahab following Elijah’s speech (1 Kgs 21:27) confirms that the king accepted YHWH as the supreme authority. • In 1 Kgs 22:5–23, Ahab consults with the prophets of YHWH from his kingdom to be informed about the expected outcome of a battle. Although this divine consultation is the initiative of King Jehoshaphat (1 Kgs 22:5), it is not mentioned as an extraordinary event. • The prophets convoked by Ahab do not express any hostility or fear betraying any previous persecution. Verse 8 instructs us that the prophet Micaiah was well known to Ahab for his dark visions and oracles, a feature suggesting that this king regularly consulted YHWH.

The way Ahab deals with YHWH in this story suggests that during his reign, Integrative Yahwism was the official religion of the kingdom of Israel. If so, the persecution of the “prophets of YHWH” (1 Kgs 18:4, 18:13) does not concern those regularly convoked by Ahab for consulting the god. It probably refers to activists challenging the legitimacy of Integrative Yahwism, the official religion in the Northern Kingdom, and promoting the Exodus– Conquest ideology as an alternative.42 The appellation of Elijah as the troubler

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(ʿōke r̄ ) of Israel (1 Kgs 18:17)43 emphasizes not only his subversive character, but likely his leadership of this radical movement.44

The Elijah Stratagem Immediately after the trial, Elijah instructs Ahab to drink and eat on the mountain (v. 41), a possible invitation to share a sacrificial meal. Instead of protesting against the massacre of the priests, Ahab follows Elijah’s instructions, including the request to leave the mountain (v. 44).45 This double compliance reflects Ahab’s confidence in Elijah, and even the promotion of the latter to the function of King’s official counselor. The subsequent description of Elijah running before the king’s chariot up to Jezreel confirms his transformation into the king’s herald (1 Kgs 18:45–46).46 Consequently, the saga centered on the trial on Mount Carmel accounts for the metamorphosis of Elijah from a marginal insurgent to the rank of an official representative of YHWH at the king’s court. If the officials previously fulfilling this function were those prophets who convened on Mount Carmel (as suggested by the mention of their permanent residence within the palace in 1 Kgs 18:19), their massacre initiated by Elijah (v. 40) unveils a strategy for propelling him into this new official function, in order to transform the Exodus–Conquest ideology into the official religion of the Northern Kingdom. This motivation is already evident before the trial. The cycle of Elijah begins by reporting a confrontation between Elijah and Ahab, after which Elijah curses the entire kingdom with drought and famine: “Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab: As YHWH, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word” (1 Kgs 17:1). The narrative does not explain the motivation behind the curse, but neither does the latter follow any divine instruction. Rather, it appears to be a personal initiative of Elijah, performed in the name of YHWH but without directly involving him. The surprising claim of Elijah that rain will return through his own efforts (rather than the word of YHWH, as expected) indicates that he provokes a crisis in the kingdom (drought, famine, and death) and predicates its resolution on the replacement of Integrative Yahwism, the official religion of the kingdom, with its radical counterpart.47 After three years of famine and desolation, YHWH urges Elijah to restore rain (1 Kgs 18:1b) and to look for another stratagem for reaching his goal, but he does not intervene by himself. The trial on Mount Carmel appears, therefore, as the alternative stratagem elaborated after YHWH opposes his original method. But even this second stratagem fails. Immediately after Elijah reaches the position of king’s official prophet, Jezabel swears to avenge the victims of the trial (1 Kgs 19:1–2), leading Elijah to despair and to flee the kingdom immediately (1 Kgs 19:3–4).

REACTIONS TO ELIJAH’S ACTIVISM

The Author’s Opinion A discrepancy emerges in this story between the author approaching YHWH as a super-god distant from terrestrial affairs, and Elijah attempting to promote central elements of the Exodus–Conquest ideology. The portrait of Elijah in this story elaborates this difference. Elijah before the Horeb (1 Kgs 17:1–19:4) The figure of Elijah in 1 Kings 17–19 is far from what is usually expected in a representative of the divine.48 His zeal for YHWH is immoderate and frequently blends with his ego.49 The narration leaves an impression of a blurring of the boundaries between YHWH’s and Elijah’s interests.50 Five examples illustrate this point. • Problem of divine appointment: Elijah claims he is speaking in the name of YHWH, but the curse for drought formulated in 1 Kgs 17:1 does not follow any divine instruction. Instead, Elijah acts autonomously, even regarding YHWH, when he claims, “There shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word” (1 Kgs 17:1b). • Laws of purity: During his sojourn in the brook of Cherit, Elijah is fed from meat brought by scavengers (1 Kgs 17:6), that is, originating from dead animals. Such food is impure for the Israelites (Ex 22:31). It is especially true concerning the prophets and nazerites for whom a strict observance of the laws of purity is required.51 Ironically, Elijah here degrades himself as a consequence of his own stratagem, the curse of drought. • The curse: Famine, misery, and death in the whole kingdom are a disproportionate issue for a conflict of authority between two forms of Yahwism coexisting in ancient Israel. This exaggeration becomes incomprehensible when the drought and famine spread to Phoenicia (Zarephath; 1 Kgs 17:12), a territory located beyond the territory of this theological conflict. This extreme distress leads YHWH to command Elijah to abandon his stratagem. • The crisis of Yahwism: Elijah justifies his actions by complaining that Israel left YHWH (1 Kgs 18:21–22, 19:10, 19:14). But we read in 1 Kings 17 that even the widow from Zarephath swears spontaneously in the name of YHWH (1 Kgs 17:12) and follows the instructions of Elijah, whom she immediately identifies as YHWH’s emissary (1 Kgs 17:13–15). This detail reveals that YHWH is not ignored, even in the territory from which her bitter enemy, Jezabel, originates. • Reliability of Elijah’s claims: Elijah swears that he has remained the only prophet of YHWH in Israel (1 Kgs 18:22, 19:10, 19:14). But a few verses before, Obadiah reminds Elijah that a hundred (dissident) prophets have survived in a cave (1 Kgs 18:13). Furthermore, many other (nondissident) prophets of YHWH consulted by Ahab live peacefully in the kingdom.52

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These inconsistencies discredit the figure of Elijah, but it remains unclear whether this criticism concerns only the temperament of Elijah or his religious reform, too. The absence of divine support for most of Elijah’s initiatives advocates for an opposition to his ideology. But his restoration of the altar of YHWH (1 Kgs 18:30–31), his success in the Carmel trial (1 Kgs 18:36–38), and his status as a man of god (1 Kgs 17:24) all promote an opposite conclusion. The subsequent episode of Elijah on Mount Horeb, dealing with the genuine nature of YHWH, clarifies this ambiguity. Elijah at Horeb (1 Kgs 19: 4–18) Elijah’s journey to Mount Horeb has an initiatory dimension. It begins (v. 3) with the sudden and brutal separation of Elijah from his universe (the Northern Kingdom) and even from his servant. This breakdown is followed by a symbolic death (vv. 4–5a) and by a meal (vv. 6–8a) preparing him for a long journey in the desert. Its initiatory dimension appears from its long duration (40 days) and starvation throughout this period. Its termination at Horeb (v. 8b), the holy mountain of YHWH, confirms the initiatory dimension of the journey. The discovery of the genuine identity of YHWH (vv. 11–13a) is the culmination of this initiatory event: 11And

he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before YHWH.” And behold, YHWH passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before YHWH, but YHWH was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but YHWH was not in the earthquake. 12And after the earthquake a fire, but YHWH was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of sheer silence (qol̑ de˘ma m ̄ â daqqâ).13And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

This revelation of this holy reality begins with an eradication of the misleading conceptions concerning YHWH’s theophany in strong wind, earthquake, and fire (vv. 11–12a). The conjunction of these three elements at Horeb is especially interesting because they recall a volcanic eruption, as in the Sinai theophany.53 Consequently, in denigrating the divine presence in these phenomena, the author here formulates a radical criticism of the Exodus–Conquest ideology and its anchoring in the Northwestern Arabian shift. The genuine theophany of YHWH is justified in the “the sound of sheer silence.” This description promotes an ethereal perception of YHWH, a mystical experience of transcendence unfettered by any consideration of a divine intervention on earth.54 It befits, therefore, the initiatory dimension of YHWH attached to Primeval Yahwism, and preserved in Emancipation Yahwism. This dimension is still present in Integrative Yahwism but is only residual in the Exodus–Conquest ideology.55

REACTIONS TO ELIJAH’S ACTIVISM

The Inefficient Initiation In most ancient forms of Yahwism, initiation was the way to acquire wisdom and knowledge and to formulate accurate conceptions of the divine. For this reason, we may expect this process, once undergone by Elijah, to move him from his initial (mis)conceptions to a new understanding of YHWH. But such a metamorphosis is failing here. Elijah reaches Mount Horeb after a long (40-day) initiatory journey. There, to the question “What are you doing here?” (v. 9b), Elijah does not give the response expected at the penultimate stage of initiation: the desire for the revelation of secret knowledge of YHWH and for a mystical communion with him. Instead, in verse 10, Elijah lodges a complaint about the failure of his two stratagems, in which he surprisingly incriminates everyone except himself: He said, “I have been very zealous for YHWH, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

The distortion between these accusations and the situation narrated in the previous chapters casts doubt upon the efficiency of the initiation process experienced by Elijah.56 The ultimate stage of the initiation, the effacement of the obstructions preventing a perception of the super-god dimension of YHWH (see vv. 11–12), is, however, expected to recast this position. But the reiteration of the question “What are you doing here?” following this mystical experience (v. 13b) quenches this optimism: Elijah formulates the same answer in verse 14 as in verse 10. If this repetition is not a scribal error,57 it becomes a means for expressing the blindness of Elijah, locked into a loop of self-justification and unable to leave his previous views even after the revelation of the divine essence.58 The failure of the initiation process has an immediate consequence. Elijah is invited to invent a third stratagem that does not involve YHWH’s participation: promoting the reign of Hazael in Syria and of Jehu in Israel (1 Kgs 19:15– 16). The former threatens the authority of the house of Omri from outside, and the latter operates similarly from inside. Jehu is not only the supplanter of Ahab, he is also the instigator of the religious reform initiated by Elijah. But this latter is not expected to lead the reform. Rather, Elijah is requested to bequeath his powers, prestige, and authority to Elisha (1 Kgs 19:16–17), and by this means, to cease speaking and acting in the name of YHWH.59 The Parallel with Moses Scholars have long identified some parallels between the figures of Elijah and Moses.60 Elijah’s journey to Mount Horeb retraces Moses’ ascent to Sinai/ Horeb. Both involve a similar time frame of forty days (1 Kgs 19:8; Ex 24:18),

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during which eating and drinking are avoided (1 Kgs 19:8; Ex 34:28). The revelation of YHWH happens near a cave in both instances (1 Kgs 19:9; Ex 33:22), a feature provoking a similar reaction: Elijah wraps his face with his cloak (1 Kgs 19:13), and Moses’ face is covered by “YHWH’s hand” (Ex 33:23). The parallel between these two figures continues. Elijah slaughters the prophets (1 Kgs 18:40) of Integrative Yahwism, the official religion of Israel, in favor of an exclusivist cult of YHWH. Similarly, Moses calls the Levites to slaughter those worshipping the Golden Calf (Ex 32:26–28), the artifact promoting a cult of YHWH through a divine mediator. The call addressed to the Levites to “kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor” (Ex 32:27), together with the relatively small number of victims (Ex 32:28), leaves few doubts that the main target of this massacre was the religious elite, as on Mount Carmel. The trial by celestial fire proposed by Elijah to the 400 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel finds a parallel in the trial by fire proposed by Moses to Korah and his company of 250 opponents (Num 16:16–19). Here, the narration introduces a heavenly fire that killed the opponents (Num 16:35). However, the subsequent recrimination of the Israelites against Moses and Aaron, “who killed the people of YHWH” (Num 17:6), suggests that the parallel with Elijah on Carmel is even stronger than it may appear at first. Through these homologies, the author of the Elijah cycle probably denounces Elijah’s attempts to imitate Moses and his failure to perform this task.61 But the virulent criticism against the basic tenets of the Exodus– Conquest ideology, quite explicit in this story, adds a dimension to this satire. The episode at Horeb would seem to extend the criticism to Moses, the central figure of the Exodus–Conquest ideology, as well. In this manner, the story related in 1 Kings 17–19 becomes a manifesto against the Exodus–Conquest ideology from its very beginning. THE HYBRID THEOLOGY

The first chapters of Exodus detail the transition from an approach of YHWH as super-god to a deity who reveals himself and actively participates on earth. In parallel, Exodus 3, in which the new theology is formulated for the first time, is also the turning point concerning the use of the name YHWH. This transition appears in verse 15: “Elohim also said to Moses, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, YHWH, the god of your fathers, the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac, and the god of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” Before this shift, the name elohim (God) or haelohim (=the God) is encountered fifteen times in Ex 1:1–3:14, whereas the name YHWH is mentioned only three times, two for designating the emissary of YHWH (Ex 3:2, 3:4) and the third one introducing YHWH himself (Ex 3:7), just before the revelation.

THE HYBRID THEOLOGY

The situation changes dramatically after the shift. In the encounter on Mount Horeb (Ex 3:16–4:31), the name YHWH is used twenty times, whereas his designation as Elohim is found only twice (Ex 4:20, 4:27). Consequently, the preferential use of Elohim corresponds to the status of a super-god distant from human affairs, whereas the name YHWH coincides with the theological novelty promoted by the Exodus–Conquest ideology. The same duality can be seen in Genesis. For example, the god is exclusively called Elohim in Genesis 1:1–2:3, the section exposing his demiurgic dimension and his transformation, after the six days of creation, into a super-god distant from human affairs. The first mention of YHWH (in the appellation YHWHElohim), in Genesis 2–3, coincides with the representation of the Garden of Eden as an oasis, a position that is close to the Exodus–Conquest ideology. The use of the Elohim or YHWH appellations in the Pentateuch serves to identify the Elohist (E) and the Yahwist (J) sources in the Documentary Hypothesis. The difference is significant. In hiding the name YHWH or in minimizing its use, the Elohist gives precedence to the esoteric dimension of this god, the aura of secrecy and mystery surrounding his genuine identity. These characteristics conform to Integrative Yahwism better than the Exodus–Conquest ideology, in which the extensive use of the name YHWH corroborates his transformation into the patron-god of Israel. Today, scholars challenge the existence of a coherent Elohist corpus in the Bible and prefer considering it as a collection of small fragments (the so-called Elohist cluster) integrated into the Yahwist source.62 However, they note that many of these fragments share essential features, especially concerning the characterization of the god:63 • Elohim is a distant deity, of a high and transcendent nature.64 This view contrasts with YHWH portrayed in the Yahwist sources “in anthropomorphic and anthropopathic fashion so as to emphasize the nearness and the graciousness of God.”65 • The fear of God is a prominent feature of the Elohist.66 • Dreams have a prophetic dimension in the Elohist cluster. They are even the preferred means for the god to communicate messages to mortals.67 They also frequently create a reaction of fear and piety.68 • The divine emissary of YHWH is important in the Elohist cluster. This divine being communicates messages, blesses people, and acts on earth in the name of YHWH.69 • Unlike the exclusivity of the relationship between Israel and YHWH defended in the Yahwist source, worship of and relationship with YHWH among the neighboring nations is acknowledged in the Elohist cluster.70

All these characteristics confirm the affinities of the “Elohist cluster” with the theology identified here as Integrative Yahwism. Further considerations confirm this similarity. For example, the ideology of conquest and eradication

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of the inhabitants of Canaan is absent from the Elohist cluster.71 Whereas the pre-Israelite inhabitants the Israelites fought are defined as Canaanites in the Yahwist source, they are identified as Amorites in the Elohist source.72 This difference reflects the commitment of the Elohist authors to the whole movement of emancipation, not only to the nation of Israel. This difference consolidates the theory that the Elohist theology emerged from the emancipation movement. It also identifies the Yahwist source with the Exodus–Conquest ideology, culminating in the installation in the “Promised Land” of a group defining itself as the (new) “Society of God” and differentiating itself from all other populations, including the indigenous inhabitants of Canaan. Most scholars assume an origin of the Elohist school in Northern Israel.73 The positive views about Bet-El in this cluster even suggested siting the homeland of this school around this royal sanctuary.74 Consequently, its activity was dated to the monarchic period (tenth to seventh centuries)75 or even after the collapse of the Northern Kingdom (seventh to sixth centuries).76 The present analysis concurs with these conclusions. Here, the story of Elijah indicates that Integrative Yahwism was the official theology of the Northern Kingdom, up to the reign of Jehu. The affinities of the Song of Deborah with Integrative Yahwism show that this trend even preceded the monarchy. It was probably the main theology around which the tribes of Israel gathered. Integrative Yahwism represents a hybrid theology between Emancipation Yahwism, widespread in the Southern Levant in the Early Iron Age, and the Exodus–Conquest ideology introduced by a small group (identified with Ephraim) coming from the south. The influence of this small group in the Early Israelite period is revealed in Judges 4. There, we read that Deborah, an Ephraimite woman, exerted her authority far beyond the boundaries of her community so that “the people of Israel came up to her for judgment” (Judg 4:5). Thereafter, she encouraged the people from the Jezreel Valley and other tribes to cooperate in fighting against Sisera and his army (Judg 4:6, 5:7). It seems, therefore, that the Book of Judges has preserved the memory of Ephraimite newcomers who spread a spirit of rebellion among the northern tribes, which in turn contributed significantly to their emancipation from Amorite authority and the development of the network of transportation and trade of copper. This spirit of rebellion and its successes may represent the bridge between Emancipation Yahwism and the Exodus–Conquest ideology from which Integrative Yahwism flourished. NOTES 1 Emerton 1966; Schwemer 2008a, 2008b; Sylva 2011: 246–7; Smith 2017: 37; Benz 2016: 421. 2 See, for example, Gerhard 1966; Green 2003: 219–80; Müller 2017: 208–9; Krebernik 2017: 52. This conclusion is also supported by Fleming (2012: 62–4) on the basis of an analysis of the Song of Deborah (Judges 5).

THE HYBRID THEOLOGY

3 This eventuality is especially likely in light of the biblical sources preventing such a “contamination” of the Israelite Yahwism by the local beliefs: “Take care that you be not ensnared (pen tinna q̄ eš)̄ to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying: How did these nations serve their gods? – that I also may do the same. You shall not worship YHWH your God in that way, for every abominable thing that YHWH hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deut 12:30–31). The prohibition of worshiping YHWH “in that way” strongly suggests the existence of local forms of Yahwism preexisting the emergence of Israel and regarded by the author of the Deuteronomy as deviant practices. 4 Amzallag 2015e: 61–3. 5 See Introduction, note 17. 6 Block 1994. Alternatively, Mayes (1969) assumes that the battle reported in the Song of Deborah should be dated from the second half of the eleventh century BC, the end of the premonarchic period. 7 Judg 3:31. Shamgar is mentioned just after the earliest leaders of Israel: Othniel (Judg 3:8) and Ehud (Judg 3:15). 8 Leuchter 2010. Concerning the chariot warriors’ specialization of the hurro-mitanian element of the Amorites, see von Dassow 2014; Schwartz 2014. 9 See also 1 Sam 12:9. Sisera is identified as a Luwian or Illyrian name in HALOT 2: 752; and as a name originating from Anatolia or the Aegean area by S. Yavin (1968: 1033–4). 10 See Chapter 4. 11 Many of these observations are detailed in Schloen 1993. 12 A plundering of caravans by the Canaanite kings expected to protect them is already attested to in the El Amarna correspondence (e.g., EA 8, 287). 13 I. Yavin (1968: 908–9) even assumes that the tribe of Naphtali already existed in the Jezreel Valley in the fourteenth century BC. David Schloen (1993: 30) concludes that “Zebulun, Issachar and Naphtali are by contrast especially prominent in the battle in both the poem and the prose account, because of their pivotal location on the main route across the Jezreel valley and Lower Galilee.” 14 Machir is mentioned in Num 26:29 as the only son of Menasseh. 15 HALOT 2: 652; DCH 5: 565. 16 See Allegro (1955) concerning the translation of zeh sînay as “the one of Sinai.” 17 Green (2003: 254–6) stipulates only a partial appropriation of Baal traits in the Song of Deborah. From such a perspective, scholars even identified Deborah with Anat, the goddess fighting beside Baal in the Ugaritic mythology. See, for example, Craigie 1977: 32–8; Dempster 1978; Ackerman 1998: 59. To some extent, Yael became identified with the Canaanite goddess Athtart (see Taylor 1982: 99). 18 Craigie 1977: 33. This contribution of the storm was well acknowledged among the Israelites, as revealed by its mention by Josephus: “So the battle began, and when they were come to close fight, there came down from heaven a great storm with a vast quantity of rain and hail” (Antiq. 5.5.4, trad. W. Whiston). 19 Hauser 1990; Becker-Spörl 1996. 20 Charles Echols (2005: 149) concluded that “the original poem is essentially profane, and the predominant focus of the poet on the human characters enables one to speak metaphorically of an eclipse of YHWH.” 21 Craigie 1969: 262; Ahlström 1977: 287; Woods 2003: 6. 22 Sawyer 1981: 88; Weinfeld 1983: 126. 23 Ackerman 1998: 46. 24 For Mark Smith (2014: 264), “these stars are a collective divine force described here without any reference to YHWH […] Indeed, it is the starts in v. 20 that are helping the human warriors”. Smith (ibid.: 265) concludes that “the divine aid received via the stars in v. 20 was thanks to the divine leadership of YHWH.” 25 Weinfeld 1983: 129–30.

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26 This position finds an echo in Samuel, where the Israelite request for a king (1 Sam 8:5) is immediately followed by a withdrawal of YHWH: “And YHWH said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Sam 8:7). This request even leads to the irremediable enslavement of the Israelites to their king (1 Sam 8:11–18), challenging the deliverance from servitude in Exodus and the promotion of the Israelites as the (new) people of YHWH. 27 For example, Chung 2010: 6, 16; Suh 2003: 85–90; Sarna 1991: 203; Kaufmann 1972: 271; Moberly 1983: 47. 28 Amzallag 2020. 29 The text insinuates that the distress following the severe drought and famine (vv. 2, 5–6) is probably a motivation for the meeting between these two protagonists. 30 Mark Smith (2001: 67) concluded, “One of the functions of 1 Kings 17–19 is to prove that YHWH has power over all of these phenomena, but unlike the Baal of Jezabel, YHWH transcends these manifestations of divine power (1 Kings 19, esp. v. 11).” The god competing with YHWH is frequently identified with Baal-Haddu, and this story is even regarded as a case study advancing the former nature of YHWH as a storm-god and even his northern origin. See Gerhardt 1966: 141; Saint-Laurent 1980; Hauser 1990: 30–47; Mulder 1975: 195; Beck 2003: 294; Miller 2000: 29; Smith 2002: 76–8; Green 2003: 275–6; McKenzie 2019: 129. The mention of the priests of Baal self-injuring in calling for the coming of their deity (1 Kgs 18:28) has been paralleled with the mourning ceremonial performed in Ugarit for the death of Baal, at the end of the rainy season (Yon 1991: 63–5). Alternatively, the Baal from Carmel was identified with Baal-Shamem by Cogan 2001: 439. 31 Ap-Thomas 1960: 152; Gray 1970: 386; Fritz 2003: 193; Beck 2003: 296; Sweeney 2007: 226. 32 Ap-Thomas 1960: 151; Tromp 1975: 494; McKenzie 2019: 135. 33 This is revealed by the mention of Elijah’s servant beholding the first clouds coming from the sea only after the end of the trial and its tragic outcome for the priests of Baal (1 Kgs 18:43–44). 34 Ap-Thomas 1960: 154; Tromp 1975: 495. This assumption was already formulated by Alt 1935: 136. 35 One may always interpret Elijah “putting his face between his knees” (v. 42) as a prayer addressed to YHWH. But the lack of this specification contrasts with the explicit supplication to YHWH inviting him, a few verses before, to consume the holocaust (1 Kgs 18:36–37). 36 Ap-Thomas 1960: 154; Schmitt 2004: 260; Fritz 2003: 188–9; McKenzie 2019: 113–4. It is confirmed by the verb ghr (=to bend down) introduced here (v. 42) and by his magic healing in 2 Kgs 4:34. Furthermore, the sevenfold iteration of the gesture echoes the sevenfold process required for Elijah’s magical healing (see 2 Kgs 4:35, 5:10, 5:14). The loud roaring identified with this event refers to an act of sympathetic magic simulating thunder, then stimulating its coming. 37 1 Kgs 18:4, 18:13, 18:19, 19:2. 38 de Vaux (1971b [1941]) was one of the first scholars to identify this god with Melqart. He is followed by many authors, such as Albright 1968: 243–4; Fensham 1980: 236; Bonnet 1988: 139–43; Clifford 1990: 60; Katzenstein 1977: 150–1; and Day 2000: 73–5. 39 Brian Irwin (1999: 148), for example, finds it unlikely “that Achab understood ‘the Baal’ to be a completely ‘foreign’ god. On the contrary, there is evidence which suggests that the Israelite king regarded ‘the baal’ and YHWH to be different manifestations of the same deity.” 40 Amzallag 2012. 41 Cogan 2001: 447. 42 Dafydd Ap-Thomas (1960: 149) concluded that the trial on Mount Carmel is … “the starting point on a national scale for the assertion in Palestine of the exclusive right of YHWH to be regarded as the national god of Israel.” See also Olley 1998: 36. 43 This verb designates the action of disturbing quiet water by stirring up its ground mud. See Cogan 2001: 438.

THE HYBRID THEOLOGY

44 Also, the meaning of infectious influence carried by the verb ʿkr (e.g. Jos 6:18; 7:25, see Gray 1970: 392) fits such a subversive character of Elijah. Franklin (1926: 246) already identified Elijah as the central figure of a radical movement promoting an exclusivist cult of YHWH. 45 Gray 1970: 403; Hens-Piazza 2006: 181. 46 Gray 1970: 405; Cogan 2001: 445; de Vries 2003: 219; Sweeney 2007: 230; Hens-Piazza 2006: 172: 181–2. Gina Hens-Piazza concludes (2006: 183), “When the chapter ends, the king is not only obeying Elijah’s orders and adhering his counsel, but Elijah himself is running ahead of Ahab’s chariot as they enter Jezreel together.” 47 Cogan 2001: 425; Fritz 2003: 182; Glover 2006: 452. Marvin Sweeney (2007: 211) stresses the paradoxical situation in which “Elijah speaks on behalf of YHWH, who is bound not to provide rain until the prophet states otherwise.” 48 Glover 2006: 455. 49 Hauser and Gregory 1990: 102; Olley 1998. 50 Kissling 1996: 113–6. 51 For example, Num 6:6–7; Judg 13:14; Ezek 4:14. 52 1 Kgs 20:13–15, 20:35–41, 22:6. See Kissling (1996: 113–27) for an overview of the dilemmas attached to the figure of Elijah in Kings. 53 Tonstad 2005: 257, 260–2. 54 Masson (1991) interprets the revelation of YHWH in 1 Kings 19 as a mystical experience following isolation from sensorial stimuli, which is quite similar to the Hinduist ecstatic experience of nirvana. 55 The parallel description of YHWH’s theophany in the Book of Job (Job 4:15–16) supports this conclusion, this opus challenging the belief of divine intervention on the earth for exerting his justice. 56 See Hauser and Gregory 1990: 124; Lockwood 2004: 55; McKenzie 2019: 145. Mordechai Cogan (2001: 456) notices that “The reader is not prepared for the charge brought by the prophet against the Israelites that they, not Ahab (cf. 18:18) had abandoned the covenant, especially after they reported acknowledgment of YHWH as the one and only God on Mount Carmel (18:39).” Gina Hens-Piazza (2006: 189) even suggests that “Elijah’s description of the children of Israel’s slaughter of the prophet is ironic. His language employs the same words that Ahab used to report Elijah’s redhanded deed against the Baal prophets.” 57 The premise that verse 14 is a secondary insertion is argued from the nineteenth century (see Becking 2007: 24 for review). Bob Becking (2007: 24) rejects this opinion as follows: “In the literary-critical approach, one question remains unsolved: why did a later redactor place the first dialogue at this specific place in the composition before the theophany? Has this later redactor been unaware of the problems he yielded by his composition? “ 58 See McKenzie 2019: 146; Kissling 1996: 123. For Gina Hens-Piazza (2006: 191), “the monotonous repetition of the prophet’s earlier response corroborates the lack of any encounter. Unlike the transformation of one’s person that characteristically results from an encounter with God, nothing has changed for Elijah, nor has Elijah changed.” 59 Lockwood 2004: 52, 57. Lockwood (ibid.: 58) extends this analysis to the subsequent chapters and shows how the author stresses Elijah’s refusal of the divine verdict of cessation of his prophetic activities. See also Hens-Piazza 2006: 193. These observations reveal that the virulent criticism does not cease after the trial on Mount Carmel. 60 Cogan 2001: 456; de Vries 2003: 209; Hens-Piazza 2006: 184, 188; Sweeney 2007: 232; Tonstad 2005: 257. 61 Cogan 2001: 457. 62 Mayes 1983: 139–49; van Seters 1998. 63 Wolff 1972. See also Baden 2012: 117. This evidence renewed interest in this pool of texts during recent decades, notwithstanding them not being used as a source or reedited and integrated into the Yahwistic narrative. See, for example, Jenks 1992; McEvenue 1984; Graupner 2002; Yoreh 2010; Gnuse 2017. For Tsemah Yoreh (2010: 260): “When J disagreed

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64

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

73 74 75 76

with E, he did not delete parts of the document. If the detail was important, the Yahwist simply emphasized it repeatedly, giving his version of events precedence in the minds of his readers.” For Robert Gnuse (2017: 136), “The God proclaimed by the Elohist is a high and transcendent deity, a deus absconditus, as Graupner observes, a ‘hidden god’, unlike the deus revelatus, ‘a revealed god’, or a very present god, as we find in the Yahwist texts […] The Elohist attempted to portray God as both ‘hidden’ yet ‘present’ in a mysterious deep way.” Gnuse 2017: 85. Wolff 1972: 167; Gnuse 2012: 65 and 2017: 19. It contrasts with the denigration of dream theophany and its prophetic dimension in Deuteronomy (Deut 13:2–5) and Jeremiah (Jer 23:25–32, 27:9, 29:8). Jenks 1992: 479; Yoreh 2010: 258; Gnuse 2017: 86. Gnuse 2017: 9. Gnuse 2012: 65 and 2017: 86. Yoreh 2010: 253. Baden 2012: 110; Gnuse 2017: 18–21. According to Wolff (1972: 171), Yoreh (2010: 225–9), and Gnuse (2017: 132–3), the chapter debating the legitimacy of the conquest of the land of Sihon (Number 21) belongs to the Elohist cluster. Jenks 1992: 482. Gnuse 2000: 210. For example, Jenks 1992: 482; Coote 1991; Jaros 1982. Gnuse 2012.

CONCLUSION

This book sprung from the need to disengage the investigation of ancient Israel from the question of the emergence and evolution of monotheism, and to integrate metallurgy, a dimension of ancient Yahwism largely ignored by modern research. These premises opened new interfaces between the biblical sources and the archaeological records, especially through integrating the emergence of Israel within a broad movement of emancipation from Amorite authority in the Southern Levant. The present study has highlighted some of the obstacles in the development of such an investigation. The first concerns the pre-Israelite, Canaanite universe, frequently discussed as a homogeneous entity, whereas it includes two distinct trends, pan-indigenous and pan-Amorite. Further, the apprehension of Baal as a Canaanite god prevented the identification of an anti-Amorite movement of emancipation in the Southern Levant and its theological implications. The second impediment concerns metallurgy. Recent archaeological discoveries have demonstrated the rise of the copper industry at the beginning of the Iron Age in the Southern Levant. But the implications of such discoveries were generally relegated to mercantile issues. As shown here, however, the birth of new political entities in the Early Iron Age is intimately linked to the revival of copper production in the Arabah. This activity also promoted the resurgence of the pre-Amorite beliefs attached to this activity. It also advanced a cultural and political koiné in the whole region, whose traces are visible both in archaeology and in biblical sources. 275

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The third barrier refers to the metallurgical background of ancient Yahwism. Minimizing this reality has deprived us of crucial information concerning its Bronze Age expressions and their contribution to the movement of emancipation from Amorite hegemony. The former identity of YHWH became an object of research limited to Near Eastern storm-gods, the most likely hypothesis regarding the agropastoralist lifestyle of the early Israelites. The influence of the storm-gods on the figure of YHWH is undeniably perceptible in several biblical sources. But defining the former identity of the god of Israel on this basis alone requires ignoring the metallurgical dimension, whereas the alternative view that argues for a former metallurgical background may easily cope with a residual, Amorite influence on the figure of YHWH. Last but not least, the fourth obstacle lies in minimizing the cultural dimension of copper metallurgy. Neglecting its connotations of creation and vitalization most often promoted an understanding of the metallurgical realities attached to YHWH as mere metaphors, rather than essential attributes. It also prevented us from accounting for the super-god nature of the divine being sponsoring metallurgy. Nevertheless, this latter concept has proved to be productive in explaining the singularity of YHWH, the esoteric character of his former cult, and the emergence of the religion of Ancient Israel. METALLURGY AS A TRANSIENT REALITY IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT

The renewal of the copper industry was transient in the Southern Levant. It began in the thirteenth century BC with the collapse of the Cypriot industry, and ended in the late ninth century BC with its recovery. From this time on, the breakdown of the Arabah copper industry provoked the dissolution of the networks of production, transportation, metalworking, and trade of copper in the Southern Levant. By extension, it also weakened the fraternal alliance committing all the nations participating in the copper network to work together. The concomitant recovery of agriculture as the main source of wealth, as a consequence of the return of favorable climatic conditions, contributed to isolating these nations from one another. The transient character of the copper industry and its societal impact imply that many biblical sources mentioning this reality, though written centuries later, carry the memory of genuine events. As shown here, the birth of Israel occurred during a period of relative prosperity in the Southern Levant, a Golden Age contrasting with the global recession affecting the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. It is not surprising, therefore, that the memory of this blessed period of origins remained vivid in Israel, and was even exaggerated. The preservation of this memory for centuries probably had another motivation. In elevating the Israelites to the status of a new “society of God,” the Exodus–Conquest ideology transformed the original worship of YHWH.

THE SUPER-GOD DIMENSION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

In such a situation, the legitimacy of Israelite Yahwism depended at first on its ability to successfully integrate the former metallurgical dimension into its own religious system. This attempt might explain the curious representation of the miracle of the parting of the sea, the theological groundwork of the Exodus–Conquest ideology, as a cupellation process. It may also explain why the metallurgical dimension of ancient Yahwism is so blatant in the books of Exodus, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and even Zechariah. Like Moses performing the serpent–scepter transformation in order to ensure that he truly speaks in the name of YHWH, integrating the metallurgical component (or its volcanic counterpart) might have been perceived by some biblical authors as a prerequisite granting them legitimacy for promoting their own views, even at a time when the Yahwistic, metallurgical traditions became obsolete for the Israelites. THE SUPER-GOD DIMENSION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

One of the central issues of the present investigation was identifying YHWH as a super-god, a divine being transcending even the domain of gods. The examination of Aten in ancient Egypt reveals that this super-god dimension is not restricted to the religion of early Israel. Rather, it is seemingly a consequence of the interpretation of metallurgy as a creation/demiurgic process. This view transforms the furnace into the site of creation and rejuvenation of matter, the radiance of molten metal into the marker of their expression, and solid metal (mainly gold and copper) the result and marker of this holy process. The traces of these beliefs in Egypt, as early as the third millennium BC, together with the Levantine ascendant on Egyptian metallurgy, suggest that parallel concepts already existed in the Southern Levant before the Amorite period. Evincing the super-god dimension of YHWH has methodological consequences. First, it enables us to identify deities homolog to YHWH, such as the anonymous Egyptian god acknowledged in the Aten theophany. The information relative to these super-gods may contribute to understanding the nature and singularities of Primeval Yahwism. Also the arcane traditions relating to metallurgy in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean become invaluable sources for investigating the origin and meaning of some religious practices and festivals in ancient Israel. The parallel between Passover in Israel and the Theodaisia in Greece exemplifies this point. The super-god nature of YHWH also challenges many of the current assumptions concerning the importance of foreign influences on the emergence and evolution of the Israelite religion. A super-god cannot mix with other deities without losing his most essential attributes. It may explain why the characteristics of a super-god remain stable and only marginally influenced by the cult of other (classical) deities. Consequently, the literature and traditions

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attached to the gods from the Northern Levant, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Arabia, or the Aegean probably had less influence on the emergence and development of the early Israelite religion than is generally assumed. At best, the parallel traditions of the super-god in these cultures may echo and eventually contribute to the resurgence of their Levantine counterpart. Similarly, the expressions of the super-god character of YHWH in the oldest biblical writings (e.g., the Song of Deborah) challenge the premise of profound theological transformations in the figure of YHWH following the exile. This experience probably expanded the trend initiated with the Hezekiah and Josiah reforms that promoted the Exodus–Conquest ideology at the expense of Integrative Yahwism.1 However, the original dimension of YHWH as super-god indicates that modern research has overestimated the influence of exile on the conceptions of the deity. Indeed, most biblical authors display an outstanding conservatism in their approach to YHWH and his metallurgical background.2 This situation is probably based on the super-god nature of the patron of metallurgy, and his inability to coexist with any other divine being or religious tradition without denying his essence. Consequently, the religious creativity characterizing Israel does not result from the forging of previously ignored concepts about the divine. Instead, it resides in the attempt to metamorphose a whole people into the society of God, which implies introducing and explaining the esoteric knowledge required for accessing YHWH in public worship. Many of the Israelite theological novelties were probably conceived as solutions to the problems arising from this new situation. The Book of Exodus is a vast saga organized around this theme. Other theological novelties arise from the need to legitimize the Israelite position vis-à-vis the proponents of Primeval Yahwism, its esoteric dimension, and its metallurgical expressions. THE MULTIPLICITY OF YAHWISMS IN EARLY ISRAEL

Chapters 8 and 9 showed how identifying the many forms of Yahwism illuminates the content, message, and theological background of biblical sources. Such a distinction is not new, however. The Documentary Hypothesis acknowledges the coexistence of many religious trends in ancient Israel over a long period, including substantial divergences in the apprehension of YHWH, his relationship with Israel and with the other nations. The difference in theological background between the Yahwist (J) and Elohist (E) sources is an example of such a discrepancy. Here, a parallel emerges between the Yahwist source and the Exodus–Conquest ideology on the one hand, and between the Elohist cluster and Integrative Yahwism on the other.3 The present considerations offer a possible historical background, origin, and perspective for these so-called “redaction schools.”

THE MULTIPLICITY OF YAHWISMS IN EARLY ISRAEL

The segregation between J and E is not the only point of convergence with the present findings. Francolino Gonçalves, for example, identified a theology promoted by the kings of Israel and Judah, which focused on YHWH’s status as master of the universe and his revelation through the mere existence of his creation. Similarly, he acknowledged another minor form centered on the epic of Exodus, promoted by a group of nomad newcomers originating from the south.4 Other scholars identified these newcomers with the tribe of Ephraim, itself descendant from Amalek.5 The discovery in Southern Samaria (the territory of Ephraim) in the Early Iron Age of traces of the installation of smalls groups of apparently foreign origin is compatible with this premise.6 The present investigation suggests associating these small groups of southern newcomers with the transformations attested to in Timna, concomitant with the birth of Israel, and with the Exodus– Conquest ideology. The influence of these newcomers on the movement of emancipation and the coalescence of the Israelite tribes may account for the emergence of Integrative Yahwism, the Israelite religion organized around the super-god identity of YHWH. The diversity of opinions identified here integrates a long development of local traditions yielding no fewer than seven forms of Yahwism, four of them rooted in the Bronze Age (Primeval Yahwism, Distant Yahwism, Amoritized Yahwism, and Arabian shift) and three others arising in the Early Iron Age (Emancipation Yahwism, Exodus–Conquest ideology, and Integrative Yahwism). This diversity illuminates how the Yahwisms identified in early Israel might have emerged. The Exodus–Conquest ideology apparently emerged from a syncretism between Primeval Yahwism and the Arabian shift. The Book of Exodus displays this dual influence through the affinities of Moses, the forefather of the Exodus–Conquest ideology, with the Qenite universe and the territory of Midian. Integrative Yahwism looks like a hybrid here, between the Exodus–Conquest ideology and Emancipation Yahwism. The two Israelite Yahwisms detailed here share the same approach to YHWH as their national deity. But they also differ from all the other Yahwisms in the public use of his hidden name. They also differ from all their homologous beliefs (except perhaps for the Arabian shift) in the assumed closeness with YHWH that promoted Israel to the rank of a new society of God. In the Exodus–Conquest ideology, this status emerges from the transposition to the whole community (Israel) of the initiation process accompanying traditionally the apprenticeship of the metalworkers. These two doctrines differ concerning divine involvement in terrestrial affairs. It remains minimal in Integrative Yahwism, a doctrine conceived in the classical understanding of the deity as super-god. In this doctrine, YHWH’s remoteness is the reason the secondary deities are not only tolerated but even fully integrated in both cosmology and cult.

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The claim of YHWH’s direct intervention in history, combined with his super-god nature, is a characteristic of the Exodus–Conquest ideology apparently rooted in the Arabian shift and its volcanic acquaintances. In promoting such a novelty, the Exodus–Conquest ideology eradicated the need for intermediate deities between the super-god and his creation. This consequence might be the source of the exclusivist character of the cult of YHWH in this doctrine from its very origin. The unusual silence with respect to Moses in most biblical narratives reveals that the Exodus–Conquest ideology retained a relatively minor importance in early Israel. Rather, Integrative Yahwism was probably the dominant doctrine throughout the period of renewal of the Arabah copper industry. The saga around the figure of Elijah (1 Kings 17–19) confirms this premise, in revealing that the promoters of the alternative theology (the Exodus–Conquest ideology) remained marginalized in the early Israelite society. They were even persecuted for their subversive activity regarding the official theology inspired by Integrative Yahwism. Other prophets, such as Hosea and Amos, apparently extended this subversive trend regarding the official religion of the Northern Kingdom, in promoting a radical form of Yahwism that displayed a number of affinities with the Exodus–Conquest ideology. The accusations of “sins of idolatry” against the official religion in Israel and Judah probably express similar recriminations against Integrative Yahwism. Other biblical authors present a more nuanced opinion. For example, the Book of Exodus sets out the Exodus–Conquest ideology in a positive, universal fashion. However, it simultaneously undermines some of its core principles (the idea of divine intervention) and downgrades others (the transformation of Israel into the people of god), then transforms this ideology into a “theological utopia.” The same ambivalence characterizes the Elijah cycle. Its author acknowledges Elijah’s status as a “man of God,” identifies Mount Horeb as the site of divine revelation, and stresses a parallel between Elijah and Moses. At the same time, this author remains distant from the religious reforms advanced by Elijah, and even denounces the bloody radicalism of the promoters of the Exodus–Conquest ideology. THE EVOLUTION OF THE EARLY ISRAELITE RELIGION

The religious reforms of Jehu, Hezekiah, and Josiah all promoted the Exodus– Conquest ideology at the expense of Integrative Yahwism. The trigger for this evolution is probably the hybrid nature of Integrative Yahwism. In this synthesis of two contrasting approaches, the relative weight attached to each component evolved with time. With the collapse of the Arabah copper industry in the ninth century BC, the impact of Emancipation Yahwism on the

THE EVOLUTION OF THE EARLY ISRAELITE RELIGION

official doctrine of Israel probably decreased at the same time as the reduced cooperation between Israel and its neighbors. It is probably not coincidental that the first reforms promoting the Exodus– Conquest ideology emerged throughout the reign of Jehoshaphat (ca. 870–849 BC) in Judah and Jehu (ca. 842–815 BC) in Israel.7 Both reigns are contemporaneous of the decline of the copper industry in the Arabah valley. The erosion of the metallurgical background of the Israelite religion is another consequence of the collapse of the copper industry. Here too, this trend is identifiable in the Bible with events datable to the eighth century BC: • Copper altar: The Book of Kings reveals that the Judean king Ahaz (ca. 735–716 BC) replaced the copper altar in the Jerusalem temple, the artifact transforming the combustion of burnt offerings into metallurgical ritual, with a stone altar devoid of such metallurgical connotations (2 Kgs 16:10–16). The neutral way this event is exposed in Kings suggests that the metallurgical ascendancy on the cult of YHWH lost its importance from this time. Indeed, the copper altar was rehabilitated neither by the following Judean kings committed to Integrative Yahwism (such as Menasseh, Amon, Joachaz, Jehoiakim), nor by those promoting religious reforms inspired by the Exodus–Conquest ideology (Hezekiah, Josiah). This demise of the metallurgical component extended into the postexilic period, with copper being absent from the altar reconstructed by Ezra (Ezra 3:2–3).8 • Holiness of metals: Throughout the monarchic period, the symbolism and holiness of the various metals (revealed by their distribution in YHWH’s sanctuary) became gradually replaced by considerations of cost, prestige, and magnificence. This trend is evident in comparing the importance of metals in the holy sphere in various biblical sources.9 It confirms the gradual erosion of the metallurgical background of Israelite Yahwism. • The Passover festival: The Passover festival is a ceremonial transformation of Israel into the new “society of God” inspired by the metallurgical rituals and esoteric traditions. But its initiatory dimension and the main message of emancipation from the authority of gods and humans both disappear in the instructions relating to its celebration as enunciated in Deuteronomy (Deut 16:1–8). There, the Passover sacrifice is consecrated to YHWH (v. 2). As with other sacrifices, the portions eaten by the participants are boiled (v. 7) instead of being roasted (Ex 12:9).10 These prescriptions contrast with the initiatory dimension of Passover in Exodus, in which the roasting of the wholly eaten animal symbolized its sacrifice to the participants. • YHWH as supreme deity: The super-god dimension is an essential feature common to the ancient Yahwistic doctrines. But this special status disappears gradually. In Daniel, for example, the prophet describes YHWH being seated upon a fiery furnace (Dan 7:9–10). Although the metallurgical context is still

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identifiable in this description, YHWH is now approached in anthropomorphic fashion, as an old personage set on a throne, “his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool.” This downgrading process reaches its completion in the Maccabean period, when YHWH became identified with Zeus or Jupiter, the leader of the Greek and Roman pantheons deprived of a super-god dimension.11 • Downgrading of the metalworkers: While the second part of Isaiah virulently criticizes the metalworkers for producing statues of gods (Isa 40:18–21, 41:6–7), their closeness to YHWH remains unchallenged (e.g., Isa 54:16). At best, the author mocks them for combining an initiatory dimension that rejects the secondary deities (their own doctrine) with their contribution to the worship of secondary deities that characterized the official religion.12 A few centuries later, however, the metalworkers are not granted any closeness to YHWH (Sir 38:28, 38:31–34). This status now moves to the people studying the divine instructions, the Torah (Sir 39:1–11).

A process of forgetting YHWH’s original nature gradually attenuated the differences between Integrative Yahwism and the Exodus–Conquest ideology. It allowed for the compilation of writings that expressed distinct and even conflicting views, without necessarily perceiving the discord and inconsistencies their juxtaposition introduced. Such a situation promoted the collating of various sources and the gradual emergence of the biblical corpus. It also enabled the emergence of monotheism. In the perspective set out in this book, this belief reflects an erosion of the theological divergences between the various Yahwistic doctrines in Israel enabling their conjoining. It is a situation combining the survival of the framework of worship of YHWH as super-god with a loss of meaning of this notion, its significance, and the metallurgical background that was the basis of its expression. This new situation resolves the challenges inherent in the religion of Israel from its very beginning. It eliminates the controversy revolving around the question of the intervention of YHWH in history, the foremost source of divergence between the two main doctrines competing in early Israel. It also removes the problems identified in the promotion of Israel into a new society of God, in replacing its initiatory dimension by an act of faith. These simplifications generate a new type of doctrine organized around the worship of a god devoid of specificity and accorded every attribute, even the contrasting ones. In this new religious universe, YHWH becomes omnipresent but disconnected from the sensorial experience, beneficent and merciful but capable of anger and destruction, all-powerful but nonintervening, universal and distant but also close to his worshippers. These contrasts created a new background, the philosophical basis of two thousand years of religious thought of outstanding creativity. However, this issue does not authorize the transformation of

THE EVOLUTION OF THE EARLY ISRAELITE RELIGION

monotheism into the cornerstone of the investigation of the religion of ancient Israel, because it obfuscates a whole universe of beliefs that now remain to be rediscovered. NOTES 1 They also have further consequences, such as the surprising reintegration of the characters of the storm-god into the religion of Israel, probably under a Mesopotamian influence. See Amzallag 2021b (especially the conclusion chapter). 2 This conservatism is attested through the parallel between the metallurgical traditions from Antiquity and those observed in traditional Africa, thousands of years later. See McNutt 1990; Blakely 2006. 3 Other trends existing in early Israel (especially the Amoritized Yahwism) also found a substantial expression in the Bible, which was not exposed in this book. 4 Gonçalves 2008. 5 Lemardelé 2019: 78. The Amalekite origin of Ephraim is also suggested by Smith (2001: 145) and Benz (2016: 375). 6 For example, Rendsburg 1997: 437; Sparks 2007: 595–7, 606; Faust 2015: 467, 475–8; 2016: 170. 7 See 2 Chr 17:3–10 for Jehoshaphat and 2 Kgs 9:22, 10:19–28 concerning Jehu. See Amzallag 2016b concerning the theological reforms introduced by Jehoshaphat. 8 Not all biblical authors forgot this metallurgical dimension. The central importance of the copper altar is explicit in the Book of Exodus. Furthermore, the prophet Ezekiel identifies the demise of the copper altar and its consequences as a central feature leading to the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. See Amzallag 2021c. 9 Amzallag 2019a: 313–15. 10 Hamilton 2011: 182. 11 Simon 1976: 63–6. Josephus later accepted this homology. 12 Amzallag and Yona 2018b, 2019.

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SUBJECT INDEX

Aaron, 162, 175, 202, 243, 259, 268 Abel, 154 Abimelekh, 112 Abraham, 77, 105, 107, 112, 178, 180, 221, 240, 268 as Amorite leader, 70, 76–7, 88 divine promise, 78, 96–7 lineage, 96, 154 as local leader, 77 Abram. See Abraham Acco, 62 Achshaph, 29, 250 Ada, 153 Adad, 38, 66 Adad-Iškur. See Iškur Adam, 79, 204, 206 Aegean area, 123, 126, 128, 134, 137, 141, 271, 277, 278 metalworkers, 154 Afqa, 178 Africa, 123, 141 metallurgical traditions, 21, 283 Ahab, 261–5, 267 Ahaz, 281 Ahaziah, 263 Akhenaten, 176 Akhish, 118 Akko, 71, 137 Alalakh, 30 Alashia. See Cyprus Aleppo, 39, 40, 53, 63, 65, 72 Baal temple, 39, 40 Al-Jaw, 217 altar, copper, 162, 165, 232, 281 Amalek, 203, 279 and Israel, 257 Amalek, Mount, 203 Amalekites, 71 and Israel, 203 and YHWH, 248 origins, 203 Amarna, 143, 170 correspondence, 69, 71, 98, 122, 142, 271 inscriptions, 168 period, 168, 170 Ammon, 5, 96, 97, 99, 106, 107, 112, 113, 139, 184 emergence, 96, 98, 99, 138–9 ethnicity, 99

metallurgical impetus, 139 nation, 98, 104, 105, 126, 140 territory, 99, 100 and YHWH, 99, 109–10 Amon, king, 281 Amorite, 195, 240 Benjaminites, 64, 91 Bensimalites, 64 ethnicity, 31–3, 35, 61, 73 homeland, 31, 32, 39, 76, 77 ideology, 35, 40, 46, 49, 51, 60–2, 78, 119 kings, 72, 74 koiné, 31, 32, 36, 38–40, 46, 60, 72, 78, 87, 89, 113, 187, 191 religion, 35, 36, 39, 57, 58, 62, 78, 189 trade of metals, 33–5, 50, 61, 62 Amorite expansion, 32, 33, 46, 97, 166 Mesopotamia, 32 Northern Levant, 32, 33, 49 Southern Levant, 31, 33, 61, 71, 72, 76, 77, 89, 98, 120, 121, 138, 192, 224, 250, 275 Amorites, biblical, 16, 70–4, 99, 104, 105, 115, 250, 270 dominion, 71–2, 74, 103, 112 fatherhood of Israel, 70, 76–7, 115 as Israel enemies, 33, 98, 249–54, 270 kings, 72–4, 98, 100 Amos, 8, 112, 280 Amos, book of, 5, 106, 107, 211 Amun, 166 Amurru, 195 Anakim, 73, 74, 76, 90 Anat, 56, 189, 191, 194, 195, 250, 271 Anatolia, 40, 61, 73, 123, 126, 127, 173, 271 development, 31 religion, 19, 40, 53, 55, 73 Antiochus Epiphanes, 25 Anu, 92 Anzu, 217 Aphek, 120, 146 Apollo, 13 Apsu, 43, 66, 87 Arabah, 131, 133, 134, 136, 137, 152, 164, 190, 203, 209, 248 copper industry, 17, 30, 80, 127–31, 133, 134, 136–41, 151, 167, 171, 177, 200–2, 247, 275, 276, 280, 281

321

322

SUBJECT INDEX

Arabia, 157, 201, 209, 226, 278 Northwestern, 89, 122, 126, 133, 200, 209, 214, 247 Southern, 21, 55, 239 Arad, 30, 41, 60, 136 Aram, 112, 139 kingdom, 97 nation, 77 people, 76, 77, 97 and YHWH, 97 Ariane, 242 aridity, phase of, 30, 32–3, 123–5 Aristotle, 22, 174 Arnon, 115 river, 100, 103, 104, 138 valley, 98, 100 Arsay, 37 Asag, 217 Ashdod, 144 Asher, tribe of, 251 Asherah, 8, 58, 68, 79, 189 attributes, 190–1 and El, 188 identity, 188–9, 191 parallels with Hathor, 189–90 and YHWH, 5, 188, 191 Ashkelon, 29, 120, 121, 141, 177 Asia, central, 124, 173 Astarte, 55, 189, 194 Ataroth, 108, 117 Aten, 168, 170, 190, 277 and metallurgy, 168–70 solar affinities, 168 Atenism, 168, 170, 176 Athirat. See Asherah Athtar, 56, 58, 78, 254 Athtarat, 90 Athtart, 271 Avinoam, 251 Axial Age, 6 Baal of Carmel, 261–3, 268, 272 Baal Zaphon, 224, 225 Baal-Haddu, 16, 36, 38–40, 49, 51–3, 55–8, 61, 62, 78, 81–3, 187, 225, 247, 248, 252, 254, 262, 275 attributes, 36–8, 65, 86, 185, 252 company, 56 conquest, 50–1, 62, 252 iconography, 36 mythology, 49, 50–1, 55, 65, 66, 81, 82, 88, 94, 214 residence, 49, 50, 67, 68, 191 royal deity, 38, 65 struggle with the serpent, 65 Baal-Shamem, 272 Babylon, 11 empire, 24 king, 74, 107 kingdom, 84, 107, 109, 125 religion, 84, 85

Bacon, Francis, 1, 2, 14 Balaam, 12 Balkans, 123 Barak, 251 Bašar. See Bishri, Jebel Bashan, 72, 74, 139, 193, 217 Israelite conquest, 98, 100–101 kingdom, 74, 99, 101, 102 Beer Sheba, 30, 129, 134, 136–8 Benjamin, tribe of, 91, 251 Bet Anat, 137 Bet El, 270 Bet Misrim, 58 Bet Shan. See Beth Shean Bet Shemesh, 29, 58, 146 Beth Shean, 60, 120 Bezalel, 153 Bir Nasib, 151 Bishri, Jebel, 31, 63, 76 Bitnah, 226 Black Death, 124 Boaz, 139, 165, 217 Bouto, 177 Bozrah, 131 Byblos. See Gebal Cabul, land of, 111 Caesaria, 60 Cain, 15 curse, 153–4 lineage, 153, 172, 195 and YHWH, 153 Caleb, 136, 153 Canaan, 71, 75, 76, 78, 100, 112, 113, 121, 122, 220 Egyptian influence, 76, 120, 170 kings, 29, 69, 72, 74, 76, 77, 89, 120, 249, 250 peoples, 70, 72–5, 77, 113, 270 religion, 8, 19, 26, 83, 87, 88, 115, 275 settlement, 121–2 Caphtor. See Crete Carchemish, 72 Carites. See Philistines Carmel, Mount, 60, 117, 137, 139, 141, 249, 261, 262, 264, 266, 268, 272, 273 Cassius, Mount, 217 Caucasus, 31, 33, 73, 178, 193 metal network, 33 cauldron cultic, 164, 175 symbolism, 156, 164, 173, 175 cementation, 158, 159 chaos, 84–7, 224, 231, 247 Chaoskampf theory, 6, 26, 67, 84–8, 213, 224, 225 Cherit, 265 China, 173 Chinneroth, 250 Christianity, 7 Cilicia, 217

SUBJECT INDEX

Coffin Texts, 168, 169 copper. See Metallurgy Crete, 97, 112, 123, 126, 141, 166, 167, 232, 233, 242, 246 cupellation, 158, 159, 226, 227–9, 277 Cush people, 97 and YHWH, 97 Cyclops, 160, 174 Cyprus, 49, 123, 124, 126, 143, 195 copper industry, 30, 124, 127–9, 131, 141, 276 iconography, 49 network of trade, 49 religious traditions, 46 Cyrus, 152, 193 Dactyloi, 232 Dagan, 36, 56, 62, 78, 91, 144, 187, 192, 247 attributes, 39 cult, 36, 39 temple, 39, 65 Damascus, 121 Dan, tribe of, 80, 251 Daniel, book of, 8, 281 Darcy–Weisbach, law of, 174 Dark Age, 123, 125, 127, 136, 141 David, 73, 97, 112, 213 dynasty, 82, 93 king, 85, 91, 97, 179 Debir, 136 Deborah, 270, 271 Deborah, song of, 4, 163, 203, 212, 249–56, 270, 278 Decalogue, 235, 257, 258, 260 and esoteric traditions, 236–8 and metallurgical traditions, 239 singularities, 236 Dedan, 209 Deir Alla, 139, 140, 234 Deir el-Balah, 120 Deuteronomist, 245 corpus, 11, 24 school, 260, 261 Deuteronomy, book of, 2, 98–101, 114, 152, 163, 213, 240, 244, 245, 260, 271, 274, 281 Dilmun, 41, 46, 49, 58 Dionysus, 13, 226 and metallurgy, 232 mysteries, 13, 232 and YHWH, 13 Ditannu, congregation of, 74 divine council, 110 in Israel, 8, 79, 179 in Ugarit, 187 Documentary Hypothesis, 269, 278 Dor, 137, 139 Ea, 43, 50, 185, See also Enki Ebla, 30, 31, 39, 63, 66, 195

323

Eden, garden of, 79, 110, 186, 204, 207, 208, 211, 214 mountain location, 204, 207 oasis location, 204–7, 269 Edom, 5, 15, 19, 97, 99, 106, 107, 112, 131, 171, 193, 248, 252, See also Seir copper industry, 131, 201, 247 destruction, 24 emergence, 96, 98 ethnicity, 136, 201 land, 92 nation, 98, 126, 130–1 and YHWH, 19, 97, 99, 111, 252 Edrei, 90 Eglon, 72 Egypt, 15, 55, 60, 61, 75, 76, 121, 123, 124, 134, 166, 177, 246, 277, 278 army, 256, 257 kings, 43, 125 land, 11, 43, 53 metal industry, 131, 158, 166, 277 religion, 41, 43, 72, 80, 85, 132, 166–70, 195, 277 and YHWH, 107 Ehud, 271 Eilat, 177 Ein Samiya, 58 Ekron, 118 El, 178, 180, 199 in the Bible, 183 in the Southern Levant, 87, 91, 180, 184–6, 191, 247 in Ugarit, 49, 57, 179, 184–8, 190–2 and YHWH, 178, 180–4, 186, 192 El, sons of, 50, 51, 53, 56, 68 El, in Ugarit, 49, 56 Elam, 46, 49, 58, 69 iconography, 43, 45 religion, 42, 45 and YHWH, 107 Elat. See Asherah Eleazar, 101, 162 Elijah, 249, 270, 280 at Mount Horeb, 266–8 trial on Mount Carmel, 261–6 Eliphaz, 201, 203 Elisha, 267 Eloah. See El Elohim, 156, 179–82, 236, 268, 269, See also El Elohist, 270 cluster, 269, 270, 278 school, 270 theology, 269, 270 Elyon. See El emancipation, movement of, 70, 75–8, 96–9, 113, 122, 123, 171, 200, 224, 240, 252, 270, 275, 276, 279 and YHWH, 99, 113, 252, 260 Emar, 31, 39 Emim, 98 Enki, 43, 52, 87, 214, See also Ea Enlil, 39, 52

324

SUBJECT INDEX

Enoch, book of, 8 Enuma Elish, 66, 67, 84, 85, 88, 217, 241 Ephraim, tribe of, 251 and Amalek, 203, 279 in early Israel, 203, 248, 270 settlement, 279 Esau, 76, 96, 99, 111, 140, 158, 201, 234, 235, 248, 249 Eshmun, 91 Eshnuna, 43 Etna, 160, 174, 208 Euphrates, 71, 96, 193 Middle, 39 Upper, 19, 31, 33, 39, 74, 76, 123, 178, 185 Eve, 79 Exile, Babylonian, 5, 6, 10–12, 76, 88, 278 crisis of, 6, 8, 11 Judeans in, 11, 76 Exodus, book of, 2, 162–5, 203, 207, 213, 220, 221, 229, 240, 249, 255–60, 268, 278–80, 283 Exodus, epos of, 70, 75, 81, 83, 122, 123, 199, 203, 222, 223, 231, 239, 240, 244, 279 Ezekiel, 283 Ezekiel, book of, 88, 155, 248, 277 Ezra, 281 Faynan, 80, 127 copper industry, 127, 129, 131, 151, 201 flood, 86 fraternal alliance, 106–7, 109, 110, 112–15, 141, 161, 171, 186, 192, 201, 247, 249, 276 Gad, tribe of, 98, 101–3, 139, 251 Galilee, 121 sea of, 137 Gath, 112, 137, 146 Gaza, 137, 141, 144 Gebal, 189, 195 Genesis, book of, 70, 76, 77, 79, 84, 96, 154, 269 Gezer, 58, 60, 120, 121 Ghassulian culture, 20 metallurgy, 20, 129, 171 Gihon, 204 Gilead, 101, 116, 251, 264 Gilgamesh, epic of, 66 Girgashites, 71, 89 Gišbanda, 43 Golan, 98, 217 gold, 33, 156, 158, 167–9, 186, 227, 277 purification, 158–9 Golden Calf, 162, 243, 259, 268 Goliath, 112 Greece, ancient, 123, 125, 127, 173 metallurgical traditions, 21, 154, 232–3, 277 mythology, 208 pantheon, 282 philosophy, 6 griffin, 60

Gudea, 26 Gupn, 37 Habur, 115 Hala’ al-Badr, 217 Hammam et-Turkam, 63 Hammurabi, 74 Haror, 29 Harran, 76, 77 Harrat al-Uwayrid, 209 Harrat ar-Raha, 209, 217 Harrat Rahat, 209 Hathor, 58, 132, 189–91, 200 attributes, 190 cult, 200 and mining, 131, 189–90 as mediator, 190, 191 Hatra, 185 Hatti, 73 Hattusa, 39, 185 Hazael, 267 Hazor, 29, 58, 62, 63, 72, 119, 121, 137, 141, 250 Hebron, 72, 74, 77, 136 Ḫ edammu, 40 Hellenistic period, 6, 7, 8 Hephaestus, 160, 166, 175, 226, 242, 243 Hermon, Mount, 82, 178, 205, 250 Heshbon, kingdom of, 98, 99, 102, 103, 105, 113, 114, 139, 274 Israelite conquest, 100–101, 103, 105 Moabite territory, 103–5 Hesiod, 174, 208 Hezekiah, 164 religious reform, 8, 79, 188, 260, 278, 280, 281 Hiram, 111 Hittites, 39, 69, 90, 124, 126, 185 in the Bible, 71, 73, 89, 250, 259 in the Southern Levant, 69, 73 kingdom, 65, 123, 124, 143 religion, 38, 53, 217 Hivites, 71, 89, 250, 259 Hor, Mount, 152 Horeb, Mount, 98, 162, 175, 202, 215, 217, 257, 266–80 Horus, 195 Hosea, prophet, 8, 248, 280 Hosea, book of, 5 Hurrians, 69, 116 ethnicity, 33, 61, 72 history, 69 metal network, 33 religion, 38, 39, 65 ibex, iconography, 42, 49 Ibni-Adad, 72 Ida, Mount, 242 Illuyankas, 217 India, 124 Inshushinak, 66

SUBJECT INDEX

Ir-ta, 43 Isaac, 77, 111, 112, 178, 221, 268 Isaiah, 79 Isaiah, book of, 5, 6, 11, 79, 80, 88, 105, 110, 170, 245, 248, 277, 282 Isis, 189 Iškur, 51–3 Islam, 7 Israel. See Jacob Israel, ancient, 1, 4, 5, 7, 11–5, 19, 20, 72, 88, 108, 109, 112, 146, 209 nation, 82 territory, 11, 80, 96, 152 Israel, emergence of, 2, 17–19, 70–2, 75, 77, 78, 81, 83, 89, 96–8, 113, 119, 126, 127 conquest narrative, 71, 73–5, 98–101, 103, 104, 110, 113, 114, 203 ethnicity, 89 metallurgical impetus, 139–40, 250–2, 276 political organization, 249–50 settlement, 121–3 Israel, Northern Kingdom, 106, 137, 261–4, 267, 270, 279–81 Israel, religion of, 1–6, 8–10, 12, 13, 16–8, 20, 21, 70, 71, 75, 79, 85, 115, 170, 181, 222–3, 260 Amorite influence, 76, 84, 88 anti-Edomite ideology, 19, 248–9 Canaanite influences, 19–20, 83, 84, 88 early expressions, 17 exclusiveness, 12, 97, 98, 109, 180, 184, 268, 269 festivals, 16, 84, 230–1, 277, 267 Mesopotamian influences, 19–20, 85, 88 Midianite influence, 207, 209–11 people of YHWH, 12, 19, 113, 114, 199, 203, 207, 212, 214, 220, 229, 230, 235, 240, 245, 247, 248, 253, 255, 257–9, 276, 279, 282 sanctuaries, 18, 108, 164–5, 201–3, 207–8 Issachar, tribe of, 251 Italia, 173 Jabal al-Lawz, 217 Jabbok, 100, 104, 233, 235 Jabin, 72, 250, 251 Jacob, 76, 77, 96, 111, 158, 178, 180, 181, 221, 233–5, 237, 245, 249, 251, 268 transformation into Israel, 140, 233–5 Jael, 250, 252, 254 Jaffa, 120, 183 Jahaz, 100 Janus, 173 Jarmuth, 72 Jebusites, 71, 89, 118, 250, 259 Jehoiakim, 281 Jehoshaphat, 117, 263, 281 Jehu, 267, 270, 281 Jephthah, 104, 110 Jerahmaelites, 136, 146 Jeremiah, 107

325

Jeremiah, book of, 5, 11–12, 88, 105, 107, 209, 274 Jericho, 58 Jerusalem, 5, 11, 24, 29, 72, 73, 81, 94, 107, 109, 110, 139, 146, 180, 204, 245 Jerusalem temple, 8, 18, 25, 110, 112 cult, 79, 111, 162, 188, 202, 281 destruction, 10, 11 post-exilic, 11 symbolism, 164–5, 207–8, 226 Jethro, 136, 153, 162, 202, 215 Jezabel, 262, 264, 265 Jezreel, 262, 264 pathway, 137, 139, 140, 146, 250–2 valley, 72, 119–21, 139, 140, 142, 250, 270 Joachaz, 281 Job, book of, 8, 12, 78, 111, 157, 209 Jobab, 250 Jokneam, 119 Jonah, book of, 183–4, 222 Jordan river, 72, 101–4, 139, 228, 241 valley, 71, 75, 96, 98, 101, 120, 121, 127, 137, 139 Joshua, prophet, 16, 103, 202, 203, 215, 257 Joshua, book of, 71, 72, 103, 114, 121 Josiah, 5 religious reform, 5–6, 8, 24, 188, 260, 278, 280, 281 Judah, 6, 118 kingdom, 10, 11, 82, 85, 88, 106, 107, 137, 279, 281 tribe, 136 Judaism, 7, 13 Judea, 134, 136 emergence, 136 ethnicity, 136 metallurgical impetus, 134–6, 138 people, 6, 11, 110 Judges, book of, 71, 72, 110, 250, 270 Jupiter, 13, 282 Justinian plague, 124 ka, 166, 240 Kaberoi, 154, 232, 233, 242 Kanesh, 40 Karak plateau, 138, 146 Karatepe, 185 Karet, 186, 190 Kassite kingdom, 123 Kemoš, 108–10 Kenites. See Qenites Keret, 193, 196 kerubim, 92 Khirbet el Qom, 5, 188 King’s Highway, 137–9, 250, 251 Kings, book of, 18, 139, 164, 165, 188, 202, 208, 260, 261, 281 composition, 24 Kinyras, 195 Kir, 97, 112 Kir-Hareseth, 108

326

SUBJECT INDEX

Kishon, 254 kispu ritual, 90 Korybantes, 232 Kothar, 50, 51, 67, 165–6, 185, 186, 192, 195, 196 Kotharot, 186, 195 Kouretes, 232 Kra, 217 Kumarbi, 40, 56 Kummani, 65 Kuntillet Ajrud, 5, 111, 185, 188, 191 Lachish, 72, 119 Ladon, 91 Laish, 29 Larsa, 43 Lebanon, 72, 121, 139 Lemnos, 154, 175, 232 Levant, Northern, 40, 46, 60, 61, 84, 127 religion, 19 urbanization, 31, 123 Levant, Southern, 20, 49, 58, 60, 61, 70, 72, 119, 125, 126, 200 copper industry, 19, 20, 30, 31, 127, 247, 275 Egyptian control, 61, 76, 113, 120 metalworkers. See Qenites network of trade, 30, 250 religion, 41, 84, 97, 111, 113, 132, 138, 171, 184, 191, 201, 233, 246, 247, 248 urbanization, 29–31, 63, 126 Leviathan, 78, 79, 81 Leviticus, book of, 165 Libya, 121 Lipari, 160 Litan, 40, 57, 78, 81 Lot, 96 Lothan, 201 Maadi, 177 Maat, 166, 189, 190 Machir. See Menasseh Madon, 250 Mahanaim, 140, 234 Malachi, book of, 8, 12, 111, 249 Manasseh, tribe of, 98, 101–3 Marduk, 87 conflict with Tiamat, 40, 81, 84, 86 Mari, 30, 39, 40, 63, 65, 72, 91 Masafi, 226 Mediterranean area, 112, 123, 124, 126, 140, 141, 171, 184, 208, 209, 263, 276 network of trade, 49, 129, 137, 140, 141 shore, 71, 134, 136, 137, 139, 250 Megiddo, 29, 41, 58, 60, 63, 119, 137, 249, 254 Mehen, 41, 169, 175 Melqart, 111, 196, 263 Memphis, 168, 190 theology, 43, 166–8 Menasseh, king, 281

Menasseh, tribe of, 251 Merneptah king, 120 stele, 119, 120 Merom, 250 Meroz, 253 Mesha king, 105, 108 stele, 105, 108 Mesopotamia, 32, 38, 40, 41, 45, 46, 53, 55, 60, 123, 158, 185, 195, 204, 278 Northern, 19, 32, 76 Southern, 32, 33, 39, 51, 52 metallurgy, 21, 49, 127, 134 cultural dimension, 21, 49, 132, 134, 162, 163, 165, 167, 185, 187, 190, 192, 200, 202, 207, 226, 240, 275–7, 282, See also volcanism development, 128–9 esoteric traditions, 21, 26, 154, 232–3, 235, 239, 277 miners and metalworkers, 21 techniques, 69, 129, 133, 245 metallurgy, gods of, 21, 49, 151, 156, 276 smelting god, 14, 15, 21, 22, 157, 167 smith god, 50, 160, 165–6, 186 Micah, prophet, 8 Micah, book of, 5 Micaiah, 263 Midian, 12, 201, 202 and YHWH, 202, 207, 220, 279 migdal temple, 29, 30, 35, 36, 38, 39, 62 Milkom, 110, 196 Mitanni, kingdom of, 69, 72 Mizpah, 24, 250 Moab, 5, 12, 96, 97, 99, 103, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112, 113, 139 emergence, 96, 98, 99, 138 ethnicity, 99 metallurgical impetus, 138 nation, 98, 103–6, 110, 126 and YHWH, 99, 105, 107–10 monolatry, 23 monotheism, 2, 4–6, 10–11, 14, 275, 283 categories of, 6 definition, 3–4, 6–8, 12, 13 emergence of, 2–5, 7–9, 11, 12, 18, 20, 282 Moses, 5, 71, 74, 79, 100–3, 125, 153, 162–5, 175, 202, 203, 221, 230, 236, 238, 255–60, 267, 268, 277, 279, 280 encounter with YHWH, 2, 159, 202, 211, 221–2 Moses, song of, 180–1, 251 Mot, 55 Mursili, 124 Mušmahhu, 41 mysteria, 154 Nahal Amram, 127 Nahal Besor, 137

SUBJECT INDEX

Nahal Mishmar, hoard, 129 Nahar, 81, 82 Nahor, 76 Naphtali, tribe of, 251 nazir, 109 Negev, 71, 89, 126, 129, 131, 134, 136, 137, 152, 203 Nehushtan, 79, 164, 202 Nephilim, 74 New Year festival autumn, 19–20, 84, 92, 94 spring, 16 Nile, 96, 123, 257 delta, 126, 142 valley, 124, 167, 171, 177, 190 Ninazu, 43, 66 Ningirsu, 67 Ningizzida, 26, 43, 66, 91, 92 Ninhursag, 214 Ninurta, 67, 217 Nippur, 43 Niqmaddu dynasty, 67 Nubia, 195 Numbers, book of, 71, 100–4, 114 Nun, 176 Nusku, 26 Nut, 189 Nuzi, 39 Obot, 152 Og, 98–101, See also Bashan Olympus, Mount, 172, 242, 243 Omri, dynasty, 8, 267 Orontes, 144, 217 Othniel, 136, 153, 271 Pabel, 186, 193 Palmyra, 185 Paran, Mount, 151, 152, 178 Passover celebration, 230, 231, 235, 237, 257, 277, 281 and Jacob struggle, 233–4 and metallurgical traditions, 232–3 as rite of passage, 231 instructions, 231 sacrifice, 230–1 Penuel, 140, 234 Perizzites, 71, 89, 250, 259 Persia, 278 Persian period, 6, 7, 8 Philistines, 5, 74, 97, 113, 125, 134, 144, 146 emergence, 96 metallurgical impetus, 136–8, 141 origin, 97, 113, 126, 209 settlement, 126, 127 and YHWH, 97, 112–13 Phoenicia, 5, 25, 111, 137, 185, 265 colonies, 184, 209 development, 140–1, 251

metallurgical network, 141, 251 religion, 192 and YHWH, 110–1 Pidray, 37 Plutarch, 13 Polyphemus, 174 polytheism, 3, 4, 7–10, 12, 18, 20, 181 Prometheus, 154 Promised Land, 96, 99, 101, 270 as mining area, 152 boundaries, 100–105 conquest, 98, 100–102, 113, 114, 121, 203 entry of the Israelites, 102, 103 Proverbs, book of, 8, 191 Ptah, 26, 43, 166–8, 190, 195, 240 Punon. See Faynan Qadesh, battle of, 89 Qatna, 72 Qedesh, 119 Qenite hypothesis, 14–5, 152 Qenites, 15, 154, 162, 215, 252 as metallurgists, 15, 153 clans, 136, 146, 247 traditions, 15, 16, 154, 279 and YHWH, 15, 19, 152–3 Qenizzites, 136, 146, 153 Qorah, 112, 162 Qos, 111, 117, 118 Qurayyah, 133, 200, 201 metallurgy, 133 ware, 133, 134, 137, 200, 202 Ra, 41 Rahab, 82, 83 Ramses III, 126 Re, 166, 169 Rehov, 29 Rekhabites, 109, 136, 153, 247 Rephaim, 76, 144 in the Bible, 73, 74, 90, 99 in Ugarit, 73–4 Resheph, 56, 254 Reuben, tribe of, 98, 101–3, 139, 251 Rhodes, 175 rite of passage, 231–4, 240 Rome, 13 religion, 13, 160, 282 Sabazius, 13 Sabbath, observance of, 236, 239 Samaria, 72, 121, 122, 126, 139, 140, 263, 279 Samothrace, 154, 172, 232 Samuel, book of, 272 Sapan, Mount, 64 Sarug, 76 scorpion, iconography, 42 Sea of Copper, 139, 164, 226 Sea Peoples, 124, 126, 142–4

327

328

SUBJECT INDEX

Sea, partition of the, 222–4, 228, 257, 277 interpretations, 224–5 modus operandi, 225–9 Sea, song of the, 88, 223, 224, 229, 239, 240, 256 Seir forefather, 201, 203 people, 113, 131, 140 Seir, Mount, 98, 99, 111, 151, 178, 205, 212, 234, 235, 252 Sekhmet, 189 Seneca, 174 Serabit el Khadem, 151, 189 seraphim, 79, 80, 92 serpent, 60, 67, 78, 91 and chaos, 49, 84, 85, 247 copper-made, 60, 61, 79, 80, 132, 162, 164, 200, 202 cosmic, 6, 40, 41, 57, 169, 175 holiness, 41–5, 61, 79 iconography, 36, 41–9, 56–62 and metallurgy, 49, 80, 162–3, 169, 226, 277 as protector, 41, 49, 79, 80, 88, 152 and the storm god, 40, 52, 53, 58, 60, 85, 88 symbolism, 41–2, 45, 58, 62, 66, 78, 87, 169, 189 serpent, and YHWH, 115 as emissary, 78–80, 152 enmity, 78, 80–3 serpent-god, 26, 91 Seth, 53, 61, 99, 154 Sethlans, 160 Shadday. See El Shahar and Shalim, 68 Shamgar, 250, 271 Shasus, 122, 131, 138, 139, 146 Shechem, 29, 58, 60, 62, 63, 119, 180, 235 Shephelah, 134, 136, 137, 146 Shiloh, 203 Shimeathites, 136 Shimron, 250 Shu, 166 Siddon, 96, 107 Sihon, 98–104, See also Heshbon, kingdom of silver, 33, 157, 158, 167, 186, 227, 228, 250, 254 Sinai, 89, 122, 151, 177, 178, 188, 217, 252, 267 copper industry, 129, 152, 171, 189 covenant, 183, 207, 235, 236, 238 theophany, 163–4, 209, 211–14, 223, 235, 239, 252, 257, 266, See also YHWH Sisera, 250–2, 254, 270 Snefru, 189 Solomon, 111 Spain, 141 storm god, 14, 15, 19, 22, 40, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 87 Amorite, 36–40, 46, 50–1, 56, 58, 66, 67, 80, 82, 87, 94, 225, See also Baal-Haddu conflict with the serpent, 40–1, 49, 50, 58, 60, 62, 78, 80–3 pre-Amorite, 51–6, 58, 67, 68, 78, 254 Subat-Enlil, 63

Sucathites, 136 Sukkot area, 139, 140, 234 Sukkot, festival, 25, 26 sun, 12 and Aten, 170 and metallurgy, 156, 168, 169 radiance, 156, 170 symbolism, 156, 169, 173 and YHWH, 156, 170, 253 super-god, 167–71, 179, 182, 186–8, 190–2, 199, 209–11, 214, 215, 220, 223, 229, 238, 239, 245–7, 249, 253, 255–7, 263, 265, 267–9, 276–82 Susa, 43, 66, 69 Syria, 267 Northern, 30–3, 35, 38–40, 72–4, 97, 121, 126, 144 Ta’anach, 119, 249 Tabernacle, 18, 25, 153, 165, 207, 258–60 Tabor, 82 Tabuk, volcanic field, 217 Tallay, 37 Tannin, 81–3 Tarḫuna, 38, 53, 65 Taru, 53 Tayma, 209 Tefnut, 166, 189 Tel Dan, 41, 60, 227 Tel Kabri, 62 Tel Kitan, 29 Tel Masos, 134 Telchines, 232, 233 Tell el-Dab’a, 63 Terah, 76 Terqa, 39, 65 Teššub, 38, 39, 40, 50, 56 Thebes, 232, 243 Thebez, 62 Theodaisia, 232, 277 Thera, 208 Tiamat, 40, 81, 84, 86, 87, 241 Tigris, Upper, 31 Timna, 195, 201, 203, 243 Timna, area, 127, 133, 152, 200, 201, 203, 207, 248, 279 copper production, 131, 201 Hathor chapel, 132 tent-sanctuary, 132, 133, 200–2 tin, 33, 50 Tirahites, 136 Tirzah, 119 Titans, 208 Torah, 282 transition period, 119–27, 141 Tubal Cain, 153 Tunip, 39 Tutul, 31, 39 Typhon, 208, 217 Tyre, 96, 106, 107, 110, 111, 137, 140, 141, 146, 185, 190, 263

SUBJECT INDEX

colonies, 141, 263 king of, 112 metallurgical network, 141 and YHWH, 110–11 Uadjet, 43 Udum, 186, 190, 193 Ugar, 37 Ugarit, 30, 56–8, 69 history, 35–6, 126, 141 network of trade, 35, 50, 57 royal dynasty, 35, 73 Ugarit religion, 35–40, 56–8, 165, 166, 185 mythology, 40, 49–51, 53, 55–7, 78, 81, 82, 84, 86, 166, 187, 190–1, 253, 254 pantheon, 179, 184, 186–9 temples, 36, 39, 68, See also migdal temple Umma, 43 Ur, 41, 43 uraeus, 41, 80, 92, 168, 169 Uri, 153 Uriah, 73 Uruk, 43 Velkhanos, 26, 166, 167, 232, 242 Venus, 55 volcanism and metallurgy, 160 areas, 208, 209, 217, 247 storm volcano, 212–14 and YHWH, 20, 86, 87, 157, 159–61, 163–64, 202, 209–11, 213–14, 223, 266 Vulcan, 160, 243 Wadi Megara, 151 Wadi Mujib, 138 Wisdom, Lady, 8, 191 Yahwism, 4, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21, 207, 208, 212, 214, 220, 229, 275 Amoritized Yahwism, 246–8, 279, 283 Arabian shift, 214, 247, 248, 266, 279, 280 Distant Yahwism, 246, 247, 279 Emancipation Yahwism, 247–9, 253, 255, 260, 266, 270, 279, 280 Exodus-Conquest ideology, 70, 203, 220, 229, 236, 239, 245–9, 252, 253, 255–7, 260, 261, 263–70, 276–82 Integrative Yahwism, 249, 255, 257, 261, 263, 264, 266, 268–70, 278–82 Primeval Yahwism, 246–8, 266, 277–9 Yahwist, 270 source, 269, 270, 278 theology, 269

329

Yakhin, 139, 165, 217 Yam, 40, 49–51, 57, 67, 81, 82, 94 Yano’am, 121 Yaqarum, 35, 74 Yavneh-Yam, 62 Yenoam, 137 YHWH, 2, 8, 101, 102, 276 ark of, 125 as storm god, 15, 16, 17, 19, 26, 81–6, 93, 156, 212–14, 218, 225, 247, 272, 276 attributes, 78, 79, 81–3, 179, 221–2 Baal-like affinities, 15, 16, 83, 86, 88, 115, 247, 248, 253 dominion, 151 former identity, 8, 10, 13, 21, 78, 85, 276 ka¯bo ̑d, 155–6, 163, 165, 170, 202, 207, 258 metallurgical background, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 151, 155–62, 165, 171, 208, 232, 276, 278 modus operandi, 211, 213, 214, 222–9, 245 names, 83, 178, 183, 184, 238, 239, 253, 268–9 nature, 2, 179, 214, 223, 238, 239, 245, 246, 256, 269, 277 origin, 15–6, 115, 122, 252 residence, 179, 204, 258–60 theophany, 2, 20, 85–7, 163–4, 185, 209, 211–4, 266 YHWH, worship of, 5, 122 among nations, 12–3, 98 encounter with, 202 esoteric traditions, 229–38, 240, 266, 276 in Israel, 16, 186, 199–200 YHWH’s commitment, 203 fraternal alliance, 106, 107, 113, 115, 186 Israel, 81, 82, 85, 97, 101–3, 107–8, 125, 181, 203 metalworkers, 152–5, 163, 200, See also Qenites movement of emancipation, 105, 151 nations, 103, 105, 107–8 YHWH’s representatives, 8, 258 divine emissary, 8, 113, 256, 263, 269 human emissaries, 12, 113, 238, 256, 258 Zalmon, Mount, 205 Zalmonah, 152 Zamzumim, 98 Zaphon, Mount, 205 Zarephath, 265 Zebulun, tribe of, 251 Zechariah, book of, 8, 277 Zeus, 208, 282 Zilla, 153 Zion hymns of, 87 theology, 9, 204 Zoroastrianism, 6

SCRIPTURE INDEX

Genesis 1:1–2:3, 269 1:2, 85 1:3, 170 1:9–10, 240 1:16–18, 170 1:21, 79 1:25, 79 2:1–3, 209 2:5, 205 2:6, 205, 206, 216 2:6–9, 206 2:9, 216 2:10–12, 186 2:10–14, 204, 205, 206 2:11–12, 194 2:16–17, 204 3:7, 205 3:14, 78 3:14–15, 79 3:24, 208 4:1, 153 4:3–4, 153 4:11–14, 15 4:12, 212 4:14, 154 4:15, 153, 154 4:19–21, 195 4:19–22, 153 4:22, 15, 153 6:4, 74 9:13–16, 218 10:15, 90 11:31, 76 11:32, 76 12:1–5, 77 12:5, 76 12:6, 77 13:1–2, 77 13:6–12, 77 13:7, 77 14:6, 171 14:7, 215 14:13, 74 14:14, 77 14:19, 180

14:22, 180 14:22–24, 77 14:24, 77 15:11, 173 15:16–21, 89 15:18, 97 15:19–21, 73, 89, 154 15:21, 90 17:4, 112 17:10, 112 19:30–38, 115 20:3, 193 20:3–7, 112 20:4, 112 20:6, 193 20:15, 77 21:22–23, 112 21:25, 77 25:20, 76 25:25–26, 173 26:28, 112 27:29, 111, 118 27:43, 76 28:5, 76 28:10, 76 28:12–22, 234 29:31, 221 30:22, 221 31:11, 193 31:13, 234 31:20–24, 76 31:24, 193 32, 233–34 32:1–3, 235 32:29–31, 140 33:1, 140 33:10, 140, 235 33:12–14, 140 33:12–16, 235 33:17, 140 33:17–20, 235 36:11, 111, 146 36:12, 201, 203 36:15, 111, 136, 146 36:20–21, 201 36:20–22, 203

331

332

SCRIPTURE INDEX

36:22, 201 36:40, 201 36:42, 111, 136, 146 38:29, 173 40:8, 193 49:13, 251 49:17, 80 49:18, 80 49:21, 251 Exodus 1:1–3:14, 268 1:13–14, 230 1:16, 230 1:17, 221 1:21, 221 1:22, 230 2:23–24, 221 3:1, 202, 216 3:2–3, 2 3:2–4, 268 3:3, 162 3:5, 231 3:6, 221 3:7, 221, 268 3:8, 89, 90, 172 3:9, 240 3:12, 216 3:13–14, 220 3:15, 220 3:15–18, 221 3:16–4:31, 269 3:17, 89, 90, 172 4:1, 221 4:1–5, 163 4:1–9, 163, 222 4:2–9, 221 4:5, 221 4:6, 175 4:7, 175 4:8, 163 4:20, 269 4:27, 216, 269 5:1, 220 5:3, 221 5:6–19, 230 5:9, 220 5:17, 221 6:3, 153, 178, 183, 221 6:7, 183 7:9–11, 175 9:23–24, 218 12:1–27, 230–3 12:2, 26 12:9, 281 12:46, 231 13:1, 221 13:5, 89, 172 13:15, 90 13:21, 175

14:1–2, 224 14:3–4, 225 14:8, 225 14:9, 224 14:13–17, 255–6 14:16, 241 14:19, 256 14:21, 241 14:21–22, 224 14:26–28, 256 15:1–21, 88, 223, 225–8, 240, 255 15:8, 224 15:9, 229 15:25, 256 16:3, 221 16:7, 155 16:10, 175 17:2–3, 256 17:5–6, 257 17:8, 203, 215 17:8–16, 257 17:9–13, 203 17:14, 248 18:5, 202, 216 18:7, 215 18:8–9, 201 18:10–12, 172 18:12, 202, 215 18:13, 215 18:14–23, 202 18:15, 201 19:8–9, 235 19:16, 212 19:16–19, 163, 185, 209, 212 19:18, 164 20:1–17, 235–9, 258, 260 20:18, 218 20:18–19, 163, 211, 258, 259 20:20–21, 258 20:21, 218 20:21–22, 259 20:21–23:3, 236 20:22, 243 20:22–23:19, 258, 259, 260 20:23, 243 20:24, 230 22:28, 258 22:31, 265 23:16, 92 23:20–21, 258 23:23, 89, 90, 172 23:28, 90 24, 2 24:4–8, 259 24:9–11, 259 24:11, 259 24:12, 259 24:15–18, 212 24:17, 156, 163

SCRIPTURE INDEX

24:18, 267 25:1–30:38, 259 26:31–33, 208 27:1–2, 259 29:31, 242 30:18–21, 175 30:28, 165 31:1–5, 153 31:9, 165 32, 259–60 32:1–4, 243 32:4, 162 32:5, 243 32:24, 172 32:26–28, 268 32:27, 268 32:28, 268 33:2, 89, 172 33:7, 215 33:7–11, 201 33:9, 202 33:11, 202, 215 33:12–14, 234 33:13, 260 33:14, 260 33:17, 260 33:22, 268 33:22–23, 172 33:23, 268 34:6, 159, 193 34:10, 260 34:11, 89, 172 34:14, 160 34:18–26, 260 34:28, 268 35:1–5, 260 35:2, 239 35:3, 239 35:6, 260 35:16, 165 38:1, 165 40:6, 165 40:10, 165 40:29, 165 40:30, 175 40:34–38, 258 40:36–38, 175 Leviticus 4:18, 242 4:25, 242 4:30, 242 4:34, 242 6:5, 244 6:19–21, 242 8:15, 242 8:31, 242 9:3, 242 9:6, 165, 172 9:9, 242

9:23, 172 14:10, 242 16:18, 242 17:7, 118 23:5, 26 23:12, 242 23:18, 242 23:34, 26 Numbers 6:2–4, 109 6:6–7, 273 6:14, 242 6:19, 242 9:5, 26 11:1–3, 239 12:6, 193 13:6, 136 13:22, 74, 90 13:28, 90 13:29, 71 13:32, 125 13:33, 74, 90 14:14, 175 14:18, 174 14:21–22, 155 16:16–19, 268 16:19, 172 16:35, 268 16:37–39, 162 17:6, 268 17:7, 172 20:6, 172 21, 99, 116 21;2–10, 152 21:4, 80, 92 21:6, 80 21:8, 79, 162 21:10, 80 21:12–20, 104 21:21–35, 99–101 21:24–34, 103 21:26, 72, 116 21:29, 117 22:1, 104 22:1–2, 104 23:2–3, 108 23:15, 108 24:11, 108 24:17, 99 24:20, 203 25:11, 161 26:29, 271 28:3, 242 28:9, 242 28:11, 242 28:16, 26 28:19, 242 29, 242 29:12, 26

333

334

SCRIPTURE INDEX

32, 101–2 32:12, 153 32:19, 101 33:41–43, 80 Deuteronomy 1:6, 98 1:7, 98 1:19–20, 115 1:27–28, 72, 74 1:28, 90 2:1–3, 98 2:1–3:20, 98–9 2:5, 111 2:9, 109 2:11, 90 2:12, 116 2:19, 109 2:23, 97, 112 2:24, 99, 103 2:24–25, 100, 101, 102 2:29, 102 2:31–36, 100 2:34–35, 100 2:34–37, 116 3:2, 103 3:8, 72, 74 3:11, 74, 90 3:13, 74 3:18, 101 3:20, 100 4–5, 2 4:10–11, 163 4:11, 163, 212, 239 4:24, 161 4:31, 193 4:35, 170, 193 4:36, 172 4:39, 183, 193 4:46, 102 4:47, 74 5:9, 174 5:14–15, 244 5:15, 243 5:19–20, 172, 175 5:22, 213 5:23, 239 6:14, 174 7:1, 89, 90, 172 7:9, 183, 193 8:9, 152 9:2, 90 9:2–3, 90 9:3, 125 9:13, 90 9:15, 239 10:17, 170 12:30–31, 271 13:2–5, 274 13:2–6, 193

16:1–8, 281 16:7, 242 16:17, 242 20:7, 237 20:17, 89, 90, 172 25:19, 248 26:5, 91 26:7, 240 27:5, 26 31:4, 113 32, 180–1 32:8, 183 32:8–9, 193 32:19–22, 161 32:22, 159, 160 32:33, 78 33:2, 111, 151, 178, 185 33:8, 181 33:18, 251 33:19, 251 Joshua 1:15, 103 2:9, 241 2:10, 74, 223 3:7–4:23, 103 3:10, 89, 90, 172 5:1, 71 6:18, 273 7:7, 89 7:25, 273 8:31, 26 9:1, 89, 90 10:5, 72, 73, 74 11:1, 72 11:1–5, 250 11:10, 72, 121 11:21–22, 90 13:8–12, 102 13:12, 74 13:21, 116 13:24–28, 139 13:25, 139 14:13, 74 14:13–14, 153 14:14, 136 14:15, 74 14:24, 136 15:14, 74, 90 15:17, 136 17:16–18, 250 24:2–4, 77 24:8, 75, 89 24:11, 172 24:15, 16 24:18, 72, 75 24:19, 16, 160, 174 Judges 1:11–15, 136 1:16, 136

SCRIPTURE INDEX

1:20, 74 3:9–10, 136 3:9–11, 136, 153 3:15, 271 3:31, 271 4:2, 72 4:4–14, 253 4:5, 270 4:6, 270 5, 249–55 5:4, 185, 212 5:5, 111, 163, 178, 212 5:7, 270 5:13, 109 5:14, 203 6:8–10, 75 7:13–15, 193 8:5, 140 8:8, 140 9:27, 93 9:46–49, 62 9:50–51, 62 11, 104–5 11:24, 110 11:27, 110 12:15, 203 13:5, 109 13:14, 273 14:3, 118 15:18, 118 16:23, 144 1 Samuel 2:13–15, 242 2:14, 164 5:2–5, 144 6:4–5, 125 7:19–20, 125 8:5, 272 8:7, 272 8:11–18, 272 12:9, 271 14:6, 118 15:7, 215 17:26, 118 17:36, 118 17:47, 112 21:14, 118 27:8, 215 27:10, 136 28:6, 179 29:1, 146 29:9, 112 30:14, 115 30:29, 136 31:1–7, 146 31:4, 118 2 Samuel 1:20, 118 4:4, 233

7:5–7, 179 7:28, 193 11:3, 73 11:6, 73 15:18, 118 20:23, 118 21:15–22, 144 22. See Psalm 18 1 Kings 3:5, 193 6:7, 26 6:29, 208 6:32, 217 6:35, 217 7:13–45, 110 7:23–24, 241 7:23–26, 164 7:27–39, 164 7:36, 217 7:45–46, 139 8:2, 26 8:60, 182, 193 8:64, 175 9:11–12, 111 10:19–28, 283 10:29, 73 11:7, 117 17, 265 17:1, 264 18, 261–64 18:4, 272 18:13, 265, 272 18:19, 272 18:21–22, 265 18:22, 265 18:26, 233 18:28, 272 18:30–31, 266 18:36–37, 272 18:36–38, 266 18:37, 183 18:37–39, 193 18:40, 268 18:43–44, 272 19:1–2, 264 19:2, 272 19:3–4, 264 19:4–18, 266–7 19:8, 267, 268 19:9, 268 19:10, 265 19:13, 268 19:14, 265 19:21, 242 20:13–15, 273 20:28, 204 20:35–41, 273 21:25–26, 263 21:27, 263

335

336

SCRIPTURE INDEX

22:5, 263 22:5–23, 263 22:6, 273 22:19, 179 25:13, 241 2 Kings 3:27, 107 4:34, 272 4:35, 272 5:10, 272 5:14, 272 7:6, 73 9:22, 283 10:15–16, 153 11:4, 112 11:19, 112 16:10–16, 281 16:14–15, 175 18:4, 79, 162, 164, 188, 202 19:31, 161 23:4–7, 188 23:13, 117 23:13–25:30, 24 25:13, 164 25:16, 241 1 Chronicles 2:42, 136 2:55, 136, 153 10:10, 144 14:14, 146 17:26, 193 18:8, 164, 241 18:17, 118 20:4–8, 144 22:3, 25 22:14–16, 25 2 Chronicles 1:5–6, 175 3:5, 217 4:17, 139 17:3–10, 283 20:1–31, 117 20:8, 77 25:14–16, 118 30:9, 193 Ezra 3:2–3, 281 6:9, 26 Nehemiah 8:14, 26 9:7, 77 9:8, 90, 172 9:11, 224, 241 9:12, 175 9:17, 174 9:19, 175 9:31, 193 Job 1:6, 179

1:6–12, 8 4:9, 157, 173 4:15–16, 273 9:5, 157, 159, 209 20:16, 78 22:13, 218 23:10, 172 26:5, 90 26:8, 218 26:8–13, 83 28, 196 33:15, 193 37:11, 218 38:8–11, 223, 240 38:9, 218 40:25, 78 41:26, 78 Psalms 10:5, 157 10:12, 182 18, 26, 85–6, 88, 93, 213–14 18:9, 244 18:9–10, 213 18:13, 244 18:13–14, 218 18:16, 223 18:17, 93 18:34, 251 19:2–7, 156 21:10, 157 24:7–10, 155 26:2, 242 29, 86–7, 88, 93, 94 29:1, 179, 193 29:3, 155 32:6, 93 34:1, 118 42, 117 46, 12, 87, 88 46:7, 159 48, 94 58:5, 78 65, 93 66, 228–9 66:8–12, 229 67, 12, 117 68:16, 216, 217 69:10, 161 72:10, 117 74, 81, 88, 93 74:12–15, 247 74:13–14, 78 74:13–16, 94 76, 94 76:2, 193 77, 81–2, 88, 93 78, 224 78:2–4, 222 78:7, 222

SCRIPTURE INDEX

78:13, 223, 241 79:5, 161 82, 23 83:8, 146 83:9, 109 84:12, 156 84, 94, 172 86:15, 174 87, 12, 94, 117 87:4, 112 88:11, 90 89, 82–83, 88, 93 89:10–13, 92 96:7, 193 97, 160 97:1, 117 97:5, 159 99:9, 216 103:8, 174, 193 104:4, 156 104:26, 79 104:32, 174 105:32, 218 106:9, 223 111:4, 193 114:3–6, 223 114:8, 175, 241 116:5, 193 118:14, 241 119:139, 161 121:4, 111 122, 94 136:2, 170 136:6, 240 140:4, 78 143:7, 172 144:5, 174 144:7, 93 145:8, 174, 193 147:18, 173 148:7, 78 148:8, 218 148:13, 170 Canticle 8:6, 161 Proverbs 2:18, 90 3:18, 191 6:34, 161 8:22–31, 8, 191 8:25, 240 8:29, 240 9:18, 90 11:30, 191 14:30, 161 15:4, 191 17:3, 158, 242 21:16, 90 25:2, 172

25:4, 172 27:21, 174 Isaiah 1:25, 242 2:2–3, 204 2:10–21, 94 5:4–7, 117 6:1–3, 179 6:1–8, 79–80 8:17, 172 9:6, 161 11:9, 216 12:2, 241 13:1–3, 94 13:6–9, 217 13:9–10, 174 14:1, 193 14:9, 90 15:4, 105 15–16, 108 16:8, 105 16:9, 108 16:11–13, 108 17:3, 215 17:12–14, 94 17:13, 93 20:3, 117 21:11–12, 111 21:13–17, 247 23:13–18, 107 24:14–15, 117 24:15, 184 24:21–23, 94 26:11, 161 26:14, 90 26:20–27:1, 94 27:1, 78, 95 29:1–8, 94 30:23–33, 94 30:27, 160, 244 30:29, 204 30:30, 218 30:33, 244 31:4–9, 94 31:9, 164 33:1–16, 94 35:1–10, 94 35:2, 172 37:16, 193 37:22–32, 161 37:32, 161 40:1–11, 11, 94 40:1–8, 6, 23 40:3–5, 217 40:4, 174 40:4–5, 159 40:5, 172 40:7, 173 40:16, 244

337

338

SCRIPTURE INDEX

40:18–21, 282 40:25–26, 6 40:27, 245, 246 41:6–7, 282 42:10–12, 117 42:14–15, 174 42:14–17, 94 43:5–7, 24 43:12, 182 43:14, 11 43:27, 173 44:10–11, 244 44:22, 218 45:1–5, 152 45:3, 193 45:15, 172 46:11, 11 48:8–11, 157–9 48:10, 242 48:20, 11 49:1, 117 49:13, 193 50:1–3, 94 50:2–3, 223 51:1–2, 77 51:5, 117 51:7–10, 94 51:9, 78 51:9–10, 82 51:9–11, 6, 92 51:10, 223 51:15, 83 52:11, 11 54:10, 193 54:16, 153, 156, 282 55:7, 193 59:5, 78 59:15–19, 94 59:19, 156 60:1, 156 60:1–3, 170 60:9, 117 60:19–20, 170 63:1–6, 94 63:12, 241 63:19, 174 63:19–64:2, 94 64:1, 193 65:25, 216 66:15, 157 66:15–16, 217 66:15–17, 94 Jeremiah 2:21, 117 3:14–17, 24 6:29, 173, 242 7:18, 244 8:16, 92 9:6, 242

9:24–25, 110 13:16, 218 16:14–15, 24 16:20, 193 20:9, 239 23:7–8, 24 23:25–32, 274 23:28, 193 24:1–10, 24 25:23, 209 27:1–11, 107 27:9, 274 29:8, 274 29:16–20, 24 29:40–44, 24 30:18, 193 31:9, 215 35:6, 109 35:7, 212 35:8–10, 15 35:18–19, 153 35:19, 109 44:15–19, 6 47:4, 97, 115, 146 47:5–6, 113 48, 107, 108–9 48:2, 105 48:7, 110 48:10, 107 48:11, 116 48:27, 116 48:34, 105 48:45, 105 48:46, 107, 117 48:47, 107 49:1–6, 110, 116 49:5, 107 49:6, 107, 110 49:7, 111 49:8, 209 49:11, 111 49:20, 111 49:36, 107 49:39, 107 52:17, 164, 241 Ezekiel 1:4, 155 1:26–28, 155 1:28, 156, 218 3:5–6, 117 4:14, 273 8:11, 218 9:2, 175 9:4, 172 10:4, 156 22:17–22, 173 22:18–22, 242 22:20, 157 23:25, 174

SCRIPTURE INDEX

24:3–14, 175 25:13, 111 25:15–17, 113 25:16, 115, 118 26:2, 110 26:15, 117 28:2, 110 28:4–5, 110 28:10, 110 28:13, 110, 194 29:13–15, 108 33:23–29, 77, 91 36:5, 161 37:16, 215 37:19, 215 38:19, 161 39:7, 193 39:25, 193 45:21, 26 45:25, 26 46:20, 242 46:24, 242 Daniel 7:9–10, 281 12:10, 242 Hosea 1:7, 193 10:1, 117 10:6, 215 13:1, 215 13:3, 218 13:15, 223 5:3, 215 5:9, 215 5:10, 159, 175, 226 6:4, 218 6:10, 215 7:1, 215 Joel 1:15, 217 2:13, 174, 193 2:27–3:1, 193 2:31, 217 4:4, 146 4:15–17, 159 Amos 1:1–2:6, 106 1:1–2:9, 107 1:6–8, 112 1:9, 106 1:12, 111 1:15, 110 2:9, 74 2:10, 75, 89 5:18, 174 5:18–20, 211, 217 7:4, 223

9:3, 80 9:5, 174 9:7, 112, 115 9:7–15, 97–8 9:12, 111 Obadiah 1:1–14, 248 1:8, 111 1:9, 111 1:15–20, 248 1:21, 248 Jonah 1:1–16, 183–4 4:2, 174, 193 Micah 1:3–4, 159 1:4, 175, 226 Nahum 1:2–6, 217 1:3, 218 1:3–4, 223 1:4, 161 1:5, 161 Habakkuk 3:3, 178, 192 3:4, 170, 185 3:19, 251 Zephaniah 1:12, 217, 245, 246 1:14–17, 211 1:15, 218 1:18, 161 2:5, 115 3:8, 159 3:8–9, 159, 161 Zechariah 1:9, 24 1:11–13, 24 1:14, 24 1:19, 24 2:3, 24 3:1, 24 4:1–5, 24 5:5–10, 24 6:1–5, 152 6:4–5, 24 7:11–8:6, 161 12:6, 164 13:9, 173, 242 14:21, 242 Malachi 1:2, 111 1:2–4, 249 1:11, 13 3:1, 8 3:2, 242 3:3, 173

339

ANE SOURCES AND CLASSICS INDEX

Aleppo A 1968, 66

Merneptah stele, 119 Mesha stele, 105, 108, 117, 120

Clement of Alexandria Protreptikos II 15, 172 Coffin Texts Spell 331, 195 Spell 355, 169 Spell 621, 195

Ovid Metamorphoses, xv 340, 174

El Amarna, 142 197, 115 246, 115 35, 125 8, 287, 271 Enuma Elish iv 123-140, 81 v 1-66, 81 Euripides Cyclops, 600, 174 The Cretans, frag. 475, 242 Eusebius from Caesaria Preparatio evangelica I 10-11, 196 Hittites KUB xiv 8.1, 143 Josephus Antiquities 5.5.4, 271 Julius Firmicus de errore 10.11, 172 KAI 26, 185 26 A III.18, 185 Khirbet el Qom wall inscription, 188 Kuntillet Ajrud pithoi inscriptions, 188 wall inscriptions, 185 2 Maccabees 6:7, 25 Mari A.3597, 65

Pausinias 1.4.6, 242 Plutarch Quaestiones Conviviales, 4.5.3, 25 Pyramid Texts 1485a, 195 916a, 195 Sirach 12:10-11, 174 38:28, 282 38:31-34, 282 39:1-11, 282 Ugarit KTU 1.1 iii 6, 192 KTU 1.1 iii 23-24, 179 KTU 1.1 iv 13, 192 KTU 1.1 iv 18, 192 KTU 1.1 iv 20, 68 KTU 1.1 iv 24-25, 68 KTU 1.1 iv 25-35, 187 KTU 1.2 i 10, 194 KTU 1.2 i 19, 65 KTU 1.2 i 21, 187 KTU 1.2 i 35-37, 65 KTU 1.2 i 35-41, 50 KTU 1.2 iii 1-5, 179 KTU 1.2 iii 15-24, 55 KTU 1.2 iv, 50 KTU 1.2 iv 8, 64 KTU 1.2 iv 10, 68 KTU 1.2 iv 11-23, 194 KTU 1.2 iv 12, 67 KTU 1.2 iv 14, 67 KTU 1.2 iv 16, 67 KTU 1.2 iv 19, 67 KTU 1.2 iv 21, 67

341

342

ANE SOURCES AND CLASSICS INDEX

KTU 1.2 iv 24, 67 KTU 1.2 iv 27-34, 92 KTU 1.3 i 22-26, 65 KTU 1.3 ii 39, 64 KTU 1.3 ii 39-41, 64 KTU 1.3 ii 40, 64 KTU 1.3 ii 41, 254 KTU 1.3 iii 38-39, 68 KTU 1.3 iii 38-46, 82, 92 KTU 1.3 iii 40-44, 67 KTU 1.3 iii-iv, 92 KTU 1.3 iv 4, 64 KTU 1.3 iv 43-44, 68 KTU 1.3 iv 45, 68 KTU 1.3 v 6-9, 179 KTU 1.3 v 9, 187 KTU 1.3 v 32, 68 KTU 1.3 v 35, 68 KTU 1.3 v 41, 68 KTU 1.3 v 42-45, 65 KTU 1.3 vi 13.-16, 166 KTU 1.4, 50 KTU 1.4 i, 67 KTU 1.4 i 14, 68 KTU 1.4 i 15-19, 65 KTU 1.4 ii 10, 192 KTU 1.4 ii 34, 68 KTU 1.4 iii 18, 64 KTU 1.4 iii 9-40, 196 KTU 1.4 iv 1-19, 194 KTU 1.4 iv 1-v 2, 196 KTU 1.4 iv 43-44, 68 KTU 1.4 iv 58, 192 KTU 1.4 v 6-7, 64 KTU 1.4 v 6-9, 37 KTU 1.4 v 8-9, 64 KTU 1.4 v 55-57, 65 KTU 1.4 v 60, 64 KTU 1.4 vi 12, 68 KTU 1.4 vi 44-58, 50 KTU 1.4 vii 3, 68 KTU 1.4 vii 6-12, 50 KTU 1.4 vii 7-12, 37, 38 KTU 1.4 vii 15-27, 51 KTU 1.4 vii 25-29, 51 KTU 1.4 vii 25-31, 64 KTU 1.4 vii 30-35, 51 KTU 1.4 vii 35-37, 65 KTU 1.4 vii 40-56, 50 KTU 1.4 vii 44, 68 KTU 1.4 vii 50-51, 64 KTU 1.4 vii 50-52, 65 KTU 1.4 vii 54, 65 KTU 1.5 i, 66 KTU 1.5 i 1-3, 92 KTU 1.5 i 13-14, 65 KTU 1.5 i 22-23, 65 KTU 1.5 iv 11, 192

KTU 1.5 v 7, 64 KTU 1.5 v 8, 64 KTU 1.5 vi 24, 65 KTU 1.6 i 6-7, 65 KTU 1.6 i 50, 68, 192, 193 KTU 1.6 i 50-65, 55 KTU 1.6 i 52, 65 KTU 1.6 iii, 193 KTU 1.6 iii 4, 192 KTU 1.6 iii 6-7, 64 KTU 1.6 iii 10, 192 KTU 1.6 iii 12-13, 64 KTU 1.6 iii 14, 192 KTU 1.6 iv 10-11, 192 KTU 1.6 v 5-6, 68 KTU 1.6 vi 34-35, 68 KTU 1.8 ii 6, 65 KTU 1.9 V 1, 68 KTU 1.10 i 4, 194 KTU 1.10 ii 4.5, 65 KTU 1.10 iii 11-14, 65 KTU 1.10 iii 33-34, 65 KTU 1.12 i 38-39, 65 KTU 1.12 ii 25, 65 KTU 1.12 ii 60-61, 194 KTU 1.14 i 23, 186 KTU 1.14 i 35 – ii 3, 186 KTU 1.14 iii 23, 186 KTU 1.14 iii 26-29, 193 KTU 1.14 iii 30-31, 186 KTU 1.14 iii 45-52, 195 KTU 1.14 iv 35-43, 195 KTU 1.15 ii 20-25, 196 KTU 1.15 ii 25, 195 KTU 1.15 iii 26-30, 196 KTU 1.16 i 11, 194 KTU 1.16 i 22, 194 KTU 1.16 iii 5-7, 64 KTU 1.19 i 43-44, 64 KTU 1.23.30, 194 KTU 1.41, 194 KTU 1.47, 194 KTU 1.65, 194 KTU 1.101.1, 94 KTU 1.101.3-4, 64 KTU 1.102, 90 KTU 1.104, 90 KTU 1.104.1-4, 65 KTU 1.108, 90 KTU 1.113, 90 KTU 1.114 R 15-22, 187 KTU 1.118, 194 KTU 1.119, 37 KTU 1.119 v 28-36, 65 KTU 1.124, 90 KTU 1.148, 194 KTU 1.161, 90

ANE SOURCES AND CLASSICS INDEX

KTU 1.161 R 1-3, 90 RS 20.18, 143 RS 20.212, 143 RS 20.238, 143 RS 34.152, 143

Virgil Aenneid iii 571, 174 iii 582, 174 Georgics i 471, 174

343