Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 11 combines Sea and River with the seven-headed enemy known from Anat's battles in the Baal Cycle, using old divine enemies to picture a new escape from foreign rule.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.3 III:41
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
Come, and I will show it: deep inside my mountain, holy Sapan, in the sacred space on my native peak, in the paradise upon the hill of victory.” Watch! Anat sees the gods. Below, her feet start shaking. All around, her limbs are shivering. Up above, her face sweats. Shudders wrack the bones of every limb; the bones within her spine turn weak. She spoke up and cried out, “Why have Gupan and Ugar come here? What enemy rises up against Baal? What rival faces the Cloud-Rider? Didn’t I crush El’s beloved, Yamm (Ocean)? Didn’t I annihilate Nahar (River), the great god? Didn’t I leash Dragon and bind him in a saddle? I crushed the Sinuous Serpent, Encircler, the seven-headed monster. I crushed the gods’ beloved, Arsha. I ravaged El’s young bull, Ataka. I crushed the gods’ she-wolf, Fire.
Isaiah 11:15
Hebrew Bible
13 Ephraim’s jealousy will end, and Judah’s hostility will be eliminated. Ephraim will no longer be jealous of Judah, and Judah will no longer be hostile toward Ephraim. 14 They will swoop down on the Philistine hills to the west; together they will loot the people of the east. They will take over Edom and Moab, and the Ammonites will be their subjects. 15 The Lord will divide the gulf of the Egyptian Sea; he will wave his hand over the Euphrates River and send a strong wind; he will turn it into seven dried-up streams and enable them to walk across in their sandals. 16 There will be a highway leading out of Assyria for the remnant of his people, just as there was for Israel, when they went up from the land of Egypt.
Search:
Notes and References
“... The
identification of human and divine kings in battle together represents a theme
running through a good deal of biblical texts surviving from the monarchy. [...] The royal theology of parallels between the heavenly and
earthly realms extended also to identifying historical enemies with cosmic enemies
known from the Ugaritic texts as Baal’s or Anat’s enemies.56 It is well-known that
Sea and River in Isaiah 11:15 appear in conflated form with the seven-headed
dragon in a description of Egypt. Rahab stands for Egypt (Isaiah 30:7; Psalm 87:
4), the River for Assyria (Isaiah 8:5–8; cf. 17:12–14), Tannin for Babylon (Jere-
miah 51:34). It is no wonder that apocalyptic literature used this imagery so ex-
tensively, as mythical enemies had long served as emblems of historical enemies. ...”
Smith, Mark S.
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts
(p. 158) Oxford University Press, 2001
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.
User Comments
,