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Exodus 32 uses the burning, grinding, and scattering applied to Mot in the Baal Cycle to describe the golden calf's destruction, treating Israel's idol like a defeated divine enemy.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.6 II:34
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
I approached Valiant Baal; I set him like a lamb in my mouth; like a kid he was crushed in my jaws. Shapshu, Lamp of the Gods, glowed hot; the heavens grew weak at the hand of divine Mot. A day, two days passed; from days to months. The Damsel Anat sought him. Like the heart of a cow for her calf, like the heart of a ewe for her lamb, so was the heart of Anat after Baal. She seized divine Mot. With a sword she split him; with a sieve she winnowed him; in fire she burned him; with millstones she ground him; in the field she sowed him. His flesh was eaten by birds; his portions were consumed by fowl. Flesh cried out to flesh.
Exodus 32:20
Hebrew Bible
17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “It is the sound of war in the camp!” 18 Moses said, “It is not the sound of those who shout for victory, nor is it the sound of those who cry because they are overcome, but the sound of singing I hear.” 19 When he approached the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses became extremely angry. He threw the tablets from his hands and broke them to pieces at the bottom of the mountain. 20 He took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire, ground it to powder, poured it out on the water, and made the Israelites drink it. 21 Moses said to Aaron, “What did this people do to you, that you have brought on them so great a sin?”
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Notes and References
“... The first version (KTU 1.6 ii:30-36) reads as follows: tiM hn ilm mt hhrh
thq
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