Texts in Conversation
Ezekiel 29 shares the Baal Cycle's image of a dragon defeated by Anat, making God's punishment of Pharaoh a rejection of the king's claim to own and create the Nile.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.3 III:40
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.
Ezekiel 29:3
Hebrew Bible
3 Tell them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: “‘Look, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster lying in the midst of its waterways, who has said, “My Nile is my own, I made it for myself.” 4 I will put hooks in your jaws and stick the fish of your waterways to your scales. I will haul you up from the midst of your waterways, and all the fish of your waterways will stick to your scales. 5 I will leave you in the wilderness, you and all the fish of your waterways; you will fall in the open field and will not be gathered up or collected. I have given you as food to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the skies.
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Notes and References
“... Rather, these passages fit within the conflict topos.
Representation of the king of Egypt as the dragon (and of Egypt as Rahab) of
combat traditions was compatible with and possibly attracted by the identi
fication of Egypt with a prominent body of water and the king of Egypt with
the crocodile. Several specific narrative details of Ezek 29:2–6 and 32:2–16
are similar to earlier and later articulations of the conflict topos: the enemy is
portrayed as arrogant (KTU 1.5 I 1–8; Job 41:26; Dan 7:8; 2 Macc 5:21, 9:8; Rev
13:3–8; 2 Thess 2:1–12); the enemy is portrayed as a sea-dragon (KTU 1.3 III
38–42; KTU 1.83; Ps 74:13–14; Isa 27:1; Rev 12, 13, 16, and 20); the deity uses
hooks or nets to secure the enemy (EE IV; Job 40:25–26); the corpse of the
slain enemy is left exposed (EE IV 129–140, V 53–63; KTU 1.2 IV 21–27; KTU
1.6 II 30–37; Ps 74:14); and defeat of the enemy indicates the victorious dei
ty’s incomparability (EE V 133–136; Ps 89:6–15; Job 41:2–3). ...”
Ballentine, Debra Scoggins
The Conflict Myth and the Biblical Tradition
(p. 102) Oxford University Press, 2015
* 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.
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