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KTU

Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit

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Hymn to Rapiu, the Eternal King

KTU 1.108

[…] Rapiu, the eternal king, drinks; and drinks
[the god] Gathar and Yaqar, the god who dwells in Athtartu,
the god who rules in Edrei, who sings and makes music⁠
on lyre and pipe, on drum and cymbals,
with castanets of ivory, in the good company of Kothar.
And Anat the mighty drinks, lady of kingship, lady
of dominion, lady of the high heavens,
[la]dy of the crown; and Anat flies, soars
[in] the high [heav]ens […]
[…] and El drinks
[…]
[…] king
[…] his god drinks
[…]
[…] Rashap
[…] arrives
[…]
[…] for Baal
[…] Rapiu, the eternal king, comes to you
[…]
[…] Rapiu, the eternal king, with strength,
[Rapiu], the eternal king, with his might, with
[his power], with his rule, with his splendor, for the Rephaim⁠
of the earth: your strength, your might, your power,
your rule, your splendor, in the midst of
Ugarit, […] the days of Shapshu and Yarih
and the pleasant years of El.

Texts in conversation

Compare KTU 1.108:23 and Deuteronomy 3:13

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Deuteronomy shares Ugarit's link between Bashan and the Rephaim, connecting memories of ancient inhabitants with traditions about honored dead ancestors.

Passages

KTU 1.108:23

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
And Anat the mighty drinks, lady of kingship, lady of dominion, lady of the high heavens, [la]dy of the crown; and Anat flies, soars [in] the high [heav]ens […] […] and El drinks […] […] king […] his god drinks […] […] Rashap […] arrives […] […] for Baal […] Rapiu, the eternal king, comes to you […] […] Rapiu, the eternal king, with strength, [Rapiu], the eternal king, with his might, with [his power], with his rule, with his splendor, for the Rephaim of the earth: your strength, your might, your power, your rule, your splendor, in the midst of Ugarit, […] the days of Shapshu and Yarih and the pleasant years of El.
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Deuteronomy 3:13

Hebrew Bible
13 The rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to half the tribe of Manasseh. (All the region of Argob, that is, all Bashan, is called the land of Rephaim. 14 Jair, son of Manasseh, took all the Argob region as far as the border with the Geshurites and Maacathites—namely Bashan—and called it by his name, Havvoth Jair, which it retains to this very day.) 15 I gave Gilead to Machir. 16 To the Reubenites and Gadites I allocated the territory extending from Gilead as far as Wadi Arnon (the exact middle of the wadi was a boundary) all the way to the Wadi Jabbok, the Ammonite border. 17 The rift valley and the Jordan River were also a border, from the Sea of Kinnereth to the sea of the rift valley (that is, the Salt Sea), beneath the slopes of Pisgah to the east.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

References

“... II. Biblical geographical tradition agrees with the mythological and cultic data of the Ugaritic texts. According to KTU 1.108:1-3. the abode of the mlk 11m, the dead and deified king (DEL OutO LETE 1987:49-53), and his place of enthronement as rpll was in cJtrt-lzdry, in amazing correspondence with the Biblical tradition about the seat of king Og of Bashan, "one of the survivors of the Rephaim, who lived in Ashtarot and Edrei" (Josh 12:4 [NEB». This place Ism is also treated in KTU 1.100:41; 1.1 07: 17: and RS 86:2'235: 17 as the abode of the god mlk, the eponym of the mJkm, the deified kings, synonym of the rpllm. For the 'Canaanites' of Ugarit, the Bashan region, or a part of it, clearly represented 'HeU', the celestial and infernal abode of their deified dead kings, -Olympus and -Hades at the same time. It is possible that this localization of the Canaanite Hell is linked to the ancient tradi- tion of the place as the ancestral home of their dynasty, the rpllm. The Biblical text also recalls that "all Bashan used to be called the land/earth of the Rephaim" (Deut 3:13 [NEB]), an ambiguous wording that could equally be translated as "the 'hell' of the Rephaim". In any case, the link between Bnshan and the rpllInlRephaim in both tradi- tions speaks in favour of a very old usc of the two meanings of this last denomination: ancient dwellers of Northern Transjordan I inhabitants of 'Hell'. ...”
Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and and Pieter W. van der Horst, eds., Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, 2nd extensively rev. ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 161–162.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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KTU 1.108:23 and Deuteronomy 3:13

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