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KTU

Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit

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Baal Cycle

KTU 1.3 III

She decorated herself with purple cloth, which takes a thousand fields
to harvest from the sea.
[…]
[You will see her] holding her lyre in her hands,
placing her lute to her breast: a song of the love of Exalted Baal,
of the passion of Pidray, daughter of Lightning,
of the affection of Tallay, daughter of Rain, of the love of Arsay, daughter of Netherworld.
Next, enter like a pair of acolytes,
and bow to the ground before Anat’s feet.
Prostrate yourselves; show her respect.
Then say to Maiden Anat —
repeat to the Kinswoman of the People:
“A message from Exalted Baal; words from the Exalted Warrior.
Come find battle in the land;
leave love in the dust.
Pour peace into the chasms of the land,
harmony into the chasms of the fields.
Hasten, hustle, hurry up!
“Let your feet run to me, let your legs race to me,
for I have thoughts to tell you,
and I have words to share:
a thought of trees and a murmur of stone,
a whisper between heaven and earth,
between the deep and the stars.
“I understand the lightning beyond the heavens’ ken,
the thoughts beyond human knowledge, that which the throngs below cannot understand.
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.
I annihilated El’s daughter, Zabiba. I’ve reaped silver from my fighting;
I’ve taken possession of gold of those who drove Baal from the heights of Sapan”

Texts in conversation

Compare KTU 1.3 III:38 and Exodus 15:8

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

In Exodus, God is portrayed as a storm deity who controls wind and water to defeat the enemy at the sea. This follows ancient Near Eastern traditions where divine warriors use storm power to overcome chaotic waters and establish order.

Passages

KTU 1.3 III:38

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
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.
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Exodus 15:8

Hebrew Bible
6 Your right hand, O Lord, was majestic in power; your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy. 7 In the abundance of your majesty you have overthrown those who rise up against you. You sent forth your wrath; it consumed them like stubble. 8 By the blast of your nostrils the waters were piled up, the flowing water stood upright like a heap, and the deep waters were solidified in the heart of the sea. 9 The enemy said, ‘I will chase, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my desire will be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, my hand will destroy them.’
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

References

"... The corpus of ancient Yahwistic poetry has not yet been delineated in satisfactory fashion. The proper starting point is the Song of Deborah, a victory hymn, the occasion of which is known, and the approximate date quite certain, i.e., ca. 1100 B.C. Burney's study of this poem is of basic importance; he described the phenomenon of climactic parallelism, a characteristic feature of the Song of Deborah, and now very familiar from the Ugaritic epics. Albright, in a subsequent treatment, went further in the analysis of the metrical and strophic pattern of the poem, and also set it in the context of the comparative materials available from Mesopotamia and Egypt. The present partial study follows the lines laid out in these treatments. This victory hymn, one of the oldest and most dramatic specimens of early Yahwistic poetry, belongs to the same general period as the other great victory songs so far known from the ancient world: the hymn of Rameses II after the battle with the Hittites at Kadesh, the poems describing the victory of Merneptah over the Libyans, and Rameses III over the Sea Peoples, and the victory hymn of Tukulti-Ninurta I, after his defeat of the Cossaeans. The Song of Deborah is also to be grouped with the Song of Miriam (Exodus 15) celebrating the destruction of Pharaoh's host in the Reed Sea. Though this was not generally recognized by the older scholars, it is clear that the victory hymn in Exodus 15 is a literary unit. It has the same antiphonal character and metrical form as the Song of Deborah ..."
Frank Moore Cross Jr. and David Noel Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 3.

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 1.3 III:38 and Exodus 15:8

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