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KTU

Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit

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Baal Cycle

KTU 1.4 VI

And Kothar-wa-Hasis responds:
You will revert, Baal, to my suggestion.
Kothar-wa-Hasis inquires again:
Please hear, Mightiest Baal:
Shall I not fit a window in the house
A vent in the midst of the palace?
And Mightiest Baal retorts:
You shall not install a window in the house⁠
A vent in the midst of the palace.
So that Pidray, Daughter of Light
Tallay, Daughter of Showers
The Beloved of El, Yamm, do not ... And spat ...
[…] insulted me and spat
And Kothar-wa-Hasis replies:
You will return, Baal, to my suggestion.
Swiftly, he builds his house
Quickly, he raises his palace.
He sends to Lebanon for its timber
To Siryon for its prime cedar.
Indeed to Lebanon for its timber
To Siryon for its choice cedar.
A fire is kindled in the house
A flame within the palace.
Behold! For one day, then two Fire blazes in the house
A flame within the palace.
For a third day, then a fourth
Fire burns in the house
A flame within the palace.
For a fifth day, then a sixth Fire blazes in the house
A flame within the palace.
Then, on the seventh day⁠
The fire departs the house
The flame, the palace.
The silver has transformed into plates
The gold into bricks. Mightiest Baal exults:
I have built my house of silver
My palace of gold.
Baal organizes for his dwelling
Haddu arranges for his palace.⁠
He slaughters large livestock and small:
He slaughters bulls and fatling rams
Year-old calves
Sheep in droves, and kids.
He invites his siblings into his house
His kin within his palace;
He invites the seventy sons of Athirat.⁠
He offers the gods rams
Offers the goddesses ewes.
He offers the gods bulls
Offers the goddesses cows.
He offers the gods thrones
Offers the goddesses seats.
He offers the gods jars of wine
Offers the goddesses cruets of wine.
As the gods dine, drink
A suckling of the breast is offered
With a salted knife, a cut of fatling.
They drink wine from goblets
From gold cups, the blood of trees.
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Texts in conversation

How Deuteronomy 32 Echoes the Baal Cycle's Seventy Sons

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

The Ugaritic Baal Cycle describes a feast with Baal and the 70 sons of Athirat, the full divine council. Deuteronomy 32 echoes this in its description of the nations divided among divine beings, a number connected to the list of 70 nations in Genesis 10.

Passages

KTU 1.4 VI:46

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Baal organizes for his dwelling Haddu arranges for his palace. He slaughters large livestock and small: He slaughters bulls and fatling rams Year-old calves Sheep in droves, and kids. He invites his siblings into his house His kin within his palace; He invites the seventy sons of Athirat. He offers the gods rams Offers the goddesses ewes. He offers the gods bulls Offers the goddesses cows. He offers the gods thrones Offers the goddesses seats.
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Deuteronomy 32:8

Hebrew Bible
7 Remember the ancient days; bear in mind the years of past generations. Ask your father and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you. 8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided up humankind, he set the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number of the heavenly assembly. 9 For the Lord’s allotment is his people, Jacob is his special possession.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Deuteronomy

References

"... In the Ugaritic text KTU 1.4 vi 46 the poet Ilimilku refers to the seventy sons of Athirat. This is the only reference so far appearing in Ugaritian tradition concerning the precise number of the gods. None of the extant pantheon lists remotely approaches seventy deities in number, and while considerable numbers of divine epithets have been isolated, we would be hard-pressed even to find seventy different divine persons. It seems likely that the number is rhetorical, and is intended to represent the idea of totality (10 × 7) ... The number seventy comes up again in a biblical context, but this time by implication only, in the famous crux in Deuteronomy 32. Since this appears to be concerned with the number of deities in a pantheon, in this case a set of divine world-rulers, it is not inappropriate to link it provisionally with the idiom of KTU 1.4 vi 46, or at any rate to suggest that the two idioms may be conceptually associated, and that one may perhaps elucidate the other ..."
N. Wyatt, The Archaeology of Myth: Papers on Old Testament Tradition, BibleWorld (London: Equinox, 2010), 69–70.

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 1.4 VI:46 and Deuteronomy 32:8

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