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KTU

Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit

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Baal Cycle

KTU 1.5 II

[…]
He extends a lip to the earth, a lip to the heavens,⁠
he extends a tongue to the stars. Baal must enter his belly,
down into hs mouth he must go,⁠
since he scorched the olive, the produce of the earth,
and the fruit of the trees. Valiant Baal was afraid of him;
Valiant Warrior was in dread of him.
Depart, say to divine Mot,
declare to the Beloved of El, the hero:
Message of Valiant Baal, word of Valiant Warrior:
Greetings, O divine Mot,
your servant am I, and forever.
The gods departed and did not stay. Then they set their faces
towards divine Mot (death),
towards his city Muddy, a pit the seat of his enthronement,
a crevice the land of his inheritance. They lifted lip their voices and cried:
Message of Valiant Baal,
word of Valiant Warrior:
Greetings, O divine Mot, your servant am I, and forever so.
Divine Mot (death) rejoiced,
he lifted up his voice and cried: Why, has Baal invited me with my brothers,
has Haddu summoned me with my kinsmen?
[…] my food
[…]
[…] my joy
[…] departed […]
[…]

Texts in conversation

Compare KTU 1.5 II:2 and Numbers 16:30

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Numbers' description of the ground swallowing the rebellious Korah echoes the description of Mot, the god of death in Ugaritic tradition who swallows his victims, repurposed to express God's judgment.

Passages

KTU 1.5 II:2

Ancient Near East, Ugaritic · Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
[…] He extends a lip to the earth, a lip to the heavens, he extends a tongue to the stars. Baal must enter his belly, down into hs mouth he must go, since he scorched the olive, the produce of the earth, and the fruit of the trees. Valiant Baal was afraid of him; Valiant Warrior was in dread of him. Depart, say to divine Mot, declare to the Beloved of El, the hero: Message of Valiant Baal, word of Valiant Warrior: Greetings, O divine Mot, your servant am I, and forever. The gods departed and did not stay. Then they set their faces towards divine Mot (death), towards his city Muddy, a pit the seat of his enthronement, a crevice the land of his inheritance. They lifted lip their voices and cried: Message of Valiant Baal, word of Valiant Warrior: Greetings, O divine Mot, your servant am I, and forever so.
1350–1185 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in KTU

Numbers 16:30

Hebrew Bible
28 Then Moses said, “This is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works, for I have not done them of my own will. 29 If these men die a natural death, or if they share the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. 30 But if the Lord does something entirely new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up along with all that they have, and they go down alive to the grave, then you will know that these men have despised the Lord!” 31 When he had finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open, 32 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, along with their households, and all Korah’s men, and all their goods. 33 They and all that they had went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed over them. So they perished from among the community.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Numbers

References

“... 51 For depictions of “death” as a swallower, in the Hebrew Bible, see Numbers 16:30; Isaiah 5:14; Habakkuk 2:5; Proverbs 1:12; etc. In the Baal Cycle, see KTU 1.4 VIII 14–20; 1.5 I 6–8, 14–19; II 2–6. For a fuller discussion, see Paul Kang-Kul Cho and Janling Fu, “Death and Feasting in the Isaiah Apocalypse (Isaiah 25:6–8),” in Formation and Intertextuality in Isaiah 24–27 (eds. Todd Hibbard and Paul Kim; SBLAIL 17; Atlanta: SBL, 2013), 117–42. 188 Myth, History, and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible ...”
Paul K.-K. Cho, Myth, History, and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 188.

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 1.5 II:2 and Numbers 16:30

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