Texts in Conversation
In Psalm 89, the king calls God “my father,” following an ancient Near Eastern tradition found in the Ugaritic text KTU, where King Kirta is called a son of the god El. In both, being a divine child affirms the right to rule.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.14 II:7
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
And Bull, his father El, [replied]: Desist from weeping, Kirta, from crying, gracious one, heir of El. Wash yourself and rouge yourself; Wash your [h]and to the elbow, [your] fing[ers] up to the shoulder. Enter the shade of a pavilion. Take a lam[b in your hand], a lamb of sac[rifice in (your)] right hand, a kid in th[e other han]d, . . . . . . . . . [ ] . . . . . . Take a msrr, bird of sacrifice. Pour wine [into a bo]wl of silver, honey into a bowl of [g]old. {Mount to the top of a [to]wer.} And mount to the top of a [to]wer; mount up to the summit of the wall. Lift up your hands to heaven, sacrifice to Bull your father, El. Serve Baal
Psalm 89:26
Hebrew Bible
24 He will experience my faithfulness and loyal love, and by my name he will win victories. 25 I will place his hand over the sea, his right hand over the rivers. 26 He will call out to me, ‘You are my father, my God, and the protector who delivers me.’ 27 I will appoint him to be my firstborn son, the most exalted of the earth’s kings. 28 I will always extend my loyal love to him, and my covenant with him is secure.
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Notes and References
"... The fatherhood of El was not restricted to the divine realm. El was also called “father of humanity”. In the Kirta Epic, the protagonist (King Keret), even though he is a mortal, is addressed as though he were the son of El. Indeed, human rulers appear to have been treated as children of the god El in much the same way that the gods of the pantheon were considered his children. A monarch became a child of El when it was clear that he was the person who had been chosen to rule. In Psalms 2:7 and 89:26 the new ruler is described as being accepted as a son by Yahweh; at the same time, heirs apparent in Syria-Palestine were presumed to be nurtured by suckling at goddesses’ breasts. One of these goddesses who is specifically mentioned as breast-feeding the prince is, as might be expected, Asherah ..."
Handy, Lowell K.
Among the Host of Heaven: The Syro-Palestinian Pantheon as Bureaucracy
(pp. 78-79) Eisenbrauns, 1994
* 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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