Texts in Conversation
Deuteronomy shares Ugarit's use of drought as a curse, showing that its threats against disloyalty draw on a wider tradition than Assyrian treaties alone.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.19 I:44
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
Over her father’s house some falcons hovered, a flock of hawks was watching. Pughat wept in her heart, she cried in her liver. She tore the garment of Danel the man of healing, the cloak of the hero, the devotee of Hrnm. Then Danel the man of healing cursed the clouds, which rain on the dreadful heat, the clouds which rain on the summer-fruit, the dew which settles on the grapes: “For seven years Baal shall fail, for eight, the Charioteer of the clouds! No dew, no rain, no welling up of the deeps, no goodness of Baal’s voice! no surging of the two deeps, no For she has torn the garment of Danel the man of healing, the cloak of the hero, the devotee of Hrnm!”
Deuteronomy 28:24
Hebrew Bible
23 The sky above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. 24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed. 25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off. 27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed. 28 The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind.
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Notes and References
“... The logic of Deut 28:23–24 is based on the existential danger of the
disruption of normal precipitation patterns. It is one of several similar
curses in which agricultural disaster is achieved by the deity(ies) as
punishment for transgression of treaty or other stipulations, either by
withholding the expected rain or by delivery of one or more unfertile
alternatives in its stead. Withholding of rain and other forms of the water
necessary to agricultural fertility appears in the Ugaritic epic of Aqhat,29
while the sending of hailstones may appear also in Sefire I.30 Though the
latter text is fragmentary and the reading uncertain, the curses that
follow are in keeping with a theme of agricultural devastation: the
destruction wrought by locusts and other pests and the failure of grass
and other vegetation to thrive.31 This conceptual combination is also
evident in the Deuteronomy material, if Deut 28:23–24 is read in the
context of the preceding verses: “YHWH will make the pestilence cling to
you … YHWH will afflict you with consumption, fever, inflammation,
with fiery heat and drought, and with blight and mildew; they shall
pursue you until you perish” (Deut 28:21a, 22).32 ...”
Crouch, Carly L.
Israel and the Assyrians: Deuteronomy, the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon, and the Nature of Subversion
(p. 109) Society of Biblical Literature, 2014
* 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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