Texts in Conversation
Jeremiah 23 uses the heavenly court known from the Baal Cycle to distinguish an authorized prophet from someone speaking without God's approval.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.2 I:20
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
Yamm sent messengers, Ruler Nahar an embassy. With great rejoicing they flew heavenwards their nostrils flaring. Depart, divine assistants, do not stay! Indeed, set your faces towards the convocation of the Council, towards the divine mountain. At the feet of El you shall fall you shall honour the convocation of the Council! Standing upright, you shall then speak, declaring your message. And you shall say to Bull your father El, declare to the convocation of the Council: Message of Yamm, your master, of your lord, Ruler Nahar: Give up the god whom you obey, the one whom you obey, Tempest! Give up Baal and his retinue, the Son of Dagan, whose gold I shall seize! The divine assistants depart; they do not delay. Then they set their faces towards the divine mountain, towards the convocation of the Council. Now the gods were sitting to eat, the sons of the Holy One to dine. Baal stood by El. Lo, the gods saw them,
Jeremiah 23:18
Hebrew Bible
18 Yet which of them has ever stood in the Lord’s inner circle so they could see and hear what he has to say? Which of them have ever paid attention or listened to what he has said? 19 But just watch! The wrath of the Lord will come like a storm! Like a raging storm it will rage down on the heads of those who are wicked. 20 The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. In future days you people will come to understand this clearly. 21 I did not send those prophets, yet they were in a hurry to give their message. I did not tell them anything, yet they prophesied anyway. 22 But if they had stood in my inner circle, they would have proclaimed my message to my people. They would have caused my people to turn from their wicked ways and stop doing the evil things they are doing.
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Notes and References
“... At some point, a number of Israelite traditions identified El with Yahweh or
presupposed this equation. The Hebrew Bible rarely distinguishes between El and
Yahweh or offers polemics against El. West Semitic El lies behind the god of the
patriarchs in Genesis 33:20 and 46:3 (and possibly elsewhere). Later tradition
clearly intended that this god be identified as Yahweh. For example, the priestly
theological treatment of Israel’s early religious history in Exodus 6:2–3 identifies
the old god El Shadday with Yahweh:
And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to
Jacob, as El Shadday, but by my name Yahweh I did not make myself known to
them.”
This passage shows that Yahweh was unknown to the patriarchs. Rather, they are
depicted as worshippers of El. In Israel El’s characteristics and epithets became part
of the repertoire of descriptions of Yahweh. Like El in the Ugaritic texts, Yahweh
is described as an aged, patriarchal god (Psalm 102:28; Job 36:26; Isaiah 40:28; cf.
Psalm 90:10; Isaiah 57:15; Habakkuk 3:6; Daniel 6:26; 2 Esdras 8:20; Tobit 13:6,
10; Ben Sira 18:30), enthroned amidst the assembly of divine beings (1 Kings 22:
19; Isaiah 6:1–8; cf. Psalms 29:1–2, 82:1, 89:5–8; Isaiah 14:13; Jeremiah 23:18, 22;
Zechariah 3; Daniel 3:25). ...”
Smith, Mark S.
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts
(p. 141) Oxford University Press, 2001
* 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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