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Jeremiah 46 shares the Baal Cycle's image of Anat wading knee-deep in blood until she has had her fill of fighting, making Egypt's defeat a feast of vengeance for God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.3 II:27
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
With her shafts she drove forth the old men, with her bowstring the townspeople. Then behold! Anat proceeded to her house, the goddess started for her palace; but she was not sated with her fighting in the vale, her battling between the two cities. She arranged chairs for the warriors, she did arrange tables for the soldiers, stools for the heroes. Anat fought hard and looked, she battled and surveyed the scene; her liver swelled with laughter, her heart was filled with joy, the liver of Anat with triumph, as she plunged her knees in the blood of the guards, her skirts in the gore of the warriors, until she was sated with fighting in the house, with battling between the tables. The blood of the guards was wiped from the house and oil of a peace-offering was poured from a bowl.
Jeremiah 46:10
Hebrew Bible
9 Go ahead and charge into battle, you horsemen! Drive furiously, you charioteers! Let the soldiers march out into battle, those from Ethiopia and Libya who carry shields, and those from Lydia who are armed with the bow. 10 But that day belongs to the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies. It is a day of reckoning when he will pay back his adversaries. His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied. It will drink its fill from their blood! Indeed it will be a sacrifice for the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies in the land of the north by the Euphrates River. 11 Go up to Gilead and get medicinal ointment, you dear poor people of Egypt. But it will prove useless no matter how much medicine you use; there will be no healing for you.
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Notes and References
“... While many commentators have noted the parallel of KTU 1.3 II4-30 to
1.13,68 the religious significance has not been appreciated equally. Like
KTU 1.13, Anat's battle in 1.3 II may constitute another example of
herem-warfaie. Moreover, KTU 1.3 II provides a fuller picture of this
warfare. ...” “... of bloodshed and divine vengeance (Jer. 46:10, Isa. 34:5, 7) is striking. ...” “... One's fill of corpses underlies the royal warfare expressed in the phrase
male' gewiyyot, in Ps. 110.6. The motif of divine blood-satiety occurs
also in KTU 1.3 II. The first half ends by expressing the point that Anat
'was not sated with fighting in the valley' (wl sb't tmthsh b'mq) in line
19, and the second ends by mentioning that she waded in blood knee-
deep 'until she was sated with fighting in the house' ('d tsb' tmths bbt)
in line 29. ...”
Smith, Mark S.
"Anat's Warfare Cannibalism and the West Semitic Ban" in Holloway, Steven W.; Handy, Lowell K. (ed.) Anat's Warfare Cannibalism and the West Semitic Ban, in The Pitcher Is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gösta W. Ahlström
(p. 382) Sheffield Academic Press, 1995
* 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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