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In Numbers 23, Balaam's blessing shares the blood-filled victory pictured in Anat's warfare in the Baal Cycle, making Israel's strength a warning to the king who wanted it cursed.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.3 II:27
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
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
Numbers 23:24
Hebrew Bible
20 Indeed, I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot reverse it. 21 He has not looked on iniquity in Jacob, nor has he seen trouble in Israel. The Lord their God is with them; his acclamation as king is among them. 22 God brought them out of Egypt. They have, as it were, the strength of a wild bull. 23 For there is no spell against Jacob, nor is there any divination against Israel. At this time it must be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘Look at what God has done!’ 24 Indeed, the people will rise up like a lioness, and like a lion raises himself up; they will not lie down until they eat their prey, and drink the blood of the slain.” 25 Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!”
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Notes and References
“... Fourth,
like the second part of the Ugaritic passage given above, the aftermath of war
is described as a feast, a feature attested in Isaiah 34:6-7, 49:26 and perhaps
presupposed in the sacrificial language of Deuteronomy 32:43. This feast
includes feeding on the flesh of captives (Deut. 32:42), drinking the blood of
the victims (Isa. 49:26; LXX Zech. 9:15; cf. Num. 23:24), called “captives” in
Deuteronomy 32:42 (as in KTU 1.3 II), and wading in the blood of the
vanquished (Pss. 58:11; 68:24). Isaiah 49:26 alters the motif of feeding on the
captives. In this verse, the enemies will cannibalize themselves: “I will make
your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own
blood as with wine.” The image of wading in the blood may be related to the
theme of the battle as bloody harvest. Because of its blood red color, the
image of the wine harvest appears in biblical descriptions of divine war (Deut.
32:42-43; Isa. 49:26; 63:3; Ezek. 39:19; Joel 4:13; Lam. 1:15; Rev. 19:15). ...”
Smith, Mark S.
The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
(p. PDF 116) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002
* 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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