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Psalm 68 shares the Baal Cycle's image of Anat wading in an enemy's blood, extending the divine warrior's victory to the people who worship Israel's God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE

KTU 1.3 II:27

Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
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. The virgin Anat washed her hands, the sister-in-law of peoples her fingers; she washed her hands of the blood of the guards, her fingers of the gore of the warriors.
Date: 1350 - 1185 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)

Psalm 68:23

Hebrew Bible
19 The Lord deserves praise. Day after day he carries our burden, the God who delivers us. (Selah) 20 Our God is a God who delivers; the Lord, the Sovereign Lord, can rescue from death. 21 Indeed, God strikes the heads of his enemies, the hairy foreheads of those who persist in rebellion. 22 The Lord says, “I will retrieve them from Bashan. I will bring them back from the depths of the sea, 23 so that your feet may stomp in their blood, and your dogs may eat their portion of the enemies’ corpses.” 24 They see your processions, O God—the processions of my God, my king, who marches along in holy splendor. 25 Singers walk in front; musicians follow playing their stringed instruments, in the midst of young women playing tambourines. 26 In your large assemblies praise God, the Lord, in the assemblies of Israel.
Date: 6th-3rd Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References

#6752
“... Third, the battle produces heaps of corpses (Isa. 34:2) or skulls (Deut. 32:43; Ps. 110:6). The image of harvest appears in Anat’s “gleaning” and in some biblical scenes of divine war (Joel 3:13; Rev. 14:14-20; cf. secular examples in Judg. 8:1-2; 20:44-46; Jer. 6:9; cf. Jer. 49:9; Obadiah 5). 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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