Texts in Conversation
Isaiah 59 shares the Baal Cycle's image of Anat as an angry god fighting enemies across the earth, making defense of justice a task requiring divine force.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.3 II:8
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
And behold! Anat fought in the vale, battled between the two cities, struck the people, silenced the men of the sun-rise. Heads were like balls beneath her, palms above her like locusts, palms of warriors like avenging grasshoppers. She did stick the heads on her waist, did bind the palms to her sash. She plunged her knees in the blood of the guards, her skirts in the gore of the warriors. 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.
Isaiah 59:18
Hebrew Bible
15 Honesty has disappeared; the one who tries to avoid evil is robbed. The Lord watches and is displeased, for there is no justice. 16 He sees there is no advocate; he is shocked that no one intervenes. So he takes matters into his own hands; his desire for justice drives him on. 17 He wears his desire for justice like body armor, and his desire to deliver is like a helmet on his head. He puts on the garments of vengeance and wears zeal like a robe. 18 He repays them for what they have done, dispensing angry judgment to his adversaries and punishing his enemies. He repays the coastlands. 19 In the west, people respect the Lord’s reputation; in the east they recognize his splendor. For he comes like a rushing stream driven on by wind sent from the Lord.
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Notes and References
“... There are many parallels between this Ugaritic passage and a variety of
biblical texts.425 First, the divine battle takes place at the mountain of the
deity, a motif found in Psalms 2:1-2; 48:5-8; 110; Joel 4:9-14; Zechariah
12:3-4; 14:2; and elsewhere. In Ugaritic, this motif is not restricted to Anat.
Baal also fights his enemies on his mountain (KTU 1.6 VI 12-13; cf. 1.1 V 5,
18). Second, the battle is universal in scope; “peoples” are collectively the
enemies of the deity. Many of the biblical passages just cited likewise contain
this motif. Isaiah 59:15-19 describes the universal scope of Yahweh’s warfare: ...” “... Like Anat in KTU 1.3 II, here Yahweh is described as enraged (qin’â), and
the divine enemies are described according to the “west” (ma‘ărāb) and the
“east,” literally “the rising of the sun” (mizraḥ-šemeš). ...”
Smith, Mark S.
The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
(pp. PDF 115-116) 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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