Texts in Conversation
Psalm 27 shares the Baal Cycle's language for Baal's pleasant mountain home, making enjoyment of God's presence part of the reason to seek his temple.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.3 III:31
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
“I understand the lightning beyond the heavens’ ken, the thoughts beyond human knowledge, that which the throngs below cannot understand. Come, and I will show it: deep inside my mountain, holy Sapan, in the sacred space on my native peak, in the paradise upon the hill of victory.” Watch! Anat sees the gods. Below, her feet start shaking. All around, her limbs are shivering. Up above, her face sweats. Shudders wrack the bones of every limb; the bones within her spine turn weak. She spoke up and cried out, “Why have Gupan and Ugar come here? What enemy rises up against Baal? What rival faces the Cloud-Rider? Didn’t I crush El’s beloved, Yamm (Ocean)? Didn’t I annihilate Nahar (River), the great god? Didn’t I leash Dragon and bind him in a saddle? I crushed the Sinuous Serpent, Encircler, the seven-headed monster.
Psalm 27:4
Hebrew Bible
2 When evil men attack me to devour my flesh, when my adversaries and enemies attack me, they stumble and fall. 3 Even when an army is deployed against me, I do not fear. Even when war is imminent, I remain confident. 4 I have asked the Lord for one thing—this is what I desire! I want to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, so I can gaze at the splendor of the Lord and contemplate in his temple. 5 He will surely give me shelter in the day of danger; he will hide me in his home. He will place me on an inaccessible rocky summit. 6 Now I will triumph over my enemies who surround me. I will offer sacrifices in his dwelling place and shout for joy. I will sing praises to the Lord.
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Notes and References
“... Saphon and Zion share a number of epithets. For
example, KTU 1.3 III 13-31 (cf. IV 7-20), cited in full in the previous section,
applies qdš, “holy place,” n‛m, “pleasant place,” and nḥlt, “inheritance,” to
Baal’s mountain. Similarly, Psalms 46:5 and 48:2 describe Zion as *qōdeš (cf.
Exod. 15:13; Pss. 87:1; 93:5; KAI 17:1, 78:5 [?]), while Psalm 27:4 calls
Yahweh’s mountain nõ‛am (cf. Ps. 16:6).378 As Greenfield has observed,
nō‛am in Psalm 27:4 is followed in the next verse by wordplay or
paronomasia on the root *ṣpn.379 Yahweh’s mountain is called a naḥălāh,
“portion” (Ps. 79:1; Jer. 12:7; cf. Exod. 15:17; Ps. 16:6). The epithets for Zion
and the way they are listed together in Psalm 48:2-3 likewise recall the titles
for Sapan in KTU 1.3 III 29-31.380 ...”
Smith, Mark S.
The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
(p. PDF 105) 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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