Texts in Conversation
The meeting tent in Exodus 33 shares El's tent in the Baal Cycle as a place of divine presence, placing Moses' access to God within an older image of a god receiving visitors at home.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.3 V:7
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
“I shall trample him like a lamb to the ground; I shall make his gray hair run with blood, the gray hair of his beard with gore, if he does not give a house to Baal like the gods, and a dwelling like the sons of Athirat!” She stamped her feet, and the earth shook. Then she set her face towards El at the source of the rivers, amidst the springs of the two deeps. She rolled back the tent of El, and came to the pavilion of the King, the Father of the Bright One. She came to the territory, the tent of the creator. Bull El her father heard her voice. El replied from within the seven chambers, through the eight façades of the closed rooms: […] Above […] “At the feet of the divine assistants I fall: I am much afraid!
Exodus 33:9
Hebrew Bible
7 Moses took the tent and pitched it outside the camp, at a good distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. Anyone seeking the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting that was outside the camp. 8 And when Moses went out to the tent, all the people would get up and stand at the entrance to their tents and watch Moses until he entered the tent. 9 And whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. 10 When all the people would see the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people, each one at the entrance of his own tent, would rise and worship.
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Notes and References
“... Moreover, the description of Yahweh’s
dwelling-place as a “tent” (’o¯hel) (e.g., Psalms 15:1; 27:6; 91:10; 132:3), called in
the Pentateuchal traditions the “tent of meeting” (’ohel moˆ‘e¯d) (Exodus 33:7–11;
Numbers 12:5, 10; Deuteronomy 31:14, 15), recalls the tent of El. The tabernacle
of Yahweh has qeˇra¯sˇıˆm, usually understood as “boards” (Exodus 26–40); Numbers
3:36; 4:31), whereas the dwelling of El is called qrsˇ, perhaps “tabernacle” or “pa-
vilion” (CAT 1.2 III 5; 1.3 V 8; 1.4 IV 24; 1.17 V 49). ...”
Smith, Mark S.
The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts
(p. 142) Oxford University Press, 2001
* 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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