Shahar

Shahar is the morning, and he is the reason Isaiah has a phrase to reach for. 'Helel ben Shachar' — shining one, son of dawn — is the line that Latin turned into Lucifer, and the father in it is this god. KTU 1.23 is one of the strangest texts from Ugarit: El's sexual prowess, two goddesses, twin births, and infants so hungry that one lip touches the earth and the other the sky, who have to be exiled to the steppe for seven years until they can be fed like anyone else.

Parentage

• parent: El

Variant accounts

• Which of El's two partners in KTU 1.23 bears which twin is not resolved.The text has El father the twins on two women, named as Athirat and Rahmay in the reference treatments. It does not distribute the twins between the mothers in a way the record can assert, so the paternity is linked and the maternity is stated in prose.Reference treatment of KTU 1.23, describing El fathering Shahar and Shalim on the goddesses Athirat and Rahmay. (secondary)

Domains

• dawn

Relations

• twin sibling: ShalimDawn and dusk, born together — the two ends of the day as a pair of twins, and both of them the planet Venus in its two appearances.Reference treatment of Shalim as consistently portrayed as the twin brother of Shahar, the god of dawn. (secondary)

Sources

• Shahar is the Ugaritic personification of dawn, son of El and twin of Shalim, born in the tablet KTU 1.23 and sent with his brother to wander the steppe.: KTU 1.23 ('Dawn and Dusk' / 'The Gracious Gods'). (primary); Reference treatments of Shahar and Shalim. (secondary)