Yahweh

Yahweh is the national deity of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the central figure of the tradition that bears his name. In its earliest recoverable form the cult presents him as a warrior storm-god, riding the clouds, thundering from Sinai and Teman, and leading the heavenly and earthly hosts into battle. An older poetic stratum, preserved in the Song of Moses, sets him within a divine council presided over by El Elyon, who apportions the nations so that Israel falls to Yahweh as his own portion; in the mature religion El and Yahweh are wholly identified, and the epithets of the Canaanite high god pass to him. Popular practice, attested at Kuntillet ʿAjrud and Khirbet el-Qom, invokes 'Yahweh and his Asherah', a formula scholars read either as naming a consort goddess or as his wooden cult symbol. Over the Iron Age his worship moves from monolatry toward exclusive monotheism, culminating in the reforms ascribed to Hezekiah and Josiah, and he takes over from Baal the myth of combat against the chaotic Sea and its dragons.

Parentage

• El

Domains

• storm rain
• war
• kingship
• covenant law

Powers

• commands the thunderstorm and rain
• leads the heavenly host in battle
• subdues the primeval sea and its monsters
• grants and withdraws the breath of life

Epithets

• יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת
• יהוה שמרן
• יהוה תמן
• אֵל שַׁדַּי

Relations

• parent: El
• spouse: Asherah
• enemy: Baal
• enemy: Mot
• enemy: Leviathan
• enemy: Rahab
• companion: Malʾak Yahweh

Sources

• Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone), line 18, c. 840 BCE
• Kuntillet ʿAjrud and Arad ostraca; Lachish letters
• Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God (2nd ed., 2002)
• Soleb temple topographical list of Amenhotep III, 'tꜣ šꜣsw yhwꜣ', c. 1400 BCE
• Donald B. Redford, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times (1992)
• John Day, God's Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea (1985)