His presence in the Old Testament world was well known, as his cult was imported to Jerusalem by King Solomon (1 Kings 11:7). Scholars contend that both the 7th century Deuteronomist and the 6th century Priestly writer reworked in different fashion the earlier Yahwist-Elohist tradition. But this is exactly my pointwhich is sure to have gone over the head of my fundamentalist readers. Rather we see a much larger portraitof humanity, a whole world of many cultures, if I may dare, all human species. Before I get to this extra-biblical contradiction, let me briefly review what we have already treated. And Israel has been defeated; has been defeated forever Chemosh restored (the land) in my days. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. As noted in the footnotes of the NET bible: [2]. The high place on which Mesha oriented the stone was dedicated to Chemosh as well. Even the biblical writers are forced to admit that the strategy succeeded: "Then he took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall. Rather the Moabites lost their land because Chemosh was angered at them (the Babylonian cylinder seal makes the same claim about the Babylonians losing their land to the Persians because Marduk was angry that they forsook his laws and commandments). Maybe the Jewish soul collective that sees itself as parts and parcels of the God Yahweh used some mind-bending strategy there to make the devotees of Chemosh become subjewgated in some way. Literature, as well as other arts, are an expression of mans desires, beliefs, perceptions of his realities, modes of understanding his world and circumstances, his spirit, his hopes and failures, etc. Chemosh was the most powerful God worshipped by the Moabites and by some Israelites. The Old Testament tells of a human sacrifice to the god Chemosh apparently causing "great divine wrath" against the army of Israel, followed by their withdrawal from the war with the Moabites. These are rather to be seen as the literary techniques used by all scribes of the ancient Near Eastern world in an attempt to legitimate lands taken from other and/or indigenous peoples and to explain lands lost to other nations. The Bible in 2 Kings 3:4-5 verifies Mesha was the king of Moab during their revolt against Israel. (Ex 32:27-28 vs Ex 32:35 vs Ex 32:34), #116. Which god is the creator of the heavens and the earth: Yahweh OR El? Email. Promised Lands Decreed by Ancient Near Eastern Gods to their Peoples. The Moabites are apostrophized in an old Hebrew song as the "people of Chemosh" (Nu 21:29). The meaning of the name Chemosh is not understood, though some scholars believe it may have meant "destroyer" or "subduer." Chemosh was also seen as a fish-god. [1] However, there is an even greater significance to this verse. The Amorite territory (i.e., norther Moab) is taken from Sihon as in the Yahwist tradition but for different reasons: in Deuteronomy it is seen as part of the promised or allotted land Yahweh swore to the Israelites: Begin! King Solomon apparently considered the worship of Chemosh in Israel to be acceptable, for he is said to have built a sanctuary to Chemosh on the Mount of Olives (I Kings 11:7). Little is known about Chemosh; although King Solomon of Israel built a sanctuary to him east of Jerusalem (1 Kings 11:7), the shrine was later demolished by King Josiah (2 Kings 23:13). Unless early Hebrew religion taught that there were more than 70 gods, Chemosh was probably one of the 69 brothers of Yahweh. your conclusion does not follow. Thank you for all your hard work here. Then all the people said, "What you say is good.". So a proper understanding of Yahwehs word or promise of the land of Canaan to the children of Israel has to be seen in its larger historical and literary contexts. This may be seen in the Moabite Stone inscriptions where Chemosh is also referred to as "Asthor-Chemosh." https://www.learnreligions.com/chemosh-lord-of-the-moabites-117630 (accessed April 18, 2023). Rav and Shmuel engage in a dispute concerning this. It's interesting that you chose not to address the evidence presented, but instead to repeat your own belief, apart from the evidence, that your system is sound. Chemosh is one of the few gods of Israel's neighbors for whom we have a contemporary source with which to compare the biblical account. Rather than just defeat a nation through reclaiming their cities and killing inhabitants, Mesha . This is socially and culturally problematic, but logically consistent (if weak). Produced by the First Bible Network: Certainly not Yahweh. The Very First Bible: First, he was Moab's national god. According to the Moabite stone, an inscription created by the Moabite king Mesha, Chemosh was the supreme Moabite deity who brought victory in battle when his people honored him properly, but allowed their enemies to prevail when they fell into sin. The ancient practice of child sacrifice found renewed footing with medieval and modern interpretations. Matthew Henry suggests that the sacrifice was inspired by Satan. In 2 Kings 3:18-19, Elisha relates Jehovah's prophecy that the armies of Israel will defeat the Moabites: And this is but a light thing in the sight of the Lord: he will deliver the Moabites also into your hand. Chemosh: Ancient God of Moabites. Genesis 1:1-2 Not a Creation ex nihilo! It is entirely within his abilities. Elyon The term "Elyon", which occurs 53 times in the Old Testament, means "highest". Israel may have been too vigorous in pursuing the war, pushing the Moabite king to this extreme action and causing Jehovah's wrath. I know first-born sons were important to the ancients, as far as inheritance and having an heir to a king's throne. Are Yahweh and El the same god OR different gods? Moreover, P (at least here in the itinerary of Num 33) makes no mention of Amorites, an Amorite conquest, nor a Transjordanian conquest for that matter! 1. Does it fit or will we once again find a belief system incompatible with Christianity - forcing us to ask the question 'Whose God?' Notes: The Very First Bible: https://www . And in regards to our current educational malaise, this type of education is utterly lacking and unfortunately devalued and misunderstood. If anyone's conclusions don't hold water it's yours. Jehovah have previously promised that Israel would prevail. 2 Kings 3:27 27 Then he (Mesha, king of the Moabites who worshiped Chemosh) took his firstborn son, who was to succeed him as king, and offered him as a sacrifice on the city wall. 48:45-46), regards the Moabites as the children of Chemosh, and also calls them "the people of Chemosh." "Deconstructing the past to make sense of today." Yahweh admits that Chemosh is more powerful than Yahweh when Chemosh receives the Moabite king's son as a human sacrifice. God, whether existent or not, is only ever conceived, perceived, imaged, and cited through, by, and for man! So, too, of all the Greek gods, Zeus comes to . Press J to jump to the feed. The God of Israel vs. Chemosh the god of Moab. [7] Possibly Israel had the wrong allies and this angered Jehovah. Maybe that's why Yahweh decided to sacrifice his firstborn son? 48:7, 13, 46). So the Bible has lied, do you not believe Yahwey was defeated by Chemosh? (Deut 2:9-23 vs Num 20-21), #3. Yahweh vs. Chemosh: Battle of the Hebrew War Gods in II Kings 3:26 - YouTube 0:00 / 19:00 Yahweh vs. Chemosh: Battle of the Hebrew War Gods in II Kings 3:26 First Bible Network 117. and ye shall smite every fenced city, and every choice city, and shall fell every good tree, and stop all wells of water, and mar every good piece of land with stones. Moabites, the People of Chemosh: The national God of the Moabites, as Baal of the Zidonians, or Milcom (Moloch, Malcam) of the Ammonites. The Moabite Stone is a priceless source of information concerning Chemosh. His presence in the Old Testament world was well known, as his cult was imported to . Just like many of the other verses we have looked at, the translators have "fixed" this text so that it better fits with the monotheistic view. Such synthesis reveals the masculinization of Ashtoreth, a Canaanite goddess worshiped by Moabites and other Semitic peoples. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Mythologists and other scholars suggest that such activity may be due to the fact the Chemosh and other Canaanite gods such as the Baals, Moloch, Thammuz, and Baalzebub were all personifications of the sun or the sun's rays. Of all the Molochs, Jehovah becomes supreme, and the other Molochs are forgotten, lost for ever; he is the God of gods. If someone strikes you do you seek retribution per the law OR offer the other cheek as well? Also similar to the Israelite tradition is Chemosh's direct involvement in military decisions, such as his telling Mesha to "go and take Nebo from the Israelites." (Lev 7:20-21 vs Deut 12:20-22), #143. Only the pure are allowed to eat sacrificial meat OR both the pure and impure? 5 The gods know nothing, they understand nothing. Moab destroys the temple of Yahweh - shows us the importance of the gods to political entities at the time. God presides in the great assembly; he renders judgment among the gods: 2 How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? So he could be more powerful? Is Joshua allowed to enter the Tent of Meeting OR are only Aaronid priests? Chemosh seems to have also had a taste for blood. Yahweh vs. Chemosh: Battle of the Hebrew War Gods in II Kings 3:26. How do we know that the biblical writers were not writing history? http://triangulations.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/deuteronomy-328-9/, Literary and conceptual parallels discovered in the literature of Ugarit, however, have provided a more coherent explanation for the number seventy in Deuteronomy 32:8 and have furnished support for textual scholars who argue against the "sons of Israel" reading. So too is Mesha's act of dedicating to Chemosh captured artifacts formerly devoted to Yahweh. Chemosh Aka: Asthor-Chemosh Meaning of the name: Uncertain; perhaps Destroyer or Fish God Domain: War, mountains; primary god of the Moabites Biblical reference: 1 Kings 11:7: Despite being held up as a paragon of virtue, King Solomon actually built a sanctuary to Chemosh thought of as a move to please his Moabite wife. If so, Chemosh probably stood in the position of Asthar's husband, as did El to Asherah and Baal to Astarte. The divine wrath might have been an even superior diety that prevented Chemosh worshippers from being eliminated by Johovah worshippers. At this time in the biblical story, Yahuh (not Yahweh, the V in YHVH is pronounced as a U) god of the Yahudi people (Jews) was still understood as simply one of the Elohim, or Tribal gods fighting it out. Rav states that the King of Moab sacrificed his son in a clumsy imitation of the Binding of Issac (this is derived from the Shekalim in the Mishnah), and that he did this to honor Heaven. Elyon, the father, divided up the earth and his son Yahweh received the portion of the earth that came to be known as Israel. {1} Especially singled out for censure by critics is the conquest of Canaan, the land promised to Abraham, by Joshua and the . The Israelite judge Jephthah had offered Yahweh a similar sacrificehis virgin daughterto fulfill a sacred vow he had made to God prior to gaining victory over the Ammonites (Judges 11). Mar 4. Learn Religions, Nov. 12, 2021, learnreligions.com/chemosh-lord-of-the-moabites-117630. Of course, we cannot overlook the fact of . If Israel had pressed forward, they would've destroyed Moab. But, suddenly, in verse 27, the Moabite king sacrifices his own child, and "divine wrath" fell on Israel, causing them to retreat. In 1967, Raphael Patai was . I think the Documentary Hypothesis should be upgraded to aDocumentary Theory! Omri (the father of Ahab) was the king of Israel, and he oppressed Moab for many days, for Chemosh was angry with his land. But the Deuteronomist also took liberties in retelling the Moab tradition, whose contradictions weve also already noted. Chemosh may also be seen as a "ba'al," or as the Moabite equivalent of the Canaanite Ba'al. It is believed that he lived on Mount Saphon, close to the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit. And I fought against the city and captured it. I was not familiar with the Moabite stele. Elyon El Roi Marduk Asherah Nisroch Resheph. Just as the worship of Yahweh set Israelites apart from other peoples during the Iron Age II, so did the Ammonites' worship of Milcom distinguish them from their closest neighbors and rivals. We already saw how the Deuteronomist prepared its readers for this rightful taking of the promised land by creating and presenting precedents: This was all to set up the conquering and dispossession of the indigenous peoples of the land of Canaan and some of Transjordan as promised to the children of Jacob by Yahweh, and this dispossession begins with the taking of northern Moab from Sihon. 1. We, from our 21st century vantage point and hopefully from a knowledge of ancient Near Eastern literary cultural norms, can see that this was a theological interpretive grid employed by all cultures of the ancient world to make sense of the geopolitical forces that enacted upon that world. The other issue I wonder about is the seeming ignorance of the Deutoronomist of the Yahwist version. Thus we come to understand, and I would argue even appreciate, the literature of the Bible with its theological argument that Yahweh granted land and took land away to/from his people and other peoples as nothing more than an ancient theological interpretive lens through which the vicissitudes of the ancient Near Eastern world played itself out. This involved the destruction of the high place sanctuary built by Solomon. What were the borders of the land of Canaan promised to the patriarchs by Yahweh: from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates, #13. However, Mesha boasts that Chemosh has blessed him with success and restored Moab's sovereignty, apparently the result of his piety. It was for this crime that Solomon's kingdom was divided in the days of his son Rehoboam, and the northern kingdom given to the care of Jeroboam I, who had been commissioned for this role by the prophet Ahijah. Within the text, the inscriber mentions Chemosh twelve times. Dr. Judd H. Burton is an historian and anthropologist. 17-18). Dispossess so to inherit his land! Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. [5] The great divine wrath might have therefore been satanic. One rendering of the name of the father of Mesha, "Chemosh-melek," indicates the possibility that Chemosh and the Ammonite god Moloch (melek) were one and the same deity, sometimes referred to as Chemosh-Moloch, a similar construction to the Israelite "Yahweh-Elohim." The entire old testament talks about the failure of the people of God. I found this site a little over a month ago and was so impressed I read all your posts twice. While he is most readily associated with the Moabites, according to Judges 11:24 he seems to have been the national deity of the Ammonites as well. First, he was Moab's national god. The 7th century Deuteronomic Tradition (Deut 2:18 & 29), 3. [37] The texts confirmed some of the names of Israels deities including Elyon. In Judah and Israel, the worship of Chemosh, Moloch, Baal, Asherah, Astarte, and other godsalongside of Yawhehwas regarded by some of the kings as a way of achieving national unity through a kind of religious pluralism. S o begins one of the most extraordinary ancient documents ever found. Smith says When Naaman begged a little earth that he might make a Yahweh-sanctuary in Damascus, how easy it would have been for Elisha to instruct him that the whole earth is Yahweh's and that the soil of Damascus is as truly his as the soil of Palestine. http://toby.weebly.com/hebrew-henotheism.html. Elijah's confrontation Calvinism may have a hard time with this because they remove any element of human free-will, but I do not, because God kept his promise and let his people not accept it. He may have been related to or even identical with the Ammonite god Moloch. In any case, to the biblical writers, the worship of Chemosh, "the abomination of Moab," was an inexcusable sin, as was the worship of any deity other than Yahweh. (Num 13:26 vs Num 20:1, 27:14, 33:36; Deut 32:51), #313. He also names Mesha as the son of Chemosh. This implies that there is a source of divinity outside of their god. (Deut 2:24, 31). in Classical Studies; C.Phil. Chemosh was apparently associated with the Semitic mother-goddess Ashtar. So Jacob swore by the Fear of his father Isaac, (Genesis 31:53, RSV). 221:27-30; Jer. As English poet John Milton wrote in his 1667 masterpiece, Paradise Lost, Moloch is one of Satan's chief warriors and one of the greatest fallen angels the Devil has on his side. But rather: if you fight Moab, I will fight for you and you will throw down every city. Citing this older poem allows the Yahwist to counter the claims made in the Mesha stele (below) by claiming that the Israelites under Omri took the land from the Amorites not the Moabites. We know what happened at this battle from independent historical record. So god tolerates human sacrifices and even accepts them, going against his own laws and morals, simply because a group of people no longer up hold his laws? They later developed a tradition of henotheism, in which Yahweh alone was to be worshiped by Israel, but other nations also had their own gods, one of whom was Chemosh. At times, human sacrifice was dedicated to Chemosh, as it was to Molech and occasionally to Yahweh as well. One rendering of the name of the father of Mesha, "Chemosh-melek," indicates the possibility that Chemosh and the Ammonite god Moloch (melek) were one and the same deity, sometimes referred to as Chemosh-Moloch, a similar construction to the Israelite "Yahweh-Elohim." He was very respected and was considered by the people to be all-knowing and all-powerful. Ever found, whose contradictions weve also already noted the city and captured.... 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Yahweh - shows us the importance of the high place on which Mesha oriented the was!, they understand nothing other issue I wonder about is the seeming ignorance the... Ashtoreth, a Canaanite goddess worshiped by Moabites and other Semitic Peoples to the. Are Yahweh and El the same god OR different gods it 's yours formerly devoted Yahweh... 12, 2021, learnreligions.com/chemosh-lord-of-the-moabites-117630 of information concerning Chemosh., close to the ancient practice of sacrifice. And Israel has been defeated ; has been defeated ; has been defeated forever Chemosh restored ( the land in... Humanity, a whole world of many cultures, if I may dare, all human species superior! Why Yahweh decided to sacrifice his firstborn son the high place sanctuary built by Solomon dispute! 5 the gods know nothing, they would 've destroyed Moab Chemosh probably stood in the of. Of course, we can not overlook the fact of so, Chemosh stood. 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