The question, although understandable, is a bit odd nonetheless because it is founded on my interlocutors predispositions and assumptions. The 8th 9th century Yahwist Tradition (Num 21:15-31), 2. Always start with that context. Any denial that the Bible is the National Literature of the Ancient Kingdom of Judah will result in not understanding what a person is reading. In terms of the population at large, some Israelites and Canaanites may have viewed several of these deities as essentially different names for the same thing: a storm god (Baal, Marduk, Yahweh), a mother goddess (Astarte, Ishtar, Asherah), a mountain god (El, Moloch, Chemosh), etc. their gods are all part of a pantheon of wars between gods where as The G-d of Israel created the mythologies so any battle that the jews lost was not him losing but part of his world. This is just one among dozens of other textual examples. Thus it was that Mesha, king of the Moabites, decided on that fateful day to make the ultimate plea for his god's intervention. The Moabite stele is important to biblical understanding because much of the theological worldview presented in the Bible can also be found in this, and other, ancient Near Eastern inscriptions. https://firstbiblenetwork.com As Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi raises a contradiction: It is written concerning the Jewish people: You have not walked in My statutes, neither have you kept My ordinances; nor have you done according to the statutes of the nations that are round about you (Ezekiel 5:7), and it is also written: You have done according to the statutes of the nations that are round about you (Ezekiel 11:12). Elisha prophecies that "(Yahweh) will also deliver Moab into your hands. Although not explicit in the Mesha stele, we can likewise imagine that this scribe and his culture would have asserted that contrariwise Chemosh decreed northern Moab to the Moabites. Like the Hebrew deity Yahweh, he blessed his people with military victory when they pleased him, and allowed them to be conquered by their enemies when they did not. This rules out Jehovah's omnipotence. The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." Today we're going to be taking a look at the famous battle of the Hebrew war gods as we read about it in II Kings 3:26 and then contrast and compare it to God as revealed to us only through Jesus Christ. [37] as a record of Mesha's victories in his revolt against the Kingdom of Israel after the death of his overlord, King Ahab. They stop by the prophet Elisha to get Yahweh's word on whether they will be victorious. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi explains: You did not act like the proper ones among the nations, but you did act like the flawed ones among them. David Noel Freedman suggested Israel's king was descended from the wrong people (the Omride dynasty), thereby caused Jehovah's wrath. "We have ample and melancholy evidence on this subject from the records of antiquity." It was believed that human sacrifice to Baal held the key to prosperity. Please, How would the Pre-Nicene Christians view the tumultuous events of today? Chemosh was the most powerful God worshipped by the Moabites and by some Israelites. B) LINES 5-6 of the Mesha stone states that Omri was king of Israel and that he was succeeded by his son. The concept of holy war (Hebrew: erem ), Hendel points out, is referenced several times in the Hebrew Bible and is a major theme in the Book of Joshua. Adonis | Anat | Asherah | Ashima | Astarte | Atargatis | Just for the records, YHWH could destroy anything that he created or co-created with His Son. [5] The great divine wrath might have therefore been satanic. Shmuel maintained that the Moab king did in fact sacrifice to an idol, and that the Jews learned human sacrifice from this and began to practice it themselves, causing them to descend and became base and causing the subsequent indignation against them. I wont hold my breath waiting for you to respond, but I wish you well in all your future endeavors. Jeremiah in his oracle of doom upon Moab has recourse to the same old song and calls the people "the people of . There is no sense whatsoever that one god is true, and the other false. El | Elyon | Eshmun | This does not seem likely since Jehovah had promised Israel would prevail over the Moabites. According to this fictional account, Moloch gives a speech at . This does not explain how "divine wrath" was involved in their departure. [3] They represented the fierce, inescapable, and often consuming heat of the summer sun (a necessary but deadly element in life; analogs may be found in Aztec sun worship). Yahweh vs. Chemosh: Battle of the Hebrew War Gods in II Kings 3:26 Listen now (19 min) | Today we're going to be taking a look at the famous battle of the Hebrew war gods as we read about it in II Kings 3:26 and then contrast and compare it to God as revealed to us only through Jesus Christ. Why would he respond to a Moabite human sacrifice, break his own prophecy of victory, and force his own armies into retreat? Did the Israelites travel 300 km to battle Midian and return to the plains of Moab all in the 11th month of the 40th year of the Wilderness period OR not? Our reading of the biblical literature brings this fact to the fore. Rav and Shmuel engage in a dispute concerning this. Having said that, we've seen numerous examples of foreign nations defeating Israel that were not equated with that national deity defeating Yahweh. Was Yahweh one of the Moloch Gods? The obvious implication is that the god Chemosh, happy with the sacrifice, caused Israel's defeat. And in regards to our current educational malaise, this type of education is utterly lacking and unfortunately devalued and misunderstood. In the original texts, this divine name was written YHWH. But as a common literary topos, this same appeal to divine decree and the possession of land was also legitimated through the scribal pen of other ancient Near Eastern cultures, such as the Moabites, where it was Chemoshnot Yahwehwho decreed Moabs land as a rightful possession to the Moabites! On critical occasions, a human sacrifice was considered necessary to secure the favor of Chemosh. The vassalage had existed since the reign of David (2 Samuel 8:2), but the Moabites revolted upon the death of Ahab. Mesha proceeded to slaughter all of the town's inhabitants after placing it under a "ban." Namely, they provide insight into the fact that goddesses were indeed secondary, and in many cases being dissolved or compounded with male deities. But here in Deuteronomy 2:24 our Israelite scribe sees it as Yahweh, who had decreedthe claim goesonly southern Moab to the children of Lot, while northern Moab was to be allotted to the children of Jacob. King Josiah destroyed the Israelite branch of the cult (2 Kings 23). It is not known how long the private worship of Chemosh in Judah and Moab actually continued. I don't imagine that this will convince you, of course, but it's still adds to the overall discussion and gives added insight as to how we Jews have traditionally understood a potentially problematic episode. "My god helps me win and defeat your god" -> Chemosh vs. Yahweh Temple of Solomon Yahwism Worship of Yahweh by the people of Israel. Are Yahweh and El the same god OR different gods? Probe Apologist Rick Wade expands on his essay God and the Canaanites, exploring critics' charge that OT warfare means God is brutal and vengeful. 1. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. Moab was not "handed over". Although HaShem abhors human sacrifice, he nevertheless realized the intention of the Gentile to honor him, wrong as it was, and punished Israel for the fact that the gentiles at this time were giving him better honor than they were. So you are correct, this is is one of the instances in the bible in which the National god of Israel and Judah loses. If a Girl says to me "call me tomorrow and we'll go on a date." Note that the Hebrew states, "they will judge," not "he will judge," therefore we are looking at two different Elohim, one belonging to Abraham (the ancestor of Jacob) and the other to Nahhor (the ancestor of Laban). From this we can deduce a number of probable facts about Chemosh. [1], Some thing that it was the king of Edom's son, not Mesha's own son, that was sacrificed but there is little support for that in the text. Elyon, the father, divided up the earth and his son Yahweh received the portion of the earth that came to be known as Israel. As for why the depiction of Yahweh would be so rudimentary, Garfinkel said that whereas Egypt and the Mesopotamia were rich kingdoms with court artists, the Kingdom of Judah was poor, small . Retrieved from https://www.learnreligions.com/chemosh-lord-of-the-moabites-117630. 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. Yahweh said Moab will be handed over and you shall conquer every fortified city. I also want to thank all the non-apologists such as John Kesler for their contributions. It's predictive power is a bit suspect but it's never really wrong! ISBN links support NWE through referral fees, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/p/index.php?title=Chemosh&oldid=1018011, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. So too is Mesha's act of dedicating to Chemosh captured artifacts formerly devoted to Yahweh. as well as disturbing! ( , ) " . I don't imagine that this will convince you, of course, but it's still adds to the overall discussion and gives added insight as to how we Jews have traditionally understood a potentially problematic episode. The Elohim of Abraham and the Elohim of Nahhor, they will judge between us, the Elohim of their father, and Jacob swore with the fear of his father Isaac. An unmistakable linguistic parallel with the Hebrew text underlying the Septuagint reading was thus discovered, one that prompted many scholars to accept the Septuagintal reading on logical and philological grounds--God (El Elyon in Deut. Disspossess so to inherit his land! (Deut 2:24, 31). If you piss God fdd enough he could simply kill you in this life or destroy your soul after. And perceiving this we thus move way beyond the confines of one text, one God, one perspective, one religion. [3] Apologetics Yahweh Baal Chemosh Moloch Anat Ashima. But which deity? Do the Israelites travel from Hor to Oboth OR to Zalmonah? So he could be more powerful? 3 Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. I often get asked why if Im not a believer, do I study these texts? (Jeremiah 32:35) Apparently a good deal of confusion existed in the minds of the Israelites concerning the relationship of Yahweh, Moloch, and Chemoshand concerning what was expected by them from their people. no religions talk of their gods ever losing battles. 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. If Israel had pressed forward, they would've destroyed Moab. 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! The stele was erected by Mesha circa 850 B.C.E . Third, Mesha demonstrated his success in the region by subordinating deities and religious materials foreign to Moab before Chemosh: "I took from thence the vessels of Yahweh and dragged them before Chemosh" (Gibson 1971, No. I wonder how El Elyon divided up the earth among Yahweh's sixty-nine brothers? 2) The earliest available copy of the Hebrew scriptures reveals that Yahweh had 69 brothers. 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. As the subtext, Chemosh and the Moabite Stone seem to reveal something of the nature of religion in Semitic regions of the period. The ancient practice of child sacrifice found renewed footing with medieval and modern interpretations. They encompass a much larger panorama: man in all his splendor and tragedy. in Classical Studies; C.Phil. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession." Except youre ignoring OPs argument. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. But the opportunity passed without improvement. Dr. Judd H. Burton is an historian and anthropologist. Elyon, translated the Most High, is probably a separate god from Yahweh, translated Lord. The NASB/ESB translation of the Bible describes how the Moabite king Mesha sacrifices his son to his god Chemosh. Discovered in 1868 at Dhiban, Jordan (biblical "Dibon," the capital of Moab), the inscription of 34 lines is the most extensive document ever recovered referring contemporaneously to ancient Israel. Qetesh | It is an attempt to understand man, including our forefathers, in all his aspects. In 2 Kings 3:27 we find that human sacrifice was part of the rites of Chemosh. If he is all-good, why doesn't he avail himself of these means? That is each nationIsraelite, Babylonian, Egyptian, Moabite, etc.viewed and understood the flux of the geopolitical landscape as something controlled by their national deitybe it Yahweh, Marduk, Osiris, or Chemosh! Chemosh and Yahweh were cut from the same dusty, desert cloth as all the other blood-drinking gods of the ancient Semites, and the idea of human sacrifice was never far from their superstitious minds. [4]. your conclusion does not follow. The worship of Chemosh in Judah is traditionally thought to have been abolished in the time of Josiah in the late seventh century B.C.E. Biblical scholars have also noted that Chemosh's role in the Moabite Stone inscription is analogous to that of Yahweh in the book of Kings. Unfortunately this type of Humanities education is often not even appreciated nor recognized by those who have never taken a humanities course. The 7th century Deuteronomic Tradition (Deut 2:18 & 29), 3. The other nations worshiped Baal and Asherah, and so many Israelites felt a pull to do the same. 23 Now since the Lord, the God of Israel, has driven the Amorites out before his people Israel, what right have you to take it over? Promised Lands Decreed by Ancient Near Eastern Gods to their Peoples. At any point Yahweh could have provided additional prophecy that the Israelites have not heeded. We know what happened at this battle from independent historical record. In 2 Kings 3:27, Yahweh is defeated by another god, Chemosh. You ever hear of Kronos vs Zeus? As already noted above, Yahweh had promised victory over the Moabites, so unless that was a false promise, it cannot be the case that He was angry at the Israelites and caused their defeat. Subscribe now to get a private link for listening in your favorite podcast player or listen in the Substack app. ( , ) ". 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. On the issue of human sacrifice, it seems likely that the story of a Moabite king offering his son as a sacrifice to Chemosh is historical. If someone strikes you do you seek retribution per the law OR offer the other cheek as well? Cookie Notice Additionally, both Judges 11:24 and the Heshbon poem of Num 21:28-30 also acknowledge Chemosh as god of the land of Moab. Chemosh and Ammonites: There is one passage where Chemosh is designated the god of the Ammonites (Jdg 11:24). Will B. says It's a wonder that this geopolitical theory didn't lead Israel to dominate the ANE. And like Israelite scribes, other scribes of other cultures also wrote texts that did the exact same thing and perceived the world in the exact same way that our Israelite scribes did but only through the lens of a different deity. "I am Mesha, son Chemosh[it], king of Moab, the Dibonite.". In the last entry (#371), I made an appeal to historical and literary context when reading, and thus understanding, the texts of the Bibleparticularly in relation to the theme of Yahweh granting or promising land to his people. They weren't beaten back, they just left. We might even conclude that reality for them, as for us, is never an objective thing out there, but is always understood subjectively: We impose a narrative, be it theological or otherwise, onto reality or the reality that we perceive, in a humanly attempt to understand it and our place in it. What were the borders of the land of Canaan promised to the patriarchs by Yahweh: from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates, #13. This was accomplished through the use of a commonly used literary topos or convention, and in our present case both the Bible and the 9th century BCE Mesha stele (see also the 6th c. Babylonian cylinder seal) bear witness to this literary convention. This apparently causes the defeat of Israel and their allied armies: 2 Kings 3:27, This is an example of failed prophecy in the Bible. Not known how long the private worship of Chemosh you in this life OR destroy soul! Private worship of Chemosh in Judah is traditionally thought to have been in. Will also deliver Moab into your hands s omnipotence the question, although understandable is. Says it 's never really wrong i am Mesha chemosh vs yahweh son Chemosh [ it ], king of Israel that! And unfortunately devalued and misunderstood town 's inhabitants after placing it under a `` ban. Lot! Historian and anthropologist [ it ], king of Israel and that he was succeeded by his son placing... 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