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How Yahweh Inherited Israel

Written by Diesel the Magus

An evidence article on the older layer of Israel’s religion: a son in El’s divine council, imaged as a bull, worshiped with Asherah beside him, who received Israel as his portion.

The claim

In the oldest layer of Israel’s religion, YHWH was not the only God. He was one of the sons of El Elyon, the high god, and was allotted Israel as his inheritance. He was imaged as a bull, as El was, and worshiped with Asherah, El’s consort, beside him. Only later was he merged with El, separated from Asherah, and made the sole God.

1. The inheritance: Deuteronomy 32:8-9

  • The allotment. The Most High (Elyon) divided humankind and fixed their boundaries according to the number of the “sons of God.” That is the reading in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QDeut-j), and the Septuagint has “angels of God.” The Masoretic text reads “sons of Israel,” which most scholars see as a later correction.
  • The portion. Verse 9 says YHWH’s portion is his people, Jacob, his allotted heritage. YHWH receives Israel from Elyon, as one son receives a share.
  • Elyon is El. Genesis 14:18-22 calls him El Elyon, and the Ugaritic texts use the same title for El.
  • The council. In Psalm 82, God stands in the assembly of El and condemns the gods, the “sons of the Most High” (82:1, 6), and the psalm ends by asking him to inherit all the nations (82:8). Psalm 89:6-8 and Exodus 15:11 also assume a council of divine beings among whom YHWH has no equal.

2. The bull

  • El at Ugarit. El is called the Bull (tr il).
  • The epithet. Abir Ya‘aqob, the Mighty One of Jacob (Genesis 49:24; Isaiah 49:26; Psalm 132:2, 5), has the same consonants as abbir, bull. Numbers 23:22 and 24:8 say God brought Israel out of Egypt with horns like a wild ox.
  • The calves. Jeroboam set up golden calves at Bethel and Dan and said, “Here are your gods who brought you up out of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28-33). Aaron says the same line over the calf at Sinai and then proclaims a feast to YHWH (Exodus 32:4-5).
  • The prophet. Hosea attacks the calf of Samaria and those who kiss calves (8:5-6; 13:2).
  • The debate. Scholars disagree whether the calf was the god’s image or his pedestal, as the cherubim were his throne. In either case the cult was YHWH’s.

3. Asherah beside him

  • El’s consort. At Ugarit, Athirat (Asherah) is El’s consort and the mother of his seventy sons, the divine council.
  • The inscriptions. At Kuntillet Ajrud (about 800 BCE), texts bless by “YHWH of Samaria and his asherah” and “YHWH of Teman and his asherah.” At Khirbet el-Qom (8th century BCE), a tomb inscription blesses Uriyahu by YHWH and by his asherah. Whether “his asherah” means the goddess or her cult symbol is debated, and either way an Asherah belonged to the worship of YHWH.
  • The Bible. It reports an Asherah image in the Jerusalem temple under Manasseh and its removal by Josiah, with women weaving for her (2 Kings 21:7; 23:4-7). Hezekiah had already cut one down (18:4), and Judges 6:25-30 and 1 Kings 15:13 mention others.
  • What is and isn’t attested. No text says in so many words that YHWH married Asherah. The evidence is a pairing of YHWH and Asherah at the cult sites, the same pairing El and Athirat have at Ugarit.

4. How YHWH became El, and then the only God

  • A southern origin. In the oldest poems YHWH comes from the south (Judges 5:4-5; Deuteronomy 33:2; Habakkuk 3:3), and Egyptian lists from the 14th and 13th centuries BCE name a “land of the Shasu of Yhw.”
  • The merger. The people’s name, Israel, is built on El, not YHWH. El’s titles (El Shaddai, El Elyon, El Olam) pass to YHWH, and Exodus 6:3 says the patriarchs knew God as El Shaddai and not by the name YHWH.
  • The purge. Hezekiah and Josiah remove the high places and the Asherah (2 Kings 18:4; 23:4-7), and Deuteronomy demands exclusive worship of YHWH.
  • The denial. In the exile, Isaiah 40-55 (c. 550-539 BCE) states outright that there is no other god (44:6; 45:5-6, 18). The council is demoted in the text itself: the “sons of God” of Deuteronomy 32:8 become “angels” in the Septuagint and “sons of Israel” in the Masoretic text.

What this establishes

The Bible’s own texts and the inscriptions agree that YHWH’s profile changed: a son in El’s council with Asherah beside him, then El himself, then the only God with no consort and no council. The earlier layer of that profile is the early YHWH that the Father-of-Aša argument is compared against.

Further reading: Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God; Judith M. Hadley, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah; Saul M. Olyan, Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel.