Ea; Yahveh: Dyaus; Zey#; Jupiter

A. H. Keane

The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 15, No. 4. (Jul., 1903), pp. 559-582.

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 THE

J E W I S H QUARTERLY

REVIEW

JULY, 1003

- .
EA ; YAHVEH : DYAUS ; ZEYX ; JUPITER.
Y
/

Is it any longer possible to determine the original

force and inter-relations of tl~ese Babylonian, Hebrew,
and Aryan names of the or a deity? This secular question
has recently been again raised by the Himyaritic scholar,
Dr. Eduard Glaserl, who endeavours to show that all five
terms are philologically one, the archetype and primary
form being the Indian Uyaus, whence the others are
directly or indirectly derived. It may a t once be stated
that the main contention breaks down completely, and
that for the same reason that has made shipwreck of so
many similar theories-neglect of some of the essential
factors of the problem. With characteristic frankness
Dr. Glaser admits that he is no " Kenner des Indischen,"
while on the other hand he strangely overlooks the Italic
field which will be seen to present an insuperable objection
to the acceptance of his general views. These are no-
where formulated in very precise language; indeed are
often expressed somewhat vaguely, and even with marked

Jei~owah-Jozisunu die drei Sdhne AToalis, Munich, 1901.

VOL. XV. Q q
s~~ THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

symptoms of doubt and hesitation. But their general

tenor may be deduced from a number of passages which
will be found interspersed with other matter between
pages 19 and 25 of the monograph, and may here be
conveniently brought together.
Of the term nrny he considers that " die altesten Formen
sind I'1; (dazu die verlangerte Form tn;) und yi (dazu in:),
denen sich als vollstandigere Formen Juweh (durch Hinzu-
fugung der Silbe nr zu $9) und Jehdweh (in: + n) anschliessen."
Thus Glaser takes Yah to be the oldest form, without,
however, explaining the process and ruison d'e2re of the
later developments, which have been so ingeniously set
forth by Mr. J. H. Levy in a recent number of this Review.
This conclusion I may here say that I all the more readily
accept since it is both highly probable in itself, and also
harmonizes completely with my own views regarding the
provenance and true relations of Yahveh (Yah).
Glaser continues : " Diese Form [Yah or Yo",Yau, per-
haps also Y d ] hat gar nichts Grammatisches an sich, ja
es kann nicht einmal, wenigstens nicht rnit stichhaltigen
Griinden, behauptet werclen, dass sie semitischen Ursprungs
ist. J a h ist jedenfalls alter als die israelitische Geschichte.. ..
Anderseits erinnert der babylonische Gott Ea, der vielleicht
Ejah oder Ijah lautete, an Jah." Here also I am in full
accord, as it is part of my thesis that Yah is non-Semitic,
and identical with the pre-Semitic Sumerian god Ea of
Chaldaea.
Then: " Eines springt sofort deutlich in die Augen:
die Aehnlichkeit des lateinischen Jovis und der ersten Silbe
von Jupiter mit Jhozveh oder Jdweh, bexw. mit J(u)hzZ.
Man erklk-t bekanntlich den Componenten piter in Jupiter
in der Regel als indisches pitar, latein. pater, ' Vater,' und
erblickt im ersten Componenten J u eine verwandte Bildung
mit Zeus= indisoh Dydus- (Jovis + pater, aus Diovis + pater,
aus indisch Dyhuspitar, dazu Dios, Genitiv von Zeus).
Da Dyhus sow01 an Zeus wie auch an Jovis (Djhuis, JAuis)
geniigend deutlich anklingt, so diirfte der Zi~sammenhang
des griechischen und des romischen Gottesnamens mit dem
.
indischen Dyhus als feststehend anerkannt werden.. .W enn
dem aber so ist, dann frage ich: warum sol1 das nur f i r
Jovis und Jupiter gelten, warum nicht auch fur nin', );l*
lind i'? Ich finde dass z. B. In: vie1 genauer noch als das
lateinische J u dem indischen (D)ylu(s) entspricht. Fiir
mich steht also fest, dass auch der israelitische Gottesname
lautlich genau in demselben Verhaltnis zu dem indischen
DyLus steht wie der romische, aber etwas weniger genau als
der griechische. .. . Dass auch der babylonische Gott Ect
oder Iu lautlich mit (D)yh(us) identisch ist, bedarf kaunl
einer besonderen ' Betonung.' . . . Ebenso fest steht dass der
indische Hilnmelsgott DyLus, der semitische n3, der griechi-
~ c h eZeus und der rijmische Jovis oder Jupiter ursprunglich
ein und derselbe Gott sind."
Here we part company, and I now propose to show
that nearly the whole of this etymological superstructure
stands on a baseless foundation ; that the Indian, Greek,
and Latin terms have nothing in common beyond a
common proto-Aryan source, from which all three spring
independently one of the other; and that the Hebrew
term does not, and could not, derive from any of them,
but comes directly from the Babylonian which stands first
in the group of names heading this article.

The last three members of the group are by comparative

philologists allnost unanimously referred to a root DIT,
to shine, which in the Aryan mother-tongue had already
developed several simple and compound derivative forms.
I n India these are represented by such terms as %q deva,
a god, a demon ; B=f,duiv, divine ; 4~ divas, sky, day ;
D4va-23ati~, father of the gods; divas-pati and dyu-puti..
lord of heaven (Indra), and lord of day (the Sun).
Here it has to be noted that the initial voiced dental
persists not only in these and all the other numerous
Qq2
562 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

Sanskrit derivatives, but also in the numerous neo-

Sanskritic tongues, as well as in the Iranic and Letto-
Lithuanian branches of the Aryan linguistic family. Thus
Hindi w, div, the s k y ; Zend dudva, and Pers. 3 3 dev,
a demon ; Lettic Deevs, God ; Lithuanian Dievs and Dievas,
God. But of an initial d there is no trace in Yahveh
which consequently could not come from any of these
sources directly. Glaser feels the difficulty, and is only
able to suggest that "falls die genannten Nebenformen
von Dyaus im indischen Schriftthum nicht nachweisbar
sind [which is the case], dann miisste man irgend eiu
benachbartes Land als das Bindeglied zwischen der in-
dischen Form einerseits und der hebraisch-romischen
anderseits betrachten." But the only possible " Binde-
glied" between India in the East, and Mesopotamia and
Canaan in the West, is Irania, which is above excluded
by the persistence of d both in ancient and modern Persian,
and also amongst the Lithuanians, who, as I hold, came
originally from the Iranian tableland. What then be-
comes of the assumption " dass auch der babylonische Gott
Ea oder l a lautlich mit (D)y$(us) identisch ist, bedarf
kaum einer besonderen Betonung "'2 The " connecting
link" does not exist, and the whole argument fsllls to the
ground.
Moreover, the Hindu Dyaus never assumed concrete
shape as the name of the Deity, the E n s Supremunz, as
is admitted by Glaser himself, who quotes the remark of
Lefmann, that ':Dybus und Prithivf gelangten auf indischem
Boden zu keiner festen, bestimmten Gestalt," adding that
"DyAus anscheinend als concreter Gott iiberhaupt nicht
aufkam." Dyaus was in no sense the head of a pantheon,
like Zcv's and Jupiter in Greece and Italy. He was rather
analogous to the Egyptian 27-nutir, .rb dciov, the divinum
aliquid, the first faint concept of a godlike unity or essence
underlying the confused hierarchy of lesser deities, and
suggestive at most of a tendency towards monotheism.
The concept seems best expressed by Max Miiller's heno-
 EA; YAHVEH : DYAUS ; ZEY2 ; JUPITER 563
theism1, a phase of belief in which each deity seems to
sfand somewhat apart, one a little more or a little less
powerful than another, according to the realm of nature
over which he presides, but without any fully recognized
supreme headship. And the nearest approach to such a
headship was, not Dyaus, but Ind~cc,the ruler of the
visible heavens, the '.rex deorum." the "Hindu Jove"
as he has been called, whose dwelling was Indra-puri.
" Indra's city," the Hindu Olyinpus, abode of the Immortals.
Hence the claim of Indra to rank as the absolute god-
head has been allowed by some Sanskritists, and Eichhoff2
amongst others remarks that " les dcoles philosophiques
de YInde rdsumaient l'idde monoth4istique primitive par
les noms de De'vade'vas, le dieu des dieux, Projkpatis, le
mattre des crdatures, et mieux encore par Sdn, celui qui
est." This is true enough. But quid i n d e ? Here the
question turns on the primary concept, not on the mostly
fanciful interpretations of the relatively recent " dcoles
philosophiques," and although the notion of S4n, the self-
existing, might seem to come nearest to that of Yahweh,
as later understood, we shall see that such was not the
original concept of the Hebrew Y a k , any more than it was
of Dyaus and Indra. Thus on all grounds-phonetic,
theogonic, and even geographical-Dyaus, and with him
ad1 Hindu influences, is excluded absolutely, and the source
of the intruding Tahveh must be sought elsewhere.

III. ZETB AXD JUPITER.

In Greece and Italy the organic initial Aryan dental has
been, so to say, broken into fragments, doubtless by contact
with the pre-Aryan, Pelasgic and Ligurian, inhabitants of
those lands. While holding its ground in certain well-

L ' I f me must have a general name for the earliest form of religion
among the Vedic Indians, it can be neither monotheism nor polytheism,
but only he not he is??^" (Hibbert Lectltres, 1878, p. 230).
Gran~.gdrlirale indo-eu?opie?zne,p. 256.
$4 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

defined connexions, the d has in others been diversely

modified, here disappearing before an inherent vowel (i, y),
there passing to a distinct palatal y, written j, and else-
where further shifting to a voiced or sonant sibilant z, as
in the Eng. citizen, where z stands for the palatal y of
the Fr. citoyen. This assibilation of d before i, or a weak
palatal, is widespread both in Hellas and Italy, where it
had certainly been established in prehistoric times. Thus
the Gr. (vydu, beside the Skr. yugd and the Lat. i u y u n ~ ,
may very well represent a proto-Aryan dugum, dy.Lcyum,
from cluo (two yoked together). So also Gr. ca intel~sivo
htands for an original 6a, as in GcEa~~os ( u K L ~beside
), (dtlror
(drds). Compare also the southern (Apulian) Oscan zicolom
=diem, ziculud = die, as in eisucen zLcul~~d Z ~ C O I Oxxx
~ ~= ~
:.ex illo die in diem trigesimum" (Tutulcc Buntinu, 1. 17).
IIence the inflected cases aids, 61i, 61a postulate an original
61s, probably a contracted form of 6ycds, which passes
normally t o Zcv's, voc. ZeG, as in the Homeric ZcC .ir&ep.
Thus this familiar conlpound runs on all fours both with
the Skr. D&uaputir,as in mdrcl'ni De'vcrpatir ivc~(Hhhr. 111),
and with Lat. Diespiter, Diespater, Diesptr, as in an archaic
inscription from a tomb at Praeneste (Palestrina) :--
Micas aciles uictoria hercles
diesptr iuno mircurios iacor, &c.l
These practically identical coinpound forms show, not
that all are " aus indisch Dybuspitar," as affirmed by Glaser
(see above), bu't that such compounds had already been
cleveloped in ur-Aryan times, and were introduced inde-
pendently by the first Aryan immigrants into India,
Greece, and Italy. From the recent pre-Mykaenean (Pelas-
gian?) researches of A. J. Evans and others in the Aegean
lands, i t would now appear that the proto-Hellenes and
the proto-Itali cannot have reached their Mediterranean
seats from the Indo-European cradleland much before
Lattes, Le iscrkioizi paleolatine, kc., no. 122, now i n the Vatican

&Iuseum.

 EA ; YAHVEH : DYAUS ; ZEY2 ; JUPITER 565

2000 B.C. Even the Asiatic Aryans "invaded India by
the north-west gate only some 4,000 years or less ago I.''
But me shall see that Yah had already about that date
been introduced into the Hebrew theogony, and occurs
in still older Cuneiform inscriptions deciphered. by Delitzsch
as the equal of the great Semitic gocl ilu (El)of Babylonia.
Hence neither Yuh nor Yuhveh, nor any of the other
variants, can be derived from any Graeco-Italic forms ( A I Z ,
DIES) in which initial d still everywhere persisted. The
iuno= Juno (from an earlier Diuno) following the Diesptr
of the above-quoted Praeneste inscription shows that this
is a relatively late document, not older in fact than or
"about 250 ~ . c . " A n d we have the still later Horatian
Diespiter igmi corusco nubila Jiz'icZens (Od. i. ~ q ) ,a nd
Diespiter neglectus (Od. iii. 2).
A cursory reference to Oscan, Umbrian, and the other
Italic dialects akin to Latin, will make it abundantly
evident that the initial dental still also held its ground
nearly everywhere throughout the peninsula well into the
historic period, that is, long after Yahveh had been en-
throned in Palestine. I am desirous to lay the greater
stress on this branch of the subject, since it has been so
strangely neglected by Glaser.
I n the Umbrian Tubulae Zguvinae, which cover the
period from about 500 to IOO B.c., the dental has every-
where passed into the palatal, except of course in the forms
corresponding to deus and the adjectival derivatives. Hence
we have Iuvepatre (dat. case), Iuputer (always voc. case),
Iuve Krapuvi = Iovi Grabovio, T ~ f r iIuvi, Ttcse Iuvie,
&c., beside dei Graboui, d i Grabouie, &c. But in Oscan,
Sabine, and Samnite documents, as in Latin itself, the d
persists down to quite late times. Thus, in the Samnite
T~cbulaAgnonensis, now in the British Museum, diuvei =
iovi occurs four times 3. The oldest Capuan (North Oscan)
T. H. EIolland, Anthrop. Jour., XXXII, 1902, p. 99.
R. S. Conway, The Italic Dialects, Cambridge, 1897, vol. I, p. 310.
Conway, op. cit., I, p. 192.
566 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

heraldic dedications (about 300 B.G.) have diuv- normally

for the later iuv-, as in cliuvilan~tirentium ; elc diuvil ;
diuvicc, kc. So also in the fragment from Bruttium:

while even in the archaic Latin of Praeneste we have

.fortu.lza diouo, where cliouo = diouos =lowis, Gen. case,
with loss of final s, but retention of initial d. We know
also from a passage in Varro about the Sabine god Sancus
that the Sabine dialect retained the dental to the last:
'Aelius Dium Fidium dicebat Diovis filium,' &c. (de Lingua
Lat. 5. 66). I n the same place he gives diuonz=caeZunz,
as if the etymological association of Jupiter with the sky
were still semembesed. That the association was still felt,
even in the time of Servius, is clear from that writer's
comment on Aen. iu. ,570 "Sane lingua Osca Lucetius eat
Iupiter dictus a luce. . . . Ipse est nostra lingua Diespiter,
id est, diei pater." This was something more than a popular
etymology, for after all Diespiter really was the personi-
fication of the bright sky, the day. The relation, however,
of dies to cleus, as of Skr. d i n a (Hind. UJ din) to clyaus,
is not so clear, while the corresponding Greek forin appears
to have been early mergecl in * A L S , and then lost with
it, a t least in the nolninative case.
It thus appears that in all the known Italic tongues
the real form was some variant of dies, deus, and that
the dental nearly everywhere survived till three or four
centuries before the new era. Hence Glaser's assumption
of " die Aehnlichkeit des lateinischen [bezw. italischen] Jovis
und der ersten Silbe von Jupiter mit Jhoweh oder Jdhweh,
bezw. mit J(a)hQ," that is, with Jahvei~,is highly un-
scientific, and a t variance with the elementary laws of
comparative philology. It is as if we should compare the
modern bishop, vescovo, and 6v4ue with each other without
any reference to t n i n ~ o ~ i oparent
s of all. Glaser would be
the last person to do this, and I feel convinced that, had
he not overlooked the Italic horizon, he would never have
committed the philological heresies which abound in his
learned essay.
IV. EA.
Some reparation, however, is made by the admission
that " die in den semitischen Landern nachgewiesenen
Formen Ea, ;ll, nrn+, rn9, 7' &c., sich als unsemitische, somit
als Lehnworte erweisen." As these terms are thus declared
to be non-Semitic " loan-words," and as we have seen that
they cannot have been imported from India, Irania, Greece,
Italy, Lithuania, or any other Indo-Eul-opean land, nothing
remains except the Hamitic Egypt, which is not in cluestion,
and the pre-Semitic Akkado-Sumerian Babylonia, which
is very much in evidence. I n fact by this simple process
of elimination alone a strong p r i n ~ ufacie case is already
made out for the Sumerian god E a , as the true " begetter "
of Yuh. For it might be asked, if not from this source,
whence? But the claims of Ea rest on much more solid
grounds than this a p~io9.i argument, and we shall now
see that they are supported by theogonic, phonetic, even
historical and geographical considerations, which taken
collectively may be regarded as conclusive.
It might a t the outset be objected that Ea is excluded,
because he was not even the head of the Babylonian
Olympus, being overtopped by Be1 (Bel-Merodach), whereas
" Yahweh ist der init eiserner Consequenz aus dem Gotter-
kampf der damaligen Welt herausgeschmieclete Mono-
theismus " (Glaser). I t is true that monotheism is mainly
the outcome of a struggle between rival gods, but the
struggle was a slow one, and the concept of pure mono-
theism, as distinguished from monolatry, was not realized
till later (prophetic) times. JV. Robertson Smith rightly
speaks of " Semitic monolatry " (worship of one God),
and not of Semitic monotheisnz (belief in only one God).
Old Test. in Jewish Ci~urch,Leot. X, p. 273. But he also speaks of " t h e
heathenism of the great mass of the nation," Lect. V, p. 139; a ~ further
~ d
that the popular religion of Israel itself '' was clearly modelled on the
forms of Semitic heathenism" (ib., p. 285).
568 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

The popular notion that, not only the Israelites but all
the Semites, were monotheists from the first, that mono-
theism was with them, so to say, a racial character, is a
delusion which involves its advocates in endless contra-
dictions. Thus Renan, after telling us that '. the glory
of the Semitic race is this, that from its earliest days it
grasped that notion of the deity I," refers to the incident
in the career of Mol~ammad,where he is reproached by
the Koreish Sheikh, Otba, with causing disturbances and
outraging their conzrn0.n tribal gods. Baring-Gould also
writes that "the desert mado the Arab monot~~eiatic," and
almost in the same breath that " Mahomet subverted the
Ssabian polytheisnz 2."
I n point of fact this polytheism, characterized by the
grossest anthropomorphism, and associated with the most
revolting practices, prevailed throughout all the Semitic
and Sumerian lands. "Before the time of Allah or of
Yahveh every hill-top had its tutelar deity; the caves
and rocks, and the very atmosphere swarmed with ' jins ' ;
Assyrian and Phoenician pantheons, with their Baals and
Molochs, and Astartes, and Adonais, were as thickly
peopled as those of the Hellenes and Hindus, and in this,
as in all other natural systems of belief, the monotheistic
concept was gradually evolved by a slow process of
elimination. Nor was the process perfected by all the
Semitic peoples- Canaanites, Assyrians, Amorites, Phoe-
nicians, and others, having always remained a t the poly-
theistic stage-but only by the Hebrews and the Arabs,
the two more richly endowed members of the Semitic
family. Even here a reservation has to be made, for we
now know that there was really but one evolution, that
of Yahveh, the adoption of the idea embodied in Allah
being historically traceable to the Jewish and Christian
systems " 3.
Hist. gin. des langues dm., I, 5.

Origin, kc., of Religious Belief,pp. 105, 118.

A. H. Kesne, Man Past and Present, p. 502. Cf. also Delitzsch : "Trotz
 But Yahveh himself, like all other supreme entities, had
to undergo his normal evolution, which, as we shall see,
was not perfected till prophetic times. At first he repre-
sented merely the monolatric concept, ancl his identification
with the Babylonian E n thus offers no difficulty from the
theogonic point of view. Assyriologists will reinember
that during the early Semitic rule, that is, under the
South Arabian dynasty fountled a t Ur by Sumu-Abi, Ea
was only a secondary deity, being subordinate, as king of
the waters, to Anu and Bel-Merodach, rulers aloft. But it
was not always so, and originally, that is, in prc-Semitic
Sumerian times, Ea must have been the chief god, since he
was the father of Merodach himself, that is, the Amar-
uduk, " Brightness of the Day," who acquired the place of
eminence by his triumph over the Mummu-TiBmat of the
Babylonian Dragon-myth. I n this contest Ea behaves
badly ; he trembles with fear and, in prosaic language,
runs away. But later he retrieves his honours in the
Deluge-myth in which he plays the leading part, though
now under the watchful eye of hIesodach. He foretells the
coming catastrophe to Xisuthros (Hasisadra),the Chaldaean
Noah, instructs him how to build the ship, prescribes its
dimensions, and so on. Now this Babylonian version of
the myth is referred to the time of Khammu-rabi (Amra-
phel), one of Sumu-Abi's successors at Ur, wilere he ruled
as vassal of the Elamite king Laghghamar, who has been
identified by Pinches with the Chedorlaomer routed by
Abram (Gen. xiv).
This identification has been questioned ' ; but in any

alledetn ... blieb POLYTHEISMUS, krasser Polytheismus, drei Jahrtalnsende

liindurch die babylonische Staatsreligion" (Babel uncl Babel, Igoa, p. 49).
' 111 his excellent Euvly H~S~OTZJ of Syrta and Palest~ne ('.Tile Semitic
Series," rgoz), Dr. L. P. Paton acceptb the record as genuine, rind even
bases on i t a n argument for t h e authenticity of some of the earlier parts
of the Hexateuch, remarking t h a t " t h e theory that a Jew of the exile
derived the liistory of Gen. xiv from [late] Babylonian sources is fraught
with grave difficulties." He, however, infers that t h e Abranl of the
incident was unconnected with the Abraham, father of Isaac, kc., whotn
57O THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

case Sayce is justified in assert'ing that " the monarchs who

ruled at Babylon when Abram was born [not later than
zooo B.c.], claimed the same ancestor as did Abram's family,
ancl worshipped him as a god. The [Semitic] kjngs who
succeeded to the inheritance of the old [pre-Semitic Sume-
rian] Babylonian monarchs of Ur mere thus allied in
language and race to the Hebrew patriarch. Nor is this
all. We find in the contracts which were drawn up in the
reigns of the kings of Ur and the successors of Sumu-Abi,
not only names like Sabk, 'the Sabaean,' but names also
which are specifically Canaanitish or Hebrew in form.
Thus Mr. Pinches has discovered in them Ya'qub-il and
Yasup-il [Jacob and Joseph], and elsewhere we meet with
Abdiel and Lama-il, the Lemuel of the Old Testament.
Even the name of Abram (Abi-ramu) himself occurs among
the witnesses to a deed which is dated in the reign of
Khammu-rabi's grandfather, and its Canaanitish character
is put beyond question by the fact that he is called the
father of ' the Amorite I.' "
We also know from the Tel el-Amarna tablets that in
the age of Abram and long before i t most of Western Asia
was dominated by the Babylonian arms and culture.
Over 2,000 years prior to the exodus Sargon I had reached
the Mediterranean, ancl Hommel tells us that Sinai is so
called from the Moon-god Sin, who forills an element in
the name of Sargon's son and successm, Naram-Sin,
" Beloved of Sin." Hence " i n migrating from Babylonia
to Canaan, Abram was merely passing from one part of the
Babylonian empire to another. The same manners and
customs, the same law, even the same theology and litera-
ture prevailed in both. The Babylonian divinities, Anu
and Dagon, Hadad and Nebo, Istar or Astoreth, were
worshipped in Canaan ; and a t Harran, where the patriarch
he does not regard as an historical person, but as L L the collective name of
a group of Aramaean peoplos, kc.'' This, like his explanation of Yahveh,
as the "God of Sinai and of Midian," seems t o me paradoxical, and
opposed to all intrinsic and external evidence.
Xallhrly IIistory of the Hebrews, p. 62.
 rested on his road to the west, was a temple of the Noon-
god, second only to that of UP, and founded like it by
Babylonian hands'." Laklrmu, one of the primaeval
Babylonian gods, was enthroned at Bethlehem ; Anat,,
consort of Anu, occurs in the name Sha~ngarhen-Annth
of the Song of Deborah, and GTr itself, meaning " city," is
said to be the first element in Jerusalen-~,that is U ~ U -
Sulem, " city of Salim," god of peace 2. This was the god
Ninip who was still worshipped by the Jehusites on Zion
in pre-Davidic times, long after Jerusalem had ceasecl to
be a Babylonian stronghold.
I t was therefore inevitable that Ea also should be found
amongst the D'P??, which accompanied Abraln when he
moved from Ur westwarde, and rriay have even heel1 the
very penates which were afterwards stolen by Rachel from
his kinsman, Laban, who had relnainod behind at Haran
(Padan-Aram) when the patriarch continued his journey
to Canaan. They were in fact those " other gods " which
were "served" by Torah and his sons Ahram and Xachor
when they "dwelt on the other side of tho flood
[Euphrates] in the old time": b 7 g t b9?58 .. n?P!
. (Joslr.
xxiv. 2)3.
Sayce, Genesis {Temple ed.',, p, x. Sec also Delitzsch, Babelu. Bihel, p. 28.
So a t least Sayce and Hommel, interpreting some Tel el-Ama1.n:~
documents. But Cheyne, a safer and far keener critic, though not a n
'' Assyriologist," thinks that "we cannot a t present grant th;d Salimmu
[Salim] is the name of a god, much less that his priest LMelcllizcdek]
was t h e king of Jerusalern" (Fou~zderscf 0. T. Criticism, p. 239). The LXX
also makes ~ r = ~ h p terra, a , veyio, not urbs ; with which cf. Jer. xxiv. 5 :
njq'$> y??j= terra C/~ctldueorum.
"his passage is fatal to the vehement spccial pleading of Ilonlmel on
behalf of the highest and purest monotheism" which he ascribes to the
patriarchs, ancl to all the proto-Semites generaliy (Artc. Hebrew Tradition,
pp. 76! 80, 88, 292, &c.). Here the Vulg. and A.V. have "servierunt"
and "served" somewhat euphemistically ; but LXX the uncompro~nising
~ a Ehoirp€vaav
i 6'rois i ~ / p o i s . NO doubt there are interpolations i n Joshua,
such as chap. xv shown by a comparison with LXX to be from Noh. xi.
But it is unthinkable that a later scribe or rnonotheistic editor would
wantonly put words into Joshua's mouth, needlessly stigmatizing tire
father of his people and of his religion as idolatrous a t first.
572 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

But although only one amongst many, Ea must still have

been held in high esteem, not only as a member of the
oldest Eabylorlian triad-Anu, Bel, Ea-but also because
of the conspicuous part he had played i n the Story of the
Flood, a document which was necessarily known to Abram,
and was no doubt brought by him with other reminiscences
from " U r of the Ctraldees." Here I should like to point
out that the historic character of Abram, so strenuously
denied by Wellhausen, Cheyne, and most of the " higher
critics," seems clearly establishecl by this very expression
'. from U r of the Chaldees." I n the Hebrew i t is KasdSrn
(D'qk,? wn) which was the form current in the time of
Abram'6: col~temporary, King Khammu-rabi. Later it
became successively Kartlu and (during the captivity)
Kuldu, whence the LXX i~ r4js Xdpar TGU XahSaiov, and
the Vulgate cle UY C l ~ d d a e o ~ u m .I f therefore the
"Abmmic Myth " were an exilic creation, or a d?Tp, the
eponymous hero must have been described as migrating
from Ur-Kwld5m, and not from U T - ~ ~ S ~ S a? Tform L,
already obsolete as a geographical expression in post-
exilic times. Hence although Kasdi~n still persists in.
Isaiah (chaps. xiii. xliii. xlvii, xlviii), in Ezekiel (i, xi), and
in Jereiniah (cl~aps.xxiv, XI, xlij, Daniel substitutes ~y!:c'
(8hirtu.r; i e. Shumir or Sunzir, the original name of the
pre-Semitic South &lesopotnmia) for the land (chap. i. 2 ) .
Ilaniel's 2!$' (v. 7, and elsewhere) does not mean " Chal-
daeans " in the ethnical sense, but I think always " wise
men " or soothsaj ers. Sa yce, Ilowever, suggests that Kas-
dim "most probably reprcserlts the A ~ s y r i a n Casidi,
' coilquerors,' " in reference to tlle Semitic conquerors of
S r ~ m i rancl Akkad, while the Greek worcl Cl~nltlaeurzsis
derived from the KaldB, a tribe which lived on the shores
of the Persian Gulf, and is first heard of in the ninth
century before our era. Under Merodach-Baladan the
Kalclh made themselves masters of Babylon, and became
so intimate a palat of the population as to give their name
to the whole of i t in slassical times " (Fresh Light f ~ o the n ~
 EA; YAHVEiE : DYAUS ; ZEYZ ; JUPITER 573
Ancient Monunzents, p. 50). I t is curious to find Herodotus
using this term both in the sense of a people (rodroz) 6 i
p~raf4Xah6atoi, vii. 63) and of the priests or ministers of
the god Be1 (&s hiyot,oi oi Xah6a'iob <durcsi pC~srodrov TOG
&oG, i. 181,and elsewhere). The explanation of this puzzle
is that the Chaldaeans long after losing their political
power retained their renown as the depositaries of ancient
Babylonian lore. Ceasing to be a tribe or a nation, they
became the astrologists, wizards, and soothsayers of the
eastern world.
Returning to Ea, it is reasonable to suppose, on the
specified grounds, that he would be generally well received
as a superior deity, eclipsing Merodach himself, and
gradually taking a foremost place amongst the local
gods, until he became at last the national god of Israel.
Merodach, it should be remembered, had the great disad-
vantage of being intimately associated with Bol, and as
the BaalPm of evil repute were already numerous enough
amongst the Amorites, Philistines, and Canaanites, a
reformer like Moses might on this account also have been
induced to give the preference to Ea (Yah), introducing
him, perhaps somewhat suddenly, at the psychological
rnoment some time during the exodus, and thus would be
explained the rather startling announcement in Ex. vi. 3.
This is the more probable since on three tablets in the
British hluseum, dating from the time of Khammu-rabi
and his father Sin-mubalit, Delitzsch has recently found
ELLalready identified wit11 ilu (el), the most general name
for the deity amongst all the early Semitic peoples. Sub-
joinecl is one of the passages, with this eminent Semitic
scholar's transliteration :-
*by * k?-
EzYv L~
Ia- ah- ve- ilu
*+
g%q+ i$T *$
In- hu- urn- ilu
' Babel und Bitisl, p. 47. There is an error in tlie Cuneiforn~text as hers
574 THE JEWISIT QUARTERLY REVIEW

It would be impossible to overrate the value of these

texts in the present connexion. They a t once establish
the original form of Yuhveh (Ia or Ea) which has been
arrivecl a t independently by different processes of reason-
ing by Glaser and Levy. And they also show that so early
as the time of Abram, if not earlier, this Akkado-Surnerian
divinity had already been recognized by the first Semitic
conquerors of Babylonia as equal in rank or identical with
the great god Ilu himself. Hence his adoption by Moses
during tho exoilus was after all but a natural revival,
and had merely the effect of perpetuating the relations
between Elohim and Jahveh, as already accepted in a
general way by the Semitic forefathers of the Israelites
while they still sojourned in Padan-Aram. Well may
Delitzsch exclaim that these fragmentary Cuneiform tablets
are priceless docunlents recording naines " welche religions-
gescllichtlich von weittragendstem Interesse sind - die
Namen: Jccitce ist Gott . . . dieser Jahve ein uraltes
Erbteil jener L-anaaniiisclien Stiimme, aus welchea dann
nach Jahrhunderten die zwolf Stdinine Israels hervorgehen
sollten" (ibitl.). The very expression-'' Yah is El "-
strikes a Biblical note, aucl might have served as the
archetype for the nurnerous analogous formulas which
pervade Holy JSTrit from the Pentateuch to the Prophets.
In any case all these deities-I aln sceptical about De
Lagarcle's El =" Goal "-had probably a t first been merely
the Galpoucs i-irlXdp~oi, the y e l ~ i iloci. that is, the tribal,
district, or territorial gods, who were the potent champions
of the iiatioiial cause, and sharetl the fate of their votaries.
How completely bound up they were wit11 the political
vicissitudes of the times, do117n even to the very close of
the pre-esilic period, is well seen in Is. xxxvi and xxxvii,
where Sennaclierib's herald, Rabshakeh (" Head Sheikh "),
scornfully asks the men seated on the wall, Ubi est Deus ((

Emath et Arphad ? Ubi est Deus Sepharvaim ? " But

reproduced ; but this is corrected in t h e above transcript from an evratum
supplied by Delitzsch on a separate slip.
 EA ; YAHVEH : DYAUS ; ZEYZ ; JUPITER 575
farther on these territorial gods have become the kings
of these places : " Ubi est rex Emath, et rex Arphad ? " &c.
As who should say, we have vanquished the gods with the
kings of Sepharvaim and of Samaria, and so will it be
with Hezekiah also and his god, Yahveh! This belief
in the potency of the genius loci still survives even
amongst Christian peoples, and Prince Kropotkin tells
us that the Siberian Cossacks hold the district gods of
the heathen "in a sort of awe. They don't think much
of them, but theae gods, they say, are wicked creatures
bent on mischief, and it is never good to be on bad terms
with them1."

Even Yahveh, despite his high Babylonian pedigree,

formed no exception to the general law of upward develop-
ment, but, like all the other Bco\l & T L X ~ I ) L O L , passed suc-
cessively from the polytheistic through the monolatric to
the monotheistic phase, this last not being reached till
some time before the captivity. The process itself is in
accordance with the inflexible laws of nature, which does
nothing in a hurry, since "slowly and as by instinct man-
kind struggles towards the light " (Matthew Arnold).
Yahveh's transition from Ea (read also Ad' and I a in
the Cuneiform documents) presents no phonetic difficulty,
such as that of Glaser's break-neck jump from Dyaus to
Ea and Yah. There are no troublesome initial dentals or
sibilants (d, () to be explained away, and we know that
the form IJahu (noin. case) was already familiar to the
Assyrians, one of the lexical Cuneiform tablets giving this
word as meaning a god in Hebrew, and identifying i t with
the Assyrian word Yahu = " myself." " Wherever," aptly
remarks Sayce, "an Israelitish name is met with in the
Memoirs of u Reuolutionist, I, p. 238. Cf. also the Thracian Zalmoxis at
once both god and king (Herod. iv. 94, and Plato, Chamaides, V) ; and
the gods who dwell in t h e land of hssur," quoted by Sayce from a n
Assyrian document (Assyria, p. 76).
VOL. xv. R r
576 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

Cuneiform inscriptiona, which, like Jehu or Hexekiah,

is compounded with the divine title, the latter appears
as Yahz~,Jehu being Yahua, and Hezekiah Khazaki-
Yahu I."
This venerable Assyrian etymology seems almost to
anticipate Mr. Levy's explanation of the Tetragrammaton
nrnl, the self-subsisting, where, however, the Aramaic hewd
appears to be employed instead of the equivalent Hehrew
n9n=c1Heis " (v or w for y). The substitution itself is
TT

highly suggestive, as implying that the Tetragrammaton

in its present form can date only from the post-exilic
period, when Ezra and the other priestly scribes were
already much better acquainted with the northern (Syriac)
than with the southern (Hebrew) language of the western
Semites. No doubt the Aramaic nr-87 (for the Hebrew n v )
alone occurs in all the pre-exilic writings when used as
a separate name. But i t never occurs when this word
forms one of the elements in compound names, where the
t is always final (paragogic or inflexional, not radical).
The reason is because these-narc, nm, and many others-
are genuine national names, formed in Israel before the
spread of Aramaic influences southwards, and left un-
touched, or at least rarely tampered with, by the post-
exilic scribes of Aramaic speech. On the other hand, the
exclusive use of nrn' merely lends additimal support to
the now generally accepted view that, as they now stand,
all the pre-exilic texts are post-exilic recensions by Aramaic-
speaking scribes.
It may be incidentally remarked that such popular and
theogonic etymologies, as are here in question, were common
enough in those early times, as shown, for instance, by the
surprising transformations of the Babylonian god Dagon.
This deity was originally associated with Anu, god of the
sky, but was later supposed to be a fish-god, a sort of
merman, because in Hebrew 3; meantjsh. But in Canaan-
Fresh Lights from the Ancient Monuments, p. 75. Cf. also Azri-Yahu =
Azariah = Uzziah, the Jewish king reduced by Tiglath-Pileser, c. 740 B. c.
 EA; YAHVEH : DYAUS ; ZEYE ; JUPITER 577
itish 1;; meant corn ; therefore in passing still westwards
he became a rural deity, guardian of the crops, brother
of El and Baal, inventor of bread-corn and the plough.
Coming now to the theogonic evolution of Yahveh, it
is important to note that a main result of the literary
analysis of the " higher criticism" is that the Yahvistic
document, formerly supposed to be the later portion of
the Pentateuch, is 'now regarded as the earlier1, and is
ascribed by some to a southern Jew, who flourished in the
ninth century B. c., and held grossly anthropomorphic con-
cept,ions of Yahveh. The two Elohistic portions, now
almost inextricably interwoven with J, are attributed to
some northern scribes, who wrote in the eighth century
with a marked theological bias. Then there was a still
later "Prophetic or Pre-Deuteronomic Redaction " by a
writer or writers whose chief aim was to effect some sort
of reconciliation between the contradictory J and E records.
Deuteronomy and the other avowedly priestly documents
are exilic or post-exilic, as indeed are all of the general
and final recensions.
It follows that in its present form the great bulk of
Biblical literature is post-Davidic, and consequently that
much of the J and E phraseology occurring in the reputedly
early texts is of but secondary importance for our purpose,
and to be received with extreme caution whenever a
" Tendenz" may be reasonably suspected. Some of the
language employed by the post-exilic scribes may no doubt
be the honest reflexion of unbroken esoteric tradition, oral
or even written, for the Tel el-Atnarna tablets alone are
sufficient evidence of a widely-diffused knowledge of letters
in pre-Mosaic and even in pre-Abramitic times. But there
are passages bearing on the points here a t issue which
may be unhesitatingly rejected as the echoes, not of early
traditions, but of contemporary theological teachings.
Thus De Lagarde : "The abstract is everywhere later than the con-
crete ; therefore Elohim (as a singular) is later than Yahv6, &o." (quoted
by Cheyne, Founders of 0.T. Criticism, p. 184).
Rrz
578 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
Such I hold to be Gen. xxi. 33, where the strange associa-
tion of Yahveh with the asherah devoted to the orgiastic
rites of Semitic heathendom1 throws an unexpected light
on the above-quoted passage from Josh. xxiv. 2; such
Deut. x. 17, Exod. iii. 14, and especially the n!;rl $2: of
Exod. vi. 3 ; and in general all those expressions which
betray the transparent intention of endowing the Abramitic
and Mosaic Jahveh with the attributes of pure mono-
theism. Such expressions are ana,chronisms, standing in
violent contrast to the crude anthropomorphism which
breaks out continually in the closest connexion both with
Yahveh and Elohim throughout the whole of the pre-exilic
period from Genesis to Ezekiel. Sayce, who is himself a t
times distinctly iconoclastic, rejects the theory of develop-
ment in the Jewish religion, declaring it to be "a mere
product of the imagination," and commits himself to the
statement that the "belief in Yahveh displayed in the Song
[of Deborah] is as uncompromising as that of later
Judaism. Yahveh is the God of Israel who has fought
for his people, and beside h i m there i s n o other God2." It
is the here italicized words which do not occur in the
text, that are the '<product of the imagination." For
Deborah Jahveh is merely a national deity, the "God

' I n later times, when Israel was slowly emerging from the crude
polytheistic state, all these n i y j ~ whether
, efigies (Judges iii. 7 ; a Kings
arxiii. 6, kc.), or graces, of the goddess Astarte, as above, had to be
destroyed. Hence the injunction, lucos iglze comburite, i n Deut. xii. 3, and
elsewhere.
"urly Histomf, pp. 301-2. I t may be pointed out that the develop-
ment theory so rashly denied by Sayce is fully admitted by t h e late
Dean Farrar, who refers to the teraphim, t h e golden calf, the betylia,
t h e brazen serpent, kc., as proving "most decisively that a pure mono-
theism was the result of a slow and painful course of God's disciplinal
dealings amongst the noblest thinkers of a single nation, and not, as is so
constantly and erroneously urged, the instinct of the whole Semitic race;
i n other words, one single branch of the Semites was under God's
providence educuted into pure nlonotheisrn only by centuries of misfortune
and series of inspired men" (Icitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, 111,
P. 986).

 EA; YAHVEH : DYAUS; ZEY2 ; JUPITER 579

of Israel," who needs aid and curseth the people of Meroz
" because they came not to the help of Yahveh," for whom

also ('from Heaven fought the stars ; in their courses they

fought against Sisera." This is rank astrology, and Sayce
himself admits that the Judges belonged to an age when
"the Baalim seemed to have gained the mastery overyahveh"
(ibid., p. 288). And commenting on the altar raised by
Gideon to Yuhveh-Xhaloqn on the ruins of that of his rival
Baal, he also admits that " i t is true that between Yahveh
and Baa.1 the Israelite of the day saw but little difference '.
Yahveh was addressed as Baal, or 'Lord,' and the local
altars that were dedicated to him in most instances did
but take the place of the older altars of a Canaanitish
Baal. Mixture between Israelites and Canaanites, more-
over, had brought with it a mixture in religion. Along
with the titles, Yahveh had assumed the attributes of
a Baal, a t all events among the mass of the people"
(P. 308)-
What " a mixture in religion" may mean is not quite
clear. But when we are told that the cult of the zealous
Yahveh was thus contaminated by the cult of Baal, god of
the conquered Canaanites, we are reminded of the Gn~ecz'tc
capta which feros victores cepit. But Sayce goes further,
and after wrestling with the exceedingly anthropomorphic
episode of Jacob and the ladder, calls Yahveh " the God of
the locality" (p. 81)) just as Cato (quoted by Dionys. Hal.
ii. 49) calls Sabus, the eponymous hero of the Sabines,
6 Z d y ~ o v6aIpovos i a ~ ~ w ~ l "o son
v , of the local god Sancus " !
Moreover, in Judges xvii, Yahveh becomes an idol, a molten
image of silver, worshipped jointly with the teraphim in
the house of Micah ; on which Sayce again writes : "The
' W. R. Smith's reference to another such incident i n the history
of Gideon is instructive : "Gideon erects a sanctuary a t Ophrah, with
a golden ephod-apparently a kind of image-which became a great centre
of illegal [idolatrous] worship " (op. cit., Lect. V I I I , p. 220). Still later
the very Temple itself was invaded by the worshippers of the Babplol~ian
Tammuz, identified with the Phoenician Adon and the Greek Adonis
(Ezek. viii. 14;.
5% THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

ordinary Israelite, including a Levite who was the grand-

son of Moses, takes it for granted that Yahveh must (sic)
be adored in the shape of a twofold idol. Nay more ; by
the side of the graven and molten images, which were
meant to represent the god of Israel, we find also the
images of the hoilsehold gods or teraphim, whose cult
forms part of that which was paid to the national deity"
(ibid., p. 281). Here " the national deity " again becomes,
like Ea, one of the numerous gods whom Abram brought
with him from Ur to Haran. And this cult, which he
shared with the other teraphim, survived to the latest days
'(

of the northern kingdom ; it was practised in the household

of David ( I Sam. xix. 13) and is even regarded by a
prophet of Samaria as an integral portion of the estab-
lished religion of the State (Ros. iii. 4)" (ibid., p. 281).
We read further that, in the time of the Judges, "though
officially the Baal of Israel was Yahveh, the mass of the
people worshipped the local Baal of the place i n which they
lived1. Yahveh was scarcely remembered even in name
(sic); his place was taken by the Baalim and Astaroth of
Canaan" (ibid., p. 333). NOW a protest must be raised
against this distinction between "the Baal of Israel" and
the other Baals. I t was not recognized by the later
redactors, for whom the very word Eaal was such an
abomination that it was eliminated, for instance, from
the Yobctal of Judges ix. 26, the Massoretie text substituting
my-12, " son of a slave," for the true form preserved in the
LXX. So also Adoni-jah and Jeho-shaphut take the place
of Adoni-baal, and Baal-shaphut, although elsewhere we
have n $ y ~ ,where Baal is actually declared to be Yah, as
All did so, and W. R. Smith points out t h a t even L L tIsaiah
o Jehovah's
presence with his people is still a local thing. I t could not, indeed, be
otherwise, for the people of Jehovah was itself a conception geographically
defined, bound u p with t h e land of Canaan, and having its centre in
Jerusalem" (op. cit., p. 355). And a t p. 379: " I t was as natural for a n
Israelite to worship .Jehovah as for a Moabite to worship Chemosh." I n
other words, the tribal territory and its tutelar deity were co-extensive
geographical expressions.
if in the protracted struggle between the two rivals the
the national god of Canaan had a t one time overcome
the national god of Israel. I n any case even David looked
on the sway of Jahveh, not as absolute but as geographical,
strictly limited to Israel, since when driven into exile he
said to Saul that " i t was not only from his country that
he was driven, but from the God of his country as well.
I n leaving Judah for Gath he had transferred his duties
from Israel to Philistia, from Saul to Achish [king of
Gath], from Yahveh to Dagonl." Hence, whenever the
Israelites were overcome in battle, Yahveh was also con-
sidered to be overcome, and in the inscription on the
Moabite Stone King Mesha is able to boast that, after
vanquishiag Astaroth and Nebo [the Babylonian god of
prophecy worshipped on Mount Pisgah], he took from
them the arels [champions?] of Dodah and Jahveh, and
rended them before Khemosh 2.
As this Moabite chief is identified with the Mesha of
2 Kings iii, we are still only at the monolatric stage in
post-Solomonic times, for he was the contemporary of
Jehoram of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah. One is a t
times inclined to ask whether the pure monotheistic con-
cept has ever been fully realized except by a narrow
esoteric circle, whether even in these latter days Yahveh
is not still for many the God of the "Congregation of
Jacob " rather than the Ens Supremunz in the strict sense
of the term. Thus the truly lovable and large-minded
Moses Mendelssohn (grandfather of the composer) writes
in his famous reply to Lavater : " Our rabbis unanimously
teach that the Law is obligatory on our people alone." All
others are to conform to the laws of nature and of reason,
and those that do so " are called virtuous and the children
of eternal salvation3." This is quite in the spirit of Ruth's
Sayce, Early History, p. 390.
Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the p. 367.
Verdict of the Mon~men~ts,
Khemosh was the chief god of Moab.
M. Samuels, Memoirs of M. Mevadelssohn, p. 54.
582 THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW
" Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God "-

a beautiful lesson of universal love and forbearance, if not

under an all-pervading Jahveh, then, perhaps, in Spinoza's
all-diffused naturu naturcins.
An affirmative reply may now be given to the question
a t the opening of this essay.
DYAUS, a vague personification of the sky, has no kind
of relation to Yahveh, but is connected through their
common Aryan origin m~ithZETZ and JUPITER, more
concrete personifications of the sky. These two are
equally unconnected with
JAHVEH, who is to be identified in every way with the
Babylonian primaeval god EA.
These relations are indicated by the bracketing of the
two separate groups at the head of this article.