Synopsis of YHWH, Snake God of Israel<\/p>\n
H. Abdul Al-Dahir<\/p>\n
The\u00a0 article, YHWH, Snake God of Israel, \u00a0discusses the origins of the Hebrew god, who is YHWH (generally pronounced Yahweh). YHWH has been depicted as a Semitic creator god with no known idol image. However, history and the Bible\u00a0\u00a0tell a very different story. In the Biblical book, Numbers, 21:9, YHWH’s image as a snake coiled around a pole\u00a0was carried by Moses before the Hebrews who fled Egypt, an event labeled as the Exodus. Later, according to 2 Kings 18:4,\u00a0the\u00a0Israelite\u00a0King Hezekiah destroyed this\u00a0snake image of YHWH\u00a0because the populace was worshiping it. \u00a0However,\u00a0 the Israelites continued to display YHWH’s image in numerous other\u00a0places as on Hebrew altars, as epigraphic images in the Negev desert, on synagogue stones and on various cult objects as offering jars and vases. The origin of the cult can be traced to several locations in the Middle East. However, there are 2 main trajectories for the entrance of YHWH into ancient Canaan now known as Palestine. The first trajectory was from the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula where occurs the earliest form of the name YHWH which is Ya\/Yh. Ya\/Yh may be a form of the Semitic word ‘hy\/hw’ which means to live, life.<\/p>\n
The Negev inscriptions are an early form of Semitic writing which appears in the Negev Desert or southern Palestine. Archaeologists have assigned dates for these inscriptions anywhere from 2000 to 1000 BCE. Later Hebrews combined the\u00a0 word\u00a0 ‘yh\/ya’, with the ancient West Semitic word for snake, ‘hwh’, to form the name of their god YHWH, which literally means\u00a0‘Yah, the snake’ or ‘the living snake god’\u00a0. The combination seems odd until one considers that the early Hebrews adopted the Sanskrit word for snake, ‘nagas\u2019, from their northern Indo Aryan neighbors, the Mitannis. The Hebrew word for snake became \u2018nachash\u2019.\u00a0However, the ancient Semitic\u00a0word for snake, ‘hwh’ (pronounced both as chawa and hawa), was appended\u00a0to the name Yah, thus making it clear to all that Yah was a snake god.<\/p>\n
The name Yah also shows up in early Minaean inscriptions. According to J.A. Montgomery, PhD,\u00a0these inscriptions date from between 1500BCE to 1300BCE. The Minaeans were a caravan tribe, which originated in Hadhramaut, which is located in Yemen. They later settled along the Western trade route. Their capital was Al Ma’in, in the Arabian Peninsula. A large Minaean colony settled at Dedan (the Biblical name for the Minaeans), the capital of which was Al Ula, also located in the Arabian Peninsula. This tribe settled on the borders of the Midianites, whose territory was Qurrayah (Northwestern Saudi Arabia), Edom and Moab (both located in Southern Palestine). Midian, according to Genesis, is the son of Abraham through his third wife Keturah. It was this tribe into which Moses married. These Midianites were known to the Egyptians as the Shasu of Yhw which means ‘the Bedouin who worship YHWH\u2019. Dedan (Ma’in or Minaean) is a grandson of Abraham through his second son by Keturah, Jokshan (Qahtan in Arabic). The Hebrews were not only related to both of these tribes, but, according to the Book of Isaiah 30:6, they traded incense with them and then transported this incense into Egypt. According to J.A. Montgomery, in his book,\u00a0 Arabia & the Bible, it was the Minaeans who brought the cult of Yah with them from the southern coast of Arabia.<\/p>\n
The cult of Yah appears to have been derived from the harvesting of the frankincense tree; a tree which was infested with gliding (flying in the Bible) poisonous snakes (Genus Chrysopelea). These snakes appear to have been regarded as protectors of the precious frankincense, which, along with myrrh, gold and copper, made the tribes from the southern coast of Arabia so wealthy. According to the Negev inscriptions, Yah was worshipped as a snake god who guarded the tree of life, which was the frankincense tree. Yah is written as a snake’s head with a protruding forked tongue (Old Negev script Y + H which is written as\u00a0>——O). There are also full blown images of this snake god in these Negev inscriptions. There is an image of Yah portrayed as a snake head with the tree of life protruding from his mouth ( refer to image “Har Karkom, Harris\/Hone, April 1997”). Refer to the images of Yah<\/a>. It is this snake god which the Hebrews adopted from the Midianites thru the Minaeans that is referred to in the Bible.<\/p>\n The 2nd trajectory of the name YHWH\u00a0was through Egypt. The Egyptians were known for their snake cults, the most famous of which was the snake cult of Wadjet. Wadjet was depicted as a spitting cobra (Naja Pallida) and was the protective deity of lower Egypt and Nubia. Wadjet’s image was displayed on the crown of the Pharaoh as a uraeus or the upright image of a spitting cobra. The Pharaoh’s nemes headdress, which symbolized the flaring hood of Wadjet, and the uraeus portrayed the Pharaoh as Egypt’s protective deity. (Ref: golden death mask of Tutankhamon). Pharaoh protected Egypt just as Wadjet protected him.<\/p>\n The people who settled Canaan (Palestine) came from many directions; one of the main directions was from Egypt. Egypt’s delta was inhabited by Western Semites or people who came from the Levant. These Western Semites were known to the Egyptians as Hyksos, which means foreign rulers.They ruled Egypt for a short period of time and then were expelled by the Egyptians.\u00a0They fled through the Sinai and into Canaan (Palestine) and other areas of the Levant where they settled.<\/p>\n The Hyksos worshiped at least 2 Egyptian gods, Seth and the snake god, Apep. When they settled into Canaan, they brought with them their Egyptian god, Seth, whom the Biblical authors assigned as the 3rd son of Adam, who replaced the slain Abel. As for their snake god Apep, the Hyksos or their descendants (some of whom were known as Hebrews), exchanged his name for the local snake god, Yah. Yah was a Semitic god and the Hebrews made sure that all understood that Yah was a snake god. They combined the name ‘Yah’ with the West Semitic word for snake, which was hw or hwh. (Much later, (as explained above) the Hebrews borrowed their word for snake, ‘nachash’, from the Sanskrit word for snake which was ‘nagas’. They borrowed this word from the local Mitannis, people who lived in Northern Mesopotamia and Southeastern Turkey). Thus, the name Yh became YHWH, which means Yah, the snake or the living snake god.<\/p>\n Moon gods were often associated with snakes in Semitic cultures, as the Minaean god, Wadd, whose sacred animal was the snake as was YHWH who was represented by the nehushtan or snake coiled around a pole. Also of interest is the Egyptian moon god Iah, who became\u00a0associated with YHWH.\u00a0\u00a0According to the Wikipedia article, Iah:\u00a0 \u201cIah ( Egyptian: J\u2019h, transliterated as Yah, Jah, Jah(w), Joh or Aah ) is a god of the moon in ancient Egyptian religion. His name simply means moon<\/em>.\u201d Yhw\u00a0seems to be\u00a0a variation of Jah(w), an early form of the name YHWH.\u00a0The Semites who worshiped Yhw\u00a0 in Canaan were known\u00a0to the Hebrews as Midianites,\u00a0but the Egyptians named them the Shasu of Yhw which means the Bedouin\u00a0of YHWH.\u00a0The Shasu of Yhw were a\u00a0Semitic \u00a0people who may have syncretized\u00a0their snake god Yah with\u00a0the Egyptian moon god, Iah .<\/p>\n Iah can be traced to the Old Kingdom where he became associated with Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld. \u00a0However, since this god was not popular\u00a0until the Middle Kingdom when the Hyksos ruled Egypt, it is unclear whether the\u00a0Iah of the Middle Kingdom\u00a0was imported into Egypt by the early\u00a0Semitic Hyksos\u00a0or was adopted into their religion from an\u00a0Egyptian source.\u00a0The name Iah and Yhw are spelled differently in hieroglyphics. This difference in spelling is due to the variations in pronunciation. The\u00a0word \u2018Yhw\u2019\u00a0then is likely an Egyptian\u00a0transliteration of the Semitic pronunciation of this word. The name of the\u00a0Egyptian moon god, Iah, is pronounced similarly to\u00a0the ancient\u00a0Semitic word yah,\u00a0which many scholars have translated as both snake and life.\u00a0The similarity in\u00a0pronunciation of the two words, Iah and Yah may be the source of\u00a0YHWH’s\u00a0association with the\u00a0moon in the\u00a0Hebrew cult and Wadd’s, the Minaean moon god,\u00a0 ophic associations\u00a0in the\u00a0Minaean\u00a0religion. According to Exodus, Moses received the Torah on Mount Sinai. Sinai is a form of the Akkadian word, ‘sin’, which means moon.<\/p>\n The Hyksos and the Midianites\u00a0brought their snake cults with them into Canaan. These\u00a0tribes intermarried with the Hebrews who adopted their cults\u00a0to which were added\u00a0the horned altars and tent shrines which\u00a0are described in the Biblical Book, Exodus. According to Exodus, YHWH ordered these altars and shrines to be built\u00a0with the “horn” or the uraeus. The Hebrews built the altars with a uraeus (image of an upright spitting cobra, who was the deity Wadjet) on each of the 4 corners, and, to make sure that all understood the meaning of the uraeus, they carved the image of YHWH as a snake on this altar. A good example is the Beersheba altar<\/a>.<\/p>\n This snake cult persisted. It had its own temple caretakers and priestly caste, which were the Levites; a name\u00a0which means the coiling ones. The cult also had devotees or Nazarites, who were especially dedicated to the snake god YHWH. They grew their hair long from their temples so that their sideburns resembled the coils of a snake. They also grew their hair into dreadlocks which also imitated the coils of their snake god. Eventually, the Judean King, Hezekiah (715-686 BCE), attempted to stamp out this snake cult. The attempt failed for Ezekiel (lived circa 550 BCE) recorded that the elders of Israel were still worshiping the snake god (Ezekiel 8:10-12). The Hebrews were conquered by the Babylonians, marched into exile\u00a0and returned to Palestine under Persian domination. The king of Persia, Cyrus the Great, a monotheist, financed the Hebrew temple at Jerusalem. But as late as 100AD, the Hebrews continued to carve YHWH as a snake on their temple walls. See the Galilean Migdal Synagogue Stone<\/a>:<\/p>\n On the Stone face:<\/p>\n 2 trees of life: These are stylized images of the frankincense tree. Around the trunks of the trees, one can see a coiling snake.<\/p>\n