Introduction

1

The entry “Yahweh” by Karel van der Toorn in the highly regarded Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible asks an intriguing question: “If YHWH was at home in the south, then, how did he make his way to the north?” (1999, 912). The “South” in this quote refers to the fringes of the desert in the Negev, the southern Arabah, and the Sinai Peninsula, that is, the traditional area of YHWH’s origin, and the “North” is the land of Israel/Palestine, the traditional area of the emergence of Yahwism. Against the background of the more recent discussion on the early statehood of Israel and Judah, I have become convinced that this is the wrong question and that it should rather be inverted: How did YHWH become the God in Judah and of Judah? If the answer is not to be found in the biblical narrative (which introduces YHWH to the land via the exodus and the Israelite conquest) but rather in the political and historical development in the ninth and eighth centuries BCE, then the question should instead be: Why was YHWH’s emergence biblically conceptualized as coming from “the South”? This conundrum will be addressed in the following paper after suggesting a new understanding of YHWH’s emergence in Judah. But first some remarks on the reconstruction of Israelite religion in general are necessary.

Beyond the Biblical Paradigm: Some General Remarks on the Conceptualization of Early Israelite Religion

2

Mark S. Smith characterized the state of the study of Israelite religion with some reservation in the second edition of the 1990 ground-breaking book, The Early History of God:

3

History of religion work for ancient Israel remains largely in the stage of assembling and examining pertinent data, with steps having been taken toward satisfactory theoretical frameworks for specific topics within the larger enterprise. (Smith 2002, XXIX)

4

It does not seem immoderate to state that thirty years later not very much has changed, particularly with regard to the data on the early history of Israelite religion. In terms of methodology, we are still assembling and examining data and steps towards a satisfactory theoretical framework (Uehlinger 2015). There are nevertheless several important monographs on the topic, such as Bernhard Lang’s The Hebrew God: Portrait of an Ancient Deity (2002) and Thomas Römer’s The Invention of God (2015). Preceding the completion of the present paper, several more monographs have been published on the topic, including Theodore J. Lewis’ The Origin and Character of God (2020), Shawn W. Flynn’s A Story of YHWH (2020), and Daniel E. Fleming’s Yahweh Before Israel (2021). Thus, it seems that the topic has recently become ‘hot.’ Most influential in the meantime was the overview of Ziony Zevit, which brought the idea of a singular Israelite religion into a more appropriate plural (2001), and the volume of Francesca Stavrakopoulou and John Barton that addressed the diversities among these plural religions (2010). Another milestone is the anthology The Origins of Yahwism (van Oorschot and Witte 2017), which addressed most of the issues to be discussed in this paper. In mentioning this tip of the iceberg, it becomes clear that there has been progress in many respects. The study of early Israelite religion and the emergence of Yahwism as “religion(s)” has indeed taken part in the material turn in several ways (Mandell and Smoak 2019, 3). Particularly iconographic studies have become a natural part within studies on ancient Israelite religion (Keel 2007; Uehlinger 2019; Bonfiglio 2016, 227–310, 2020). Finally it cannot be denied that archaeology has contributed tremendously to the study of Yahwism in the past three decades (Faust 2020), for instance the excavations of Tel Moẓa, Tel Reḥov, Lachish, Ḫirbet ʿAtarūz, etc.

5

Notwithstanding all progress and the admission to religious plurality particularly in the time of the divided monarchy, the underlying paradigm of early Yahwism is still framed by two main assumptions: (1) YHWH was the God of a group of people named “Israel” from the earliest traceable records of this group in Israel/Palestine, and (2) YHWH was already the national deity in the tenth century BCE. Thus, the conceded religious diversity was framed by national unity. Only with the division of the kingdom traditionally dated to 926 BCE did “Israelite” religion depart from this former unity into local Yahwisms of the two states, Israel and Judah. To be clear, the biblical account still provides the powerful conceptual matrix behind this reconstruction. Yet both presuppositions have to be challenged, as will be demonstrated below. It is already the conception of what is conventionally called “ancient Israel” that brings plurality into the emergence of what is conventionally called “Israelite religion” (Uehlinger 2015, 4). The biblical image forms a hypothetical orthodoxy to which a certain deviance is added. The deviance, such as the worship of a goddess, is then often called syncretistic, heterodox, or private, etc. The “prescriptive Torah as a template of actual ‘Israelite religion’” (Uehlinger 2019, 115) continues to be the hidden matrix of Israelite religion. Thus, Israelite religion is a biblical religion and vice versa; both are coextensive and more or less identical in origin, emergence, and development. In the traditional model there was not very much regional variance and change, and the impact of local sanctuaries and local traditions was minimal. What is striking, though, is that the reconstruction of early Israelite religion has been largely immune to the progress that has taken place in the historiography of Israel over the past decades (Knauf and Guillaume 2016; Berlejung 2019; Frevel 2018a). It assumes a unified Israel with a common origin. But all these basic assumptions have since been shaken. To demonstrate this, let me first list the seven pillars of the traditional reconstruction of Israelite religion before we deepen some aspects of the discussion. The seven pillars are:

1. 6

   YHWH was not an indigenous deity of the region, into which YHWH worshippers spread by settlement, but was rather originally connected to the southern regions “Sinai” and “Midian.”

2. 7

   Israel originated from a tribal and nomadic existence.

3. 8

   YHWH worshippers were united by common ancestry and kinship.

4. 9

   In one way or another there was an impact of “the desert” that marked a pronounced contrast to the Canaanite polytheistic religion.

5. 10

   There was a pre-state existence of “Israel” after the conquest of the land in which YHWH was worshipped by the tribes of Israel in various sanctuaries all over the land, but there was no regional diversity in early Yahwism.

6. 11

   YHWH was introduced to Jerusalem by David at the latest and promoted to the national God by Solomon. Within the united monarchy under the kings David and Solomon, YHWH worship was not only introduced to Jerusalem but he was made the national deity of “Israel” from Dan to Beersheba.

7. 12

   Only after the division of the kingdom in 926 BCE did Yahwism separate into a northern “Samarian” and a southern “Judaean” branch, a development that intensified after the conquest of Samaria in 722 BCE, which marked the end of the existence of the Northern Kingdom as a nation state.

13

We cannot go into detail here, but all of these assumptions have been either questioned or already abandoned in more recent research on the history of Israel (Frevel 2018a, 2018b, 2019). If this is taken seriously, the image of what “Israel” is in the construct of Israelite religion changes dramatically. Within this trajectory it goes without saying that YHWH was not the first or original chief God of Isra-El (Sanders 2015, 92). This has been noted by many, but the consequences are more far-reaching. If there was no single origin, and neither the people nor the territory of “Israel” in the pre-monarchic and early monarchic period (twelfth to ninth centuries BCE) were uniformly homogeneous but rather composed of very different regions and diverse clans, why should we then speak of a uniform Israelite religion? One gets the impression that in the last decade the tremendous change in the historiography of Israel has not yet had the impact on the reconstruction of early Yahwism that it deserves. In the following paper I will touch upon the first, fifth, sixth, and seventh pillars in addressing the issue of YHWH’s origin in the southern desert fringe, after which a new understanding of YHWH’s emergence in Judah will be suggested. The pragmatics of the emergence of YHWH in the South in the biblical account are addressed in a final, more speculative paragraph.

The Lord Rose Up from Seir: So What? Questioning the Origin from the South

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Within the traditional paradigm, it was unquestioned that Moses came to know YHWH in Midian. Even if the story of his flight was not understood to be a historical account, it was meaningful to the reconstruction of early Yahwism insofar as the connection between YHWH and the Midianites was considered to be historical. In addition to this, it was unquestioned that this tiny piece of “evidence” was also reflected in the poetic texts of theophany, which were reckoned to contain the bedrock of tradition. This view is even visible in the antiquated translation of Deut 33:2 in the NRSV “The Lord came from Sinai, and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran. With him were myriads of holy ones; at his right, a host of his own.” Together with Judg 5:4–5; Ps 68:8–9; Hab 3:3 this text was understood to contain the most original information regarding the homeland of YHWH in the southern desert circumscribed as Paran, Seir, Teman, and Sinai. The more the patriarchal traditions became un-historical the more the southern origin of Yahwism became a dogma.

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The mentioned southern landscapes are all located outside the later Israelite settlement area. Since it is hardly conceivable that Israel subsequently moved the seat of its main deity abroad, it can be concluded with sufficient certainty from the texts that the directions given are correct and that Yahweh will have been the name of a numen of one or more desert mountains east and/or west of the Arabah at the beginning of the Iron Age or shortly before. (Koch 2007, 174)¹

16

This situation has changed dramatically. It nevertheless remains true that we do not have any evidence for YHWH as an indigenous deity in the second millennium in Palestine or Syria. All previous attempts to locate YHWH in Egypt besides the Shasu (see below), in the traditions of Ebla (Ya), in the texts from Ugarit (yw), or elsewhere, have failed (Weippert 1997, 35–44; Lewis 2020, 227–34; van der Toorn 1999) and remain “wishful thinking” (Krebernik 2017, 61, 2013). Such evidence, rather, has contributed to the understanding of the predecessors of Israelite religion. Thus, the only trace leads into the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis (for this hypothesis see Blenkinsopp 2008; Blum 2012a, 49–53; Na’aman 2016). But in the same way it also holds true that we do not have extra-biblical evidence of YHWH originally being a Midianite (or Edomite, see below) deity. Moses’ encounter with the Midianites in the Exodus story is discussed in its function to reflect historical beginnings, particularly the information that Jethro, as a priest of Midian, was related to YHWH worship (Albertz 2012, 53–99). However, the older view was that, following Gen 4:16, the Kenites were reckoned as part of the Midianites and were the original YHWH worshippers: “Everything indicates that they did not adopt the worship of Yahweh from others, but were conscious of being the proper, the genuine, the original worshippers of Yahweh” (Budde 1899, 21). This originality cannot hold water. Only the biblical evidence (and nothing beyond that) attests to the Kenites as a tribe in the Southern Negev and perhaps the Arabah (Mondriaan 2011; Gaß 2012) (see also the paper of Juan Manuel Tebes in this volume). Building on the biblical information on the Kenites (Num 24:21; Judg 1:16; 4:11; 1 Sam 27:10, Zech 6:1; etc.) as well as archaeological and metallurgical evidence of copper production in the Arabah, Nissim Amzallag has put forward a renewal of the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis in a very creative and combinatory argument (2014, 2018, 2019). He concludes “that YHWH was once essentially related to the production and processing of copper in Canaan” (2016, 226). The ancient metal workers had a special affinity to this God and even the metallurgical knowledge was related especially to him. His argument of YHWH worship and his conclusion that YHWH was this God is speculative at best and cannot be discussed here in detail. What we nevertheless may state is that we do not know much at all about the religion of the Kenites and the Midianites in the second millennium BCE. As regards the Midianites, neither in Exod 2:16 nor in Exod 18:1 nor even in Num 10:29–32 is Moses’ father-in-law explicitly related to any YHWH worship that is not mediated by Moses and the Israelites; whether Zipporah, his daughter, first learned about YHWH from her family or only after her marriage with Moses remains open in the biblical text. If we follow Julius Wellhausen in deriving the name YHWH from Arab hwh “he blows, he falls” (1981, 25 note 1; see also Knauf 1984, 1988, 43–50), the only remaining clue for attributing the God of Israel to the region discussed is the name itself. And although this is widely accepted and a corresponding alternative is lacking, the argument is circular: If YHWH is related to the southern scenery—which is attested in the unknown location of the Sinai desert and mountain, in his relation to Midian, and in some texts of YHWH’s theophany from the South (Deut 33:2; Judg 5:4–5; Ps 68:8–9; Hab 3:3)—and if the etymology confirms the original character of YHWH as a weather God—only then is it logical to suppose that the name is derived from a hypothetical Old-Arab root. Finally, one has to admit that the root hwh and its meaning “he blows” have left no traces in the biblical record (Lewis 2020, 223) aside from the attributive relation of YHWH to wind, storm, lightning, and thunder, which are rather standardized theophanic motifs (Albertz 1994, 50–56). If this is not accepted, the derivation from the root *HWH/hyh as indicated in the biblical account (Exod 3:14) also has something to offer (Kitz 2019; Lewis 2020, 210–27). In addition, without presenting an alternative etymology, Josef Tropper has questioned the standard derivation from a verbal root with considerable linguistic arguments (2001, 2017). Thus, the name of the Israelite God remains a conundrum.

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In this situation of undecidable hypotheses and ignorance, scholars sought refuge in what is perhaps the oldest reference from Egypt. In inscriptions of Soleb and Amarah-West from the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries BCE, a “land of the Shasu-Yhw” (tꜢ šꜢśw y-h-w-Ꜣ) is mentioned, and the Shasu-Yhw are then associated with other groups of Shasu pastoral semi-nomads from other places. Since groups of mobile people called Shasu in Egyptian texts are attested throughout the Southern Levant (and the phenomenon is heterogenous and widespread, see Giveon 1971; Warburton 2013; Grabbe 2017, 26–27), there is much discussion on the question whether the other toponyms mentioned alongside yhw locate the Shasu groups in Lebanon and Syria or whether these inscriptions locate the Shasu-Yhw alongside other groups from Northern Arabia, the Sinai Peninsula, and both sides of the Southern Arabah Rift Valley, that is, in the presumed area of YHWH’s origins according to the biblical texts. Martin Leuenberger, for instance, continues to locate these ŠꜢśw (tꜢ šꜢśw yhꜢ) in the South (Leuenberger 2011, 2016, 2017), while Adrom and Müller situate the toponyms in Northern Palestine and the Lebanon (2017). However, even if some of the groups mentioned alongside the šꜢśw yhꜢ can in fact be located in the area of Edom, Seir, and the Arabah, it is by no means clear that the list is homogenous in geographical respect, since the names are compiled from various sources. In other words, if the lists comprise a composite of names with various origins, one cannot simply locate an unknown toponym by relating it to juxtaposed other toponyms that are putatively located more safely. This methodological challenge applies to both variants of locating the šꜢśw yhꜢ, which are accordingly neither clearly of southern origin nor of an original relation to Syria and the Lebanon unless we relate them to other toponyms in the list. Yet, the reading of Nr. 92 śꜢ-ʽr-ï-rʼ (TꜢ šꜢśw śʽrr) as Seir in the list of Amarah-West remains problematic (due to the double /r/), and thus also the location of the whole list in Southern Palestine. The corresponding entry in the Soleb list is different anyway in this regard. Finally, if one agrees to acknowledge a refererence to Seir in śʽrr, this does not have great impact on the šꜢśw yhꜢ unless one accepts the structuring function of exactly this toponym in the list, as is argued by Leuenberger (2016, 283). Particularly this argument has nevertheless been challenged convincingly by Henrik Pfeiffer (2013, 39). It is not compelling to admit orthographic mistakes made (continuously) by the copyists, on the one hand, and at the same time to argue that they have implemented a sophisticated ordering principle, on the other. Even ignoring these difficulties, it is by no means clear that the geographical region named yhw is the homeland of the deity. Although it remains possible that the mountainous region called yhwꜢ is related to the deity with the name YHWH, it is less clear than often claimed. Thus, Adrom and Müller correctly conclude that neither religio-historically nor geographically can reliable indications be collected from the lists (2013, 2017). Therefore, they consider the lists de facto useless in the discussion about the origin of YHWH. Recently Daniel E. Fleming has pointed out that when Giveon originally located the toponyms from the Soleb list, he was already guided by the Bible (2021, 62). It holds true that a certain circularity characterizes the use of the Shasu-Yhw when tracing the origin of the God YHWH. Only if this deity lurks behind the Shasu-land, and only if this group can originally be located in the Arabah, and only if they worshipped the God YHWH, and only if there is a link between the Exodus group and these Shasu, can they contribute to the origin of YHWH. As long as the geographical identification of the Shasu is so shaky, the Egyptian evidence is not of very much help, be it in the southern or the northern location of YHWH’s homeland. This insight also applies when one considers the personal name j:-t-w-j₂-rʿꜢ-y-h, which was presented by Thomas Schneider as the earliest occurrence of the name YHWH in Egyptian documents taken from a papyrus of the Book of the Dead from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth dynasty (Pharaonic Roll 5) (2007). Even if the owner of the papyrus is named this way, and the name can be understood as ’adonî rōʿē-yāh “My Lord is the Shepherd of Yah,” the shepherd is not simply identical with YHWH, and -yh should not too easily be accepted as the much later hypocoristic form of YHWH (Adrom and Müller 2017, 108–9). The -yh ending rather remains a toponym whose shepherd is N.N., and it is mere speculation to connect this with Ps 80:2; Hos 4:16; etc.

18

As regards the biblical evidence for YHWH’s origin from the South, the use of the four poetic texts mentioned above describing the theophany of YHWH related to regions in the South (Paran, Teman, Seir, Sinai) in Deut 33:2; Judg 5:4–5; Ps 68:8–9; Hab 3:3 (Axelsson 1987, 178) has undergone harsh critique (Pfeiffer 2005, 2017). In more recent exegetical discussions, these poetic texts have been dated radically later so that they cannot prove an old tradition of the origin of YHWH in the South. It remains possible that an old tradition has been dressed in very young texts, but if so the proof of the tradition must come from elsewhere and not from the texts themselves. Only Judg 5:4–5 can maintain its likely early dating, but even this text was written—at the earliest—in the Monarchic Period (Groß 2009, 289–349) and more likely in the ninth or eighth rather than in the tenth century BCE.

19

Instead of providing a reliable resource on YHWH’s origin, the epiphanic genre rather serves a rhetorical function to emphatically underscore YHWH’s martial character. Building on this, Pfitzmann has recently argued that the biblical traditions reflect various memories of YHWH’s origin, which are related to poly-Yahwistic varieties of Yahwism that can no longer be traced historically (2020, 457–58). Within the many local traditions of YHWH, several narratives of YHWH’s emergence existed as “inventions of traditions” rather than historical records of YHWH’s true origin. As a result of the Exodus tradition becoming crucial for the construction of Yahwistic identity, these traditions were mingled into the present inhomogeneous picture of YHWH coming from the South. The traditions of YHWH’s relation to Midian were kept to include a memory of the permanent YHWH cult in the southern regions. The bulk of evidence is interpreted by Pfitzmann as indicating YHWH’s worship in the South rather than his origin.

20

The traditional conception of the character of YHWH can be summarized in one simple sentence: Compared to the deities of Canaan, YHWH was different by origin. He was neither integrated in a pantheon nor originally characterized by polytheistic hierarchy relations. He was simply the only, solitary, and celibate deity, optionally aniconic or even monotheistic, related to the desert rather than to the cultivated land. Only by contact and competition did he become “Baalish” or was assimilated with the prime god of the Canaanite religion, El, by comparison. That YHWH was connected to the desert was drawn from ʼaḥar hammidbār (“beyond the desert”) in Exod 3:1, the sacrifice in the desert Exod 3:18; 5:1; 7:16, etc., or from cultic lyrics such as Ps 29:8 “The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.” The biblical narrative that Israel journeyed forty years in the wilderness was seen as evidence that YHWH’s home is the desert (Sweeney 2013, 154–55). Even the inscriptional evidence of tmn “south” combined with YHWH from the eighth-century BCE Kuntillet ‛Ajrud was considered to corroborate YHWH’s desert origin (Rendsburg 1980, 9) (see below). Finally, Horeb means “the dry place” and Sinai is a desert as well. However, it is often emphasized that the desert-sown diametrical construct of biblical origins is rather an over-simplification of nature than historical truth (Hiebert 1996, 20). Again, we can observe tremendous progress in biblical and religious studies questioning each and every piece of this traditional view. Yet, a new picture of early Yahwism did not emerge from the deconstruction of the traditional view. Why was that?

21

It is true that one of the main areas of locating the ‘home’ of YHWH is beyond the cultivated land, but its function in the biblical tradition is not clear; and neither is it clear when this location ‘outside’ was developed. That this feature has to be related with the oldest beginnings of tradition is questioned in recent approaches. Beyond the historical appropriateness of the tradition, the rhetorical function comes into play that may be a camouflage of the historical setting: The foreignness of YHWH might just have been emphasized to conceal that he did not arise naturally from a broader basis of religious belief but was rather imposed by small circles. But this suggestion still remains open for discussion and further development. What corroborates heading in this direction is the commonly accepted view that since traditions are recursive constructs, the roots and the very beginnings of traditions are often, if not always, concealed and withdrawn from historical access (Shils 1981). The “chain of tradition” has no beginning, it is rather built on reception. The only way to hold on to claiming the Sinai tradition as an index for YHWH’s origin is to see it as a sign of continuity, so that the age of the literary tradition is not decisive (Schmid 2019, 248). And as far as the absolute distinctiveness from the Canaanite religion is concerned, the discussion has changed tremendously, too. For almost fifty years, the Israelite religion has been discussed as a sub-set of the Canaanite religion (Coogan 1987), which is not distinctive in principle, but evolved out of its Canaanite origins (Smith 1990). This view is corroborated by the relation of YHWH and Asherah, which seems to have been not only a temporal love affair, but a constant relationship forming a divine couple. Aspects which bring YHWH’s character close to Baal and El are not ephemeral but rather essential (Müller 2008; Adrom and Müller 2017), and YHWH becomes all the more comparable to his contemporaneous divine companions (Cornell 2020). If there is no pronounced contrast to Canaanite polytheistic religions in essence, there is no need to develop the character of YHWH from the desert origins.

YHWH as National Deity Disseminated from Jerusalem Throughout the Land?

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The traditional view attributed a crucial role to David and Solomon. David conquered Jerusalem and brought YHWH to the city (2 Sam 5–6) and made him the national deity. Since YHWH was already worshiped throughout the land by the tribes of Israel, he had an easy game with the promotion of Yahwism. Solomon built the temple (1 Kgs 6:1) and thus laid the foundation for later centralization. The more recent debate has limited the impact of these figures enormously. It is more likely that the temple in Jerusalem was inherited from the former Canaanite city god, probably a solar deity (Keel 2007). Nothing beyond the biblical account indicates that Yahwism was the national religion of the whole land from upper Galilee to the Negev. All the archaeological evidence we have at hand points at diversity, a limited Canaanite polytheism with Aramaean and Syrian influence in the North, and North Arabian/Edomite and Egyptian influence in the South.

23

Furthermore, if there was no united monarchy centered in Jerusalem, there was also no division of the kingdom in 926 BCE, as the biblical narrative portrays the development at the end of the tenth century BCE. It was not Jeroboam I who distracted the northern tribes from going up to Jerusalem, because there was no prior centrality of worship. It is a near consensus that he did not make the Northerners deviant by associating YHWH with a bull in Bethel and Dan (1 Kgs 12:28). It was rather Jeroboam II who built those sanctuaries and who fostered the local Yahwistic cult in the Northern Kingdom (Berlejung 2009; Frevel 2018a, 184–85). The biblical pattern of the deviant North following the sin of Jeroboam and the pious South following the footsteps of David rather reveals a Judaean perspective aimed at a legitimation of Judaean independence from the North (Frevel 2018c). What seems to be true of the exaggeration is that Yahwism in the North became increasingly different from that in the South. The Samaritan religion did not appear out of nowhere (or only all of the sudden after a schism in the Hasmonean Period) but emerged after the close cooperation between Judah and Israel had ended, after the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE at the latest. But as correct as it is to assume regional manifestations of the Yahwist religion (Uehlinger 2019, 106–7; Hutton 2010; Allen 2015), it is (as the mentioned studies also underline) mistaken to understand this as “divergence” or a “parting of [two] ways” in the division of the kingdom. It rather reflects the plurality of Yahwisms from the start, which were unified by the biblical account from a Judaean perspective. It is the regional sanctuaries or temples at Shiloh, Shechem, Gibeon, Bethel, Hazor, Megiddo, Dan, Samaria, Beth-Saida, and other places which formed the plurality of local Yahwisms in the North.

YHWH as the God in Judah and of Judah: Some General Remarks

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Just as little as the Northern poly-Yahwism originated with Jeroboam I did the Southern variety of Yahwism(s) in Jerusalem, Moẓa, Hebron, Beersheba, Aseka, Lachish, etc., develop from Rehoboam. Although not everybody will follow my reconstruction of the early history of Judaean kingdom, in which Rehoboam—as part of a retrospective construction of a beginning out of conflict (Frevel 2018a, 177–80) (for different view see Krause 2020, 111–12)—is a fictitious figure, it is crucial to look at the evidence for a Southern Yahwism beyond the biblical account. As already noted above, it cannot be taken for granted that YHWH was worshiped in Jerusalem as early as the tenth century BCE. We simply have no extra-biblical evidence for the worship of YHWH at any sanctuary in the South before the ninth century, not even in Jerusalem, Arad, Lachish, or other places. This brings us back to the question of when and how YHWH became the God in Judah and of Judah. The emergence of a discernible Yahwism in Judah is related to the emergence of statehood. As already indicated above, the paradigm of state formation has undergone a radical change in the last decade, while the reconstruction of ‘state’ or ‘national’ religion has not. Thus, it is necessary to also take the development of the Northern state of Israel into account.

25

Before presenting a case study on the question of how Yahwism emerged in Judah, let me emphasize, in (admittedly too) broad strokes, some background elements that are important for the following argument. As a starting point, one has to realize the role that the network of ruling elites, or the chiefs or kings, play in the reconstruction of a collective level of religious practice within the boundaries of power. Most often the origins of a “national” deity can be traced back to the protective function of the ruling family or dynasty. As a rule, states originate from chiefdoms, which in turn emerge from patron-client networks in which families and clans engaged with one another economically and politically (Frevel 2018a, 98). On top of this, three decisive points with regard to the reconstruction below are as follows: First, any explicit extra-biblical evidence of YHWH worship in Israel, Judah, or Transjordan before the ninth century BCE is lacking. Although one must always be cognizant that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, this observation is striking and calls for an explanation. If YHWH had been the sole or decisive divine player, one would expect that at least traces would have been found in the archaeological or epigraphic record; but they have not (Keel and Uehlinger 1998; Renz 2009; Berlejung 2019)! Second, in reconstructing the history of Yahwism, one has to take regional characteristics into consideration. Even if political and religious geography do not necessarily need to coincide, they are not independent of each other, especially when (allowing for a heuristic purpose of this anachronistic concept) ‘national deities’ are involved. Neither the territory of Israel nor that of Judah is clearly defined but is subject to great changes during the existence of these states. It is crucial, therefore, to look at the contested areas of the developing zones, such as the Shephelah, the Negev, the region of Benjamin, Gilead, or the Galilee, etc. This brings us to the third point: On the one hand, the territorial inconsistency alone speaks for regional differentiations and poly-Yahwistic tendencies. On the other hand, one has to consider the main factors of the spreading of a ‘religion’ in these contexts. Although not the only factor, monarchy is the decisive one in my understanding.

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In the following I will presuppose the understanding of the history of Israel and Judah which I have argued in a larger textbook (Frevel 2018a). Within this new reconstruction, which leaves behind the assumption of an encompassing Davidic-Solomonic empire as well as the idea of the so-called division of the kingdom, Judah and Israel are considered to be deeply intertwined in the ninth and eighth centuries BCE, particularly in the early phases of their emergence. A stable monarchy first existed with the Omrides in the North and only more than a generation later in Jerusalem. However, this reign in the South was not originally independent from the North. Some define the relation solely as an economic and military cooperation, some rather as a (veiled) vassalage of the Southern kingdom. Based on biblical information and the striking similarity of the kings’ names, I have in contrast suggested that the early monarchy in ninth-century Jerusalem was a secondary kingdom and at least temporarily a secundogeniture of the Omride dynasty (Frevel 2018a, 190–91, 234–38). This means that members of the ruling family from Samaria ruled Jerusalem and Judah. Only in the eighth century BCE, when Israel came under heavy Aramaic pressure from the Aramaean king Hazael, could Judah develop, under Aramaic patronage, a new form of dependency which enabled the southwestern expansion of the territory into the southern Shephelah and the Negev. Finally, after the fall of Samaria in 722 BCE, Judah remained and further developed until the late seventh/early sixth century BCE without significant political influence from Israel/Samaria. Strikingly, the influence became important again in the Persian period. Whether one takes the weaker variant of entanglement (influence, dependence) or the stronger one (vassalry, secundogeniture) of intertwined dominion is ultimately not decisive. The key point is that religious affiliation and governance belong together, and thus the impact of the Northern Kingdom on the religion of the South cannot be underestimated. If it is accepted that monarchy is the decisive factor for the nationwide dissemination of a deity within the national cult, the role of the Omrides becomes crucially important. This is because it is consensually accepted that YHWH was the tutelary deity of the Omride dynasty. This can be seen in the naming tradition of Ahab’s children. All of them bear theophoric Yahwistic names for the first time in the history of Israel: Ahaziah, Joram, Athaliah. This corroborates that YHWH was the patron God of the Omrides. This is not only a new phenomenon in the biblical reflection of the Northern dynasty (Sanders 2015, 79). The father of Baasha, Ahijah (1 Kgs 15:27), and Abijah, the son of Jeroboam (1 Kgs 14:1), are special cases which cannot be discussed in this paper. In Judah Jehoshaphat is the first king to carry a Yahwistic name (1 Kgs 15:24; 22:41). Strikingly, military and economic joint ventures also begin at that time (1 Kgs 22:45–51). Judging from extra-biblical evidence, however, YHWH seems to have been unknown in the South before the establishment of the monarchy. If this is true, he was probably introduced into Jerusalem and the territory of Judah by the Omrides and thus became an important religious factor in the South. It cannot be excluded in principle that YHWH played a minor role in some local places in Judah before the ninth century BCE (although this does not seem likely at present), but the breakthrough as the God of the Shephelah and the hill-country is most probably only a consequence of the expansion of Judah. Perhaps the inscription of Khirbet Beit Lei gives evidence to the process. This inscription scratched into the soft limestone of a burial chamber in the southern Shephelah close to Lachish mentions YHWH as “the god of the whole country, the mountains of Judah and the god of Jerusalem” (Ahituv 2008, 233–34; Leuenberger 2014). There are difficulties in reading and dating the inscription paleographically, but it is most often dated to the late eighth or early seventh century BCE (Renz 1995, 1:243). In addressing YHWH as the god of the Judaean hill-country and the whole land (and not the whole earth, as כל הארץ is often translated), the inscription is perhaps indicative for the expansion of YHWH’s dominion in the time not long before. Perhaps it is exactly this emphasis which gives a clue that YHWH’s responsibility for this geographical area had not been self-evident (or at least not for long) and still needed to be emphasized. The whole Shephelah became Judaean only after Hazael’s campaign to the South at the end of the ninth century BCE.

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I am fully aware that this thesis provokes considerable resistance, especially as it turns the traditional image upside down. But as long as the counterarguments are based solely on the information given in the Bible, I am convinced that this thesis represents a strong alternative to the traditional picture, because it much more clearly takes the recent changes in the reconstruction of Israel’s history into account.

YHWH in the South, Kuntillet ʽAjrud, or the Emergence of Judaean Religion

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The discovery of the Kuntillet ʽAjrud inscriptions and drawings in the Sinai desert south of Kadesh Barnea are an outstanding example of how complex the questions on the development of Yahwism have become. Biblical history has lost its guidance function to act as the sole indicator in reconstructing religious history. In contrast, what is nowadays required to answer the questions raised by the evidence from Kuntillet ʽAjrud is a complex interaction of competencies in history, archaeology, epigraphy, iconography, etc. The findings of the way station in the desert can rightly be described as the most important findings in the history of Israelite religion of the last century, precisely because they do not mirror the biblical depiction. Their importance can hardly be overestimated, which can already be seen from the innumerable publications that cannot be mentioned here. Particularly the formulaic benedictions, which mention the goddess Asherah in association with YHWH, have kindled a fiery discussion. Today there is hardly any doubt that for a long time YHWH was worshipped with a partner, even in an official context. Notwithstanding the importance of the findings from Kuntillet ʽAjrud as a valuable insight, they hardly reflect the whole picture. Thus, one should be cautious not to make them the normative instance for the reconstruction of Israelite and Judahite Yahwism. That being said, the evidence remains striking and particularly important for the issue discussed in this essay, that is, how YHWH entered Judah and became the first tutelary God of the Davidic dynasty and finally the national God of Judah.

The Emergence of Early Yahwism: Summary

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The current paper questioned the general assumption of an unbroken continuity of the worship of YHWH between the second half of the second millennium and the middle of the first millennium BCE. While dissolving the notion of origin and originality from the biblical statements that YHWH comes from the south and by questioning the reliability of the Egyptian evidence for YHWH’s homeland, the argument unfolded a fresh take on YHWH’s emergence in the south, that is, Judah. To this end, an overview of the epigraphic evidence in inscriptions and theophoric personal names was presented with the result that YHWH is first documented in the North and a little later in the South, but none of these derived from the tenth century BCE. Building on the epigraphic evidence, it was suggested that YHWH was introduced in Judah by the Omrides, who ruled in Jerusalem only from the mid-ninth century. The position as national god in the late ninth or early eighth centuries BCE evolved from the function as dynastic god and patron deity of the monarchy. In this light, the local variant of a southern YHWH was interpreted in the inscriptions of Kuntillet ‛Ajrud. The only reliable evidence there reads Teman with an article (htmn), suggesting that it is not about YHWH’s home, but about his presence in the South.