Synopsis of YHWH, Snake God of Israel
H. Abdul Al-Dahir
The article, YHWH, Snake God of Israel, discusses 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 tell a very different story.
In the Biblical book, Numbers, 21:9, YHWH’s image as a snake coiled around a pole was carried by Moses before the Hebrews who fled Egypt, an event labeled as the Exodus. Later, according to 2 Kings 18:4, the Israelite King Hezekiah destroyed this snake image of YHWH because the populace was worshiping it.
However, the Israelites continued to display YHWH’s image in numerous other places 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.
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 word ‘yh/ya’, with the ancient West Semitic word for snake, ‘hwh’, to form the name of their god YHWH, which literally means ‘Yah, the snake’ or ‘the living snake god’ . The combination seems odd until one considers that the early Hebrews adopted the Sanskrit word for snake, ‘nagas’, from their northern Indo Aryan neighbors, the Mitannis. The Hebrew word for snake became ‘nachash’.
However, the ancient Semitic word for snake, ‘hwh’ (pronounced both as chawa and hawa), was appended to the name Yah, thus making it clear to all that Yah was a snake god.
The name Yah also shows up in early Minaean inscriptions. According to J.A. Montgomery, PhD, these 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’. 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, Arabia & the Bible, it was the Minaeans who brought the cult of Yah with them from the southern coast of Arabia.
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 >——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. It is this snake god which the Hebrews adopted from the Midianites thru the Minaeans that is referred to in the Bible.
The 2nd trajectory of the name YHWH was 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.
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. They fled through the Sinai and into Canaan (Palestine) and other areas of the Levant where they settled.
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.
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 associated with YHWH.
According to the Wikipedia article, Iah: “Iah ( Egyptian: J’h, transliterated as Yah, Jah, Jah(w), Joh or Aah ) is a god of the moon in ancient Egyptian religion. His name simply means
moon.” Yhw seems to be a variation of Jah(w), an early form of the name YHWH. The Semites who worshiped Yhw in Canaan were known to the Hebrews as Midianites, but the Egyptians named them the Shasu of Yhw which means the Bedouin of YHWH. The Shasu of Yhw were a Semitic people who may have syncretized their snake god Yah with the Egyptian moon god, Iah .
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Synopsis of Israel’s Serpent/Moon God, Yahweh (YHWH), the Biblical Snake God | Arabian Prophets