A Primer on Ugaritic: Language, Culture, and Literature - enenuru

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Ugaritic <strong>Primer</strong>
More to the point, why should students of the Hebrew Bible and
ancient Israel be interested in ancient Ugarit and its inhabitants? In
the literature from Ugarit, we hear echoes of voices from ancient
Canaan from the very time when Israel came into Canaan. Indeed,
Ugarit reached its political and economic zenith in the thirteenth
century BCE, that is, precisely the time when Israel first appears
in the historical record in Canaan. It gives an independent witness
to the epic and literary traditions of ancient Canaan that stand
behind much of Old Testament literature. By placing biblical
literature, particularly early biblical poetry (e.g., Exodus 15, Judges
5, and Deuteronomy 33), into this context, we gain a much better
understanding of the Hebrew Bible and early Israel. Some of the
Psalms (like Psalm 29) borrow quite directly from Canaanite
literature, as we now perceive through our study of Ugaritic
literature. The archives at Ugarit have expanded our knowledge of
the cognate Northwest Semitic languages and have helped us
understand innumerable opaque Hebrew words and idioms. Finally,
Ugarit gives us a glimpse into the religious culture of ancient
Canaan in which Israelite and biblical religion grew. Ugaritic
literature thereby goes a long way toward furthering our knowledge
of ancient Israel, the Hebrew Bible, and the Hebrew language.
One straightforward example of the importance of Ugaritic for
the Hebrew lexicon is the word “shepherd” in Amos 1:1. The book
of Amos calls the prophet a dEqOn, whereas the usual Hebrew word
for shepherd is hEoOr. The word dEqOn is found only in Amos and in 2
Kings 3:4, where it refers to Mesha, King of Moab. Words that
appear only once (hapax legomena) or twice in the Bible are
difficult to understand because there is insufficient context. The
meanings of many such words were probably forgotten during the
fifth and fourth centuries BCE when the Hebrew language itself
almost disappeared. Now, with the help of new comparisons with
other Semitic languages like Ugaritic, we can recover the meanings
of many words. 24 In this case, the Ugaritic word nqd, which refers
to someone who manages a large number of shepherds, is likely
24 See, for example, C. Cohen Biblical Hapax Legomena in the Light of
Akkadian and Ugaritic (Missoula, MT, 1977).