From Hadesh Vol. I, Issue No. 3 - Love
By: R. Isaac Ludmir
The greatest innovation of Israelite religion was not the idea that God has a fatherly relationship with individual humans. Almost every monarch in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean and Near East claimed to be the son of some god or another. Mystic marriages were also common in Mesopotamia; in each city-state, the deity who owned it outright was supposedly married to the high priest or priestess (always of the opposite sex to that of the deity).
We should understand these relationships in light of a fact we mentioned in a prior issue, that of alliances and covenants being framed as pseudo-familial ties. Vassal kings became their overlord’s “sons”; equal allies are “brothers”; royal marriages are usually real, but they result in a relationship of either a superior “father” and inferior “child”, or two equal “siblings” between the heads of the allied dynasties.1
Early Israelite religion, however, introduced a two-fold invention: Not only was the relationship extended to the entire people with merely a singular monarchical figure, but it was also accompanied by the banishment of all the mythic divine “sons” and “spouses.” Effectively, human Israel replaced the “Sons of God” as “עדת אל” and "קהל ה'" – which, until then, meant the assembly of the Divine Court, or cosmic royal family.2
But around the 8th century BCE we find another innovation introduced in the Prophetic circles: Not only are the Israelites God’s adopted (and only) children, but even their collective essence, their proverbial mother or “The Maiden of Israel” is portrayed as God’s spouse.3 Yet unlike any other mystic marriages claimed by humans, this is not used to flatter the Israelites, but to rebuke them.
As a matter of fact, the God of Israel’s unmarried status would have set Him apart from all the other gods of antiquity– even from non-Israelite depictions of El Elyon as the husband of Asherah4 and the father of her 70 sons. Even from the very concept of what a “god” was. Gods, by the logic of the ancient Near East (or ANE), were creatures of community: they lived in a divine society and thus had the wisdom and knowledge to rule the human one with great skill. The most basic unit of society was the married couple.5 What kind of a god would not have accomplished the benchmark without which a man could have not even said to reach adulthood? What kind of a king was He if He had no heirs, no proof of His virility and His blessed, fertile nature? It is no wonder that even the Judahites, the last holdouts of the ban on female icons,6 eventually succumbed to the temptation of imagining a divine wife– the wonder should be placed on their persistence until then, and the success of the aniconic reforms of the 6th century BCE, merely a century or so after the Judean pillar figurines boom.7
The most ancient Biblical text found in extrabiblical circumstances (that is, in a text which isn’t a copy of the Torah) are the Keteph Hinnom microscrolls,8 containing a version of the Priestly Blessings. While the Keteph Hinnom scrolls are a fascinating topic in their own right, I wish to focus on an oddity: The full text of the Priestly Blessing contains the promise “God shall favor you,” while Deuteronomy 10:17 specifically lauds God and warns Israel:
“And ye shall circumcise thy heart and no longer stiffen thy necks: For Y-H-W-H thy God is… the great, mighty and dreadful El, who shall not favor nor be bribed.”
Did the Israelites believe El was an impartial God, as Deuteronomy suggests, or did they believe He does have favorites and sought a priestly blessing to be counted among them? To settle this apparent contradiction, we must turn our eye to the role of El as the guarantor of oath.
As discussed in a prior issue, oaths were of extreme importance in the ANE and always involved the invocation of both sides’ deities. By demanding Israelites swear exclusively in His name,9 God limited their “First Order” alliances to be only with fellow Israelites. By placing a dreadful curse on breaking such oaths,10 it also strengthens their effectiveness.
Alliances in the ANE were not always symmetric. The inferior party (the fictive “son”) could not bind the superior party
(the “father”).11 For instance, whereas a vassal agrees to support his overlord and has no other overlords, the overlord may have other vassals, but still promises to protect the vassal. It is only when a diplomatic relationship is based not merely on fictive kinship but also on real favor that a superior party might accept a symmetric obligation.12
And now we have the answer: God declared that He is “One” and that He has no divine family, but that Israel is His only “estate”:13
“To the Lord your God belongs the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the Lord set his affection only on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today.”
The emphasis on “the Heavens and the Highest Heavens” stresses that Israel need not worry about competing with an alternative divine family: Just as the Lord had blocked off the Israelites from finding alternative brothers to fellow Israelites, so too He blocked Himself from taking an alternative set of children. This alone shows great favor. The Covenant is born out of real love rather than pragmatic mutual benefit. Therefore, God commands the Israelites to govern their internal affairs in the same measure: show no favoritism between one Israelite and another, as God shall show no favor between them; rather, He favors them all as one.
The innovation of Sinai is now revealed to be more than what we assumed.
The conventional treaty-kinship remains as a foundation, but it is built into a great and noble idea: That God Himself may fall in love with a nation, favor it, and foreswear not only all other nations as His personal estate, but refrain from even supernatural relationships. Even if other gods were to exist, God wants nothing to do with them, not because they are contemptible, but because He already gave His heart to Israel, from whom He demands nothing, except that we treat each other in the same manner: have no other gods besides Him, and no other brothers besides each other. Because love that is not exclusive is no love at all.
There is a great deal of nuance in who is marrying whom. For instance, a king who receives a relatively low-ranking princess as his principal wife usually becomes her father’s “son”, but if a high-ranking princess becomes a secondary wife or a concubine, her husband has the upper hand in the alliance.
Daniel F. Porter, God Among the Gods: An Analysis of the Function of Yahweh in the Divine Council of Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 82 (Master’s thesis, Liberty University, 2010), https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/masters/141.
See Jeremiah 31, describing a wedding feast between God and “The Maiden of Israel”, 18:14 where she is portrayed as betraying her betrothed. Cf. Amos 5:2, Deuteronomy 22:19, and Isaiah 62:5.
“Athirat,” Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, accessed August 17, 2025, https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/athirat.
Polygamy is always the addition of secondary wives and concubines to the use of the husband, but these sexual servants are never the equal of the principal wife. See Ariel Yaari’s article in this issue.
Robin Ngo, “Judean Pillar Figurines,” Biblical Archaeology Society, January 5, 2016, accessed August 17, 2025, https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/judean-pillar-figurines.
Armstrong Institute Staff, “Ketef Hinnom Scrolls,” Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology, June 24, 2018, accessed August 17, 2025, https://armstronginstitute.org/45-ketef-hinnom-scrolls.
Armstrong Institute Staff, “Ketef Hinnom Scrolls,” Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology, June 24, 2018, accessed August 17, 2025, https://armstronginstitute.org/45-ketef-hinnom-scrolls.
Deut. 6:13, and in an expanded version, 10:20
Exodus 20:6. Cf. 34:6-7.
D. Luckenbill, “Hittite Treaties and Letters,” The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures 37, no. 3 (April 1921): 161–211, 173. Thus, the King of the Hittites offers Mattiuaza the status of fictive sonship and thus, his protection. Mattiuaza responds that he is more than willing, but protests that he was being treated unfairly and not in a way befitting a loyal and favored vassal.
In addition see the treaty between Mursilis II of the Hittites and Duppi-Tessub of Ammuru, in which Mursilis promises, as a suzerain to be loyal to his vassal due to the prior favor he has towards Dubbi Tessub’s father, Aziras, who personally plead to Mursilis II to accept his son as a vassal and to protect him against his enemies despite his frailty.
For examples of non-reciprocity, see Gary M. Beckman, Hittite Diplomatic Texts, 2nd ed. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 285.
Amanda H. Podany, Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
Deuteronomy 10:13-14