Resheph

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Resheph

Resheph or Reshef (Canaanite/Hebrew ) was a Canaanite deity of plague and war. Resheph is associated with lightning

Lightning

File:Blesk.jpgLightning is an Earth's atmosphere discharge of electricity usually accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcano or dust storms....
, and hence also interpreted as a weather deity. In Ugarit

Ugarit

Ugarit was an ancient cosmopolitan port city, sited on the Mediterranean coast. Ugarit sent tribute to Ancient Egypt and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus , documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean Greece and Cypriot pottery found there....
, Resheph was identified with Nergal

Nergal

The name Nergal refers to a deity in Babylonia with the main seat of his cult at Kutha represented by the mound of Tell-Ibrahim. Nergal is mentioned in the Hebrew bible as the deity of the city of Kutha : "And the men of Babylon made Succoth-benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal" ....
, in Idalion, Cyprus

Cyprus

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
.. The name appears as a word in Classical Hebrew with the meaning "flame, lightning" (Psalm 78:48) and the derived or figurative meanings of "arrow" (as "lightning of the bow", Job 5:7) and "a burning fever, a plague" (by which the body is "inflamed", Deuteronomy 32:24).

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Resheph or Reshef (Canaanite/Hebrew ) was a Canaanite deity of plague and war. Resheph is associated with lightning

Lightning

Ugarit

Nergal

Cyprus

Apollo

Ephraim

Ephraim was, according to the Book of Genesis, the second son of Joseph and Asenath, and the founder of the Israelites of Tribe of Ephraim; however some Biblical criticism view this as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation....
, occurs in 1 Chronicles 7:25.

Resheph is mentioned in Ugaritic mythological texts such as the epic of Kirta

Kirta

Kirta is a legendary Hurrian king. He is thought to have founded the dynasty of Mitanni, but no contemporary inscriptions from his time are known to exist....
and The Mare and Horon. In Phoenician

Phoenician languages

Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Put in Ancient Egyptian, Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew language, and Aramaic, and Phoenicia in Greek language and Latin....
inscriptions he is called rshp gn 'Resheph of the Garden' and b`l chtz 'lord of the arrow'. Phoenician-Hittite

Hittite language

Hittite or Nesili is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on ancient Hattusas in north-central Anatolia ....
bilinguals refer to him as 'deer god' and 'gazelle god'.

In Kition, Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is an island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, west of Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, south of Turkey and north of Egypt....
, Resheph had the epithet of ??, interpreted as "arrow" by Javier Teixidor, who consequently interprets Resheph as a god of plague, comparable to Apollo

Apollo

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
under Amenhotep II

Amenhotep II

Amenhotep II was the seventh Pharaoh of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt of History of Ancient Egypt. Amenhotep inherited a vast kingdom from his father Thutmose III, and held it by means of a few military campaigns in Syria; however, he fought much less than his father, and his reign saw the effective cessation of hostilities between Egypt a...
(18th dynasty

Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt

The Eighteenth Dynasty is perhaps the best known of all the dynasties of ancient Egypt. As well as a number of Egypt's most powerful pharaohs, it included Tutankhamun, whose tomb, uncovered by Howard Carter in 1922, was one of the greatest of all archaeological discoveries, being completely undisturbed by tomb robbers....
), where he served as god of horses and chariot

Chariot

The chariot is the earliest and simplest type of carriage, used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Chariots were built in Mesopotamia by the Mesopotamians as early as 3000 BC and in China during the 2nd millennium BC....
s. Originally adopted into the royal cult, Resheph became a popular deity in the Ramesside Period

Ramesside Period

The Ramesside Period encompasses the Nineteenth dynasty of Egypt and Twentieth dynasty of Egypt of Ancient Egypt. It is named after "Ramesses", the name taken by the majority of the rulers of Egypt dating to this period of time....
, at the same time disappearing from royal inscriptions. In this later period, he is depicted with a ram's head, armed with shield, spear and axe, often together with Qetesh

Qetesh

Qetesh was a Sumerian Goddess adopted into Egyptian mythology as an import from the Canaanite religion.Her Semitic essence was adopted into the Egyptian wiktionary:pantheon as an aspect of both the Egyptian BA and the KA....
and Min

Min (god)

Min is an Ancient Egyptian god whose cult originated in predynastic times . He was represented in many different forms, but was often represented in male human form, shown with an erect penis which he holds in his left hand and an upheld right arm holding a flail....
.

The ancient town of Arsuf

Arsuf

Arsuf also known as Arsur or Apollonia, was an ancient city and fortress located in Israel, about 15 kilometres north of modern Tel Aviv, on a cliff above the Mediterranean Sea....
in Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is derived from a name used already much earlier for a narrower geographical region, mainly along the coastal region....
has preserved the Resheph, also thousands of years after his worship has ceased.

Resheph

See also