The omission may be explained, according to some scholars, by assuming there were close similarities between Yahweh and Qōs, which would have made rejection of the latter difficult.
Other scholars have suggested that the tensions between Judeans and Edomites during the
Second Temple period
The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstructio ...
may lie behind the omission of Qōs in the Bible.
A poetic refrain in Judges in the Hebrew Bible states that Yahweh embarked from
Se'ir in the region of
Edom
Edom (; Edomite language, Edomite: ; , lit.: "red"; Akkadian language, Akkadian: , ; Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom that stretched across areas in the south of present-day Jordan and Israel. Edom and the Edomi ...
.
Recently,
the view has been advanced that Yahweh was originally a
Kenite god whose cult spread north of
Midian
Midian (; ; , ''Madiam''; Taymanitic: 𐪃𐪕𐪚𐪌 ''MDYN''; ''Mīḏyān'') is a geographical region in West Asia, located in northwestern Saudi Arabia. mentioned in the Tanakh and Quran. William G. Dever states that biblical Midian was ...
to the Israelites. According to this approach, Qōs might possibly have been a title for Yahweh, rather than a name.
[James S. Anderson (2015)]
''Monotheism and Yahweh's Appropriation of Baal''
p.101. Bloomsbury Publishing. A further point connecting Yahweh with Qōs, aside from their common origin in that territory, is that the Edomite cult of the latter shared characteristics of the former. Thus, we find that
Doeg the Edomite has no problem in worshiping Yahweh, he is shown to be at home in Jewish sanctuaries. Circumcision, an essential Jewish rite, was practiced in Edom.
Additionally, supplication of Yahweh is not uncommon where mentions of Qos are lacking: a pottery sherd from the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE at
Kuntillet Ajrud blesses its recipient by "Yahweh of
Teman", which some have taken as implying that, at least from an Israelite perspective, Qos and Yahweh were considered identical, though it by no means necessarily proves it. On the other hand, there are some discrepancies which make a direct association between the two difficult. The identification of names in the Egyptian list of
Shasu
The Shasu (, possibly pronounced ''šaswə'') were Semitic-speaking pastoral nomads in the Southern Levant from the late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age or the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. They were tent dwellers, organized in clans ru ...
clans in
Se'ir creates a continuity problem, since Qos names only emerge some 500 years later. Oded Balaban and
Ernst Axel Knauf have claimed that certain names found on
Ramesside topographical lists are theophoric and contain references to Qos, which if true would put the deity's earliest attestation more than 600 years before Yahweh's.
[Oded Balaban]
''Egyptian references to the Edomite deity Qaus,''
AUSS 9 (1971 pp.47-50).
See also
*
Quzah
Quzaḥ () is a pre-Islamic Arab god of weather, worshiped by the people of Muzdalifah. The pre-Islamic rite of the Ifada celebrated after the September equinox was performed facing the direction of Quzah's sanctuary. A lasting reference to Quzah ...
References
{{Reflist
West Semitic gods
Edom
Book of Ezra
Book of Nehemiah
Deities in the Hebrew Bible
National gods