Reshef

Resheph (also Reshef and many other variants, see below; phn, 𐤓‬𐤔‬𐤐‬, ''ršp''; Eblaite ''Rašap'', Egyptian ') was a deity associated with plague (or a personification of plague), either war or strong protection, and sometimes thunder in ancient Canaanite religion. The originally Eblaite and Canaanite god was then more famously adopted into ancient Egyptian religion in the late Bronze Age during the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt (late fifteenth century BC), also becoming associated with horses and chariots.

In Biblical Hebrew, ''resheph'' is a noun interpreted as "flame, lightning" but also "burning fever, plague, pestilence".

Etymology

Resheph is known by a multitude of names, including Rahshaf, Rasap, Rashap, Resep, Reshef, Reshpu, Rapha, Repheth, and others that are not standardized.

Ebla

The name is found in third millennium BCE tablets from Ebla, as ''Rašap'' (''Ra-ša-ap''), listed as divinity of the cities of Atanni, Gunu, Tunip, and Shechem. Rasap was one of the chief deities of Ebla, with one of the four city gates named in his honor.

References to ''ršp gn'' or ''gunu(m)'' have been found at Ugarit and Ebla, respectively. These have been variously interpreted as associating Resheph with the shield and protection, or the city Gunu, or gardens, or the cemetery.

In Eblaite texts from the 3rd millennium BCE the goddess Adamma, sometimes also associated with ''gunu(m)'', was his wife. However, this tradition is absent from later sources, and Adamma instead reappeared in a dyad alongside Kubaba, a goddess associated with lawsuits, known from Carchemish.

Several Eblaite documents list the offerings made to Resheph and his spouse Adamma in Tunip alongside these to Hadabal in Hamat, which may indicate these towns were located close to each other. Resheph, Hadabal and Hadad all received an offering consisting out of two pairs of bull horns and a mace each year.

Ugarit

''Ršp'' was an important Ugaritic deity. He had the byname of ''tġr špš'' "door-warden of the Sun".Wolfgang Fauth: ''Rezension von: Wolfgang Helck: Betrachtungen zur Großen Göttin und den ihr verbundenen Gottheiten.'' In: ''Gnomon.'' 46.7 (1974), p. 689. Sacrifices to ''Ršp'' (''ršp gn'') were performed in gardens.

Ugaritic ''Ršp'' was equated with the Mesopotamian deity Nergal. Fauth (1974) argued that ''ršp'' in the later Canaanite period no longer referred to a specific god and could be used as a byname, as in ''Rešep-Mikal'' (𐤓𐤔𐤐 𐤌𐤊𐤋) at Kition. Teixidor (1976) based on an epithet ''ḥṣ'' in Kition (interpreted as "arrow"), identifies ''Ršp'' as a plague god who strikes his victims with arrows as Homeric Apollo (''Iliad'' ), and argues for an interpretatio graeca of ''Ršp'' with Apollo in Idalium.

Although Resheph is usually equated with Nergal, it has been speculated that sometimes ''Rašap'' could be read as the logogram ^dNIN.URTA in personal nouns, as well as suggesting that the lack of Resheph in the god-lists from Emar could result from him being identified with Ninurta at times. This would explain how Resheph can embody contradicting divine qualities such as being a god of pestilence and disease on one side, but also of healing if propitiated, on the other – all at once. Thus there would be a "Resheph of plague" and a "Resheph of healing". Another hint at this ambivalent aspect of the god is given by the Luwian deity named Runtiya designated with the cuneiform writing ^dLAMMA, that’s been identified as a special version of Resheph called "Rašap of the he-goats" or "Rašap of the birds" (''ršp ṣprm'') in the Luwian- Phoenician Karatepe Bilingual, and equated with Hermes ( Mercury), when instead Ugaritic Resheph is usually identified with Nergal who embodies more so the qualities associated with the planet Mars. Runtiya is connected with the deer, similar to the Canaanite deity Attar who was associated with the antelope. Although in the Hittite
myth Kurunta/Runtiya is slain by Tarhun (Teshub) and a god designated as "Ninurta"; it’s also renown that the logograms ^dNIN.URTA and ^dURAŠ are used to write the name of the god Tašmišu as well, and that Tašmišu whilst being regarded as a brother and ally of the storm-god, is also equated with Papsukkal, a helper or servant of deities, who could have been the one that aided Tarhun in slaying Kurunta and was also designated with the same logographic writing used for the name of Ninurta as well.

Resheph is mentioned in Ugaritic mythological texts such as the epic of ''Kirta'' and ''The Mare and Horon''.

Although the iconography of Resheph shares the gazelle with that of the Egyptian-Canaanite Shed, Cornelius (1994) writes that "the rest of the attributes are totally different".

Egypt

Probably introduced in Egypt by the Hyksos, Resheph was not assimilated into the Egyptian pantheon until the New Kingdom's Eighteenth Dynasty along with other Near Eastern deities. His consort was Itum. He was frequently associated with Seth and Montu, other deities related to war and plague, but he also formed a triad with Min and Qetesh. Qetesh was connected with Hathor, but not synonymous with her.

He was usually depicted anthropomorphically, as a man brandishing a weapon, sporting a typical Syrian beard, and wearing the white crown of Egypt and/or a gazelle’s head on his own. A temple dedicated to him is attested in Memphis, but he was likely worshipped in many Nile Delta regions. His cult survived well into the Ptolemaic Period.

As a war deity, he was related to kingship as shown by a stele erected by Amenhotep II near the Great Sphinx. For the same reason, his bellicose nature became associated with fighting diseases such as abdominal pain, believed to be caused by a demon called Akha.

The theonym is usually written as hieroglyphic ''ršpw'', where the final ''-w'' is added in analogy to other Egyptian divine names.

Anatolia

Resheph was one of the Western Semitic gods adopted by the Hurrians (other examples include Ishara, Hebat and Eblaite war god Aštabi). He appears in Hurrian texts under the name Aršappa or Iršappa, often with the epithet "(tutelary god) of the market," and was among the gods incorporated into the pantheons of Samuha and the Hittite capital Hattusa under the influence of Hurrian religion.

Hebrew Bible

In Biblical Hebrew, ''resheph'' means "flame, firebolt", derived from "to burn". ''Resheph'' as a personal name, a grandson of Ephraim, occurs in (here written as ''Rephah'' in King James Version). The Latin Vulgate renders his name as ''Reseph''.

In Habakkuk 3:5, describing the procession of Eloah () from Teman and Mount Paran, mention ''deber'' and ''resheph'' as going before him, in the King James Version translated as "pestilence" and "burning coals". Due to the discovery of both ''deber'' and ''resheph'' as theonyms in Ebla, this passage has been reinterpreted as describing a procession of the retinue of El going to war with Yam.John Day, "New Light on the Mythological Background of the Allusion to Resheph in Habakkuk III 5", ''Vetus Testamentum'' 29.3 (1979), 353–355. In Job 5:7, there is mention of the "sons of ''resheph''", translated in the Septuagint as , "the young of the vulture", and in the King James Version as "sparks".

In popular culture

In the 1998 animated historical film, '' Prince of Egypt'', the Egyptian high priests Hotep and Huy invoke the name of Resheph (as ''Reshpu'') during their song "Playing with the Big Boys now", as part of a pseudo-magical show to trick Moses.

In the book saga ''Lords of Deliverance'' from Larissa Ione, the fourth horseman is called Reseph, the personification of Sickness and Plagues and the brother of the first horseman Ares, personification of war, of the second horseman Limos (who is the only woman of the group), personification of Hunger, and of the third horseman Thanatos, personification of Death.

See also

* Ancient Canaanite religion
* Religions of the ancient Near East
* Shed (deity)

Notes

* Wolfgang Helck: ''Die Beziehungen Ägyptens zu Vorderasien im 3. und 2. Jahrtausend v. Chr.'', (Ägyptologische Abhandlungen, Band 5) 2. Auflage, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1971 ''(Zu Reschef in Ägypten: S. 450-454)''
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West Semitic gods
Phoenician mythology
Egyptian gods
Deities in the Hebrew Bible
Plague gods
War gods
Hurrian deities
Eblaite deities
Ugaritic deities