Divine emotion is a ubiquitous feature of ancient Near Eastern documents. These texts regularly assign the same spectrum of feelings experienced by humans (e.g., love, anger, joy) to the divine realm. Divine and Human Hate in the Ancient Near East: A Lexical and Contextual Analysis is a comprehensive study of divine hate. On seventeen separate occasions, the Hebrew Bible describes Yahweh as hateful. But an ascription of hate extends to more ancient Near Eastern deities than Yahweh. Canaanite texts from Ugarit and Akkadian documents also characterize their gods as hateful. The fundamental question guiding this inquiry is, is Yahweh’s hate comparable to instances of divine hate from the greater ancient Near East or is his hate different?
Methodologically, Divine and Human Hate is a lexical study of Hebrew, Ugaritic, and Akkadian lexemes for hate originating in divine figures. But since the ancients expressed divine emotion with terms from their own experiences, human hate receives attention as well. Divine and Human Hate is also a contextual analysis of divine and human hate in biblical Hebrew, Ugaritic, and Akkadian. Therefore, the book’s focus is comparing and contrasting instances of divine and human hate in biblical and cognate writings.
Abbreviations and Symbols (vii)
Preface (xi)
Chapter 1: Introduction (1)
PART 1: HUMAN HATE
Chapter 2: The Emotional Extreme of the Spectrum: Literal Hate (15)
Hate in Non-marital Family Relationships (15)
Hate Leading to Physical Harm and Murder in Non-kinship Contexts (18)
Hate Speech (20)
Hate Designating an Enemy (21)
Hate toward Vice (22)
Hate toward Virtue (23)
Hate Magic (24)
Synthesis (25)
Chapter 3: The Center of the Spectrum: Some Emotion and Some Metaphor (27)
Marital Hate Reflecting Demotion in Status (27)
Ambiguous Marital Hate (30)
Hate as a Term Indicating Marital and Family Divorce (35)
Synthesis (38)
Chapter 4: The Nonemotive Extreme of the Spectrum: Metaphorical Hate (41)
Hate in a Covenant between Equals (43)
Hate in a Covenant between Suzerain and Vassal (45)
Hate Used as Hyperbole (48)
Hate Designating Rejection (49)
Synthesis (49)
PART 2: DIVINE HATE
Chapter 5: Hate as a Reflex to a Broken Covenant (53)
Biblical Hebrew (54)
Akkadian (62)
Synthesis (65)
Chapter 6: Hate toward the Cult (67)
Hate toward a Forbidden Cult Practice (67)
Hate toward an Accepted Cult Practice (70)
Chapter 7: Hate Toward Vice (79)
Biblical Hebrew (79)
Ugaritic (86)
Akkadian (89)
Synthesis (92)
Chapter 8: Hate as Part of a God’s Unfavorable Portrait (95)
Ugaritic (95)
Akkadian (97)
Synthesis (103)
Chapter 9: Conclusion (107)
Appendix 1: Hate’s Word Field in Biblical Hebrew, Ugaritic, and Akkadian (111)
Appendix 2: שׂנא in Mal 2:16 (113)
Appendix 3: zêru in Nisaba and Wheat? (115)
Bibliography (117)
Index (137)
