+Broken Offerings,+ _e.g._ figurines, models, and other articles, when found deposited in tombs, have been explained in the light of comparative custom as destroyed or 'killed' to the end that their 'soul' may accompany that of the deceased. But other ideas are evidently involved when the area of the sanctuary at Serabit proved to be covered with a ma.s.s of pottery, plaques, bracelets, wands, sistra, etc., so fragmentary that no single specimen could be pieced together.

At Gezer, also, although the plaques of the G.o.ddess were fairly tough, all had been broken, and apparently with intention. We may compare the modern custom of breaking pottery in fulfilment of a {46} vow, an interesting ill.u.s.tration of which was furnished by the late Professor Curtiss from Bludan on the road from Zebedany to Damascus. At a spot, familiarly known as the 'mother of pieces,' is a rock-platform with cave, shrine, sacred grove and hereditary ministers. Hither come the women to break a jar when they have gained their one wish, and it is singular to observe that the traditions which are attached to the custom include the belief that a girl, the patroness of the shrine, lies buried there. The likeness to the suggested rites at Gezer will be noticed (p. 37). But the stories do not elucidate the peculiar treatment of the offerings, and the usage finds its most probable explanation in the persuasion that things once dedicated or put to a sacred use are 'holy,' and cannot be used for ordinary purposes. We touch upon a fundamental inst.i.tution embodying a series of apparently paradoxical ideas--the universal 'tabu.'

+'Holy' and 'Unclean.'+--The terms Holy or Sacred (comp. the Latin _sacer_) are not to be understood in the ethical or moral sense. A holy thing is one which has been set aside, dedicated, or restricted; it is charged with supernatural influence which is contagious; everything {47} that comes in contact with it also becomes holy. In some cases it is provided that this inconvenient sanct.i.ty may be purged; in others, the thing has to be destroyed. When the Talmud says that a Canonical Book of the Old Testament 'defiles' the hand, it means that the very sanct.i.ty of the book demands that the hand should be ceremonially purified or cleansed before touching anything else. 'Holy and unclean things,' to quote Robertson Smith, 'have this in common, that in both cases certain restrictions lie on men's use of and contact with them, and that the breach of these restrictions involves supernatural dangers. The difference between the two appears, not in their relation to man's ordinary life, but in their relation to the G.o.ds. Holy things are not free to man, because they pertain to the G.o.ds; uncleanness is shunned, according to the view taken in the higher Semitic religions, because it is hateful to the G.o.d, and therefore not to be tolerated.'

+Sacred Animals,+ in the light of the above, are those a.s.sociated with cults which might be regarded as illegitimate. An example is afforded by the pig which enters into the rites and myths of Adonis, Attis, Ninib, and Osiris. In a cavern south of the monoliths of Gezer a number of {48} pig-bones lay underneath a shaft which led to the cup-marked surface above (p. 16); the circ.u.mstances recall the Thesmophoria, the caves and vaults in the Greek area connected with Demeter and Proserpine, and the use of the pig in mystic rites of chthonic and agricultural deities. In Palestine and Syria the animal was used in certain exceptional sacrifices which were recognised as idolatrous (Isaiah lxv. 4; lxvi. 17), and it was an open question whether it was really polluted or holy. If, as the excavations suggest, the sacrifice of the swine dates from the earliest inhabitants of Gezer, with whom it was also a domestic animal, it is interesting to observe the persistence of its character as a proper sacrificial animal from pre-Semitic times by the side of the apparently contradictory belief that it was also unclean.

The camel bones at Tell es-Safy, also, are of interest since Robertson Smith has shown that the animal (which became 'unclean' to the Israelites), though used by the Arabs for food and sacrifice, was a.s.sociated with ideas of sanct.i.ty, and its flesh was forbidden to converts to Christianity. The model of a bronze cobra found in a temple-enclosure (p. 15) might be conjecturally explained, but it will suffice to remember that {49} serpents were and still are connected with spirits both benevolent and malevolent. The recurrence of models of the animal-world, the numerous representations upon seals of deer, gazelles, etc. (animals connected with Astarte), or the predilection for the lion upon objects discovered at Megiddo need not have any specific meaning for the religious ideas. On the other hand, the animal-like attributes which appear upon some plaques of the mother-G.o.ddess are scarcely meaningless. There is no ground for the a.s.sumption that Palestine was without the animal-deities and the deities with special sacred animals, which have left their traces in the surrounding lands, and it would be misleading to suppose that the myths and legends which have grown up around these features account for their origin. The conviction that man was made in the likeness of the G.o.ds (who are therefore anthropomorphic) implies certain conceptions of their nature, the development of which belongs to the history of religion, and in turning next to the spirit-world of Ancient Palestine it is necessary that we should be prepared to appreciate a mental outlook profoundly different from our own.

{50}

CHAPTER V

THE WORLD OF SPIRITS

+Awe.+--A fundamental sense of awe was felt in the presence of anything unusual or contrary to experience, and man's instinctive philosophy shaped his ideas from the suggestions of daily life, accounting for all cases of causation by a.s.similating them to the intentional acts of voluntary agents like himself. There was no doubt of the existence and influence of surrounding unseen powers; they must be cajoled, appeased, bribed and rewarded. Some were inevitably malevolent; with others man could enter into relations which were mutually beneficial. Even at the present day there is no clear distinction between what we should call the natural and the supernatural; a demon or a saint can appear in human or animal form; and the marvel or miracle is that which happens to lie outside the intellectual horizon of the individual. The modern phenomena can be traced back through {51} early sources and appear now in grosser and now in more elevated forms; even the presence of any advanced material culture, or of more spiritual conceptions of the G.o.dhead does not annihilate that lower supernaturalism which flourishes uncontrolled among more rudimentary races. It would be unreasonable to suppose that the religion of our period was more free from imprecision than that of more progressive peoples: the whole routine of life brought the individual into constant contact with unseen agencies, and the world of spirits involved a medley of beliefs, more embarra.s.sing to the modern inquirer who seeks to systematise them, than to the Oriental mind which has always been able and willing to accept the incredible and the contradictory.

Man's relations with the spirits whom he shuns or seeks are ill.u.s.trated in magical practices; _e.g._ incantation, symbolic magic (p. 34).

+Charms,+ on the other hand, possess a magical virtue which is effective without interference on the part of the possessor. Many little objects of this character have been unearthed: pendants of red coral (still a prophylactic against the evil eye), beads (still supposed to possess curative properties), small articles cut out of bone {52} (especially the heads of human femora, sawn off and perforated). Here may be included the occasional jewels (_e.g._ a silver pendant crescent)--amulets and ornaments were closely a.s.sociated, and the latter continue to convey ideas which could be regarded as idolatrous (compare Gen. x.x.xv. 4). The representations of Egyptian G.o.ds and the 'Horus-eyes' should also be mentioned here.

'Eyes' are still on sale in the East, they are expected to be on the watch for evil influences. But the anxiety to avert evil and to procure favour need not involve an intelligent interest in the means employed, and some of the objects (when not originally possessed by Egyptian settlers) may have as much bearing upon the question of Egyptian influence upon the religion of Palestine as the use of foreign (Phoenician?) formulae in Egyptian magical texts.

+Oracles+ are obtained at those places where supernatural beings have manifested themselves, or from their symbols or their human representatives. In the stone enclosures at Serabit Professor Petrie would recognise the sacred places visited by those who worked the mines and hoped for useful dreams. The value attached to visions of the night needs no telling, and when the {53} Egyptian king Merneptah saw in his sleep the G.o.d Ptah offering him the sword of victory, or when the G.o.d Ashur directed the Lydian Gyges to 'lay hold of the feet' of Ashurbanipal (_i.e._ place himself under his protection), we perceive among relatively advanced societies important factors in the growth of all religions. Divine advice and help could be granted by the statues of the G.o.ds: a cuneiform tablet from Taanach refers to an omen given by the finger of the G.o.ddess Ashirat, and the writer asks for the sign and its interpretation. As in the 'nodding' of the G.o.ds in Egyptian records the _modus operandi_ must not be too closely examined. Some of the old caverns of Palestine were certainly used for magical or religious purposes, and when we find them connected by small and curved pa.s.sages, it is not improbable that they were the scenes of oracles, theophanies, and the like (p. 15 _sq._). As Mr. Macalister has observed, apropos of such caverns in the lowlands of Judah and at Gezer, mysterious responses and wonders could be easily contrived, and would be as convincing to the ignorant as the Miracle of the Holy Fire is to the modern Russian pilgrim in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The a.s.sociation of caves and other hidden resorts with the {54} worship of deities and oracles is well-known in other fields (_e.g._ Greece). Susa also had a G.o.d of oracles who dwelt in secret retreats, and other deities whose remote haunts were burned by Ashurbanipal when he carried them off.

+The representatives of the supernatural powers+ include prophets, priests, and even kings; they are also the possessors of supernatural qualities, the one involved the other. Between the modern Palestinian _majnun_ ('possessed by the jinn') and fakir, and the prophet of old--contemptuously called 'madman'--the difference is one of degree.

The frenzied utterer is capable of incalculable good or harm, and often enjoys a respect out of all keeping with his merits. His very sanct.i.ty places him in a cla.s.s by himself, and he is allowed a licence which would not be tolerated in others. An early example of inspiration appears in the story of Wenamon of Egypt who visited Zakarbaal of Byblos, probably in the reign of Ramses XII. (about 1100 B.C.).

Although the envoy had with him the statue of the great Egyptian G.o.d Amon, for nineteen days he received scant courtesy and was unable to obtain the desired interview. At length, as the king was sacrificing to his G.o.ds, one of his n.o.ble youths {55} was seized with ecstasy which lasted the whole night, and in this state he demanded that 'the messenger of Amon' be summoned (for the sequel see below, p. 74 _sq._).

Prophecy, as Dr. Frazer has shown, by means of numerous examples, is 'a phenomenon of almost world-wide occurrence,' and it is important to remember that the relations between man and the spirit-world are not to be estimated in the light of modern preconceptions. There were orthodox and unorthodox relations, legitimate and illegitimate communion, true and false representatives of the supernatural powers; distinctions were maintained although the evidence is often insufficient for us to appreciate older standpoints. Broadly speaking, it may be affirmed that the test lay in the communal aspect of religion (whether of clan, tribe, or people) which was opposed to practices which were private or independent of the official cult.

+The dead,+ in their turn, depart into the mysterious unseen which looms so largely in the thoughts of the living, and burial and mourning rites are shaped by many different principles depending upon theories of the nature of spirits, affection for the dead, the safety of his soul, fear of malignant influences, etc. But the {56} interpretation of the religious rites which attended every crisis in life becomes unusually difficult when the community suffer a loss, and perhaps no other study stands so much in need of careful 'comparative' treatment.

Unfortunately Palestine has furnished no funerary texts, and little direct evidence; the dead 'go to their fate,' the king of Mitanni fasts on the day he hears of the death of Amenhotep III., and Zakarbaal of Byblos offers to show Wenamon the tomb where the members of a former emba.s.sy sleep (_lit._ lie, or pa.s.s the night). A people accustomed to the annual death and revival of nature might easily formulate theories of the survival of the dead, and care is accordingly taken to provide for the needs of the deceased (p. 35). But the same thoughts are not necessarily symbolised by the same rites. Thus, cremation, the earlier custom, may have been intended to sever the soul from the body, to destroy the haunting spirit, or to prevent contamination and contagion.

However, the subsequent use of the Gezer crematorium by those who practised inhumation involved a continuity of thought, albeit with some adaptation and adjustment, since identical conceptions of death and the dead scarcely encircled the two distinct customs. This is instructive for the growth of {57} complex ideas, and the subsequent prohibition in Palestine of certain mourning rites may find a probable explanation in their a.s.sociation with cults which were regarded as illegitimate.

The att.i.tude of the living towards the dead raises the problem of ancestor-worship and the relation between deified ancestors and G.o.ds.

In the absence of contemporary evidence from Ancient Palestine, we may notice the inscription of King Panammu of North Syria (eighth century), where he acknowledges his indebtedness to his G.o.ds, especially Hadad, to whose honour he erects a colossal statue of the deity. The text invokes the G.o.d's blessing upon the successor to the throne, provided that the latter when he sacrifices makes mention of Panammu's soul with Hadad or prays that Panammu's soul may eat and drink with the G.o.d.

Should these duties be neglected, Hadad is besought not to accept the sacrifices, to refuse his requests; and sleeplessness and other troubles are called down upon the unfilial descendant. It appears from this, therefore, that while the dead relies upon the attentions of the living, and it was necessary that his name should be kept fresh; the dead could only exert an indirect influence, and the soul or vital principle, apart from the body, could be {58} regarded as potent only through its companionship with the deity. This may be supplemented from Egypt in the account of the relations between Ramses II. and his dead father, Sety I. The latter is reminded of the benefits which his son had conferred upon him, his statue, and his _ka_ or vital force.

These he may still continue to enjoy, and, since he now has the companionship of the G.o.ds, Ramses beseeches him to influence them to grant him a long reign. The deceased king acknowledges the bread and water which had been regularly offered to him; and relates that he has become a G.o.d more beautiful than before; he now mingles with the great G.o.ds, and he declares that he has successfully interceded on his son's behalf.

The dead relied upon his descendants and upon the benevolence of future generations, and Egyptian kings (at least) hoped to partake of the food offered to the recognised deities. Religious and other works were undertaken that the 'name' might 'live.' Promises and threats were freely made to ensure due attention, and were usually respected by the living; but the frequent acts of desecration would indicate that fear of the dead was not necessarily a predominating or lasting feeling, at all events outside a man's {59} own family. The above-mentioned Panammu and Ramses are somewhat exceptional cases since individuals, distinguished by rank, sanct.i.ty, or even more ordinary qualifications, readily acquire distinguished positions in after-life. Moreover, Ramses, at all events, was already a G.o.d, in his life-time, in accordance with Egyptian belief, and all those who had had the advantage of being representatives of the supernatural powers scarcely lost this relative superiority. The protection afforded by famous tombs and the virtues of the dust taken from such sacred spots are recognised to the present day. The venerated shrines regularly found their justification in the traditions which encircled the ill.u.s.trious occupant: to violate them was not merely an insult, it struck a blow at one of the centres of cult and prosperity. Unfortunately for the problem, by the side of the tendency to elevate an ill.u.s.trious ancestor must be placed the very human and inveterate weakness of tracing for oneself a n.o.ble ancestry. Like the claim of the modern Palestinian peasant to be descended from the alleged occupant of the local shrine which he venerates, every apparent case of ancestor-worship stands in need of a critical examination. As in most problems of religion, ambiguity of terminology (viz. 'worship') {60} is responsible for much confusion. It must be admitted that there would be a natural inclination for every individual to regard his dead ancestor in the spirit-world as more powerful and influential than himself. If this were so even when there were recognised G.o.ds, it is obvious that allowance must be made for the crucial stages, before the deities gained that recognition, and after they had lost it.

s.p.a.ce prevents any adequate reference to the part which +animism+ has held in the history of Palestinian religion; without a recognition of this fundamental factor in all religions much of our evidence would be unintelligible.[1] When we take the ideas which are a.s.sociated with the _name_, we find that it has magical powers, its use enlists or confers protection or possession; it is the nature or essence of the thing which bears it--indeed, almost identical with it (comp. Is. x.x.x.

27). Hence the meaning of names is always instructive. The supposition that the child who bears an animal-name will acquire something of the quality of the animal in question (whatever be the original {61} motive) preserves more than metaphor, and indicates a stage when man saw little difference between animals and himself. Even at the present day it is still believed that the soul of an ancestor can reappear in an animal (comp. p. 50). In like manner, the personal names of our period which denote kinship with a deity point to a belief in a physical relationship as natural as the conviction of the modern native when he refers to Allah in terms which imply that man is in every detail the literal image of the Almighty. A difference between human and superhuman is scarcely recognised at the present day. The women of the land continue to visit the holy sites to obtain offspring, and it is freely acknowledged that welis and spirits of the dead can be physical fathers. This absence of any clear dividing-line between natural and supernatural is inveterate. The Egyptian Pharaoh of old was both a G.o.d and the son of a G.o.d, and a record is preserved of the visit of the G.o.d Amon to queen Ahmose in the form of her husband. The halo of divinity was perhaps not so distinct as in earlier times, but in their king the people still saw the earthly likeness of the deity.

[1] It must suffice to refer to works dealing with primitive religion, see E. Clodd, _Animism, the Seed of Religion_ (London, 1905), A. C.

Haddon, _Magic and Fetishism_ (1906), in this series.

+The Divinity of kings+ was a fundamental belief {62} which reveals itself in a variety of forms through Western Asia and Egypt. The inscriptions of Gudea, the code of Khammurabi, the a.s.syrian records and the praises of the Pharaohs reflect conceptions which are materialised now in the insignia of the kings, and now in their costume and toilet.

In a Babylonian myth the royal ornaments lay before the supreme G.o.d awaiting the monarch; in Egypt the king is the G.o.d's _ka_, his first-born; chosen, created and crowned by the divine father. The kings stood in the closest relationship to the G.o.ds; they were not only the heads of the state, they were also (in early a.s.syria) priest-kings, and in Egypt theoretically all offerings for the living and the dead were made by the Pharaoh. All this was neither mere empty formality nor an isolated eccentricity. It is quite in accordance with the powers commonly ascribed to divine representatives, that the control of the rain and storm is held to depend upon the influence of Ramses II.

with the weather-G.o.d. It is equally intelligible (from anthropological evidence) when the same king caused the G.o.ds to take up their abode in the images which had been prepared for them!

Khammurabi could declare that he carried in his bosom the people of Sumer and Akkad, and {63} the Pharaoh could call himself the husband of Egypt, while Egypt was 'the only daughter of Re (the sun-G.o.d) whose son sits upon the throne.' Not only was he the incarnation and the son of the deity (or of all the recognised deities), but he was the cause of the land's fruitfulness, prosperity, and protection. The Pharaoh, 'the G.o.d of all people' (as he is once called), received the adoration of his subjects, and one could sometimes believe that he was more essentially a deity than the G.o.ds themselves, were it not that the subordinate G.o.ds always maintained their hold upon the people locally.

With all allowance for the difference between conventional and practical religion, the fundamental relations between land, people, ruler and the deity persisted in many related though varying forms, which are extremely interesting in any consideration of the social changes at the rise of a monarchy and after its downfall.

This digression is necessary, because, although the practical working of such beliefs as these may perplex us, the fact remains that they were shared in Palestine. The petty rulers in the Amarna letters thoroughly recognise the divine nature of the king who was a G.o.d and had the G.o.d for his father (see p. 78 _sq._). Later, when Palestine had its {64} own king, the 'Lord's anointed' was almost as the deity himself (Ex. xxii. 28, cp. 2 Sam. xiv. 17); king and cult were one (Hos. iii. 4), and the king's death could be regarded as the extinction of the nation's lamp (2 Sam. xxi. 17). Not to mention other details, the Messianic ideals of the divinely-begotten son and of the ruler whose origin was of aforetime preserve the inveterate belief in the divine ancestry of rulers, an honour which in other lands continued to be conferred upon rather than claimed by them.

+Recognised G.o.ds.+--It is very important to find that the representatives or possessors of divine powers are the worshippers of their deity in life and his inferiors in death. The recognised G.o.ds have their definite circles of clients, and if their human representatives are subsequently worshipped or even deified, this is a not unnatural development, especially as the official deities are apt to be at the mercy of political and religious changes. The older G.o.ds can be degraded and sink to the rank of demons (from newer stand-points), but the petty deities and the lower supernatural beings are as little influenced by external vicissitudes as the lower ranks of humanity with whom they always stand in closer relationship. {65} Their persistence in popular belief is as typical as the descent of the more august beings, although even the latter are understood to retain an influence which those of more recent introduction have not yet acquired or are unable to exert. While the general fundamental conceptions remain virtually unchanged, they are shaped by the social and political inst.i.tutions, for religious and political life formed part of the same social organism.

{66}

CHAPTER VI

THE G.o.dS

+Their vicissitudes.+--The deities were not originally personifications of any one power of nature; like the secular heads of small local groups they were the supreme patrons of their little circle. They were usually nameless, but were known by an epithet, or were styled 'G.o.d'

(_el_) or 'lord, owner' (_baal_), with the corresponding feminine form.

Each might be distinguished by the name of its locality. The 'G.o.d' of Sidon was otherwise the 'Baal' of Sidon, the 'G.o.ddess' of Byblos was known as the 'Baalath' of the city; the Baal of Tyre was called Melkart, _i.e._ simply 'king of the city'; the proper-name of the Baal of Harran was Sin (the moon-G.o.d); the Baal of Heaven, according to Philo of Byblos, was the Sun. When Baal and El were used as generic terms, their application was perfectly intelligible locally; and when they occur in forty or more place-names, and numerous old personal names {67} in Palestine, it is unnecessary to suppose that they represent two distinct and definite deities. From the old Palestinian names we learn that the deity is high, great and good; he opens, builds, heals, sows, gathers; he remembers, hastens, helps, protects, blesses, etc.[1] Such conceptions would be generally true of all; the power of each was not unlimited, but it extended to all that man usually desired.

[1] Apart from names whose meaning is uncertain (_e.g._ Jacob-el, G.o.d supplants?), the list could be easily enlarged; a number of names of western (as opposed to the usual Babylonian) type can be gleaned from the records of the First Babylonian Dynasty.

From the general resemblance subsisting between the distinct local G.o.ds it was possible to regard them as so many forms of a single G.o.d; and when groups combined and individual G.o.ds were fused, multiplicity of types ensued. The status of a local tutelary was affected when commercial intercourse widened the horizon of both the traveller and the native; and in the growth of political power and the rise of a kingship the conceptions entertained of the deity's attributes and powers were elevated. Through the extension of authority the way lay open to groups of G.o.ds who could not be fused, and equally to the superiority of one national patron deity over the rest. {68} Political or other changes led to the promotion of this or the other G.o.d, and prominent or specialised deities in superseding others acquired fresh attributes, though local divergencies were again necessarily retained.

This does not complete the vicissitudes of the G.o.ds or the intricacies caused by a.s.similation or identification. A popular epithet or appellative could appear by the side of the proper deity as a new creation, or the deity was sub-divided on cosmical and astral theories.

The female deity (whose name may be without the usual distinguishing mark of gender) could even change her s.e.x; the specific name could also become employed as a common term for any deity, and the plural 'G.o.ds'

could be applied to a single being as a collective representation of the characteristics it embodied.

Amid the intricate careers of the great names, the local deities obstinately survived in popular religious life. They have found their parallel in the welis or patrons, saints and holy sheikhs of the modern shrines (see _pp._ 21 _sqq._). The modern a.n.a.logy is instructive in many points of detail, particularly when we observe the vicissitudes which the occupants of the shrines have experienced. It is natural to ask for the ancient counterparts of the Allah, the supreme G.o.d in the {69} official religion, who, as we have said, is vague and remote in the practical religious life of the peasant of to-day. A series of well-defined historical events made him pre-eminent over all other G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses and established Mohammedanism; internal and external causes shaped the varying conceptions of his nature, and gave birth to numerous sects. All the Oriental religions have this twofold aspect: the historical circ.u.mstances which affected the vicissitudes of the deities, and the more subtle factors which have influenced forms of belief. But we have no direct information upon the rise of the general conditions in Palestine during our period, and such problems as the origin of the term El 'G.o.d' (common to all the Semitic peoples) belong to the pre-historic ages.

+Their representative character.+--When the G.o.ds reign like feudal princes over their princ.i.p.alities their sphere is limited and other districts or kingdoms belong to other G.o.ds. Residence in an alien land brought one under the influence of alien G.o.ds, whose reality was not denied, though their power could be variously estimated. At Serabit, for example, the Egyptians had combined the worship of their G.o.d Sopdu with that of the {70} local 'lady of turquoise,' whom they identified with their Hathor, and the caves and temples of both stood side by side. The Egyptian inscriptions there refer to 'the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of this land,' and an officer, probably of the Twelfth Dynasty, encourages a cult which was largely utilitarian: 'Offer ye to the mistress of heaven, appease ye Hathor; if ye do it, it will be profitable to you; if ye increase to her, it shall be well among you.'

Some centuries later, we read that Ramses III., desirous of the precious treasures, sent clothes and rich presents to his 'mother'

Hathor, 'lady of the turquoise.'

The relationship between countries and their respective national G.o.ds (cp. Judges xi. 24) is frequently ill.u.s.trated. When Tushratta, king of Mitanni, writes to Amenhotep III., he ascribes a victory to the weather-G.o.d Teshub (if that was the native name), and trusts that his lord Teshub will never permit him to be angry with his 'brother' the king of Egypt. Similarly, he prays that the sun-G.o.d (Shamash) and the G.o.ddess Ishtar may go before his daughter and make her in accord with the king's heart.[2] On {71} the other hand, it is 'the G.o.ds,' or Teshub and Amon (of Egypt),[3] who will make the present alliance a lasting one, and his G.o.ds and those of his 'brother,' or Ishtar, 'lady of ladies,' and Amon who will guard the damsel on the journey and give her favour with the king.