In the earliest Biblical literature Yahweh is a storm god typical of ancient Near Eastern myths, marching out from a region to the south or south-east of Israel with the heavenly host of stars and planets that make up his army to do battle with the enemies of his people Israel:
Iron Age I corresponds approximately to the Judges period of the Bible. During this period, Israel was a confederation of tribes, each of which was (by then) a territorial entity with boundaries and rights. Although the Biblical account draws a clear distinction between Israelites and Canaanites in this period, and this was followed in early scholarship, the modern consensus is that there was no distinction in language or material culture between these groups. Scholars accordingly define Israelite culture as a subset of Canaanite culture.
Yahweh was originally described as one of the sons of El in Deuteronomy 32:8–9, but this was removed by a later emendation to the text.
With the notable exception of Yahweh himself, the deities worshipped by Israel were also Canaanite. These included El, the ruler of the pantheon,Asherah, his consort, and Baal.
In the earliest Biblical literature, Yahweh has characteristics of a storm god typical of ancient Near Eastern myths, marching out from Edom or the Sinai desert with the heavenly host of stars and planets that make up his army to do battle with the enemies of his people Israel:
Yahweh, when you went out of Seir,
when you marched out of the field of Edom,
the earth trembled, the sky also dropped.
Yes, the clouds dropped water.
The mountains quaked at Yahweh’s presence,
even Sinai at the presence of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
...
From the sky the stars fought.
From their courses, they fought against Sisera.
(Book of Judges 5:4-5, 20, WEB World English Bible)[
Yahweh filled the role of national god in the
kingdom of Israel (Samaria), which emerged in the 10th century BCE; and also in
Judah, which may have emerged a century later (no "God of Judah" is mentioned anywhere in the Bible). In an inscription discovered in
Ein Gedi and dated around 700 BCE, Yahweh appears described as the lord of the nations, while in other contemporary texts discovered in
Khirbet Beit Lei (near Lachish) he is mentioned as the ruler of Jerusalem and probably also of Judah. During the reign of
Ahab (c. 871–852 BCE), and particularly following his marriage to
Jezebel, Baal may have briefly replaced Yahweh as the national god of Israel (but not Judah).
In the 9th century BCE, there are indications of rejection of Baal worship associated with the prophets
Elijah and
Elisha. The Yahweh-religion thus began to separate itself from its Canaanite heritage; this process continued over the period from 800 to 500 BCE with legal and prophetic condemnations of the
asherim,
sun worship and worship on the
high places, along with practices pertaining to the dead and other aspects of the old religion. Features of Baal, El, and Asherah were absorbed into Yahweh, El (or
'el) (
Hebrew: אל) became a generic term meaning "god" as opposed to the name of a specific god, and epithets such as
El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone.
In this atmosphere a struggle emerged between those who believed that Yahweh alone should be worshipped, and those who worshipped him within a larger group of gods; the Yahweh-alone party, the party of the
prophets and
Deuteronomists, ultimately triumphed, and their victory lies behind the biblical narrative of an Israel vacillating between periods of "following other gods" and periods of
fidelity to Yahweh.
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