49 Facts About Resheph

Resheph was a god associated with war and plague, originally worshiped in Ebla in the third millennium BCE.

Resheph was one of the main members of the local pantheon, and was worshiped in numerous hypostases, some of which were associated with other nearby settlements, such as Tunip.

Resheph was associated with the goddess Adamma, who was his spouse in Eblaite tradition.

Resheph is best attested in texts from Ugarit, where he was one of the most popular deities.

Resheph was introduced to Egypt, possibly by the Hyksos, and achieved a degree of prominence there in the Ramesside period, with evidence of a domestic cult available from sites such as Deir el-Medina.

Resheph was associated with gazelles and horses, and in art appears as an armed deity armed with a bow, shield and arrows.

Resheph did not play a large role in Phoenician religion overall, with only one reference to him occurring in texts from Sidon, though he is well attested as a member of the Phoenician pantheon of Cyprus.

Resheph was worshiped by Arameans in Cilicia and in Syria.

In Ugarit, Resheph's name was written as rsp in the alphabetic script, and it is variously vocalized by Ugartiologists as Rasp, Rasap or Resheph.

MAS and KAL, though it is sometimes questioned if Resheph was necessarily meant in every case when they were used.

The use of logograms originally linked to Nergal to represent Resheph is well attested in texts from Ekalte, with identified examples including GIR, IGI and MAS.

Maciej M Munnich argues that the theonym Rushpan should be identified as a form of Resheph's name used in the Middle Euphrates area.

Oldest known references to Resheph have been identified in texts from Ebla.

In Ebla Resheph was venerated both by common citizens and the royal family.

However, despite its proximity to Ebla, Resheph is entirely absent from the text corpus from Tell Beydar.

Maciej M Munnich suggests that gunum might have been a palatial enclosure for animals, as the associated hypostasis of Resheph received wool as offering particularly often, and references to a bull linked to his cult are known.

Theophoric names invoking Resheph are uncommon in the Eblaite text corpus, which Michael P Streck explains as a result of his possibly negative characteristics.

Resheph typically received offerings either alongside other major members of the local pantheon, such as Hadabal, or alongside the goddess Adamma.

Resheph appears commonly alongside the sun deity, represented by the Sumerogram UTU, though usually regarded as a goddess.

Resheph is attested in association with the Eblaite form of Ea, Hayya.

Sporadic instances of Resheph appearing as a theophoric element in Akkadian personal names have been identified, with one example being Isi-Rasap.

However, Resheph is not otherwise attested in this role in known Old Assyrian sources and Rasap-ili might have not been an Assyrian himself, as he is only mentioned a document describing business deals in Talhat, a city in Upper Mesopotamia.

Klaas R Veenhof in his discussion of this isolated attestation notes Resheph's well attested prominence in northern Syria.

Resheph continued to be worshiped in the second millennium BCE, and remained a popular deity in a number of areas bordering on the Mediterranean Sea.

Resheph received an ewe as a burnt sacrifice in this case.

Resheph is additionally mentioned alongside various other deities in a short prayer for well-being, which according to Dennis Pardee might list gods viewed as the sons of El.

Eighty seven inhabitants of Ugarit bearing theophoric names invoking Resheph have been identified in known texts, with four of them being scribes.

Resheph is asked to remove poison alongside many other deities.

Many theophoric names invoking Resheph have been identified in texts from Emar.

Amorite theophoric names invoking Resheph have been identified in texts from Mari and from the kingdom of Khana.

The proposal that some Mariote attestations of Nergal in personal names and elsewhere should be understood as references to Resheph are regarded as baseless.

Resheph was regarded as the tutelary god of the marketplace in Hurrian religion.

Resheph belonged to the circle of deities associated with Teshub, and in standard offering lists he typically appears between Hesui and Tenu.

Three theophoric names invoking the Hurrian form of Resheph have been identified in the Ugaritic texts.

The Hurrian form of Resheph was among the deities incorporated into the Hittite pantheon in Samuha and the Hittite capital Hattusa under the influence of Hurrian religion.

The Egyptian data pertaining to the worship of Resheph is considered difficult to collect and analyze due to being largely limited to dispersed royal and private monuments.

Resheph was depicted as an armed warrior on accompanying images, but in this context these attributes most likely had an apotropaic purpose and reflected his protective qualities and his ability to overcome demons.

Resheph could be depicted either with a fake beard similar to those known from depictions of Osiris, or with a thick natural beard typical for depictions of foreigners.

Multiple references to Resheph being worshiped as a member of a triad which included Min and Qadesh are known.

The worship of Resheph is attested in Nubia, possibly as a result of religious policies of Amenhotep II.

Resheph continued to be worshiped in the first millennium BCE.

Only a single source mentioning Resheph comes from Phoenicia itself.

Resheph is mentioned alongside Hadad, El, Rakib-El and Shamash, the main deities of the local pantheon.

Resheph is mentioned alongside Kubaba on an Aramaic stela from Tell Sifr, a site located near Aleppo, but due to the state of its preservation it provides little information about his position in the local pantheon and his relation to the aforementioned goddess, though according to Maciej M Munnich it does make it possible to establish that locally he must have been worshiped by members of high strata of society, capable of commissioning such monuments.

References to Resheph are present in the Hebrew Bible, though compared to deities such as Baal he is not mentioned frequently.

Resheph is mentioned in Habakkuk 3:5, according to Theodore Hiebert as a personified figure acting as the attendant of Yahweh, though most contemporary translations treat the name as a common noun in this case.

Resheph is paired in this context with Deber, presumably originally a personified deity.

Only one theophoric name invoking Resheph has been identified in the Bible, specifically in 1 Chronicles 7:25, where an individual named Resheph is mentioned as a son of Ephraim.

The form of Resheph worshiped on Cyprus was identified with Apollo by the Greeks.