Chemosh (Moabite: 𐤊𐤌𐤔 Kamōš; Kəmōš) is an ancient Semitic deity whose existence is recorded during the Iron Age. Chemosh was the supreme deity of the Canaanite state of Moab and the patron-god of its population, the Moabites, who in consequence were called the "People of Chemosh". Chemosh is primarily attested from Moabite inscriptions and the Hebrew Bible.
Name
The name of Chemosh is attested in the Moabite language as (), which was pronounced as ().
The name of Chemosh is of yet uncertain origin, and it is unclear whether it was related to the name of the Eblaite deity (), or the Ugaritic divine name (), or an epithet of the Mesopotamian god () which might have meant "bull," ().
According to one hypothesis which assumes that the names and , and and were the same, the first two variants of the name might have been -type substantival participles of B-stem and the latter two variants might have been -type verbal adjectives of D-stem, both meaning "conqueror" and "subduer," thus being related to the Akkadian terms / () and ()/ (), meaning "to submit to an overlord or to a deity" and "to bend," as well as to the Old South Arabian term (), meaning "to crush."
Chemosh is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible under the name (, vocalized as: ). The Hebrew form was itself later Romanised as (vocalized as: ) in translations of the Bible, while the accurate pronunciation of the name of the god, reflecting the Moabite pronunciation , is more accurately recorded in the Septuagint as () and the Vulgate as .
History
Origins
The origin of the Moabite deity Chemosh is unclear, although he might possibly have been the same as the Bronze Age-period god from Ebla named (), whose existence has been attested from around , thus suggesting that Chemosh might have been an ancient Semitic deity. The significant gap between the attestation of the Eblaite Kamiš during the 23rd century BC and that of the Moabite Chemosh in the 9th century BC, with an absence of any reference to either of these deities in Amorite names from the 21st to the 15th centuries BC, nevertheless make this identification between Kamiš and Chemosh very uncertain.
Iron Age
In the 9th century BC, Chemosh was the principal god of the Canaanite kingdom of Moab, whose worship was characteristic of the Moabites. The cult of Chemosh appears to have been limited to the Moabites, and his name does not appear in contemporary Ancient North Arabian inscriptions.
During this period itself, Chemosh was identified with (), who was the Moabite adaptation of the North Arabian god ʿAṯtar, himself a form of the Semitic deity of the planet Venus, ʿAṯtar, in the combined form of (). The astral role of ʿAštar itself is attested by his mention along with the Moon-God Šaggar in the Deir Alla Inscription, the subject of which is largely the Sun-goddess Šamāš, thus forming a triad of the Sun, Moon, and Venus similarly to the one attested in South Arabia, and suggesting a South Arabian religious influence in Moab.
During the 9th century BC, the kingdom of Moab had been subdued by the kingdom of Israel during the rule of the latter state's kings Omri and Ahab. The 9th century BC Moabite king Mesha (Mōšaʿ), who ascended to the Moabite throne during the reign of Ahab, wrote in his inscriptions that the Israelites had been able to subdue Moab because Chemosh was angry with his people, that is the Moabites.
Mesha soon rebelled against Israelite suzerainty and embarked on an expansionist policy against the Israelites, which he carried out as holy war performed as a ritual to Chemosh. After Mesha had captured the Gadite city of Ataroth (ʿAṭārōt), he slaughtered all of its inhabitants as an accomplishment of a vow he had made to Chemosh and to the population of Moab, and he brought the warden of Ataroth, the Gadite chief Uriel, to Kirioth, where Mesha sacrificed him to Chemosh. When, following his capture of Ataroth, Mesha conquered the town of Nebo, he sacrificed the whole Israelite population of the town to ʿAštar-Chemosh, likely because of ʿAštar's function as an avenger deity who was invoked in curses against enemies, and he brought all the lambs of the sanctuary of Yahweh, at Nebo to the sanctuary of Chemosh, where he sacrificed them to Chemosh.
Mesha recorded in his victory stela that he had built a high place dedicated to Chemosh in the citadel of the Moabite capital of Ḏaybān to thank the god for assuring his triumph in his military campaign against the Israelites.