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All these climatological features appear in Canaanite thought, transformed into myths about the gods. The effect of the climate can be seen in the myths of the major god of the Canaanite pantheon, Ba’al, the storm god, who brought fructifying rain and stud to the herd but who had septannual spells of weakness, in spite of his huge and awesome powers. In other words, the plenty given by the gods through rain was precarious.

East of the mountains was mostly desert, increasing from north to south, leaving little moisture for the deep valley of the Dead Sea and eastwards. In a good year, enough moisture fell on the eastern coastal mountain slopes to provide grass for spring grazing. In Canaanite mythology, desert and ocean were both gods whose demonic powers needed to be appeased or conquered. In any year, the rain might fail or come too late or last too long. The dew might not be adequate to the late crops. The late barley crop was especially worrisome, suffering both from too much moisture and too little. The counting of the omer (an ancient unit of measure) in Judaism, which traces the growing season of the barley crop, may be a reflection of this ancient agricultural anxiety. Geography as well as climate made life difficult in the area.

Canaan (and, hence, the land of Israel) was positioned on the narrow land bridge between Africa and Asia Minor. The narrow land was like a gate which opened to Europe, Africa, and Asia. He who controlled the gate had a lock on the access between the continents. It was the important strategic, military, and trade crossroads of three continents; whoever wished to dominate the area had to hold the three important roads-the royal road along the coast, the less easy and hot passage up and down the rift valley, and the difficult and treacherous passes between the mountains through Judea and Samaria.

Unfortunately, it was a gate all too easily opened. Israel gained control of all three roads at the height of its power, but that was only a brief period of time, when viewed against the history of the ancient Near East. Israel took up residence in the area as a group of mountain tribes, safe from the chariots of the great powers. It developed into a power when the great powers ceased to control the roads to the east and west of Israel’s mountain stronghold. Israel’s entire history as an independent state took place in a rare power vacuum when neither Egypt nor Mesopotamia was able to assert control of the roads. When the great empires reasserted themselves, the area became a constant battleground and the Israelite nation was doomed as an independent power; no local power could have resisted the huge military campaigns emanating alternatively out of Egypt or Mesopotamia and designed for world conquest. With such a climate and history, one can easily see why the gods were constantly battling to keep their positions.

El was the paramount god of the Canaanite pantheon. He held an august court of divinities, sometimes known as the kokabê ’el, the stars of ’El, who are the circumpolar, never-setting stars.51 He holds court in the snow-capped mountains in the North. These are all epithets which are equally used by the God of Israel (see e.g. Ps 82). ’El was known as the Bull, symbolizing his strength and creative force of animal husbandry, though for most purposes he just sat on the sidelines like a white-bearded grandfather. His title “Father of Years,” abu shanima, recalls the elderly man on the throne in Daniel 7:9, the ‘atiq yomin, the “Ancient of Days,” and is no doubt one source of our image of God as an old man on a throne. But he often operated as what scholars call a deus otiosus, a distant and unconcerned god.

The most active god of the Canaanite hierarchy was Ba’al (or Haddad, Adad, Add, or Haddu) who was god of storms, rain, thunder, fertility to animals and people, and, in general, all fertile, life-giving liquids.52 What ’El’s dignity prevented him from doing fell to his son Ba’al; so to him came the job of fighting off chaos, the sea, drought,