Qos (deity)

Origins, meaning and cult

The word "Qos" is never used on its own in the Tanakh, however it does unambiguously appear twice as an element in a personal name in Ezra 2:53 and Nehemiah 7:55 as Barqos, "son of Qos". Qōs () is an Arabic word meaning bow, probably suggesting the god's name origin. Based on a reference in Josephus, believes Qōs must have become identified with Quzah, "the archer" in the north Arabian pantheon, worshiped both as a mountain and a weather god. The similarity of the name would have permitted an assimilation of Qōs to the Arabian god of the rainbow, qaws quzaḥ. On the basis of the same reference, believes that evidence for this identification is limited.

The worship of Qōs appears to originally have been located in the Ḥismā area of southern Jordan and north-western Arabia, where a mountain, Jabal al-Qaus, still bears that name. He entered the Edomite pantheon as early as the 8th century B.C. M. Rose speculates that, prior to Qōs's advent, Edom may have worshipped Yahweh—early Egyptian records reference a place called yhw in the land of the Shasu—and the former then overlaid the latter and assumed supremacy there when the Idumeans lost their autonomy under Persian rule, perhaps compensating for the destruction of national independence, a mechanism similar to that of the strengthening of Yahweh worship after the fall of the Jewish kingdom. Qōs is described as a "King", is associated with light, and defined as "mighty". His works are described as ones where he "adorns, avenges, blesses, chooses(?) gives".

Costobarus I, whose name means "Qōs is mighty", was a native Idumean descended from a priestly family attached to this cult. After Herod had placed him in command over (στρατηγὀς) Idumea, Costobarus, supported by Cleopatra, eventually tried to seize the kingdom from Herod's Judea. In order to garner local support for his defection, he revived the old cult of Qōs, perhaps to get Idumea's rural population, still attached to its traditional gods, to back him. The name recurs in the Nabataean language in an inscription at Khirbet et-Tannur, where he is syncretized with the deity Dushara, who is represented flanked by bulls, seated on a throne while wielding in his left hand a multi-pronged thunderbolt, suggestive of a function as a weather god. He is also on an altar in Idumean Mamre.

The deity's name was used as the theophoric element in many Idumean names, including the names of the Edomite kings Qōs-malaku, a tributary of Tiglath-Pileser III and Qōs-gabar a tributary of Esarhaddon.

Qos and Yahweh

Unlike the chief god of the Ammonites (Milcom) and the Moabites (Chemosh), the Tanakh refrains from explicitly naming the Edomite Qōs. The omission may be explained, according to some scholars, by assuming there were close similarities between Yahweh and Qōs, which would have made rejection of the latter difficult. Other scholars have suggested that the tensions between Judeans and Edomites during the Second Temple period may lie behind the omission of Qōs in the Bible.

A poetic refrain in Judges in the Hebrew Bible states that Yahweh embarked from Se'ir in the region of Edom. Recently, the view has been advanced that Yahweh was originally a Kenite god whose cult spread north of Midian to the Israelites. According to this approach, Qōs might possibly have been a title for Yahweh, rather than a name. A further point connecting Yahweh with Qōs, aside from their common origin in that territory, is that the Edomite cult of the latter shared characteristics of the former. Thus, we find that Doeg the Edomite has no problem in worshiping Yahweh, he is shown to be at home in Jewish sanctuaries. Circumcision, an essential Jewish rite, was practiced in Edom. Additionally, supplication of Yahweh is not uncommon where mentions of Qos are lacking: a pottery sherd from the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE at Kuntillet Ajrud blesses its recipient by "Yahweh of Teman", which some have taken as implying that, at least from an Israelite perspective, Qos and Yahweh were considered identical, though it by no means necessarily proves it. On the other hand, there are some discrepancies which make a direct association between the two difficult. The identification of names in the Egyptian list of Shasu clans in Se'ir creates a continuity problem, since Qos names only emerge some 500 years later. Oded Balaban and Ernst Axel Knauf have claimed that certain names found on Ramesside topographical lists are theophoric and contain references to Qos, which if true would put the deity's earliest attestation more than 600 years before Yahweh's.

Notes

References

References

1. W. Randall Garr. (2004). "Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000-586 B.C.E.". Eisenbrauns.
2. Lévi Ngangura Manyanya. (2009). [https://books.google.com/books?id=kiR_xkWUFS4C&pg=PA258 La fraternité de Jacob et d'Esaü (Gn 25-36): quel frère aîné pour Jacob?] ''Labor et Fides'', p.257.
3. Jericke, Detlef. (2003-01-01). "Abraham in Mamre: Historische Und Exegetische Studien Zur Region Von Hebron Und Zu Genesis 11, 27-19, 38". BRILL.
4. With a minimal adjustment of emendation Vriezen elicited from the corrupt אלקום ([[Book of Proverbs. Proverbs]], 30:31) an allusion to “the god Qos”. (Dicou 1994, p.177, n.1).
5. [[Book of Ezra. Ezra]] 2:53; [[Book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah]] 7:55.
6. (1999). "Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible". Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
7. Klein, Reuven Chaim. (2018). "God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry". Mosaica Press.
8. Dicou, Bert. (1994-01-01). "Edom, Israel's Brother and Antagonist: The Role of Edom in Biblical Prophecy and Story". A&C Black.
9. Healey, John F.. (2001). "The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus". BRILL.
10. The toponym ''t3 š3św'' (YWH in the land of Shasu) is at times identified with Seìir and Edom. (Dicou 1994, pp.179–180).
11. (1984-02-16). "The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 1, Introduction: The Persian Period". Cambridge University Press.
12. Adam Kolman Marshak (2011). "Rise of the Idumeans: Identity and Politics in Herod's Judea". [in] Benedikt Eckhardt [ed.] [https://books.google.com/books?id=fU8zAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA125 ''Jewish Identity and Politics between the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba: Groups, Normativity, and Rituals''], pp.117–129, p.125. BRILL.
13. (2003-09-02). "The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History and Ideology". Routledge.
14. Teixidor, Javier. (2015-03-08). "The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East". Princeton University Press.
15. (2013). "Men on the Rocks: The Formation of Nabataean Petra". Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH.
16. King, Philip J.. (1993-04-15). "Jeremiah: An Archaeological Companion". Westminster John Knox Press.
17. (1995-05-01). "The Pitcher is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gösta W. Ahlström". Bloomsbury Publishing.
18. 978-1-575-06418-5 p.10: At 1 Kgs 1-8 there is exceptionally no mention of any Edomite gods:'King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of the Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women . .For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom the aboimination of the Ammonites. . Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who offered incense and sacrificed to their gods.'
19. Tebes, Juan Manuel. (2023). "El extraño caso del dios Qos. ¿Por qué la deidad edomita/idumea no es mencionada en la Biblia?". Revista Bíblica.
20. [[Book of Judges]] 5:5.
21. Nissim Amzallag. (2009). [http://jot.sagepub.com/content/33/4/387.full.pdf+html Yahweh, the Canaanite God of Metallurgy?]. ''[[Journal for the Study of the Old Testament]]'', ''33'' (4), 387–404.
22. James S. Anderson (2015). [https://books.google.com/books?id=vr7NCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA101 ''Monotheism and Yahweh's Appropriation of Baal''], p.101. Bloomsbury Publishing.
23. Levin, Yigal. (2020). "The Religion of Idumea and Its Relationship to Early Judaism". Religions.
24. Oded Balaban, [https://www.andrews.edu/library/car/cardigital/Periodicals/AUSS/1971-1/1971-1-04.pdf ''Egyptian references to the Edomite deity Qaus,''] [[Andrews University Seminary Studies. AUSS]] 9 (1971 pp.47-50).