Due to the importance of his cult, he simply became Baal, "the Lord," and this antonomasia often replaced his proper name in northwest Semitic areas, at Ugarit and Emar, in Phoenicia, and in Canaan. The biblical condemnation of the cult of Baal refers likewise to the storm god.
Adad/Hadad also plays a role in entrusting royal power to kings. Hadad's prophets at Aleppo helped Zimri-Lim to regain the throne of Mari circa 1700 BCE. According to an inscription from Tel Dan from the mid-ninth century BCE, Hadad "made king" the ruler of Damascus, and in the eighth century BCE he gave "the scepter of succession" to Panamuwa II in the Aramean kingdom of Sam'al. Adad/Hadad appears sometimes as a war god, especially in Assyria and in Damascus, the Aramean capital city of which he was the chief deity.
Among his main cult centers were Aleppo and Sikkan/Guzana, biblical Gozan, in northern Syria, where he has been identified with the Hurrian storm god Teshub, and the Hittite and Luwian god Tarhunza or Tarhunt. In Anatolia, the storm god usually stood at the head of the local pantheon. His name is often concealed under the IM logogram, as it is in northern Mesopotamia and Syria.
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