ADAD (RIMON)

LORD OF THE ELEMENTS

TABLE OF CORRESPONDENCES

Adad (the Canaanite Hadad, the Hurrian Teshub, the Egyptian Resheph, Rimmon, the Phoenician Baal/Bel, the Sumerian Ishkur) is the Mesopotamian storm god, the Lord of the Natural World of Elements, Prince/ Master of the Earth and the Earth Shaker, Lord of the Clouds and Rains, gentle or destructive, such as the spring showers,
the devastating winter storms and the floods, Lord of Prevision. Fundamentally, Adad symbolizes the dynamic Cosmic Powers that are responsible for the Earth´s
fecundity and growth. His name is probably etymologically connected with Arabic hadda "to break" and haddat, "thunder". In Sumer, He is known as Ishkur, and
is already metnioned in the Fara god-list. His cult-center was Karkara, and his temple the E-karkara, described in the Sumerian Temple Hymns. He is the son of either Anu or Enlil, and also twin brother of Enki.

As Adad properly speaking, He is attested from the pre-Sargonic period onwards. His main followers were among the populations of northern Babylonia and Syria. In the second millennium Before Common Era, Adad was the city god of Halab (Aleppo) but in other areas of Syria especially in the West, he merged with other weather gods, such as Baal and Dagan. The Phoenician Letters state that His consort is Shalla, the Corn Maiden. In the Hititte god-lists, the Sumerogram Shal.lugal mean divine queen, and stands for the many different female deities who were worshipped in the major towns.

In terms of His sacred functions, Adad became is for the powers that most influence the Earth´s fecundity and growth, but we should stress that He is not a vegetation god, but the representation of cosmic elemental powers projected on earth, a vision of force and dynamism that is clearly shown by His epithets of Master of the Earth, the Prince, who controls and is Himself the source of the dynamic forces present especially in the weather that rule the growth of Earth´s vegetation and allow for the sprouting of crops in especial. As the Lord of Prevision, as lightning brings a sudden ray of illumination and dew fruitfulness to Earth, He brings the gift of perception of the future. His is fundamentally a dynamic force, and in iconography Adad is often depicted striding forward, wearing either a cylindrical crown or a horned helmet adorned with golden stars and short wrap kilt, carrying a mace and spear or lightning-bolt staff. He holds and hurls thunderbolts and rides a bull.

The most complete description of Adad can perhaps be found in The Phoenician Letters, and we quote now from this master work:

a) Adad as the Shaper of Elemental forces, who therefore gives physical manifestation to them: "Rimon strikes the earth and the mountains fall, the plains rise as mountains; He breathes and the storm flies before Him, sighs and the gentle rain descends upon the earth. He throws the thunderbolt and the heavens crack assunder. He strikes the air as a workman strikes his flint, behold the flash blinds the multitude. The seas flow forth upon the land and the land sinks beneath the sea. He smiles and the birds sing, corn grows, and there is food for all and the sun falls pleasant upon the face".

b) Manifestation of His power: "Look up into the heavens at night. See Him scatter the grains, the golden grains of the stars, upon the fields of heaven; Rimon is seeding the heavens. Count the stars in the sky, these are the plants He tends; He breaks the clouds of the heavens when there is need. He is air and the fire, the water and the earth; He mixes the fire and the earth and the mountains run like water, and the smoke of his furnace ascends unto the heavens. All things in the heavens and the earth are mixed by Him. He is the land we live in, He is our bodies, our blood, flesh, and life. Without air we die quickly, without warmth it takes longer, without water and earthly food we diw after a little while. These things cannot be taken away from us, for they are our life. They are His gifts, in them and on them and in them we live".

c) Adad/Rimon and the King: "Now, as future king, one of your titles will be "Tenant farmer of the God," and this is both your position and the position of all men. We are all tenants, stewards of his gifts; you as monarch are steward of the realm during your lifetime. Ignorant people think that they own the land. It was there before them and it will be there when they are buried with their fathers. Ignorant kings think that families own the land, but families also die in time. None can do good without land and water, warmth and air, O tenant farmer of the god. A man is entitled to the results of his work while he lives, but all his effort, without land, will be as nothing, for we cannot produce anything without it. "...

" The king's duties are to give justice, control the strong, aid the weak, stweard the land, and to defend the people against the covetous and violent who would take by force the fruit of the other men's labour. To aid him in his work he has priests and councillors, servants and the army. The priests hold the times; the councillors of the state hold the knowledge of men and interpret their moods to the king. The army and the king's servants put the judgements of the king into practice."...

"Now it is the work of kings to foster this growth, for only by so doing may a king become a great man himself. And the conditions for this growth are freedom, justice, leisure and instruction. If the conditions are good,skills develop, men specialise and co-operate, exchanging their skills so that they may be fewwd from the necessity of being their own diggers and planters, reapers and threshers, tailors and shoemakers, carpenters and smiths. Then together they may produce enough for all to enjoy the fruits of their labors and be free to devote themselves to discovering their own abilities and natures".

d) Adad as the Water Baliff of the Lord: " Now, my Prince, see and comprehend: all is the god's, and his people appoint over themselves a judge, a steward, a ruler in his place, so that all may share in the wealth of the god. Thus in our land no man may own the land he works on, or the water, no man, not even the king or the priests, and each man shares in the produce of all according to his labours, giving a portion to the god, from which the god provides for those who cannot labour. Each person who is fed from the god's share has, therefore, duties according to his station." It is important to point out that the origin for this title may very well be in the Sumerian myth of "Enki and the World Order", where Enki puts Ishkur, the Sumerian Adad/Rimon in charge of inspecting the canals of heaven and earth, of rain and clouds, storms and lightning, showing the importance in controling the elements that enable agriculture and abundant harvests, which were vital for South Mesopotamia in special.

e) Adad as the fruits of the Kingdom: " But the basis, the foundation of all this, is the free access to land and warmth and water and air. All the products of man's labours are the field of Adad/Rimon; for men, by their arts, control for themselves the combinations of the elements, the mixtures of air and water, anf fire and earth, that are the gifts of Rimon. Men build their cities to protect themselves from his moods; they make wells and irrigate the land, wall, and shelters guard their seeds from tempest, they store the rains, they dig the earth and melt the rocks for metal, they embody in themselves Rimon. From a man and a woman come great nations, from one life many lives. A man can kill or nurture, free or enslave. So it is with us; we are Rimon; all is Anu."

"Therefore when you go up into the temple of Rimon and bow before His image, remember you are bowing, as all men must bow, to the oceans, the rivers, the plains and the mountains, the sun, the moon and the stars, the spaces between the stars, the spaces between the clouds in the air and the clouds in the heavens. All that can be seen with the eyes, heard with the ears, smelt, touched, tasted, and felt by the body, all this is the god Rimon and His wife Shalla, the corn goddess, the compassionate one; they are the earthly presence of the great gods."

If we turn to the Caballa, and The Phoenician Letters is beyond doubt a proto-Caballa grounded in the Mesopotamian tradition, we will see the following:

1) Adad/Rimon can be likened to Malkuth, the Kingdom, the first Sephirah, which is described in the Yetziratic Text as "the Resplendent Intelligence, which illuminates the splendours of all the Lights", a reference to the firmament and the sacred planets or gods and goddesses. Thus, all physical manifestations, all the living, receive within and manifest without the Lights of the Great Above, and we come back to the prime Hermetic axiom "as above so below" much before Hermes Trismegistus.

2) In Mesopotamia, the powers of Adad/Rimon should be emulated by the king on earth for the growth of the kingdom, which should reflect, as quoted above, " the splendours of all the Lights". King and kingdom should therefore be images of wholeness below, and this is the reason why the Phoenician letters finish the first Letter on Adad/Rimon with the following words:

"Therefore, when you go up into the temple of Rimon and bow before His image, remember you are bowing, as all men must bow, to the oceans, the rivers, the plains and the mountains, the sun, the moon and the stars, the spaces between the stars, the spaces between the clouds in the air and the clouds in the heavens. All that can be seen with the eyes, heard with the ears, smelt, touched, tasted, and felt by the body, all this is the god Rimon and His wife Shalla, the corn goddess, the compassionate one; they are the earthly presence of the great gods"

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