description would be a familiar one to Israel’s pagan neighbors, particularly at Ugarit. It’s actually taken out of their literature. The “heights of the north” (Ugaritic: “the heights of tsaphon”) is the place where Baal lived and, supposedly, ran the cosmos at the behest of the high god El and the divine council.13 The psalmist is stealing glory from Baal, restoring it to the One to whom it rightfully belongs—Yahweh. It’s a theological and literary slap in the face, another polemic. This explains why the description sounds odd in terms of Jerusalem’s actual geography. This is why Isaiah and
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