Blane W. Conklin, «Arslan Tash I and other Vestiges of a Particular Syrian Incantatory Thread», Vol. 84 (2003) 89-101

The first part of this article is a new translation and interpretation of the first incantational plaque from Arslan Tash in northern Syria. Each of the three succeeding sections identifies and discusses elements of this incantation that find resonance in texts from Ugarit, Egypt, and the Hebrew Bible, respectively. At Ugarit we find texts predating Arslan Tash which describe incantational activity involving Horon and the Sun-deity, both of whom are present in the Arslan Tash text, and who have similar roles in the two traditions. Horon is also present in Egypt during the last centuries of the city of Ugarit, and is there also associated with the Sun-deity and performs similar functions as at Arslan Tash. In the Passover account of Exod 12 there are several elements in common with Arslan Tash, albeit in the distinctive form that might be expected in the theological and literary tradition of the Hebrew Bible.

masculine form it is parallel also with h(wb#$, "oath" (Ps 105,8-10). Thus, ’lt ‘lm and Ml( tqx belong to similar semantic and pragmatic domains.

        If Exod 12 does indeed contain vestiges of this Syrian incantatory thread found in AT1 (theologically reoriented and sanitized, to be sure), how might we account for this fact? We know that there were close cultural contacts between Phoenicians and Israelites in the first millennium B.C., and that Phoenician culture functioned as a medium for the earlier Canaanite culture, e.g., that found at Ugarit⁵⁰. Thus the infrastructure for cultural interaction between Syro-Phoenicia and Israel in the first millennium is well established.

        There is another, far more hypothetical, possibility. Given the presence of elements of this Syrian thread in Egypt (see section 3) around the time that some biblical scholars would place an "Exodus group", perhaps this incantatory thread was known and incorporated into the experiences and theological perspectives of this Exodus group⁵¹.