Shalim (Šalām, Shalem, Salem, and Salim) is a god in

Canaanite religion The Canaanite religion was the group of ancient Semitic religions practiced by the Canaanites living in the ancient Levant from at least the early Bronze Age through the first centuries AD. Canaanite religion was polytheistic and, in some cases ...

, mentioned in inscriptions found in

Ugarit ) , image =Ugarit Corbel.jpg , image_size=300 , alt = , caption = Entrance to the Royal Palace of Ugarit , map_type = Near East#Syria , map_alt = , map_size = 300 , relief=yes , location = Latakia Governorate, Syria , region = F ...

(Ras Shamra) in

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

.Golan, 2003, p. 82. "The name of the Canaanite deity of the setting sun Salim, or Salem, ..The names

Sahar Sahar may refer to: People * Sahar (name), Arabic feminine name or Hebrew unisex name * Sahar (singer), Iranian singer, musician and dancer. * Sahar Aslam, former Scottish international cricketer. * Sahar Ansari, Urdu poet and linguist from Karachi ...

and Salim] are rendered in modern scholarly texts as Shakhar and Shalim [...]" William F. Albright identified Shalim as the god of dusk and Shahar as god of the dawn.Albright, 199
p. 187
cf. the Akkadian word for sunset, ''šalām šamši''. In the ''

Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible The ''Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible'' (DDD) is an academic reference work edited by Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking and Pieter W. van der Horst which contains academic articles on the named gods, angels, and demons in the books o ...

'', Shalim is also identified as the deity representing

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

or the "Evening Star" and Shahar the "Morning Star". His name derives from the triconsonantal

Semitic root The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...

Š-L-M Shin-Lamedh- Mem is the triconsonantal root of many Semitic words and many of those words are used as names. The root meaning translates to "whole, safe, intact, unharmed, to go free, without blemish". Its earliest known form is in the name of S ...

Ugaritic inscriptions

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic language, classified by some as a dialect of the Amorite language and so the only known Amorite dialect preserved in writing. It is known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeologis ...

myth known as ''The Gracious and Most Beautiful Gods'', describes Shalim and his brother Shahar as offspring of El through two women he meets at the seashore. They are both nursed by "The Lady", likely

Asherah Asherah (; he, אֲשֵׁרָה, translit=Ăšērā; uga, 𐎀𐎘𐎗𐎚, translit=ʾAṯiratu; akk, 𒀀𒅆𒋥, translit=Aširat; Qatabanian language, Qatabanian: ') in ancient Semitic religion, is a fertility goddess who appears in a ...

( Athirat or

Anat Anat (, ), Anatu, classically Anath (; uga, 𐎓𐎐𐎚 ''ʿnt''; he, עֲנָת ''ʿĂnāṯ''; ; el, Αναθ, translit=Anath; Egyptian: '' ꜥntjt'') was a goddess associated with warfare and hunting, best known from the Ugaritic texts. ...

), and have appetites as large as "(one) lip to the earth and (one) lip to the heaven." In other Ugaritic texts, the two are associated with the sun goddess.van der Toorn et al., 1999
pp. 755-6
/ref> Another inscription is a sentence repeated three times in a para-mythological text, "Let me invoke the gracious gods, the voracious gods of ''ym''." ''Ym'' in most

Semitic languages The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken by more than 330 million people across much of West Asia, the Horn of Africa, and latterly North Africa, Malta, West Africa, Chad, and in large immigra ...

means "day," and Shalim and Shahar, twin deities of the dusk and dawn, were conceived of as its beginning and end.van der Toorn et al., 1999, p. 222. Shalim is also mentioned separately in the Ugaritic god lists and forms of his name also appear in personal names, perhaps as a

divine Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine< ...

name or

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

. Many scholars believe that the name of Shalim is preserved in the name of the city

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

.John Day, ''Yahweh and the gods and goddesses of Canaan'', Sheffield Academic Press 2002, p180 The god Shalim may have been associated with dusk and the evening star in the etymological senses of a "completion" of the day, "sunset" and "peace".

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Authority control Children of El (deity) Night gods Phoenician mythology Stellar gods Ugaritic deities Venusian deities West Semitic gods