>>19912608Biblical tradition portrays Yahweh "coming forth from Seʿir", the Shasu of YHW, originally from Moab and northern Edom/Seʿir, went on to form one major element in the amalgam that would constitute the "Israel" which later established the Kingdom of Israel. The Midianites are identified by scholars with the Shasu of YHW, a nomadic people known from Egyptian texts. The Shasu of YHW were formerly known as Shutu. These are the “sons of Sheth” mentioned in the messianic prophecy of Balaam son of Beor (Numbers 24:17) and were the first to call upon the name of Yahweh (Genesis 4:26). The Shutu were called Suteans in Mesopotamia, but like Abraham, they were called the Tidanu, people of Didanu the king of Rephaim, an ancestral tribe of the Amorites that contributed to the downfall of the last Sumerian kingdom and from whom the Greeks took the name of their “old gods,” the Titans.
The first time Moses spoke to Yahweh was in Midian, where today is Jabal al-Lawz in Saudi Arabia. The curious thing is that the place where Moses died, Mountain Nebo/Pisgah in Moab, is called Iye-Abarim (“ruins of the Travelers"), a place where the Rephaim spirits were believed to cross over to the land of the living and was near to Baal-Peor. Who was Baal of Peor? He was the Lord of Peor, a mountain near Sittim in Moab, northeast of the Dead Sea and southwest of Bashan, who Canaanites believed was the entrance to the underworld (home of the Dead/Rephaim, to whom the worshipers of Baal-Peor ate the sacrifices). This was also the location of Sodom and Gomorrah.
