Ugaritic is (a dialect of) the ancestor of Phoenician.
As a result, Aramaic-speakers of the region had a large variety of planetary names to choose from, namely the ancestral Canaanite ones (and Canaanite neologisms!), the Akkadian names that came with imperial rule and influence, first of Assyria, then of the Persians, either in their original form or as they were "translated" into local divine names, those specific to the Aramaic language they shared with the people surrounding them, and finally Greek. This allowed people to differentiate shades of meaning in a way difficult to imagine today and made the choice of one word over another highly dependent on context.
Much of this depended on religious allegiance. While Jews wanted to distance themselves from even Hebrew-language pagan terminology, pagan Phoenicians integrated themselves into the religious landscape of pagan Aramaic-speakers or Syrians (consider the term "Syrophoenician" in Mark 7:26, where Matthew 15:22 has "of Canaan"), even as they retained local traditions. To illustrate the latter: Philo of Byblos, writing in Greek but adapting an Aramaic text either based on a Phoenician one or integrating Phoenician passages, uses the divine name Beelsamēn, hewing closer to the Aramaic B‘elsh(am)mīn than to the Phoenician Ba‘alšamēm, although he glosses it as meaning "'Lord of Heaven' in the Phoenician language". When he talks about the deity Hypsouranios, however, he transliterates its Semitic name as Samēm-roumos. Probably it was a deity unknown to the Aramaeans and therefore adopted into Phoenician Aramaic in its original form, rather than translated into a pre-existing analogue.
The Levant c. 830 BCE:
Aram-Damascus was an Aramaean (and Aramaic-speaking)
kingdom, as Sizu may also have been. The Nabati were Arabs.
The Philistines were Indo-Europeans, but also spoke a Canaanite
language. Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite are called "Hebraic",
related to Hebrew (Israelite-Judahite) as dialects to one another.
By Kingdoms_of_the_Levant_Map_830.xcf: *Kingdoms_around_Israel_830_map.svg: *Kingdoms_of_Israel_and_Judah_map_830.svg: *Oldtidens_Israel_&_Judea.svg: FinnWikiNo derivative work: Richardprins (talk) derivative work: Richardprins (talk) Kingdoms_of_Israel_and_Judah_map_830.svg: *Oldtidens_Israel_&_Judea.svg: FinnWikiNo derivative work: Richardprins (talk) derivative work: Dlv999 (talk) derivative work: Dlv999 (talk) - This file was derived from Kingdoms of the Levant Map 830.xcf: , CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Star/Planet
The planets frequently take a title "star" of proto-Semitic origin. This is not usually applied to sun and moon, although that doesn't in itself mean they were not felt to be "stars". In Ugarit, kbkbm, "stars" were worshipped side by side with sun and moon; but multiple sun deities were also worshipped.
The Christian writer Epiphanius gives a list of Hebrew names of the planets current in his time, and has the names of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all start with Khokheb, reflecting Hebrew Kôkāb and resembling earlier Greco-Roman practice, when Kronos and Saturn were called "star of Kronos" or "star of Saturn". Deuteronomy 4:19 mentions stars as objects of worship, and Amos 5:26 uses Kôkāb as the name of a deity or to define the nature of another deity, Kaiwan (see under Saturn below).
Phoenician, like Hebrew, has kkb rather than kbkb; the first b became vocalized.
Both Hebrew and Aramaic had expressions along the lines of "star of the morning" for Venus.
The Christian writer Epiphanius gives a list of Hebrew names of the planets current in his time, and has the names of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn all start with Khokheb, reflecting Hebrew Kôkāb and resembling earlier Greco-Roman practice, when Kronos and Saturn were called "star of Kronos" or "star of Saturn". Deuteronomy 4:19 mentions stars as objects of worship, and Amos 5:26 uses Kôkāb as the name of a deity or to define the nature of another deity, Kaiwan (see under Saturn below).
Phoenician, like Hebrew, has kkb rather than kbkb; the first b became vocalized.
Both Hebrew and Aramaic had expressions along the lines of "star of the morning" for Venus.
Sun (modern Hebrew Ḥammāh, Šemeš)
-The Canaanite forms, Ugaritic Šapšu, Phoenician Šemeš (Hellenized Semes-), Hebrew Šemeš (also Hellenized Semes) are all from the proto-Semitic *ŝamš-. So are Akkadian Šamaš, "Sun god", šamšu (f) "sun" and Aramaic šemšā. In this case, the words were so transparently identical that they were not, as a rule, borrowed from one language into another. However, unlike Akkadian, the Canaanite word is feminine, and the solar deity a goddess, and so at least Eastern Aramaic borrowed the Akkadian form, now pronounced Šamiš in Mandaic (the feminine šemšā occurs only in older texts). Western Neo-Aramaic (whose speakers did not inherit a cult of the Akkadian god) still uses šemšā exclusively.
(The names were also rarely borrowed into Greek, but rather translated: the Hebrew name is transliterated only in a passage about Hebrew astronomical terms [Epiphanius, Panarion], while the Phoenician form is "hellenized" only in a magical name, Semesilam, "sun of eternity", as is the Akkadian, in Samasphrēth, "Šamaš-Ra(?)". In all three cases, the Greek is used to record non-Greek expressions in their original pronunciation.)
-Hebrew Ḥammāh (Hellenized Hēma), "heat, sun", replaced Šemeš in post-Biblical usage.
-Ištanum was a (Hattic-)Hittite sun god (Hattic Eštan, Hittite Ištanu) worshipped in Ugarit.
-Thimegi(ni) was a Hurrian sun god (Hurrian Šimegi) worshipped in Ugarit.
-The inherited Canaanite forms, Ugaritic Yariḥu, Phoenician Y-r-ḥ, Hebrew Yārēaḥ (Hellenized Ieree), derive from proto-Semitic *warḫ-. The corresponding warḫu in Akkadian means "month", but Aramaic preserves Yarḥā as "moon, moon god", which may be said to serve as the Aramaic analogue of the Canaanite form.
-However, Aramaic-speakers also brought in another word of the same meaning, Sahrā (from proto-Semitic *ŝahr-), which was more widely used in Aramaic.
-Thirdly, Aramaic had borrowed the Akkadian Sîn, "moon god, moon", and both Western and Eastern Neo-Aramaic dialects have preserved side by side the synonyms Sīn and Sahrā.
-(ha-)Ləbānāh (hellenized Albana), "the white one", is a Hebrew term that largely replaces the more poetic (and more pagan) Yārēaḥ, but they are both used in the Hebrew Bible.
-Epiphanius, Panarion attests that Greek Mēnē also gained currency in Hebrew. Other Greek planetary names are only very occasionally used in Syriac, and never in an extant text written in Canaan.
-Kuḏuġ / Kuzuġ was a Hurrian moon god (Hurrian Kušuh) worshipped in Ugarit and identified with Yariḥu.
Venus (modern Hebrew Nôgah)
-Two (pagan?) Hebrew names not directly attested were Hellenized as Louēth (pace Leicht definitely not a corruption of Aramaic Beltī) and ...
-... Zeroua by Epiphanius, Panarion. The latter may be related to the Arabic name of Venus, Zuhara from the root z-h-r. Aramaic Zhar and Zihrā, presumably from that same root (via Hebrew??), was used in Palestine and Galilee. Stieglitz suggests the two names stand for Venus as morning star and evening star.
-In later (Talmudic) Jewish usage, they were replaced by Kôkab Nôgah / Nôghā, "shining planet", which may translate some expression like Akkadian nabat kakkabu, "brightest star" (if so, likely through Aramaic), or Greek Phōsphoros, "light-bearer", but may just as likely be an original formation (it is the brightest planet).
-Talmudic Hebrew also calls Venus Kôkebet, "planetess". Analogous Aramaic formations, Kawkḇā, or Kawkaḇṯā, were generally current.
-Talmudic Hebrew also (very rarely) uses the Greek loanword ʾAstēr, "star", for Venus.
-The Akkadian naming tradition is not well represented in Canaan in the case of Venus. Aramaic Beltī, from Akkadian Bēltī, "lady" is only attested in Syria proper. Words from the root *‘ṯtr(t) are also not very well attested in the meaning of Venus after Ugaritic, where both the feminine ‘Aṯtartu and masculine ‘Aṯtaru were known (as different gods). While ‘Aṯtartu and ‘Aṯtaru are Venus gods like the Akkadian Ištar, who can be male or female, it is not entirely certain whether the meaning of "Venus" is a common inheritance or was acquired from the Akkadian, with ‘Aṯtartu and ‘Aṯtaru serving as translations of the cognate Akkadian word.
Note that, Ištar was (at least sometimes) distinguished from Astartu (borrowed from the Canaanite) in Akkadian, and Aramaic borrowed ’štr / ’str from the Akkadian, which was used beside the Canaanite / native Aramaic ‘štr(t) (note the different initial sounds: Akkadian had merged them both into <’>!). It is the former who appears in Mandaic (an Aramaic language rooted in Akkadian culture) and the latter which would likely have been used in the Phoenician-Aramaic text used by Philo. There, it would have been used to translate the Phoenician descendent of Ugaritic ‘Aṯtartu, ‘štrt, still vocalized similarly, as the Hellenization Astartē shows. The Hebrew vocalization was ‘Aštārōt (Hellenized Astarōth). It is possible, but not necessary, that she was also the Queen of Heaven (Malkat ha-šāmayim) whose worship is opposed by the Hebrew Bible. This is suggested by her astral nature, but there is room for multiple female astral gods in any religion.
In summary, it is somewhat hard to judge the presence of Venus gods in Canaan, but it may be said that, while some similarities were felt to exist (in Emar, Astartu is written using the sign INANNA, also used to write Ištar), the Akkadian and the Canaanite deities were different enough linguistically and in character to allow people to distinguish them, as well as popular enough for each to maintain their popularity in the regions where they had first been. The same cannot be said for Canaanite and Aramaic ‘štrt, who were treated as the same word; similarly, the Hebrew Bible does not seem to distinguish between the Phoenician and the Hebrew versions of the name.
The masculine ‘štr is apparently not found (in our very incomplete sources) after 840 BCE, when the Moabite Mesha Stele mentions a god ‘štr-kmš. He is mentioned as a separate object of cult from kmš, but his relation to that god (not to mention the planet Venus) is unknown.
The Hellenization Atharē probably reflects the root *‘ṯtr but is feminine; whether this means that Canaanite/Aramaic ‘štr could also be feminine, or whether the word is based rather on the Akkadian name is hard to say.
Mercury (modern Hebrew Ḥammāh)
-Epiphanius attests to a Hebrew form he Hellenizes as Khokheb Okhomod. Because this form lost currency, it can be suspected of having had pagan associations. On the other hand, if Leicht is correct in understanding this as Ḥākəmōt, "wisdom" (Hellenized as Akhamōth and translated as Sophia in Gnostic texts), then it was likely invented in the same spirit as Ṣedeq, "justice", for Jupiter, and is consequently more likely to be an alternative to pagan names than a pagan name. Yet, as with Justice, Wisdom could be personified and deified (as was done by the Gnostics, of course). Aside from the linguistic probability (on which I am not qualified to comment, but seems quite good to me), it should be noted that, if meaning "wisdom", the Hebrew word must be feminine, whereas the god of Mercury is generally male. This does not at all preclude the identification, however. It could be argued that wisdom is an attribute of the god(s) associated with Mercury just as justice is an attribute of the god(s) of Jupiter.
-Later Hebrew calls Mercury Kôkāb Ḥammāh, "planet (of the) Sun", usually shortened either to Kôkāb or to Ḥammāh; note that the former could in theory also be derived, at least in part, Khokheb Okhomod.
Interestingly, Mercury is also sometimes called simply bibbu, "planet", in Akkadian, and Saturn (but not Mercury) is also called Šamaš, "sun"; a Greek source (Diodorus Siculus) says that the Mesopotamians call Saturn ("the star of Kronos") "the star of Helios", i.e. the sun. But these are probably points of comparative interest, not the origin of the Hebrew names.
-Hebrew Nəbō, from Akkadian Nabû (via Aramaic nbw), is mentioned as a god of Mesopotamian settlers in Israel in Isaiah 46:1. Whether the several places of the same name mentioned in the Hebrew Bible are named after him (which would suggest widespread worship throughout Canaan) is not clear; it should not be assumed lightly. Either way, explicit astral connotations are not attested for Canaan.
Mars (modern Hebrew Ma’adîm)
-The pagan name of Mars may be the Hebrew Khokheb Okbol, as Epiphanius Hellenizes it. The meaning of Okbol is not known.
-The Talmudic Hebrew name that replaces it is Ma’adîm, "reddener", both fitting with its apperance and naming conventions in other languages: Akkadian bibbu sāmu "red planet", Greek Pyroeis, "fiery one, red one".
-The Akkadian god, Nerigal, is mentioned once in the Hebrew Bible as Nêrəḡal, with no explicit astral associations, as a god imported by Mesopotamian settlers in Israel.
-The Ugaritic Rašap (Egyptianized Ršp, later Hellenized [via Aramaic] Rasaphos, corresponding to Phoenician and Hebrew Rešef), "plague, plague god", may (!) have been used to name the planet Mars, being, like Nergal, a warlike god and associated with sickness.
Jupiter (modern Hebrew Ṣedeq)
-Akkadian Bēl, "lord" (a title of Mar[u]duk), borrowed into Aramaic in the same form (rather than being translated with the Aramaic cognates b‘el or ba‘lā), was generally current in Imperial Aramaic. There was also a form Kawkabbēl, "planet-Jupiter", spelled kwkbyl rather than kwkb byl. Bēl is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, but not with explicit astral connotations.
-Translating this, Ba‘al (as highest god, like Marduk) is attested as a planetary name in Hellenized Hebrew as Khokheb Baal. This may well have been current in Phoenician, too (where the word has the same form).
-Certain Gnostic texts raise the possibility that Hebrew Yahū, i.e. YHWH, may have been used by some Jews to translate the Akkadian name, which required a "highest god" (cf. Zeus, Jupiter). The Apocryphon of John gives Ia(h)ō (=Yahū) as the name of the "ruler" of Jupiter, while the "ruler" of Saturn receives a name which is authentically Jewish, namely Sabbataios, which makes it certain at least that the text goes back to someone with a knowledge of Jewish astronomical terms. The rest of the names, however, are not so much directly from Jewish tradition as from Jewish-derived magic, namely Sabaōth, Adōnai(os)—which often follow after Ia(h)ō in as a magical formula—and Elōai(os), which names are Hebrew, and the mystifying Astaphaios and Ōraios (both also deriving from magic, according to Origen, which we can confirm in the former case). It seems more likely, then, that the scheme goes back to someone with some knowledge of Judaism, whether Jewish or not, but more concerned with the magical tradition than with Judaism as it was taught in the synagogues.
-Talmudic Hebrew uses Ṣedeq, "justice", instead. Ironically, in Ugarit, Ṣidqu, "justice", like Ba‘lu, "lord", was a pagan god.
Saturn (modern Hebrew Šabbetay)
-Late Akkadian Kaiwānu (through Aramaic Kaiwān?), "the steady one", had been borrowed into Hebrew Kaiwan (erroneously Hellenized Raiphan), later erroneously vocalized Kîyūn. The (later?) Aramaic form Kēwān was generally current. It is not very likely that the deity skwt (Sakkut?), mentioned just before Kaiwan in the Hebrew Bible, is also Saturn.
-The Hebrew Šabbetay, "restful one", already encountered above as Sabbataios (found in Coptic as Sabbede), is also Hellenized as Khokheb Sabeth, which Stieglitz sees as distinct from the former and translates as "rest planet". He derives this from the slowness of Saturn (compare the meaning of the Akkadian name!), but misses the equally suitable interpretation of Saturn being the god of Saturday, and Saturday being the day of Sabbath/rest. The association of Saturday with Judaism was strong enough to lead some Romans (Tacitus, Histories V.4) to consider Saturn the god of the Jews.
-The latter suggestion is not entirely absurd, as Philo of Byblos claims that the (Phoenician) god ’Ēl (Hellenized Ēl) was the planetary god Kronos (Saturn), and Hebrew ’Ēl was another name of YHWH. Still, we have to allow for (but not overemphasize) the possibility that Philo is following from the identification of ’Ēl with Kronos (generally accepted) through the identification of Kronos with the planet Saturn (also generally accepted) to an idiosyncratic identification of ’Ēl as planetary god. Whether the identification was current or not, few people will have been aware that ’Ēl was also a name of the Jewish god. The Ugaritic ancestor of ’Ēl, ’Ilu, is not known to have had astral connotations.
New Planets
The more recently discovered originally received the common European names:
-’Ūranūs
-Neptūn
-Plūtō
After the definition of planet had been changed (resulting in the exclusion of Pluto), Israel's Academy of the Hebrew Language had Israeli citizens vote on "properly Hebrew" names for the remaining two new planets, the names adopted being:
-’Oron for Uranus, meaning "little light" and resembling Uranus phonetically.
-Rahab (pron. Rahav) for Neptune, meaning a sea monster.
Not mentioned...
... are all the names that would have been known but are not directly attested to have been absorbed into local usage and worship. This means some degree of awareness of Akkadian planetary gods until the Bronze Age collapse, then again (through Imperial Aramaic) under Assyrian and Achaemenid rule, and of the Greek planetary gods under Hellenistic and Roman rule. The presence of Arabs and Aramaeans will have brought knowledge of additional gods as well.
A note on pronunciation
Hebrew names have been transcribed to reflect ancient pronunciation as closely as possible. For consistency's sake, this means that vowel lengths are marked even for the new planets' names, a distinction made in spelling but not in pronunciation. Stress, on the other hand, has not been marked, in spite of its importance in modern Hebrew.
A note on chronology
As is obvious from the introductory note, not all these names were current at all times. Canaanite forms remained current in literary Hebrew, except when they were dropped for less pagan names. But only the ones not in the Bible were ever truly abandoned. This process must have taken place in the early centuries CE.
Greek forms came in from the times of Alexander's conquests, and it was only very gradually after the Muslim conquest that Aramaic-Greek bilingualism gave way to Aramaic-Arabic bilingualism.
Edomites (/Idumaeans) apparently ceased to be distinct from Jews around the 1st century CE, Ammonites probably remained largely pagan until Christianization (and some perhaps until Islamization), although they are unlikely to have remained a distinct population for much longer than the Edomites. After an unclear history under Persian and Hellenistic rule, Moab was conquered first by the Nabataeans (whose lingua franca was Aramaic and their culture Hellenistic and Arab) and then, in 106 CE, by the Romans, under whom Nabataean culture gave way to more Hellenistic one. It remained pagan until Christianization. In all these cases, I would suggest that the cultural unit of the old ethnic groups was replaced by local ones (one's city) and superregional ones (Syrian/Jewish identity).
The case of the Philistines is instructive: the Philistine city of Gaza had many temples of Greek gods in late antiquity (likely also known by Aramaic names to locals), but most famous was its main god Marnas of Gaza. Although he is tentatively identified in scholarship with the Canaanite Dagan, the population called him by an Aramaic name, marnā, "lord", and considered his cult to have come from Crete, conspicuously connecting him to Zeus Krētagenēs, "Zeus Crete-born". Philistine identity must have still been something people were aware of in 135, when the Romans included Judah and Israel in the newly-established province Syria Palaestina to offend the Jews, but the Gazaeans of late antiquity were conspicuously connecting themselves to the wider Greek religion and centered on an extremely local god whose name meant "Lord of Gaza".
Phoenicians, long known to the Greeks, continued to be referred to as such, although by the time of the Muslim conquests, this was probably primarily a geographical term, as the population would have been largely Christianized and Hellenized. However, they were still treated as distinct from the Syrians by Damascius in the 6th century.
The Aramaic language and, embedded in it, the Akkadian divinities were present from the beginning of Neo-Assyrian influence in the region until paganism's gradual disappearance in the centuries after the Muslim conquest, unless paganism was already completely destroyed before then, which I find unlikely. Damascius, who died 99 years before the conquest of Jerusalem, still met pagan communities in Phoenicia and Syria (his homeland). In the Syrian city of Harran, there were pagans until at least the 10th or 11th century (and Greek-speakers until not too much earlier).
The Akkadian gods' previous stint in Canaan, attested in Ugarit's texts, may well have ended around the time of the destruction of that city. Certainly the disappearance of / lack of contact with other peoples like the Hittites and the Hurrians had something to do with the disappearance of cults to their gods in Canaan. A clear sign of discontinuity is that the language that carried Akkadian culture into Ugarit was Akkadian itself, which was the Near Eastern lingua franca of the time, while in later centuries, Aramaic completely usurped that role (although Akkadian remained an important language for another millenium). On the other hand, there was likely always some exchange at least between Israel and Assyria, just as there was between other Canaanites and the people that lived close to them, and as minorities among them, like the Aramaeans, Arabs and Egyptians.
(Selected) Sources
Robert R. Stieglitz, "The Hebrew Names of the Seven Planets"
Leonid Kogan, "Genealogical Classification of Semitic. The Lexical Isoglosses"
M. Parisot, "Le dialecte de Maʿlula", vol. 3
The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon
Wiktionary
Wiktionary
Dennis Pardee, "Ritual and Cult at Ugarit"
E. S. Drower, R. Macuch, "A Mandaic Dictionary"
Ulla Koch-Westenholz, "Mesopotamian Astrology"
A. J. Welburn, "The Identity of the Archons in the 'Apocryphon Johannis'"
Howard M. Jackson, "The Origin in Ancient Incantatory 'Voces Magicae' of Some Names in the Sethian Gnostic System"
The Geography of Knowledge in Assyria and Babylonia: A Diachronic Analysis of Four Scholarly Libraries
Reimund Leicht, "Planets in Ancient Hebrew Literature"
J. Hoftijzer, K. Jongeling, "Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions"
Bibelwissenschaft.de, s.v. Sakkut
A. J. Welburn, "The Identity of the Archons in the 'Apocryphon Johannis'"
Howard M. Jackson, "The Origin in Ancient Incantatory 'Voces Magicae' of Some Names in the Sethian Gnostic System"
The Geography of Knowledge in Assyria and Babylonia: A Diachronic Analysis of Four Scholarly Libraries
Reimund Leicht, "Planets in Ancient Hebrew Literature"
J. Hoftijzer, K. Jongeling, "Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions"
Bibelwissenschaft.de, s.v. Sakkut
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