hadad

Hadad is the name of a major weather and fertility deity in ancient Semitic religion, especially within the Canaanite and Aramaean milieu. In West Semitic tradition, Hadad the storm god was associated with rain, thunder, and agricultural fertility and was often linked with Baal, the more widely worshipped storm deity, with Hadad sometimes treated as an epithet or local manifestation. In Mesopotamian tradition the equivalent figure is Adad; parallels in iconography and cultic function reflect a shared Near Eastern concept of the storm god as protector and provider of rains.

Worship and cult: Hadad was worshiped in several city-states, with attestations in Ugarit and other Levantine sites; cults invoked him for rain, harvests, and protection from storms. Iconography often depicted him with a thunderbolt; epithets describe him as ruler of the skies and storms. Over time, Hadad became closely identified with Baal in some traditions, and his worship overlapped with or was subsumed by Baal cults in different periods.

Hadad also appears in the Hebrew Bible as a personal name; most notably Hadad the Edomite, who fled to Egypt during David’s reign and later sought to regain the throne of Edom with Pharaoh’s support. The name Hadad persists in later Semitic languages as a personal name and element in place names; in modern times it remains a historical reference used in scholarly discussion of ancient Near Eastern religion.