Endnote 4 – Texts from Ugarit Solve Biblical Puzzles

In old translations we often find the rendering “who rides through the desert.” Hebrew ‘arava is a term for “desert.” However, even before the discovery of Ugaritic, some translated “rider of the skies,” by comparing verses 33–34 and verses from elsewhere. We now know that the Hebrew term ‘aravot refers not to “deserts” but to clouds, like the cognate Ugaritic term.