as well as in the Hebrew Bible. Associations with other deities According to Ugaritic texts, the god hll was the father of the Kotharat. The vocalization of his name is uncertain, though a god named Hulelu, whose origin is presently unknown, was worshiped in Emar and might be related to Ugaritic hll. The meaning of the name is not known, though a similarity with the Arabic word hilālun, "crescent moon," has been pointed out. Based on this possible relation he is often considered an astral deity, possibly a lunar god specifically associated with the crescent phase. Another proposed translation of his name is "star." Dennis Pardee instead suggests the name might mean "purity," while Wilfred G. E. Watson favors "brightness." Yet another theory connects hll with the senior Mesopotamian god Enlil. Lists of deities from Ugarit and Mari indicate that the Kotharat were understood as analogous to southern Mesopotamian Šassūrātum. The sources from the former site additionally attest an equivalence between them and Hurrian Hutena and Hutellura. The term Šassūrātu refers to goddesses regarded as helpers of Ninmah. Both they and the Kotharat appear in offering lists from Mari. Their name is derived from the Akkadian word šassūru, a direct loan from Sumerian meaning "womb" or "midwife." They appear in the myth Enki and Ninmah, where the members of this group are Ninimma, Shuzianna, Ninmada, Ninšar, Ninmug and Ninnigina. They are collectively characterized as "wise and knowing." The latter names refer to a group of Hurrian deities believed to be responsible for determining the fate of humans, also associated with birth and midwifery. Alfonso Archi considers it possible that the Hurrians living in Syria patterned them on the Kotharat and their Mesopotamian counterparts. He assumes that they were a heptad of deities, much like the Kotharat, which is a position also supported by Volkert Haas. However, Piotr Taracha remarks that while both "Hutena" and "Hutellura" are grammatically plural, on the Yazılıkaya reliefs only two figures are identified by them. He also points out that in some cases Hutellura was seemingly treated as a singular goddess analogous to Ninmah. Wilfred G. E. Watson argues that in the myth Marriage of Nikkal and Yarikh, the Kotharat function as handmaidens of the eponymous goddess. Despite their names being cognates, there is no direct indication in any known sources that the Kotharat were ever associated with the god Kothar. Worship The Kotharat originated in