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Hence, the receiver of life is a goddess equally with the giver of life, and indeed, Ishtar and Allatu are but the two aspects of one and the same phenomenon. Allatu signifies 'strength. The name is related to the Arabic Allah and the Hebrew Eloah and Elohim. The same meaning strength, power, rule attaches to many of the names of the gods of the Semites: Adôn, Etana, Baal, El, and the like.
Though this is not the view taken in this book, no one will question that the leading trait in the gods of barbarism is physical strength. The naive anthropomorphism of the savage makes his a god of a mighty arm, a giant in stature, puissant and terrible. He hurls the thunderbolt, and piles up the mountains in sport. His name is often The Strong One, as in the Allah, Eloah of the Semitic tongues.
He adopts the popular story, utilizing it as his prologue and epilogue: but as we pass to chapter iii, the simple, pure Hebrew yields to sublime poetry, shot through with the words and idioms and ideas of a much later age. The designation of God is no longer Jehovah but El or Eloah or Shaddai.
For whatever would occupy it then if it could exist at all should alone occupy it now. London, 1836. The Arabic Allah and the Hebrew Eloah are by some traced to a common root, signifying to tremble, to show fear, though the more usual derivation is from one meaning to be strong. Bd. ii. s. 474.
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