The relationship between humanity and the gods in the ANE can best be understood as one of patronage. The key operative value in a patronage relationship is honor and its corresponding opposite, shame . This arrangement is driven by the principle of exchange.
Humanity displays loyalty and service to the gods, who in return give favor and protection.
I give so that you will give. The divine world in antiquity was an ordered world, patterned after the arrangement of human society and bureaucracy. It was arranged as follows, beginning at the top. El often has a female consort named Asherah or Astarte. Gods who deal with the key aspects of human life, e.g., fertility, erotic love, wisdom, destruction, death and the underworld, justice.