[5] Alfonso Archi assumes that it belonged to a linguistic substrate, similar to these of other Eblaite gods, including Adamma, Aštabi, Išḫara and Kura.
[7] This theory subsequently found support from other researchers, such as Volkert Haas, Alfonso Archi[7] and Joan Goodnick Westenholz.
[18] However, it is considered implausible by Alfonso Archi, who points out the distribution of cult sites dedicated to Hadabal makes it unlikely his character was astral.
[20] Lunar character has also been ascribed to another Eblaite deity, Saggar, though he might have only represented a specific phase of the Moon, as documents from Ebla point association with the crescent.
[1] Only the hypostases associated with the former two of these cities regularly received offerings in the royal palace in Ebla, possibly simply because they were located close.
[22] Another settlement associated with the worship of Hadabal, attested in relation to offerings the vizier Ibirim made to this deity, was Neau,[23] possibly to be identified with Niya known from sources from the second millennium BCE.
[25] Alfonso Archi compares the position of Hadabal in the texts from Ebla to that of Dagan of Tuttul and Hadda of Halab: while in the third millennium none of their cult centers were political powers in their own right, all three of them worshiped over a large area nonetheless.
[28] Their social status was high, and they were permitted to use the income from the lands under control of the Eblaite royal palace to support themselves, similar to the queen.
[30] It has been proposed that they acted as symbolic spouses of the god, and that they took part in a hypothetical sacred marriage rite,[31] but this is unlikely, as another attested dam-dingir was instead responsible for worship of a female deity, Adamma.
[28] It has been proposed that the presence of members of the royal family of Ebla in the cult of Hadabal was meant to form an alliance between them and the god.
It was annual and involved visits in his sanctuary in Luban, the royal palace of Ebla, and other sacred locations throughout the kingdom, though not Larugadu and Hamadu.
[2] With the exception of Darib (modern Atarib), most of the places visited are difficult to identify, and it is possible that they were small agricultural settlements.
"[40] Lauren Ristvet proposes that Eblaite pilgrimages were meant to provide the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ebla with a shared religious experience.