[6] Multiple spellings are attested in known cuneiform texts, including dIk-ru-ub-El, dIk-ru-ub-Il, dIk-ru-ub-AN, dIk-ru-bé-El, dIk-ru-bé-AN, dYa-ak-ru-ub-El, dYa-ak-ru-ub-Il and dYa-ak-ru-ub-AN.
[8] These writings are all attested in a single type of texts, namely the letters sent by Kibri-Dagan, a governor of Terqa, which makes the high number of variants unusual.
[9][10] Lluís Feliu proposes that Yakrub-El was specifically a deified chief of an Amorite clan,[2] while Ichiro Nakata in an earlier publication more cautiously refers to him and similar deities as "originally heroes of one type or another.
[12] Ichiro Nakata has suggested that he could be referred to as the "lord" (lugal) of this city, though other researchers, including Jean-Marie Durand and Amanda Podany, generally presume that the deity designated this way would instead be Dagan.
[1] Lluís Feliu assumes that Dagan was the god of the city of Terqa, while Yakrub-El represented the surrounding district (ḫalṣum) and its population, both permanently settled and nomadic, and suggested it might have been an example of a broader pattern of local pantheons combining gods already known from the third millennium BCE, worshiped chiefly in the urban centers of the region, with ones brought through population movements.
[18] While the main topic is a verdict pronounced by Dagan for Tishpak, Yakrub-El also plays an active role and brings him the words of the goddess Ḫanat from Suhum, presumably endangered by the actions of the Eshnunnean god.