Like Ptah, Ea also developed from an artisan god into a sublime
Creator in the highest sense, not merely as a producer of crops. His
word became the creative force; he named those things he desired to
be, and they came into existence. "Who but Ea creates things",
exclaimed a priestly poet. This change from artisan god to creator
(Nudimmud) may have been due to the tendency of early religious cults
to attach to their chief god the attributes of rivals exalted at other
centres.

Ea, whose name is also rendered Aa, was identified with Ya, Ya'u, or
Au, the Jah of the Hebrews. "In Ya-Daganu, 'Jah is Dagon'", writes
Professor Pinches, "we have the elements reversed, showing a wish to
identify Jah with Dagon, rather than Dagon with Jah; whilst another
interesting name, Au-Aa, shows an identification of Jah with Aa, two
names which have every appearance of being etymologically connected."
Jah's name "is one of the words for 'god' in the Assyro-Babylonian
language".[38]

Ea was "Enki", "lord of the world", or "lord of what is beneath";
Amma-ana-ki, "lord of heaven and earth"; Sa-kalama, "ruler of the
land", as well as Engur, "god of the abyss", Naqbu, "the deep", and
Lugal-ida, "king of the river". As rain fell from "the waters above
the firmament", the god of waters was also a sky and earth god.

The Indian Varuna was similarly a sky as well as an ocean god before
the theorizing and systematizing Brahmanic teachers relegated him to a
permanent abode at the bottom of the sea. It may be that Ea-Oannes and
Varuna were of common origin.

Another Babylonian deity, named Dagan, is believed to be identical