An official in the Royal Treasury in the disturbed period at the end of the calamitous Thirteenth Dynasty, Sebekemhet had connections with the great temple at Heliopolis. It appears that he was a devotee of the equivocal god Seth, who was associated with the principal god of Heliopolis as Seth-Re. Although the later cults connected with Osiris cast Seth in the role of villain, the murderer of his brother, he was in fact a very ancient divinity of the desert and storm. In an inscription on a standing figure of Sebekemhet the 'animal of Seth' appears, by which the manifestation of the god is announced, indicating that Sebekemhet was an adherent of the god.

The significance of Seth appearing in a formal context at this time, is that the statue derives from immediately before the invasion of the Hyksos princes from beyond Egypt's northern frontiers. The Hyksos venerated Seth, whom they identified with their own god of storms.