volume 2

INTRODUCTION. XXVll
the meaning of sutattl, as we may see by the phrase
inihissii- siUatii, i.e., "whose wound (or sickness) is
invisible," which occurs in the hymn to Ni'rgal.^ The
same view of the meaning of this word is also held by
The word stitatil had probably another
Dr. Jastrow.^
shade of meaning also, for the word ittintn, which
means the gradual disappearance of the Moon as it
draws near the Sun at the end of the month,
is once
used as its equivalent {see No. 124, obv. 4).
In several places in astrological reports we meet
with the words nidu nadi, which seem to mean
"casting a shadow, or image, or reflection." The
" image "
appears at the sun's zenith, to the right or
left of the Sun; in one case four such "images" are
mentioned. I cannot help thinking that these
" images " refer to mock suns.
A number of omens were derived from the
entrances of planets into the signs of the Zodiac, and
the influence of the stars in the various sections of it
was thought to be very considerable. The places
where the sfods stood in the Zodiac were called
manzalti, a word which means literally "stations," and
we are probably right in assuming that it is the
equivalent of the mazzdloth mentioned in II Kings,
xxiii, 5.^ The use of the word in late Hebrew is,
however, somewhat more vague, for viazzal, though
literally meaning a constellation of the Zodiac, is also
'
Rawlinson, Cutieiforui Inscriptions, IV, 24, i, 36,37.
•
See Religion of Babylonia, p. 359.
^ See Jensen, Kosm., p, 348.