Reading akkadian PRayeRs & Hymns An Introduction

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READING AKKADIAN PRAYERS AND HYMNS: AN INTRODUCTION
25. mim-ma ma-la a-qab-bu-u kit-tú lib-ši
26. ina pi-ki el-li li-ṣa-a ba-lá-ṭi
27. a-ḫu-lap-ki at-ti-ma i-la-at i-la-ti
Line 25: Mimma mala, “everything that.” Kittu, “truth.” Bašû, “to be.”
mimma mala aqabbû kittu libši
Line 26: Pû, “mouth.” (W)aṣû, “to go out.” Balāṭu, “life.”
ina pīki elli līṣâ balāṭī
Line 27: Aḫulap, “an exclamation used to express or to seek compassion” (CAD A/1,
213). See the discussion in Ishtar 2 at line 27 (page 265). Iltu, “goddess.” The text is
transmitted rather consistently in the five MSS, though this is not the case for the second
half of the last line, in which also signs are missing in most exemplars. The text given here
follows MS gg.
aḫulapki attī-ma ilat ilāti
COMPARATIVE SUGGESTIONS:
The supplicant in Ishtar 24 is not mentioned alone, but is involved in different
relations. As it is usual also in biblical psalms of individual lament, there is
an “I” (the supplicant), a “you” (the deity), and a “them” (a group of “others”).
The complaints can be directed in these three directions: they can be “Icomplaints”
(see lines 12b, 13), “god-complaints” (not in Ishtar 24), or complaints
against the hostile group, here the sorcerer or sorceress (lines 15–20). 1 In
the Psalms, the hostile group consists usually of enemies, whose affronting acts
are the objects of complaints (see, e.g., Ps 13:5. 38:20–21) and whose threatening
character can be compared to wild and deadly animals (see Ps 22:13–14, 17,
and 22). The general similarity has led to the interpretation that the enemies in
the Psalms are not only a structural parallel to the Mesopotamian sorcerers in
the three dimensions of relations in prayers, but that their evil actions are to be
interpreted as magical. 2 The prayer Ishtar 24 indicates that this interpretation is
at least not obvious. The eight lines dealing with the sorcerers (lines 15–22) and
already some passages in the earlier complaints show the well-developed Mesopotamian
terminology for witchcraft: besides the generic term kišpu (“witch-
1 For the Psalms, see Claus Westermann, Lob und Klage in der Psalmen (6th ed. of Das Loben Gottes
in den Psalmen [orig. 1954]; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), 128–30; 141–49
(see the English translation of the 5 th ed., Praise and Lament in the Psalms [trans. Keith R. Crim
and Richard N. Soulen; Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981], 169–70, 181–89).
2 See, e.g., Sigmund Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien I–II (Amsterdam: P. Schippers, 1966; repr., Kristiania:
in Kommission bei Jacob Dybwad, 1921–1924), 77–124. Hermann Vorländer, Mein Gott:
Die Vorstellung vom persönlichen Gott im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament (AOAT 23; Kevelaer:
Butzon & Bercker / Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1975), 250–65.