Reading akkadian PRayeRs & Hymns An Introduction

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READING AKKADIAN PRAYERS AND HYMNS: AN INTRODUCTION
In both types of prayer the final praise has two different functions, one for
the relation between supplicant and deity and the other for the supplicant only.
The promise and the appeal to praise can be understood as “offer of service” by
the supplicant to the deity. They do not only promise to praise but to function
themselves as living examples of divine action. Such an unequivocal “offer of
service” can also be found in biblical texts. Note the appeal to Yahweh to save
the supplicant from the underworld, since no-one praises him there (see Ps 6:6,
30:10, 88:11–12, Isa 38:18). Such an offer can be understood within the conception
of the prayer as audience, which is important at least for the prayers of the
lifting of the hand. 5 The gift as greeting in an actual audience (corresponding to
the offering in the hand-lifting ritual), the proskynesis, and the praise of the elevated
person aim at obligating the elevated person to help. The structure of the
audience—and the prayer respectively—want to make the counterpart accept
the petition. Because of the logic of reciprocity governing audiences in the ancient
Near East, it is possible that the praying person already gives thanks and
praise though their situation is still the same.
The concluding praise has a second but different function for the supplicant.
6 At the end of the prayer, they envision the power of the deity. They bring
to mind the deity they experience as turned away, hoping that the god will act
on their behalf. The certainty of salvation is realized in advance by articulating
it. In this context, the basic character of the prayers as set forms, not as individual
expression has to be kept in mind: praise and promise to praise that anticipate
the salvation can strengthen the trust of the supplicant in the saving power
of the deity. In this way, their function can be compared to the functions of the
expressions of confidence in the psalms of lament and the hymnic invocation in
the prayers of the lifting of the hand. The form invites the supplicant to leave
behind the fixation on their own needs and to rest in the saving action by the
deity. This structure can be compared to “de-reflection” in its psychotherapeutic
sense. Prayers of the lifting of the hand can lead back from the final praise into
the initial invocation in repeated recitations; psalms of lament can proceed from
complaint to praise. The sudden change of mood can be interpreted as an element
of “pastoral care” in both cases, independent of the different structures of
the prayers.
The form of the sudden change of mood in Ishtar 2 is special: there is not
only a promise to praise (lines 101–102) but the anticipated praise itself in the
final section of the prayer (lines 103–105). These last three lines could well be
set in quotation marks. This phenomenon is attested in other Mesopotamian
prayers, too, 7 but also in biblical laments of the individual. A striking example is
5 Annette Zgoll, “Audienz – Ein Modell zum Verständnis mesopotamischer Handerhebungsrituale.
Mit einer Deutung der Novelle vom Armen Mann von Nippur,” BaghM 34 (2003), 181–203
and see the introduction, page 31.
6 For the following paragraph, see Zgoll, 269–70.
7 See Mayer, UFBG, 350–57.