Reading akkadian PRayeRs & Hymns An Introduction

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READING AKKADIAN PRAYERS AND HYMNS: AN INTRODUCTION
26. [ . . . GIŠ.ŠI]M.LI ina ki-lá-ta-an !
27. [ . . . t]a-sár-raq mi-ḫa GEŠTIN.MEŠ BAL-qí
28. [DU 11.GA ? d AG ? šu]-mu DUGUD
29. [aṣ-bat si-pe-e-ka] kul-li-ma-an-ni ZÁLAG
30. [ki-am ? DU] 11.GA-ma uš-kin
Line 26: GIŠ.ŠIM.LI = burāšu, “juniper” (pieces of wood or its resin). The juniper is the
material to be burnt in the incense burners. Kilallān (m), kilattān (f), “both.” Both incense
burners (line 24) are supposed to contain cedar and juniper (?).
. . . burāšu kilattān
Line 27: Sarāqu, “to scatter, to strew.” What is scattered is uncertain. See CAD S, 172–
74 for various options and Ebeling, AGH, 12 for his conjecture. Miḫḫu, “a kind of beer.”
GEŠTIN.MEŠ =karānu, “wine.” BAL = naqû, “to pour out, to libate, to sacrifice.”
. . . tasarraq miḫḫa karāna tanaqqi
Line 28: DU11 .GA = qabû, “to speak, to say.” The restoration of instructions for the
supplicant (thus a 3cs durative verb) to speak seems reasonable. See also line 30. It seems
that part of the prayer is repeated in lines 28–29. Here we may have a reprise of part of
line 5.
iqabbi Nabû šumu kabtu
Line 29: This line may be quoting line 20 of the prayer. Note the orthography of kullimanni
here as compared to line 20.
aṣbat sīpēka kullimanni nūra
Line 30: Kīam, “so, thus.” Šukênu, “to prostrate oneself.” Both verbs are 3cs duratives.
kīam iqabbī-ma uškên
COMPARATIVE SUGGESTIONS:
A few idioms in the prayer are worthy of our comparative attention. The
phrase pētû ḫasīsu, “the one who opens the ear,” in line 2 is comparable to the
BH phrase ן ֶזֹאה־ת ָ א ֶ חתַ ָפּ,
“to open the ear” (Isa 50:5 and 48:8) and the similar ה ָלגָּ ן ֶזֹאה־ת ָ ֶא, “to uncover the ear” (see 1 Sam 9:15, 20:2, 12, 13, 22:8 (2x’s), 22:17, 2
Sam 7:27, Isa 22:14, Job 33:16, 36:10, 15, Ruth 4:4, and 1 Chron 17:25). In reference
to human activity, the Hebrew idioms mean “to inform” (e.g., 1 Sam
20:13). When a deity is the one informing a human, however, the idiom denotes
revelatory activity (e.g., 1 Sam 9:15 and Isa 50:5). The means of conveying the
information may be different (e.g., a dream, prophetic intuition, or the scribal
tradition, as our prayer implies), but the Hebrew and Akkadian phrases designate
the same mythological idea: a deity somehow informs a human of something
he or she would not otherwise have known apart from the deity.