The cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament - The Search For ...

4 THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS AND THE 0. T.
(rabsak) and bj a captain of eunuchs— the latter posses-
sing literary qualifications ; comp. the basreliefs. It is not
the generalissimo (or commander-in-chief) who delivers the
speech, for that would have been beneath his dignity; nor
is it the eunuch, for a speech so energetic as that of the
Assyrian would have sounded very strange from his lips;
but it is the Rab-sak i. e. according to my view the
General staff- officer. It may also be remarked that we
have likewise a notice in an Assyrian inscription that the
Great King of Assyria availed himself of the services of
the Rabsak as an envoy. We read in the inscription of
Tiglath-Pileser II (II Rawl. 67, 66) : Su-ut-sak-ja rab-
sak a-na ir Sur-ri as-pur i. e. "my officer*, the Rab-
sak, I despatched to Tyre".
19. 77te great king, the king of Assyria. This form of
title is in agreement with that found in the inscriptions.
As a rule the Assyrian despots describe themselves as
Sarru rabti, §arru dannu, sar ki§§ati, §ar mS,t
A§§ur i. e. "great king, mighty king, king of the multi-
tude, king of the land Assur". Compare the opening
321 words of the inscriptions of Tiglath-Pileser, Sargon and
Sanherib, also those inscribed on bricks etc.
* The word sutsak has unquestionahly some such meaning, as
is at once obvious from a series of passages e. g. Smith's Assurbanipal
28, 43 (Rassam cyl. II, 15). Whether, however, the name is a phonetic
or an ideographic one, whether it is to be pronounced only in this way
and not otherwise, as, for example, su-par-sak, cannot be definitely
settled. If it is to be read phonetically (and such a course in this parti-
cular instance is certainly recommended by names of analogous for-
mation, such as rab-sak Hpti^D"')' ^® have here once more a title
borrowed from the ancient Babylonian, exactly like Tartan and the
above-quoted Rabsak. The word, which occurs so frequently in the
inscriptions, has neither Semitic derivation nor Semitic form.