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

304 THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS AND TEE 0. T.
Vol. I p. 19, Insc. line 30 §i'ru sa pinti baslu sa tumri ul ikul
is rendered by Zimmern in Babylon. Busspsalmen p. 76 "neither roast
nor smoked (sa tumri sc. baslu 'cooked') flesh shall he (the king)
eat"; tumru is regarded as signifyng 'smoke', ba§lu being evidently
connected with the root basSlu 'to cook'. As an illustration of the
above signification for tumru Zimmern cites from Nimrod-epos 44, 53
taramima damk§,ru(?) §a kSn&ma tu-um-ri ispukaki thou
lovedst also the shepherd who continually poured out (sapSku Hebr.
smoke [of sacrifice]). The root
'^Dtt') before you incense" (Sayce : —
in any case would be -j^f) 'mount on high', 'to be high' , Assyr.
tamS,ru. — pintu Zimmern follows Delitzsch in connecting with
Hebrew DHD 'coal' — the original form being pimtu.
Vol. I p. 28, Gen. II. 9 'tree of life'. Prof. Sayce quotes a remark-
able fragment of a bilingual hymn translated by him as follows :
1. In Eridu a stalk grew overshadowing; in a holy place did it
become green;
2. its root was of white crystal which stretched towards the deep,
3. while before Ea it went, Eridu was richly fertile (?)
4. its seat was the central place of the earth etc. . . .
6. Into the heart of its holy house, which spread its shade like a
forest, hath no man entered.
Prof. Sayce thinks that "it is pretty clear from the sculptures that the
sacred tree of the Babylonians was the cedar, which was subsequently
displaced by the palm ; so that Hommel's view, which sees a palm in
Long 'the stalk' of Eridu may still be maintained : . . .
when the hymns and magical texts of Eridu were composed the mystic
virtues of the cedar were still remembered . . . 'the beloved of the
—
after the days
great gods which their hand has caused to grow.' It was possibly
the fragrance of the wood when lighted for sacrificial purposes that
gave the tree its sacred character. It is possible that as time went
on another tree became confounded with the original tree of life. The
palm was from the earliest period characteristic of Babylonia ; and
while its fruit seemed to be the stay and support of life, the wine
improbable on account of the sign which is generally read as sir;
but also my own transcription umassir is in my opinion not without
objection and I am disposed to concur in the view of Prof. P. Haupt
who in Zeitsch. fiir Assyr., Sept. 1887, p. 271 reads misratu umas-
sir. He refers these words to a root ")yQ to cut, determine, comp.
misru district [see the glossary. Haupt ibid, refers also to namsaru
award]. He does not however give any rendering of the phrase. Per-
haps it should be 'the frontier-districts (courses of the stars?) he
determined'."