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

NOTES AND ADDENDA. 311
and which is the town of Sabara'in destroyed by Salmanassar IV.
But this identification ^^"IDD = D^"1DD '^ arbitrary since (1) The
absence of monumental evidence of a destruction of Sippara by a pre-
decessor of Sennacherib is not conclusive proof that no such conquest
ever took place. It may well have been accomplished in the year 721
by Sargon (see Vol. I pp. 268 foil., 273 foil.; Vol. II p. 9 foil.). (2) In
2 Kings XVII. 30. 31 Sepharvaim is connected not only with Hamath,
but also with Babylon and Cuth (where Nergal was worshipped).
[Compare also respecting Sabara'in or Samara' in H. Winckler in
Zeitsch. fiir Assyr. 1888 No. 1. — Schr.]
Isaiah X. 18 o^ij CTDDS- The root DDJ
has been usually been
connected, as in the 10*'" ed. of Gesonius' Lexicon, with the Syriac
]r^ -m^ ill ^^J weak and Canon Cheyne follows the traditional
J
interpretation 'like a sick man's pining away' but in the 'Critical
notes' (Vol. II p. 145) looks upon the phrase with suspicion. Fried.
Delitzsch suggests that the root should be connected with the Assyrian
nasdsu 'weep', 'lament'. We should therefore render 'like the pining
away of a mourner'. The idea would be parallel to that of Is. XXIV.
4; XXXIII. 9. Amos I. 2 (Prolegg. p. 64).
Vol. II pp. 79. 80. Comp. Vol. II p. 156 and also Jeremias, Die
Babylon. -Assyr. Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode pp. 81 foil.
109 foil, and Canon Cheyne, Expositor, Jan. 1888 p. 22 foil.
Isaiah XXXIV. 14. n^^"*^
LUith. In one of the magical formulae
quoted by Fritz Hommel (Vorsemit. Kulturen p. 367) occurs the phrase
"The (male) Liila, the (female) Lilla, the maid of Lilla".*
Lilith, or in Babylonian lilS.tu (or lilitu), is the Semitic forpi of
this demon which is placed in this incantation in juxta-position with
the pest-demon Nam-tar. According to Prof. Sayce (Hibbert Lectures
1887 p. 145 foil.) Lilatu was confounded with the Semitic lilatu
'night' and so "became a word of terror denoting the night-demon
who sucked the blood of her sleeping victims." Consult Canon Cheyne's
Commentary ad loc.
Isaiah XLI. 18 QiJ^ ""i^SlD- I have already in another place (Ex-
positor Dec. 1886, p. 479 foil.) called attention to the fact that Assyrian
seems to corroborate the rendering vSQayioyol 'water-channels' given by
the LXX. "In the parallel passage contained in the later appendix to
Psalm CVII (evidently based on this utterance by the Deutero-Isaiah)
D'D ^i^i^lD
is translated by Sis^odoi while in 2 Kings II. 21 the same
Greek equivalent is used. It is also the term employed to render the
QiQ 'J^© o^ Ps. I. 3." While the LXX, however, render thus in all
cases except Is. LVIII. 11, the Aramaic versions (Targum and Syriac)
* Prof. Sayce reads "The lilu, the lilat, the hand-maid of lilu."