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

SECOND BOOK OF CHRONICLES IX. XV. XXXIII. 5 3
place of niND *. The whole difficulty would then dis-
appear. Smend adopts this solution. See the note on
Gen. XXIII. 16, Vol. I p. 127 foil.
^^^^ ^^
XYB-^. nlOTpi^ Semiramis. We find this name in
the form Sammuramat (written Sa-am-mu-ra-mat),
as a woman's name , upon the monuments viz. on the
statues of Nebo found at Nimrlid (I Rawl. 35 no. 2
line 9). It there appears as the name of Rammannir^r's
"woman of the palace" (Ramm^nnirar reigned 812 — 783).
Delitzsch in Miirdter's Geschichte Babyloniens und Assy-
riens p. 278 thinks that Sammuramat may be explained
as meaning **lover of scents"**. It is not surprising that
the Hebrews, when they adopted this to them unintelligible
name , endeavoured to adapt it to their own mode of
pronunciation. Compare the Hebrew jlSl as the equivalent
of the Assyrio - Aramaic Ramm^nu 'Psf/fiav] as well
as jlSTS^ for Tab-Ramm4n (Ta[i£Qe(/d). See above
Vol. I pp. 196, 197.
XXXIII. 11. Then Jahve brought ujyon them the mili-
tary commanders of the king of Assyria who took Manasseh
captive with hooks and bound him with chains and carried
him away to Babel. 12. And when he was in distress he
supplicated Jahve his God 13. ... and He gave
ear to his entreaty and heard his prayer, and caused him
to return to Jerusalem into his kingdom. The reader is
aware that this passage has been the subject of much 367
discussion. Objections were raised by critics to a state-
* [Comp. the converse illustration of the very same confusion of
X and J in the case of "IDJ^C ^^"^ 1Dfc