The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament; - The Search For ...

164 THE CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS AND THE 0. T.
i. e. ''the bestower of posterity" n02-m* Layard XVIT.
15; II Rawl. 67, 12; also pronounced and written Zarpa-ni-tuv
(II Rawl. 48. 37; Nebuc. cyl. Grot. I. 27).
II Rawlinson 66. B. 1 (inscription of Asurbanipal) bestows
on her the epithet bi-lit mat^ti a-si-bat r(bitu) BAR.
BAR "mistress of countries; who inhabits there the temple
BAR. BAR." In the bull-inscriptions of Sanherib (Layard
inscr. 38. 3) she is called:— ilu bi-lit ili bi-lit nab-
ni-ti i-na lib ib-ba**ummi *** a-lid-ti-ja ki-nis
176 SI. BAR- an -n if "the deity, the mistress of the gods, the
mistress of the fruit of the body, has in the womb of the
mother , who gave me birth , carefully rocked me"
comp. I Rawl. 36, 60 in which Sargon describes just the
same goddess as : 1 1 u bi-lit ili mu- rap-pi-sat ta-
li d-ti-su "the deity, the ruler of the gods, who made his
(the kings) birth glorious". Also she appears as bu-kur-
ti (ilu) A-nuv sur-bu-ut ili ma-li-kat na-ki-ri
"first-born of Anu, the pride of the gods, the conqueror of
1866, p. 16.—IV Rawl. 27, 25. 26a calls here briefly um-mu rabituv
"the great (noble) mother."
* Perhaps too the name Kar-ba-ni-ti, with which an Aegyp-
tian town was named anew by the Assyrian king (see Smith's Assur-
ban. 38. 14), is to be explained as amounting in signification to "/S/te
(the goddess) made or founded the fortress". Comp. also the proper
name Zi'r-bSni "the producer of posterity", which is to be regarded
as combined with the name of a male deity II Kawl. 69 HI Rev. 19.
** Probably an Akkadian word adopted into the Assyrian, meaning
"interior", "bosom"; see Lenormant Etudes Accad. II. 264.
*** In the text there stands AGARINNI which a syllabary explains
by ummu (no. 192) "mother" Hebr. {«{•
t SI. BAR-an-ni stands in the text. It is clear that SI. BAR is
a verbal ideogram. The syllabaries inform us that its Semitic equi-
valent is naplflsu, root D^O '• ^- '° rock.
;