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

GENESIS III. 39
clusters,—continually occupy a foremost position in the
figured representations on the monuments we are now con-
sidering; comp. verse 1. In the course of time, i. e.
when the myth migrated to the Hebrews, this concrete tree
assumed the more general form of a ''fiuit tree." It needs
no special investigation to show that the Hebrew narrator
was not thinking of the palm.
7. n^^n ^7.V. fig-leaves. This statement can only have
sprung up on Hebrew-Israelite, not on Babylonian soil.
Syria and Palestine are properly the native country of the
fig-tree (Hehn , Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere 4*'' ed.
p. 84); and though we occasionally meet with fig-trees in
South Babylonia as far as Basra (see Ritter, Erdkunde
XI, pp. 953, 1052),—and on the other hand we neither will
nor can deny that even in ancient times fig-trees existed in 39
Babylonia,— yet the latter circumstance can neither invalidate
the general fact above-stated with respect to the proper home
of the fig-tree , nor the statement of Herodotus (however
extreme we may regard it in its exclusive bearing) that
Babylonia exhibits ^'nofigtree^ no vine, no olive"; Herod. 1, 193.
24. D"'D'n3n the. Cherubim'*. Just as the Cherubim are
here the sentinels at the entrance to Paradise, so w^e find
on the monuments, viz. in the palace and city-ruins, colossi
of bulls and lions with human faces, as guardians of the
gateways of the palaces and temples and also of the city
* In identifying the Heb. 31"13 with the Assyr. Kirfibu (assuming
the monumental tradition of this name) we should follow Fr. Delitzsch
Paradies p. 145 in quoting the Syllah. in Lotz' Die Inschriften Tiglath
Pilesers I p. 89, which cites the Assyrian Karftbu (line 13) as synonym
for rubu 'great', 'exalted one'. For the root 3"13 and its meaning
"bless" in Assyrian, see Paul Haupt p. 79 (in the German original of
the present work). Compare likewise bit Ki-ru-ba in Strassmaier,
Altbabylonische Vertrage, Berlin 1882, Text B 84. 1; 87. 1; 89. 1.