Archæology and the Bible

by George A. Barton

(At this point the tablet is broken. We do not know how many lines are wanting before the narrative is resumed on the back of the tablet.)

Reverse

Into my prison my house is turned.
Into the bonds of my flesh are my hands thrown;
Into the fetters of myself my feet have stumbled.
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5. With a whip he has beaten me; there is no protection;
With a staff he has transfixed me; the stench was terrible!
All day long the pursuer pursues me,
In the night watches he lets me breathe not a moment;
Through torture my joints are torn asunder;
10. My limbs are destroyed, loathing covers me;
On my couch I welter like an ox,
I am covered, like a sheep, with my excrement.
My sickness baffled the conjurers,
And the seer left dark my omens.
15. The diviner has not improved the condition of my sickness;
The duration of my illness the seer could not state;
The god helped me not, my hand he took not;
The goddess pitied me not, she came not to my side;
The coffin yawned; they [the heirs] took my possessions;
20. While I was not yet dead, the death wail was ready.
My whole land cried out: “How is he destroyed!”
My enemy heard; his face gladdened;
They brought as good news the glad tidings, his heart rejoiced.
But I knew the time of all my family,
25. When among the protecting spirits their divinity is exalted.

The above is from a tablet called the “Second” of the series Ludlul bêl nimeqi, i. e., “I will serve the lord of wisdom.” The “Third” tablet of the series has been published by R. Campbell Thompson in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, XXXII, p. 18, f. It is considerably broken, but the parts which are legible are as follows:

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Let thy hand grasp the javelin
Tabu-utul-Bêl, who lives at Nippur,
5. Has sent me to consult thee,
Has laid his .......... upon me.
In life .......... has cast, he has found. [He says]:
“[I lay down] and a dream I beheld;
This is the dream which I saw by night:—
10. [He who made woman] and created man,
Marduk, has ordained (?) that he be encompassed with sickness (?).”
15. And .......... in whatever ..........
He said: “How long will he be in such great affliction and distress?
What is it that he saw in his vision of the night?”
“In the dream Ur-Bau ap[peared],
A mighty hero wearing his crown,
20. A conjurer, too, clad in strength,
Marduk indeed sent me;
Unto Shubshi-meshri-Nergal he brought abu[ndance];
In his pure hands he brought abu[ndance].
By my guardian-spirit (?) he st[opped] (?),”
25. [By] the seer he sent a message:
“A favorable omen I show to my people.”
..........................................
...... he quickly finished; the ...... was broken
........ of my lord, his heart [was satisfied];
30. .......... his spirit was appeased
............ my lamentation .................
................ good .... ..........

Reverse

..........................................
..........................................
................ like ................
He approached (?) and the spell which he had pronounced (?),
5. He sent a storm wind to the horizon;
To the breast of the earth it bore Into the depth of his ocean the disembodied spirit vanished (?);
Unnumbered spirits he sent back to the under-world.
The ...... of the hag-demons he sent straight to the mountain.
10. The sea-flood he spread with ice;
The roots of the disease he tore out like a plant.
The horrible slumber that settled on my rest
Like smoke filled the sky ..........
With the woe he had brought, unrepulsed and bitter, he filled the earth like a storm.
15. The unrelieved headache which had overwhelmed the heavens
He took away and sent down on me the evening dew.
My eyelids, which he had veiled with the veil of night.
He blew upon with a rushing wind and made clear their sight.
My ears, which were stopped, were deaf as a deaf man’s—
20. He removed their deafness and restored their hearing.
My nose, whose nostril had been stopped from my mother’s womb—
He eased its deformity so that I could breathe.
My lips, which were closed—he had taken their strength—
He removed their trembling and loosed their bond.
25. My mouth, which was closed so that I could not be understood—
He cleansed it like a dish, he healed its disease.
My eyes, which had been attacked so that they rolled together—
He loosed their bond and their balls were set right.
The tongue, which had stiffened so that it could not be raised—
30. [He relieved] its thickness, so its words could be understood.
The gullet which was compressed, stopped as with a plug—
He healed its contraction, it worked like a flute.
My spittle which was stopped so that it was not secreted—
He removed its fetter, he opened its lock.
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2. Comparison with the Book of Job.

A commentary on this text, which has been preserved on a tablet, informs us that Tabu-utul-Bêl was an official of Nippur in Babylonia.[560] This story has some striking similarities to the book of Job. It presents also some striking dissimilarities.

Tabu-utul-Bêl, like Job, had been a just man. He had been also a religious man. (See lines 23, ff., [p. 392].) The virtues which he claims are similar to those of Job (see Job 29 and 31); there is, however, this difference: Job’s virtues are social; those of Tabu-utul-Bêl consist of acts of worship and loyalty. Tabu-utul-Bêl is smitten, like Job, with a sore disease. To him, as to Job, the providence is inexplicable. He, like Job, charges his god with inscrutable injustice. The chasm which often yawns between experience and moral deserts was as keenly felt by the Babylonian as by the Hebrew.