[Line 93]. zi-ma-at (for simat) ba-la-ṭi-im is not “conformity of life” as Langdon renders, but that which “belongs to life” like si-mat pag-ri-šá, “belonging to her body,” in the Assyrian version III, 2a, 3 (Jensen, page 146). “Food,” says the woman, “is the staff of life.”
[Line 94]. Langdon’s strange rendering “of the conditions and fate of the land” rests upon an erroneous reading (see the corrections, Appendix I), which is the more inexcusable because in line 97 the same ideogram, Kàš = šikaru, “wine,” occurs, and is correctly rendered by him. Šimti mâti is not the “fate of the land,” but the “fixed custom of the land.”
[Line 98]. aṣ-ṣa-mi-im (plural of aṣṣamu), which Langdon takes as an adverb in the sense of “times,” is a well-known word for a large “goblet,” which occurs in Incantation texts, e.g., CT XVI, 24, obv. 1, 19, mê a-ṣa-am-mi-e šú-puk, “pour out goblets of water.” Line 18 of the passage shoves that aṣammu is a Sumerian loan word.
[Line 99]. it-tap-šar, I, 2, from pašâru, “loosen.” In combination with kabtatum (from kabitatum, yielding two forms: kabtatum, by elision of i, and kabittu, by elision of a), “liver,” pašâru has the force of becoming cheerful. Cf. ka-bit-ta-ki lip-pa-šir (ZA V., p. 67, line 14).
[Line 100], note the customary combination of “liver” (kabtatum) and “heart” (libbu) for “disposition” and “mind,” just as in the standing phrase in penitential prayers: “May thy liver be appeased, thy heart be quieted.”
[Line 102]. The restoration [lùŠÚ]-I = gallabu “barber” (Delitzsch, Sumer. Glossar, p. 267) was suggested to me by Dr. H. F. Lutz. The ideographic writing “raising the hand” is interesting as recalling the gesture of shaving or cutting. Cf. a reference to a barber in Lutz, Early Babylonian Letters from Larsa, No. 109, 6.
[Line 103]. Langdon has correctly rendered šuḫuru as “hair,” and has seen that we have here a loan-word from the Sumerian Suḫur = kimmatu, “hair,” according to the Syllabary Sb 357 (cf. Delitzsch, Sumer. Glossar., p. 253). For kimmatu, “hair,” more specifically hair of the head and face, see Holma, Namen der Körperteile, page 3. The same sign Suḫur or Suḫ (Brünnow No. 8615), with Lal, i.e., “hanging hair,” designates the “beard” (ziḳnu, cf. Brünnow, No. 8620, and Holma, l. c., p. 36), and it is interesting to note that we have šuḫuru (introduced as a loan-word) for the barbershop, according to II R, 21, 27c (= CT XII, 41).
Ê suḫur(ra) (i.e., house of the hair) = šú-ḫu-ru.
In view of all this, we may regard as assured Holma’s conjecture to read šú-[ḫur-ma-šú] in the list 93074 obv. (MVAG 1904, p. 203; and Holma, Beiträge z. Assyr. Lexikon, p. 36), as the Akkadian equivalent to Suḫur-Maš-Ḫa and the name of a fish, so called because it appeared to have a double “beard” (cf. Holma, Namen der Körperteile). One is tempted, furthermore, to see in the difficult word שכירה (Isaiah 7, 20) a loan-word from our šuḫuru, and to take the words ַפָסֶת־הָרַֹפָסשׁ וְשַׂעַר הָרַגְלַיִם “the head and hair of the feet” (euphemistic for the hair around the privates), as an explanatory gloss to the rare word שכירה for “hair” of the body in general—just as in the passage in the Pennsylvania tablet. The verse in Isaiah would then read, “The Lord on that day will shave with the razor the hair (השכירה), and even the beard will be removed.” The rest of the verse would represent a series of explanatory glosses: (a) “Beyond the river” (i.e., Assyria), a gloss to יְגַלַּח (b) “with the king of Assyria,” a gloss to בְּתַעַר “with a razor;” and (c) “the hair of the head and hair of the feet,” a gloss to השכירה. For “hair of the feet” we have an interesting equivalent in Babylonian šu-ḫur (and šú-ḫu-ur) šêpi (CT XII, 41, 23–24 c-d). Cf. also Boissier, Documents Assyriens relatifs aux Présages, p. 258, 4–5. The Babylonian phrase is like the Hebrew one to be interpreted as a euphemism for the hair around the male or female organ. To be sure, the change from ה to כ in השכירה constitutes an objection, but not a serious one in the case of a loan-word, which would aim to give the pronunciation of the original word, rather than the correct etymological equivalent. The writing with aspirated כ fulfills this condition. (Cf. šamkatum and šamḫatum, above p. 73). The passage in Isaiah being a reference to Assyria, the prophet might be tempted to use a foreign word to make his point more emphatic. To take השכירה as “hired,” as has hitherto been done, and to translate “with a hired razor,” is not only to suppose a very wooden metaphor, but is grammatically difficult, since השכירח would be a feminine adjective attached to a masculine substantive.
Coming back to our passage in the Pennsylvania tablet, it is to be noted that Enkidu is described as covered “all over his body with hair” (Assyrian version, Tablet I, 2, 36) like an animal. To convert him into a civilized man, the hair is removed.