Commend me to Marduk, the merciful one, for favor,
I will be subservient to thy greatness, I will exalt thy divinity.
There follows a line from which one may further conclude that the psalm is one composed for the royal chief of Babylonia. It is evidently only a ruler who can assure the deity that
The inhabitants of my city,[486] may they glorify thy power.
We know from the historical texts that previous to a military engagement the kings were particularly desirous of some sign from the deity that might serve to encourage the soldiery. Such a sign was ordinarily a dream. The circumstances, therefore, seem to point to our psalm being a royal prayer for forgiveness of transgressions, uttered before some impending national crisis, in the hope of securing, with the divine pardon, the protection of the deity who, up to this point in the campaign, must have manifested his displeasure rather than his favor. More distinct references to national events are found in another royal penitential psalm:[487]
How long, O my mistress, will the mighty foe oppress thy land,
In thy great city Erech famine has settled,
In E-ulbar, the house of thy oracle, blood is poured out like water,
Throughout thy districts he has kindled conflagrations, and poured [fire] over them in columns (?).[488]
O my mistress, I am abundantly yoked to misfortune,