Make my disease come forth and remove my sin,
Let thy mouth, O lady, proclaim forgiveness.
The priestly vassal who worships thee without change,
Grant him mercy and cut off his affliction.
The historical references found in the penitential psalms are valuable indications, not only for determining the age of these compositions, but for ascertaining the occasions on which they were employed. Neither the Babylonian nor the Assyrian rulers ever reveal to us in their official annals or dispatches any check that they may have encountered in their careers or any misfortune that may have occurred to them or to the state. These psalms tell their own story. They point to seasons of distress, when recourse had to be taken to appeals to the gods, accompanied by the confession of wrongs committed. As against the incantations which are the outcome of the purely popular spirit, and which are the natural expression of popular beliefs, the penitential psalms seem to represent a more official method of appealing to the gods. The advance in religious thought which these productions signal may, therefore, be due, in part at least, to a growing importance attached to the relationship existing between the gods and the kingdom as a whole, as against the purely private pact between a god and his worshippers. The use of these psalms by Assyrian rulers, among whom the idea of the kingdom assumes a greater significance than among the Babylonians, points in this direction. It is significant, at all events, that such psalms were also produced in Assyria; and while they are entirely modeled upon the earlier Babylonian specimens, the contribution to the religious literature thus made in the north must be regarded, not as the outcome of the extension of the literary spirit prevailing in Babylonia, but as prompted by a special significance attached to the penitential ritual in removing the obstacles to the advancement of the affairs of state.
Despite, therefore, the elevated thought and diction found in these psalms, there is a close bond existing between them and the next branch of the religious literature to be taken up,—the oracles and omens, which similarly stand in close contact with affairs of state, and to which, likewise, additions, and indeed, considerable additions, to the stock received from Babylonia were made by the Assyrian literati.
FOOTNOTES:
[465] Babylonische Busspsalmen, pp. 1, 2.
[466] I.e., of the deity.
[467] See an article by Francis Brown, "The Religious Poetry of Babylonia," Presbyterian Review, 1888.