Esharra is a poetical designation of the earth and signifies, as Jensen has satisfactorily shown, "house of fullness"[737] or "house of fertility." The earth is regarded as a great structure, and placed as it is over the Apsu, its size is dependent upon the latter. Its measurement from one end to the other cannot exceed the width of the Apsu, nor can it be any narrower. The ends of the earth span the great Apsu. The following line specifies the shape given to Esharra:
The great structure Esharra, which he made as a heavenly vault.
The earth is not a sphere according to Babylonian ideas, but a hollow hemisphere having an appearance exactly like the vault of heaven, but placed in position beneath the heavenly canopy. As a hemisphere it suggests the picture of a mountain, rising at one end, mounting to a culminating point, and descending at the other end. Hence by the side of Esharra, another name by which the earth was known was Ekur, that is, 'the mountain house.'
Diodorus Seculus, in speaking of the Babylonian cosmology, employs a happy illustration. He says that according to Babylonian notions the world is a "boat turned upside down." The kind of boat meant is, as Lenormant recognized,[738] the deep-bottomed round skiff with curved edges that is still used for carrying loads across and along the Euphrates and Tigris, the same kind of boat that the compilers of Genesis had in view when describing Noah's Ark. The appearance in outline thus presented by the three divisions of the universe—the heavens, the earth, and the waters—would be that of two heavy rainbows, one beneath the other at some distance apart, resting upon a large body of water that flows around the horizons of both rainbows, and also fills the hollow of the second one.[739] The upper 'rainbow' is formed by one-half of the carcass of Tiâmat stretched across in semi-circular shape; the lower one is the great structure Esharra made by Marduk, while the Apsu underneath is the dwelling of Ea. The creation epic, it may be noted once more, takes much for granted. Its chief aim being to glorify Marduk, but little emphasis is laid upon details of interest to us. The parcelling out of these three divisions among Anu, Bel, and Ea is therefore merely alluded to in the closing line of the fourth tablet:
He established the districts[740] of Anu, Bel, and Ea.
The narrative assumes what we know from other sources, that the heavens constitute the domain of Anu, Esharra belongs to Bel, while Apsu belongs to Ea.
The mention of the triad takes us away from popular myth to the scholastic system as devised by the theologians. The establishment of the triad in full control marks the introduction of fixed order into the universe. All traces of Tiâmat have disappeared. Anu, Bel, and Ea symbolize the eternal laws of the universe.
There are, as we have seen, two factors involved in the rôle assigned to Marduk in the version of the creation epic under consideration,—one the original character of the god as a solar deity, the other the later position of the god as the head of the Babylonian pantheon. In the 'epic,' the fight of Marduk with Tiâmat belongs to Marduk as a solar deity. The myth is based, as was above suggested,[741] upon the annual phenomenon witnessed in Babylonia when the whole valley is flooded and storms sweep across the plains. The sun is obscured. A conflict is going on between the waters and storms, on the one hand, and the sun, on the other hand. The latter finally is victorious. Marduk subdues Tiâmat, fixes limitations to the 'upper and lower waters,' and triumphantly marches across the heavens from one end to the other, as general overseer.
This nature myth was admirably adapted to serve as the point of departure for the enlargement of the rôle of Marduk, rendered necessary by the advancement of the god to the head of the pantheon. Everything had to be ascribed to Marduk. Not merely humanity, but the gods also had to acknowledge, and acknowledge freely, the supremacy of Marduk.
The solar deity thus becomes a power at whose command the laws of the universe are established, the earth created and all that is on it. In thus making Marduk the single creator, the theologians were as much under the influence of Marduk's political supremacy, as they helped to confirm that supremacy by their system. With this object in view, the annual phenomenon was transformed into an account of what happened 'once upon a time.'