O father Bêl, who causest vegetation to sprout, who causest grain to grow!
a-a dimmer Mu-ul-lil (see on lines [2] and [3]).
mu-lu is a phonetic representation of mulu (Br. 6398). mulu is ES; EK would be gulu (Br. 6395). mu-lu frequently means the Assyrian relative pronoun ša (Br. 6406).
gu: GÛ is a composite sign whose original parts are NI and BE and which means “full of death”. According to the derivation, GÛ then may be read as “destruction” (MSL. p. 156). GÛ has also an Assyrian equivalent gû meaning “plant”, “vegetation” (Br. 11138 and HW. p. 582). The consideration of GÛ as meaning “vegetation” looks only on the perishable side of the object. The sign has few values. Here, it is clearly old Babylonian resembling the linear form.
má-má-me-en here equals aṣû, “go out”, used of plants and trees (Br. 4303). The more generally used word for aṣû is ê (UD.DU) (see on [line 15]).
má: the name of the sign is NISIGÛ (see note on še-ir, [line 1]). The sign is old Babylonian here. me-en (see on [line 16]).
še: the sign is old Babylonian here. Its most common Assyrian equivalent is šê’u, “grain” (see [line 1]). If we gave Û-UM the broader meaning of “production”, at the same time reading GÛ as “destruction”, we would have the fine antithetical parallelism: “O father Bêl, who bringest forth destruction and who bringest forth production.” Such a reading would give quite correctly the course of thought, for Bêl is god of the atmosphere, lord of the clouds, and commander of the rain-storms which are either sources of growth on earth or of ruin. On the other hand, the translation which I have adopted seems perhaps preferable.
[21.] dimmer Mu-ul-lil me-lam-zu gúr-ra ha-mu-ni-ib-( )-ne-ne
O Bêl, before the great glory may they be (in fear?)!
me-lam-zu: from the combination of ME and LAM we get the Assyrian melammu, “glory”. me: MIMÛ with the value išib means ellu, “bright” (see [line 16] for further comment). lam: one of the values of IZÛ, seems to equal išâtu, “flame”, but the usual value of IZÛ for išâtu is bil (see [line 6], de), me-lam literally means “bright flame”. zu, besides being an ideogram for idû, “know”, is the usual pronominal suffix of the second person singular (see on zu, [line 1]), as in this passage.