SOURCE: “The Biblical Book of Lamentations in the Context of Near Eastern Lament Literature” in Scripture in Context II: More Essays on the Comparative Method, edited by William W. Hallo et al., Eisenbrauns, 1983, pp. 191-211.

1. INTRODUCTION

The biblical book of Lamentations has enjoyed a surprising renewal of interest in recent years. In extensive studies over the past twenty years the text, philology, and theology of Lamentations have received the lion's share of attention.¹ Other questions remain unanswered, however. What are we to make of the five compositions comprising Lamentations in terms of poetic analysis? May we reconstruct these compositions in a metrical pattern as Biblica Hebraica did? Is Freedman's syllable-count method² to be preferred to the older system of counting stresses? May we even use the concept of meter in regard to Hebrew and Near Eastern poetry? What are the characteristics of Near Eastern poetry anyway? The question of poetry, metrics, and the use of acrostics is far from settled.

Another matter of serious note has been treated in the commentaries in a somewhat cavalier manner. What are the Near Eastern antecedents of the kind of literature we find in the biblical book of Lamentations? To date only one serious attempt (that of McDaniel³) has appeared in print to explore the claim of Kramer:

There is little doubt that it was the Sumerian poets who originated and developed the “lamentation” genre—there are Sumerian examples dating possibly from as early as the Third Dynasty of Ur … and as late as the Parthian period … and that the Biblical Book of Lamentations, as well as the “burden” laments of the prophets, represent a profoundly moving transformation of the more formal and conventional Mesopotamian prototypes.⁴

Ten years later Kramer wrote:

But there is little doubt that the biblical Book of Lamentations owes no little of its form and content to its Mesopotamian forerunners, and that the modern orthodox Jew who utters his mournful lament at the “western wall” of “Solomon's” long-destroyed Temple, is carrying on a tradition begun in Sumer some 4,000 years ago, where “By its (Ur's) walls as far as they extended in circumference, laments were uttered.”⁵

Because of advances in the realm of Sumerian and Akkadian literary analysis during the 1970s, a reappraisal of Thomas F. McDaniel's pioneer critique is imperative to investigate this question of possible Sumerian antecedents. This paper will argue that McDaniel's conclusions can no longer be maintained and that Kramer's views are more defensible now than when he made them in 1959 and 1969.

McDaniel begins by pitting Kramer,⁶ Gadd,⁷ and Kraus⁸ against Rudolph⁹ and Eissfeldt¹⁰ to demonstrate that scholarly opinion is divided on the question of Sumerian influence on the biblical Lamentations (pp. 199f.). He then proceeds to “present and evaluate the parallel motifs appearing in both the Hebrew and Sumerian works … ” (p. 200). These “parallel motifs” number fourteen and represent terms, concepts, and choices in wording. McDaniel then judges, “All of the motifs cited from Lamentations are either attested otherwise in biblical literature or have a prototype in the literary motifs current in Syria-Palestine.”¹¹ Furthermore McDaniel affirms that

certain dominant themes of the Sumerian lamentations find no parallel at all in this Hebrew lament. For example, one would expect to find the motif of the “evil storm” … somewhere in the biblical lamentation if there were any real literary dependency.¹²

Next McDaniel questions how a second millennium Mesopotamian genre could have influenced a first millennium Palestinian work. He argues that evidence is lacking to demonstrate the survival of an eastern cuneiform tradition in Iron-age Syro-Palestine. The only possible means he sees to bridge this spatial and temporal chasm is the intervening Canaanite, Hurrian, and Hittite literature whose remains have failed to provide us with exemplars of the lament genre. He also disagrees with Gadd's contention that exiled Judeans adopted this genre in Babylon. He reasons that exiled Israelites would not have been in any mood to adopt a literary form of their captors, especially since they had “their own rich local literary traditions” (p. 209). “At most the indebtedness would be the idea of a lamentation over a beloved city.”¹³ Of his arguments, the most crippling to Kramer's, Gadd's, and Kraus's position is the spatial and temporal gap separating Lamentations from the Sumerian city-laments. This paper will summarize the history of the Mesopotamian lament genre, give a brief analysis of the later evolved lament form, and show that there no longer exists a significant spatial and temporal gap between the Mesopotamian congregational lament form and the biblical book.

II. MESOPOTAMIAN LAMENTS

EARLY MESOPOTAMIAN LAMENTATIONS

Following the pioneering publications of Kramer¹⁴ and Jacobsen¹⁵ in the 1940s and 1950s a younger group of scholars (W. W. Hallo,¹⁶ Mark E. Cohen,¹⁷ Raphael Kutscher,¹⁸ Joachim Krecher,¹⁹ and Margaret Green²⁰) has delineated and analyzed the Sumero-Akkadian genre of laments in dissertations, articles, and monographs. Although it is still premature to attempt a definitive treatment of the genre, the broad outline of the development of laments in Mesopotamian culture can be shown to span nearly two millennia.

Kramer remarked as early as 1969 that the “incipient germ [of the lament genre] may be traced as far back as the days of Urukagina, in the 24th century B.C.”²¹ He cited a list of temples and shrines of Lagash which had been burned, looted, or otherwise defiled by Lugalzagessi as being the first step in the creation of the lament genre. No laments are extant for the Akkadian, Gutian, or Ur III eras. Laments were invented as a literary response to the calamity suffered throughout Sumer about 2000 B.C.E. immediately after the sack of Ur in the days of Ibbi-Sin, the last of the Third Dynasty rulers of Ur.

At present five Old Babylonian Sumerian city-laments form the earliest stage of the lament genre. They are the “Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur”²² which has received the greatest amount of attention, the “Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur,²³” the “Nippur Lament” to be published by Å. Sjöberg,²⁴ the “Uruk Lament,” edition in preparation by M. Civil and M. W. Green,²⁵ and the “Eridu Lament,” critical edition by M. W. Green.²⁶ The so-called “Second Lamentation for Ur,” the “Ibbi-Sin Lamentation,” and the “Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Akkad” have all turned out to be parts of the “Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur.”²⁷ Nor are we including here the so-called “Curse of Agade” even though it employs lament or complaint language.²⁸ The usually accepted terminus ante quem for the five major city-laments is 1925 b.c.e.²⁹

The city-laments describe one event,³⁰ were written largely in the Emesal dialect of Sumerian³¹ by gala-priests, and were composed to be recited in ceremonies for razing Ur and Nippur sanctuaries in preparation for proper restoration.³² They were not reused in later rituals and did not become a part of the priests' ritual stock of available religious poetry for liturgical use. In the Old Babylonian scribal schools they became a part of the scribal curriculum but ceased to be copied during the First Millennium. Kutscher, remarking about the literary merit of these city-laments, writes, “From a literary point of view these laments display a masterful use of the classical Sumerian language, freshness of style and a sincere creative effort.’³³

THE OLD BABYLONIAN ERšEMMA

The second stage in the history of the Mesopotamian lament genre occurred in the Old Babylonian era with the nearly simultaneous creation of the eršemma-composition and the balag-lament. Cohen suspects that the eršemma, a liturgical composition of the gala-priests in Emesal dialect, may have preceded the balag slightly on the grounds that the eršemma had a more compact form while the balag appears to have had a more composite nature.³⁴ Unfortunately, clear textual evidence is lacking for us to fix priority within the Old Babylonian period.

Although the term eršemma means “wail of the šèm-([Akkadian] ‘hal ‘allatu-) drum,” not all eršemmas are completely mournful since at points the subject matter served to praise a god.³⁵ However, a large percentage of eršemma-subject matter centered on catastrophes or the dying-rising myth of Inanna, Dumuzi, or Geshtinanna.³⁶ Kramer as recently as 1975 published two Old Babylonian eršemma-incipit catalogs from the British Museum from which he isolated no less than 109 eršemmas.³⁷ Of these, about 100 are unknown to us at this time. Cohen has demonstrated that in general the Old Babylonian eršemmas are characterized as being a single, compact unit addressed to a single deity.³⁸ Cohen has also contended that the gala-priests, when called upon repeatedly to provide more liturgical compositions to be chanted on the occasion of rebuilding cities and temples, borrowed eršemma material to create new eršemmas and appropriated hymnic Emegir material for insertion into new eršemmas.³⁹ Also Old Babylonian eršemmas and balags occasionally shared lines of text.⁴⁰ Cohen was not able to determine the direction of this borrowing.⁴¹ The exact Old Babylonian cultic use of the eršemma remains a mystery, although we may speculate that they were intoned in a liturgical context similar to that of the balag-laments.⁴²

THE OLD BABYLONIAN BALAG

The balag was created as a lamentation form about 1900 b.c.e. as a literary outgrowth of the older city-lament. In support of this thesis Cohen has established a “high probability of direct relationship between the city-laments and the balag-lamentations”⁴³ by examining four factors: 1) the structure and form of city-laments and Old Babylonian balags,⁴⁴ 2) their content,⁴⁵ 3) their ritual use,⁴⁶ and 4) whether there was sufficient opportunity for development to occur.⁴⁷ Even though we may conclude there was a close association between the balag-lament and its older city-lament predecessor, we must note several differences between the two. City-laments were composed for one specific “performance” to be retired afterwards to the scribal academy as a classical work;⁴⁸balags were adopted for further liturgical use and were copied over and over down into the Seleucid era. City-lament subject matter concentrated on one specific disaster in detailed description; balags were more general in their description of disaster and could be borrowed from city to city. City-laments were used in a narrow setting of temple demolition and reconstruction; balags were recited in broader contexts apparently as “congregational laments.”

Although most compositions of this genre were not called by the title “balag” in the Old Babylonian era, five examples in which such was the case have been recovered.⁴⁹ One of these five, a balag to Dumuzi (CT 42, 15), was composed in the Larsa period about 1870 b.c.e.⁵⁰ Kutscher has explained this low number of labeled examples as arising from the fact that the term “balag” in Babylonian times designated function, not generic title. The composition was to be intoned to the accompaniment of the balag-instrument,⁵¹ in all likelihood a drum.⁵² Cohen observed that the unusual length of the balags caused them to be written on large tablets or in series of smaller tablets so that the final lines with their colophons were lost in many cases with the result that the designation “balag” is missing.⁵³ The form of the general all-purpose lament had already emerged in the Old Babylonian era even though the label “balag” was not always attached to the extant Old Babylonian recensions.

Kutscher's publication of YBC 4659⁵⁴ which preserves stanzas IV-XIII of the balag, a-ab-ba u-lu-a (Oh Angry Sea), makes clear that even in its Old Babylonian form this particular balag may be roughly divided in half.⁵⁵ The first half was devoted to lamentation presumably to be chanted during ceremonies at the demolition of an old temple. The second half (a hymn and prayer to Enlil) was probably “recited during the ceremonies marking the laying of the foundation to the new temple.”⁵⁶ Cohen points to the concluding line in some Old Babylonian balags, “This supplication … return the ‘x-temple’ to place,” as indicating the use of the balag in temple-restoration ceremonies.⁵⁷ The Old Babylonian balags also appear to have been included in liturgies for various festivals and for certain days of the month.⁵⁸

THE FIRST MILLENNIUM BALAG AND ERšEMMA

The Middle Babylonian period marked an advance in the lament genre although documentary evidence for it is meager. In fact, none of the main Emesal hymnic types of the first millennium—the balag, the eršemma, the šuilla, and the eršahunga—are attested in Middle Babylonian times.⁵⁹ Several eršemmas were possibly composed during Kassite times, however. Cohen somewhat tentatively suggests that the joining of balag-laments with eršemma-compositions to form a new composite genre occurred at some point during the Kassite era (ca. 1600-1160 b.c.e.).

During the Middle Babylonian period the two genres [balag and eršemma] had apparently been so closely identified with each other, presumably on the basis of ritual function, that each balag was assigned one eršemma as its new conclusion. The eršemma was then reworked, adopting a second concluding unit which contained the plea to the heart of the god and the concommitant [sic] list of deities, although this list was drastically reduced in size from the final kirugu of the Old Babylonian lamentation.⁶⁰

Interestingly, Kutscher was able to amass exemplars of the Old Babylonian balag titled a-ab-ba hu-luh-ha (Oh Angry Sea) for the Old Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Seleucid periods but could not locate even a one-line scrap of Kassite origin.⁶¹ Even the Middle Assyrian era provided two scraps consisting of eight lines of text.⁶² A Middle Babylonian catalog may, however, list Kutscher's balag under the title a-ab-ba hu-luh-ha ^den-líl-lá.⁶³

Precisely how the text of earlier balags and eršemmas passed into the first millennium from their Old Babylonian point of origin is not totally clear. We may postulate, however, that these compositions had become essential ingredients in liturgies and were, therefore, preserved by the clergy. At any rate, from the Neo-Assyrian period through the Seleucid, balag-eršemma laments are exceptionally well documented from three major sources: 1) incipit catalogs, 2) ritual calendar tablets, and 3) copies of the laments themselves together with their colophons indicating inter alia the nature of the genre.

During the first millennium older lament material from both balags and eršemmas became somewhat interchangeable. Cohen was able to produce two eršemmas of this era which had been created from earlier balag material with some modification.⁶⁴ The more general term ér = “lament,” came to be used for the wide range of lamentations in keeping with the broadening of both the form and its function.

The ritual use of the balag-eršemma in the first millennium was even broader than in the Old Babylonian era. Numerous texts detailing the cultic performance of gala-(Akkadian kalû-) priests reveal how the balag-eršemma laments were integrated into complex rituals for a variety of situations.⁶⁵ Furthermore, the balag-eršemmas provided the ritual wording for ceremonies conducted on certain days of the month as noted in numerous calendar texts.⁶⁶ Often on such occasions a lament was recited while offerings and libations were being presented to a deity. The balag-eršemma continued to be sung on the occasion of razing an old building.⁶⁷ Caplice has given us a case of a lament's being chanted as a part of a namburbi-ritual for warding off a portended evil.⁶⁸ Cohen has also presented other examples when an evil portent prompted a namburbi-ritual which included a god-appeasing lament.⁶⁹ Thus the lament served the purpose of tranquilizing the potentially destructive god so that catastrophe could be prevented. The ritual for covering the sacred kettledrum involved the singing of a balag with its eršemma accompanied by the newly covered kettledrum later on in the rite.⁷⁰ Libations and offerings were not presented on this occasion. Cohen interpreted the occasion as a formal testing of the drum.

III. ANALYSIS OF LAMENTATION FORM

CITY-LAMENTS

On its most superficial level of organization the city-laments were divided into “songs” called kirugu, usually equated with Akkadian šēru = Hebrew šîr.⁷¹ The number and length of these stanzas were seemingly at the composers' discretion. Each stanza, except the last, was followed by a one or two line unit called gišgigal, usually interpreted as “antiphon.”⁷² The gišgigal summarized the content of its kirugu or repeated a key line or two from the kirugu. Beyond these divisions the city-laments seem not to have had further formal external structure.⁷³

Margaret Green in an unpublished Chicago dissertation⁷⁴ has discussed the poetic devices used in the city-laments.⁷⁵ Significant among these devices are: 1) the use of couplets, triplets, and even longer units of lines in which only one element is changed from line to line, 2) parallelism, 3) repeating units of a part of a line or a whole line or several lines, 4) complex interweaving of two or more refrains, and 5) use of lists. All these devices appear in Sumerian poetry of various genres and are not restricted to laments. Beyond these structural techniques two other characteristics appear to a greater or lesser extent in all five citylaments. For one thing, the composition alternates between first, second, and third persons. Such change in speaker possibly reflects the dramatic function of the city-laments. Furthermore, the dialect alternates between Emesal and standard Emegir Sumerian. This alternation has provoked a minor debate over whether the city-laments were “Emesal compositions” or “Emegir compositions.”⁷⁶ Without entering the technicalities of this question, we may observe that whenever a goddess speaks the Emesal dialect is used. In spite of Green's argument, however,⁷⁷ we are not yet entitled to judge that every occurrence of Emesal implies a female speaker. Gala-priests intoned a wide range of liturgies in the Emesal dialect even when a female speaker is not implied.⁷⁸

Although the five preserved city-laments are quite individualized in theme and theme development as well as in style and structure, they have certain underlying themes in common.⁷⁹ The most prominent theme is destruction of the total city: walls, gates, temples, citizens, royalty, nobility, army, clergy, commoners, food, crops, herds, flocks, villages, canals, roads, customs, and rites. Life has ceased. A second common theme lies in the concept that the end has come upon Sumer by virtue of a conscious decision of the gods in assembly. The invading hordes, whether Subarians, Elamites, Amorites, or Gutians, “storm” the land by the “word” of the gods. A third theme centers around the necessary abandonment of the city by the suzerain-god, his consort, and their entourage. The lament may scold the god for his callous abandonment. The goddess in longer or shorter monologues pleads with either her divine spouse or Enlil or the council of gods to show mercy and relent. In the fourth place, the city-laments either specifically mention, or at least presume, restoration of the city or sanctuary. As a fifth common element, the chief god eventually returns to his city with his entire company. The five laments do not all handle this theme in identical fashion, but in every case the gods' return is indispensable to the plot. The final common thematic element is a concluding prayer to the concerned god involving either praise, plea, imprecation against the enemy, self-abasement, or a combination of these elements.

The exact cultic circumstances for the recitation of the city-laments is not totally agreed upon. Jacobsen proposed that their “Sitz im Kultus” was the demolition of the ruins of a temple and its rebuilding.⁸⁰ Hallo⁸¹ and Cohen⁸² have followed this line of thinking. Green, however, offers the alternative that the lament was performed by the king in his priestly function at the installation ceremony when the god's statue returned to its refurbished shrine.⁸³ The god's leaving may not always have been caused by foreign devastation but may have been forced by needed renovations of the temple in peacetime.⁸⁴ That the five major city-laments arose from something more serious than a renovation in peacetime appears evident from the extreme violence they depict. Perhaps Green's suggestion has merit in explaining the function of Old Babylonian balags and eršemmas. As for the king's reciting the lament before the cult image, we may question the king's acumen and literacy to read and recite both Emesal and Emegir dialects in complex poetry.

FIRST MILLENNIUM BALAG-ERšEMMAS

The first millennium composite lament form, the balag-eršemma, has been clarified by Kutscher in his study of the history of the long-lived balag called a-ab-ba hu-luh-ha (Oh Angry Sea). He shows that this balag originated in Old Babylonian times but was expanded for public ritual use during Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Seleucid times in at least nine recensions.⁸⁵

In terms of poetic devices this balag in Emesal makes use of the usual techniques: repetition, refrain, parallelism, listing, division into stanzas (unlabeled in some recensions), use of divine epithets, and apparent antiphonal performance. The gišgigal-unit (antiphon) is absent.

The later form of this lament may be outlined as follows:⁸⁶

A. “Prayerful Lament,” lines 1-152 (stanzas II-X)

1. Enlil's epithets, lines 1-12 (stanza II)

2. Nippur's and Babylon's ruin, lines 13-27 (stanza II)

3. “How long?” plea to Enlil, lines 28-40 (stanza III)

4. Wailing and mourning, lines 41-48 (stanza IV)

5. Enlil's power, lines 49-72 (stanza V)

6. Enlil's dignity, lines 73-98 (stanzas VI-VII)

7. “How long?” plea with “return to the land!”, lines 99-118 (stanza VIII)

8. Enlil's dignity, lines 119-25 (stanza IX)

9. Plea to Enlil to “restore (your) heart,” lines 126-52 (stanza X)

B. Hymn to Enlil, lines 153–236 (stnzas XI-XVII)

1. Enlil sleeps, lines 153-59 (stanza XI)

2. List of devastated areas of the city, lines 160-71 (stanza XI)

3. Let Enlil arise!, lines 172-84 (stanza XII)

4. Enlil sees the devastation, lines 185-91 (stanza XIII)

5. Enlil caused the destruction, lines 192-212 (stanzas XIV-XV)

6. The exalted Enlil, lines 213-24 (stanza XVI)

7. Lines 225-36 (stanza XVII) broken

C. Eršemma, lines 237–96

1. Plea for Enlil to “turn around and look at your city!”, lines 237-53

2. Plea for Enlil to “turn around and look at your city!” from various locations, lines 254-72

3. The flooded cities in couplets, lines 273-80

4. The gluttonous man starves, lines 281-82

5. The fractured family, lines 283-87

6. The population rages, lines 288-91

7. Death in the city streets, lines 292-96

We may observe that section A (stanzas II-X) calls attention to Enlil's destructive power as evidenced by the devastation. Section B (stanzas XI-XVII) concentrates on awakening Enlil in hopes of encouraging his return so that the city may regain its lost glory. The eršemma seeks to inspire some spark of pity within Enlil.

Cohen demonstrates that the balag exhibited a certain development within its history.⁸⁷ In its Old Babylonian form the balag like the city-lament had a rather formal external structure of kirugu-divisions in which each stanza was followed by “first, second, etc. kirugu.”⁸⁸ In some cases there followed a one-line gišgigal (antiphon) as in the city-lament. Many scribes set the kirugu and gišgigal off by horizontal lines across the text both above and below these labels. As time passed, the labels tended to drop out leaving only the horizontal lines to mark stanzas. Another Old Babylonian convention of balag construction was the “heart pacification-unit” in the concluding stanza of older Enlil-balags.⁸⁹Balags to other divinities omit this plea that the wrathful god's heart and liver might be pacified. Following this unit comes the formula expressing the wish that x-temple should return to its place, then the rubric kišubim which means something like “coda.”

Modification in balag structural organization became necessary, however, following the later joining of balag and eršemma. Each first millennium balag-lament had an eršemma attached to its end. In its new function as last stanza the eršemma had to be redesigned.⁹⁰ For one thing, even though their first millenium counterparts always were one-unit compositions, the first millennium eršemmas often consist of two or three units each.⁹¹ In these cases the last unit either begins with or contains a “heart pacification-unit” which seems to have originated in Old Babylonian Enlil balags. The “heart pacification” is followed by a list of gods who were to add their pleas to those of the priests and worshipers. In this composite form the balag-eršemma continued to serve as liturgical material during hundreds of years through the Seleucid era.

When comparing these later laments with their ancient ancestors, the city-laments, the modern literary critic may think of them as grossly inferior. Kutscher,⁹² for example, uses such descriptions as “repetitive,” “unimaginative,” “composed to a large extent of clichés, and devoid of poetic rhythm,” “stereotyped,” and we may add boring. Their longevity and broad range of use suggest to us, however, that the ancients found great merit in them.

IV. THE FIRST MILLENNIUM MESOPOTAMIAN LAMENT AND BIBLICAL LAMENTATIONS

In order to draw meaningful comparisons between the book of Lamentations and Mesopotamian laments we will create a typology in summary form for the first millennium Mesopotamian lament genre under four major headings: Ritual Occasions, Form/Structure, Poetic Techniques, and Theology. Then we will compare the book of Lamentations with this typology to formulate a hypothesis regarding the relationship of the two.

In the present state of cuneiform scholarship⁹³ we find four categories of religious circumstances when lamentations were employed in the cults of Mesopotamia. They are: 1) before, during, or after daily sacrifices and libations to a wide range of deities, 2) special services, feasts, or rituals like the Akitu festival or the ritual for covering the sacral kettledrum, 3) namburbi incantation rites to forestall impending doom, and 4) especially those circumstances of pulling down sacred buildings to prepare the site for rebuilding.

The structure of first millennium laments was flexible but usually followed a broad pattern as follows:

1) praise to the god of destruction, usually Enlil

2) description of the destruction

3) lamenting the destruction (“How long?”)

4) plea to the destructive god to be pacified

5) plea to the god to gaze upon the destruction

6) plea to other deities (often a goddess) to intercede

7) further description of the ruin.

Those poetic techniques employed by lament composers may be outlined under the following captions:

1) interchange of speaker (third, second, first person) involving description (third person), direct address (second person), monologue (first person), dialogue (first, second, and third persons)

2) use of woe-cries and various interjections

3) use of Emesal dialect apparently to simulate high-pitched cries of distress and pleading

4) heavy use of couplets, repeating lines with one word changed from line to line, and other devices of parallelism

5) antiphonal responses

6) tendency to list or catalog (gods, cities, temples, epithets, victims, etc.)

7) use of theme word or phrase which serves as a cord to tie lines together, or whole stanzas.

We may outline the underlying ideas under three major captions: divinity, humanity, and causality.

A. Divinity

1) The god of wrathful destruction, usually Enlil, abandons the city, a signal for devastation, often called a “storm,” to begin.

2) This chief god may bring the havoc himself or may order another deity to attack the city or sanctuary.

3) In any case, Enlil's will is irresistible; he has the backing of the council of gods.

4) Enlil is described and addressed in anthropomorphic terms:

a) a warrior

b) the shepherd of the people

c) his word destroys

d) his “heart” and “liver” must be soothed

e) he must be roused from sleep

f) he must inspect the ruins to see what has occurred

g) he must be cajoled to change his mind.

5) Yet there is an unknowable quality to Enlil; he is unreachable.

6) Lesser deities must intercede with the chief god to bring an end to the ruin.

B. Humanity

Surprisingly, humans are of little significance in the laments. The gods occupy the limelight. The following ideas about the place of human beings do emerge, however:

1) Human tragedy is described in terms of

a) death

b) exile

c) madness

d) disruption of families

e) demolishing the buildings associated with the general population.

2) Mesopotamian society placed great emphasis on job definition; it is a tragedy when people cannot fulfill their jobs.

3) The citizens were seen as Enlil's flock but were “trampled” by Enlil.

4) The only response the population can make to the disaster is to mourn and offer sacrifices and libations. There seems to be a pervading sense of helplessness before the gods' power.

5) A gap separates the citizens and the gods. People must keep their distance. A sign of the tragedy is that the temple is demolished and people can see into the holy sanctuary.

C. Causality

In Mesopotamian experience ultimate causation lies in the largely unseen world of the gods. Storms of barbarians may crash upon the city, but they were called upon the scene by a decision of Enlil in consultation with the council of the gods. The emphasis of the laments is upon the power of the divine, not upon the rightness of the decision. There appears no resort to the justness of the gods. The humans have committed no particular crime or sin which moves the gods to their decision. The devastation is not judgment on evil humans. In fact the Eridu lament says, “The storm, which possesses neither kindness nor malice, does not distinguish between good and evil.”⁹⁴ There does appear to be a primitive magical use made of the laments, however. To recount the havoc and recite the appeasement of the god is the same as experiencing the disaster physically. The lament becomes a means of avoidance of ruin, in other words, a means of controlling the causality which resides with the gods.

When we look at the biblical Lamentations in the light of this typology, we are impressed with both similarities and differences. In order to move from the clearest to the least clear category, we begin with some observations relative to the theology of Lamentations. Those points of similarity and difference are:

1) God's majesty and irresistible power, 5:19 (but Lamentations goes beyond Mesopotamian laments by insisting on God's righteousness in 1:18, 3:22, 26, 32)

2) God was the cause of the city's fall, 1:5, 12-15, 17; 2:1-8, 17; 3:1-16 (God brings misery on the “man”), 32-38, 43-45; 4:11, 16; 5:22

3) God abandoned his city, 2:1 (refused to remember), 6 (spurned), 7 (spurned and rejected), 8 (thought to destroy); 5:20-22

4) God as a mighty warrior, 2:2-8, 20-22; 3:4-13, 16, 34; 4:11

5) God's wrath, 2:1-4, 6, 21, 22; 3:1, 43, 65-66; 4:11

6) God caused the destruction by his word, 2:17; 3:37, 38

7) God called upon to look at the havoc, 1:9, 11; 2:20; 3:61 (God is to hear the enemy's plots), 63; 4:16 (God refuses to look); 5:1 (God is to remember)

8) a goddess wanders about the destroyed city and bemoans its sad plight (Of course, Israelite theology could not tolerate such an idea, but the city Jerusalem fulfills this role especially in 1:12-17)

9) God to be aroused from sleep is totally lacking in biblical Lamentations

10) God's heart to be soothed and his liver pacified is likewise missing

11) God called upon to return to his abandoned city is missing

12) The theme of lesser gods called upon to intercede with the destroyer god is obviously lacking.

More space is devoted to humans and their plight in biblical Lamentations than in Mesopotamian laments. In both, the personified city occupies much of the description. Social grouping appears in rather general terms: king, princes, and elders; priests, prophets, and Nazirites; army men, pilgrims, and citizens; old men, mothers, young men, virgins, children, and infants; orphans and widows. Skilled craftsmen are not enumerated. The description of the horrors of war suffered by the population is in some ways a bit more gruesome in the biblical Lamentations. For example, young and old dying in the streets of thirst and hunger, the lethargic march of the priests, mothers eating their children, cruel enslavement of one-time nobles, the shame of ridicule and exposure—all are expressed in poignant detail.

As in the Mesopotamian laments the biblical Lamentations clearly placed ultimate causation with God, but God is justified in the decision since the citizenry of Jerusalem was guilty of numerous crimes (1:5, 8, 18, 20; 4:6). The prophets (2:14; 4:13), priests (4:13), and fathers (5:7) must bear a large portion of the guilt for their failure to correct the evils which prompted God to take his angry action. God's extreme action in warring against Jerusalem has produced repentance on the part of the survivors, however. Now the mercy and love of God are being sought to change the fortunes of the people and, especially, the city.

In comparing poetic techniques, we find the interchange of speaker involving first, second, and third persons with accompanying change in perspective reminiscent of dramatic or liturgical performance. Likewise woe-cries and interjections occur to intensify dramatic effect. Parallelism of various orders runs throughout the five Lamentations poems. Only the Mesopotamian predilection for cataloging is lacking in biblical Lamentations.

In addition, other strategies utilized by Mesopotamian laments appear in biblical Lamentations either directly or with modification. Among these devices are: the poet addresses God (1:10 and the whole of chapter 5), but God never answers; the poet addresses or questions Jerusalem who seems to function in Lamentations much as the goddess functions in Mesopotamian laments (2:13-16, 18-19; 4:21, 22); invective against the enemy (1:21, 22; 3:55-66; 4:21, 22), the city which weeps or speaks (1:1-3, 8, 9, 11-15, 16, 18-20, 22; 2:11, 20-22; 3:48-51, 55-66; 5:17), the city ridiculed or embarrassed (1:7, 8, 17, 19, 21; 2:15-17; 3:14 (the “man”), 30 (the “man”), 45 (the citizens), 46, 63; 4:12, 15), detailed description of the carnage (1:4, 5, 18-20; 2:2, 5-12, 20-22; 3:4-16 [the “man” is a prisoner]; 4:1-10, 14-15, 17-19; 5:1-18). The stock-in-trade woe-cry “How long?” does not occur in biblical Lamentations. Neither is restoration stated though we may infer that the total work envisions Jerusalem's rebuilding as do several statements which recall God's mercy (3:22-27, 31-33; 4:21, 22; 5:20-22).⁹⁵

When we come to a comparison of structure and organization, we find a decided lack of similarity. God is not honored by reciting a long list of epithets. The simple order of movement perceivable in Mesopotamian laments does not occur (abandonment, invasion by the “storm,” plea to the god to awake, rouse himself, and gaze upon the ruins, lesser gods involved to add weight to the pleas, further recalling the ruination). Each of the five poems does show “poetic development” especially discernable in change of speaker, but not a plot type of movement.

We come finally to the question of cultic context. On this question we are without documentation to inform us. Of the four cultic occasions when first millennium Mesopotamian laments were recited, the most likely candidate for the biblical is that of temple restoration.

Jer 41:5 informs us that some 80 mourners of Shechem, Shiloh, and Samaria brought offerings and incense to the “House of Yahweh” during the Gedaliah days following the temple's destruction at the hands of the Babylonians. The signs of their mourning were shaved off beards, ripped clothing, and gashed skin. Zech 7:3-5 refers to mournful fasts at Jerusalem in the fifth and seventh months which have been observed “these 70 years.” Apparently a commemoration of the sack of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple occurred in the fifth month and a memorial to the slain Gedaliah in the seventh month. Zech 8:19 adds to the fifth and seventh month fasts by citing fasts in the fourth month (the breaching of the walls) and in the tenth month (the onset of Nebuchadnezzar's final siege). We may assume from the statement in Jer 41:5 that some form of religious practice continued on the site of the largely demolished Temple. The other fasts likewise focused on the ruined city, walls, and Temple. Finally the time came for rebuilding the Temple immediately following the Persian conquest of Babylon and Cyrus's edict of toleration in 539. Exiles, including priests from Babylonia familiar with long practiced Mesopotamian liturgies for rebuilding demolished shrines, joined with their brothers who had been left behind “these 70 years” to live within sight of the ruins and to fast and mourn among the Temple's ruins. Together they bewailed the fallen sanctuary as clearing the site began in preparation for reconstruction. Such an occasion would provide a fit setting for the recitation of Lamentations and could have provided the impetus for writing or editing these five lament-poems for the performance.

V. CONCLUSION

McDaniel rejected direct Sumerian influence on the biblical Lamentations on the grounds that there was too great a gap between them in terms of both time and space.⁹⁶ Furthermore he argued that there were no distinctively Mesopotamian elements in the biblical book.⁹⁷ On the basis of the discoveries of the 1970s we can now fill the gap in time between the city-laments and biblical Lamentations with the lineal liturgical descendants of the city-laments, the balag-eršemmas. Gadd's suggestion⁹⁸ that the Babylonian Exile provided the opportunity for the Jewish clergy to encounter the laments has proved correct. We may add that the exiles of the Northern Kingdom also had similar opportunities in the cities of Assyria to observe or participate in these rituals. Thus the spatial gap has been closed also. Beyond these considerations, we have demonstrated strong analogies between the Mesopotamian lament typology and that of the biblical book of Lamentations though there were dissimilarities also. Because of the polytheistic theology underlying the Mesopotamian laments and their ritual observance, they could not be taken over without thorough modification in theology and language. Still the biblical book of Lamentations was more closely associated with the Near Eastern lament genre than simply borrowing the “idea” of a lament over the destruction of a city as McDaniel conceded.

[Addendum:

Mark E. Cohen's significant study, Sumerian Hymnology: The Eršemma (HUCA Supplement 2 [Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1981]), appeared while this study was in press, and consequently, could not be incorporated into the body of this essay. Although most of Cohen's later conclusions were anticipated in the earlier form of his dissertation, one major refinement requires a modification in the discussion of the first millennium eršemma offered above.

On pages 27, 41, and 42 Cohen calls attention to eršemmas labeled kidudû which appear in incipit lists unrelated to any balag. These independent eršemmas were recited in various ceremonies such as those relating to the covering of the sacred building. Thus the eršemma enjoyed two forms of usage in the first millennium, that is, as a separate work and as the last section of the composite balag-eršemma, The recognition of this independent status of the eršemma does not alter the conclusions drawn concerning the composite balag-eršemma, however.]

Notes

1. Several studies must be highlighted as bringing scholarly criticism up to date on Lamentations. Delbert Hiller's volume, Lamentations, in the Anchor Bible series (Garden City: Doubleday, 1972) is a good starting point because of its clear statement of the critical problems relating to Lamentations, its selective bibliography, and its informative and balanced notes. Hillers made good use of several noteworthy studies from the 1960s which applied the best of available scholarship to questions of text, philology, higher criticism, theology, and form analysis. Those leading commentaries were A. Weiser's Klagelieder (ATD 16; G¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1962) pp. 297-370, W. Rudolph's Das Buch Ruth—Das Hohe Lied—Die Klagelieder (KAT 17/1-3; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1962), and Hans-Joachim Kraus's Klagelieder (BKAT 20; 3d ed.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968). These three German commentaries provide exhaustive bibliographies as well. Norman Gottwald's chief contribution, Studies in the Book of Lamentations (SBT 1/14, 2d ed.; London: SCM, 1962), lies in his perceptive treatment of Lamentations' theology. Specific texts within Lamentations have been elucidated by numerous detailed studies. Bertil Albrektson (Studies in the Text and Theology of the Book of Lamentations [Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1963]) has communicated an extremely valuable tool, a critical Syriac text of Lamentations, and has made a detailed study of the MT in the light of LXX, Peshitta, and Latin versions. Gottlieb's shorter study (A Study on the Text of Lamentations [Århus: Det Laerde Selskab, 1978] = Acta Jutlandica 48, Theolgy Series 12) discusses textual matters either not treated by Albrektson or those where Gottlieb wishes to take issue with Albrektson or others. The essay of Lanahan, (“Speaking Voice in the Book of Lamentations, JBL 93 [1974] 41-49) draws attention to the literary and dramatic effect of the change of speaker in Lamentations.

2. D. N. Freedman, “Acrostics and Metrics in Hebrew Poetry,” HTR 65 (1972) 367-92.

3. Thomas F. McDaniel, “The Alleged Sumerian Influence upon Lamentations,” VT 18 (1968) 198-209.

4. S. N. Kramer, “Sumerian Literature and the Bible,” AnBib 12 (Studia Biblica et Orientalia 3 [1959]) 201, n. 1.

5. S. N. Kramer, “Lamentation over the Destruction of Nippur: A Preliminary Report,” Eretz Israel 9 (1969) 90.

6. McDaniel draws from Kramer's published work as of 1968 including “The Oldest Literary Catalogue: A Sumerian List of Literary Compositions Compiled about 2000 B.C.,” BASOR 88 (1942) 10-19; “New Literary Catalogue from Ur,” RA 55 (1961) 169-76; Sumerian Literary Texts from Nippur in the Museum of the Ancient Orient at Istanbul (AASOR 23; New Haven: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1943-44) 32-35; Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur (Assyriological Studies 12; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1940); “Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur,” ANET² 455-63; “Sumerian Literature, A General Survey,” The Bible and the Ancient Near East (Albright Anniversary Volume; Garden City: Doubleday, 1961) 249-66.

7. McDaniel cites C. J. Gadd, “The Second Lamentation for Ur,” Hebrew and Semitic Studies Presented to Godfrey Rolles Driver (ed. D. W. Thomas and W. D. McHardy; Oxford: Oxford University, 1963) 59-71.

8. McDaniel cites Hans-Joachim Kraus, Klagelieder (Threni) (BKAT 20; 2d ed.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1960) 10.

9. McDaniel cites Wilhelm Rudolph, Das Buch Ruth—Das Hohe Lied—Die Klagelieder, p. 9.

10. McDaniel cites Otto Eissfeldt, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (3d ed.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1964) 683.

11. McDaniel, “Sumerian Influence,” 207.

12. Ibid.

13. McDaniel, “Sumerian Influence,” 209.

14. See above, n. 6. Add to the Kramer bibliography: “Literary Texts from Ur VI, Part II,” Iraq 25 (1963) 171-76; “Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur,” ANET³ 611-19; and “Two British Museum iršemma ‘Catalogues,’” StudOr 46 (1975) 141-66.

15. See T. Jacobsen in his review of Kramer, Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur in AJSL 58 (1941) 219-24; Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 107 (1963) 479-82.

16. See especially W. W. Hallo, “Individual Prayer in Sumerian: The Continuity of a Tradition,” JAOS 88 (Speiser Anniversary Volume, 1968) 71-89, where he traced the development of the individual lament from the older letter-prayer genre. Other articles of W. W. Hallo relating to Sumerian literary genre history include: “The Coronation of Ur-Nammu,” JCS 20 (1966) 133-41; “The Cultic Setting of Sumerian Poetry,” Actes de la XVII^e Rencontre assyriologique internationale (Ham-sur-Heure: Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1970) 116-34; “Another Sumerian Literary Catalogue?” StudOr 46 (1975) 77-80 with additions in StudOr 48:3; and “Toward a History of Sumerian Literature,” Sumerological Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jacobsen on His Seventieth Birthday (Assyriological Studies 20; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1975) 181-203.

17. Mark E. Cohen, Balag-compositions: Sumerian Lamentation Liturgies of the Second and First Millennium B.C. (Sources from the Ancient Near East, vol. 1, fasc. 2; Malibu: Undena, 1974) and The eršemma in the Second and First Millennia B.C. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, n.d.). [See Addendum.]

18. Raphael Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea (a-ab-ba hu-luh-ha): The History of a Sumerian Congregational Lament (Yale Near Eastern Researches 6; New Haven: Yale University, 1975).

19. Joachim Krecher, Sumerische Kultlyrik (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1966).

20. Margaret W. Green, Eridu in Sumerian Literature (Unpublished doctoral dissertation at the University of Chicago, 1975), chap. 9: “Sumerian Lamentations” and chap. 10: “The Eridu Lament.” See also M. W. Green, “The Eridu Lament,” JCS 30 (1978) 127-67.

21. Kramer, Eretz Israel 9 (1969) 89.

22. See Kramer's treatments cited in n. 4.

23. See Kramer, “Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur,” ANET³ 611-19.

24. Green, Eridu, 279. See also D. O. Edzard, Die “Zweite Zwischenzeit” Babyloniens (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrasowitz, 1957) 86-90.

25. Ibid.

26. Green, Eridu, chap. 10, 326-74 and Green, “Eridu Lament,” 127-67.

27. See Kramer, ANET³ 612 and n. 9 as well as C. J. Gadd and S. N. Kramer, Literary and Religious Texts, Ur Excavation Texts, 6, Part 2 (London: British Museum, 1966) 1 for the joins of tablets to show the unity of these fragments.

28. See Kramer's comments in “The Curse of Agade: The Ekur Avenged,” ANET³ 646f. See also M. W. Green's remarks in Green, Eridu, 279f. and Kutscher's in Oh Angry Sea, 1.

29. Cohen, balag, 9. M. W. Green (“Eridu Lament,” 129f.) raises the possibility of finding the origin of the Eridu lament in the reign of Nur-Adad of Larsa (1865-50 b.c.e.) but prefers an earlier date in the reign of Išme-Dagan of Isin (1953-35).

30. Cohen, balag, 11.

31. Kutscher (Oh Angry Sea, 3) claims that city-laments were written in the standard Emegir dialect, while Cohen (balag, 11 and 32) claims they were Emesal compositions.

32. See Cohen, balag, 11.

33. Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 3.

34. Cohen, eršemma, 24.

35. Cohen, eršemma, 9.

36. Ibid.

37. Kramer, “Two British Museum iršemma ‘Catalogues,’” StudOr 46 (1975) 141-66.

38. Cohen, eršemma, 9f., 12.

39. Cohen, eršemma, 22-24.

40. Cohen, eršemma, 24.

41. Ibid.

42. Cohen, eršemma, 27f.

43. Cohen, balag, 11.

44. Cohen, balag, 9f.

45. Cohen, balag, 10f.

46. Cohen, balag, 11.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid.

49. Cohen, balag, 6.

50. Cohen, balag, 12.

51. Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 3.

52. Cohen, balag, 31 (Excursus on the balag-instrument).

53. Cohen, balag, 6.

54. Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 25-27 (history of YBC 4659), 52-54 (transliteration of YBC 4659), 143-53 (translation of the composite text), plates 6 and 7 (copies of YBC 4659 [sic! Captions inadvertently interchanged with those of Plates 1 and 2. Ed.]).

55. See Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 6f., for this interpretation.

56. Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 7.

57. Cohen, balag, 11.

58. Cohen, balag, 13, 15.

59. See E. Sollberger's remarks in his review of J. Krecher, Kultlyrik, which was published in BO 25 (1968) 47a.

    This hiatus in documentation is probably caused by the fact that following the fall of Babylon about 1600 b.c.e. the scribal schools of Nippur and Babylon closed, and their scholars, taking their texts with them, fled southward to the Sealand. Under the Kassites, however, new scribal schools were established to perpetuate the classical literary tradition. In this corpus, which Hallo calls “Post-Sumerian” and “Bilingual,” cultic texts and especially laments dominated. In fact, this bilingual collection survived as the canon for the remainder of the history of classical Mesopotamian literature through the Seleucid era into the Arsacid period. See W. W. Hallo, “Problems in Sumerian Hermeneutics,” Perspectives in Jewish Learning 5 (1973) 6f. and “Toward a History of Sumerian Literature,” 189-91, 198, 201, on bilinguals in the history of the canons.

60. Cohen, balag, 9.

61. See Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 9f., for a chart of the texts he was able to combine to reconstruct this balag.

62. Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 11. Kutscher's Ca (=VAT 8243, 11. 32-37) and Db (=VAT 8243, 11. 142 and 143).

63. Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 17 (TMHnF 53:21).

64. Cohen, eršemma, 25f.

65. See, for example, Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 5; Cohen, balag, 13-15.

66. Cohen, balag, 13-15.

67. Cohen, balag, 13.

68. Caplice, “Namburbi Texts in the British Museum, IV,” Or 39 (1970) 118f.

69. Cohen, balag, 14f.

70. Ibid.

71. On kirugu see A. Falkenstein, “Sumerische religiöse Texte,” ZA 49 (1950) 104f. where he interpreted the term as meaning “to bow to the ground.” Šēru is probably related to Sumerian šîr, a generic title for poetry and/or song; see AHW 1219a. See also Green, Eridu, 283-85.

72. On gišgigal see A. Falkenstein, “Sumerische religiöse Texte,” 92, 93, 97f., 101. Falkenstein interpreted the term simply as “antiphon.” See also Green, Eridu, 285f. See AHW 641a, sub me/ihru, 3) where giš-gál = mi-hir za-ma-ri = antiphonal song and giš-gi₄-gál = me-eh-ru/rù.

73. See Cohen, balag, 8 and Green, Eridu, 283-86 on structural matters.

74. See n. 20 above.

75. See Green, Eridu, 286-89. For a fuller analysis of Sumerian poetic form, see C. Wilcke, “Formale Gesichtspunkte in der sumerischen Literatur,” Assyriological Studies 20 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1975) 205-316.

76. See n. 31 above.

77. Green, Eridu, 288f.

78. Kutscher (Oh Angry Sea, 5) takes the position that gala-priests “specialized in Emesal” and that when they composed or recited compositions in worship settings, they employed the Emesal dialect. Krecher (Kultlyrik, 27f.), however, maintains that other cult personnel, namely the nārū-singer, also sang the Emesal compositions. Krecher, however, admits that the Emesal songs were almost exclusively sung by the kalû-(=gala)priests. Cohen (balag, 11) attributes the composition of the city-laments, as well as balags and eršemmas, to the kalû-priests. See also Cohen, balag, 13, 15, and 32 as well as Cohen, eršemma, 9, 11, 17, and 24. Hallo (“Individual Prayer in Sumerian: The Continuity of a Tradition,” JAOS 88 [1968] 81b) shows that “the later penitent commissioned the gala-singer to recite his prayer orally.” Such erša hunga-prayers were also composed in Emesal (see Krecher, Kultlyrik, 25 and Hallo, “Individual Prayer,” 80-82) and were recited, at least on occasions, to the accompaniment of the halhallatu-drum (Cohen, eršemma, 27). For a discussion of the gala-priests as Old Babylonian cult personnel, see J. Renger, “Untersuchungen zum Priestertum der altbabylonischen Zeit,” ZA 59 (1969) 189-95.

79. In outlining these six common themes I am following Green, Eridu, 295-310.

80. Jacobsen, AJSL 58 (1941) 219-24.

81. Hallo, “Cultic Setting,” 119.

82. Cohen, balag, 11.

83. Green, Eridu, 309f.

84. Green, Eridu, 311f.

85. Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 21.

86. Translation in Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 143-53.

87. Cohen, balag, 8, 11f.

88. Cohen, balag, 8.

89. Cohen, eršemma, 17.

90. Cohen, eršemma, 28.

91. Cohen, eršemma, 12.

92. Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 4.

93. Cohen, eršemma, 9f., 27f.; Cohen, balag, 11, 13-15; Kutscher, Oh Angry Sea, 6f.; Krecher, Kultlyrik, 18-25, 34.

94. Green, Eridu, 342, 1. 1:20.

95. See Gottwald's discussion of the interplay of doom and hope in Lamentations in his chap. 3 (“The Key to the Theology of Lamentations”), chap. 4 (“The Theology of Doom”) and chap. 5 (“The Theology of Hope”) in Studies in the Book of Lamentations.

96. McDaniel, “Sumerian Influence,” 207f.

97. McDaniel, “Sumerian Influence,” 207.

98. Gadd, “Second Lamentation,” 61, cited in McDaniel, “Sumerian Influence,” 209.

99. McDaniel, “Sumerian Influence,” 209.

ABBREVIATIONS

AASOR: Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research

AB: Anchor Bible

AfO Archiv für Orientforschung:

AHR American Historical Review:

AHW: W. von Soden, Akkadisches Handwörterbuch

AJSL: American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures

ANEH: W. W. Hallo and W. K. Simpson, The Ancient Near East: A History

ANEP: James B. Pritchard (ed.), The Ancient Near East in Pictures

ANET: J. B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts

AOAT: Alter Orient und Altes Testament

AOS: American Oriental Series

ARW: Archiv für Religionswissenschaft

AS: Assyriological Studies

ASOR: American Schools of Oriental Research

ASTI: Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute

ATD: Das Alte Testament Deutsch

ATR: Anglican Theological Review

BAR: Biblical Archaeologist Reader

BARev: Biblical Archaeology Review

BASOR: Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research

BHT: Beiträge zur historischen Theologie

Bib: Biblica

BiOr: Bibliotheca Orientalis

BJRL: Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester

BKAT: Biblischer Kommentar: Altes Testament

BO: Bibliotheca Orientalis

BR: Biblical Research

BTB: Biblical Theology Bulletin

BZAW: Beihefte zur ZAW

CAD: The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

CAH: Cambridge Ancient History

CBQ: Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CQR: Church Quarterly Review

Enc Jud: Encyclopaedia Judaica

Exp Tim: Expository Times

HSS: Harvard Semitic Series

HTR: Harvard Theological Review

HUCA: Hebrew Union College Annual

ICC: International Critical Commentary

IEJ: Israel Exploration Journal

JANESCU: Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia University

JAOS: Journal of the American Oriental Society

JBL: Journal of Biblical Literature

JCS: Journal of Cuneiform Studies

JEA: Journal of Egyptian Archaeology

JNES: Journal of Near Eastern Studies

JQR: Jewish Quarterly Review

JSOT: Sup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplements

JSS: Journal of Semitic Studies

JTS: Journal of Theological Studies

KAT: E. Sellin (ed.), Kommentar zum A.T.

MSL: Materialien zum Sumerischen Lexikon

MVAG: Mitteilungen der vorderasiatisch-ägyptischen Gesellschaft

NICOT: New International Commentary on the Old Testament

OIP: Oriental Institute Publications

Or: Orientalia (Rome)

OrAnt: Oriens antiquus

OTL: Old Testament Library

OTS: Oudtestamentische Studiën

RA: Revue d'assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale

RB: Revue Biblique

REg: Revue d'égyptologie

RLA: Reallexikon der Assyriologie

RSR: Recherches de science religieuse

SACT: S. T. Kang, Sumerian and Akkadian Cuneiform Texts

SANE: Sources from the Ancient Near East

SBLMS: Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series

SBS: Stuttgarter Bibelstudien

SBT: Studies in Biblical Theology

Sem: Semitica

StudOr: Studia Orientalia

TDOT: Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament

TLZ: Theologische Literaturzeitung

TynBul: Tyndale Bulletin

UF: Ugarit-Forschungen

VT: Vetus Testamentum

VTSup: Vetus Testamentum, Supplements

WMANT: Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament

WO Die Welt des Orients

YNER Yale Near Eastern Researches

ZA Zeitschrift für Assyriologie

ZÄS Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde

ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

ZDPV Zeitschrift des deutschen Palästina-Vereins