Ea opened his mouth and spake, And the word of the Lord came
He said to the warrior Enlil; unto me, saying,
Thou director of the gods! O Son of man, when a land sinneth
warrior! against me by committing a
Why didst thou not take counsel trespass, and I stretch out
but didst cause a flood? mine hand upon it, and break
On the transgressor lay his the staff of the bread
transgression! thereof, and send _famine_
Be merciful, so that (all) be not upon it, and cut off from it
destroyed! Have patience, so man and beast; though these
that (all) be not (cut off)! three men, Noah, Daniel, and
Instead of causing a flood, Job, were in it, they should
Let _lions_(1) come and diminish deliver but their own souls by
mankind! their righteousness, saith the
Instead of causing a flood, Lord God.
Let _leopards_(1) come and If I cause _noisome beasts_ to
diminish mankind! pass through the land, and
Instead of causing a flood, they spoil it, so that it be
Let _famine_ be caused and let it desolate, that no man may pass
smite the land! through because of the beasts;
Instead of causing a flood, though these three men were in
Let the _Plague-god_ come and it, as I live, saith the Lord
(slay) mankind! God, they shall deliver
neither sons nor daughters;
they only shall be delivered,
but the land shall be
desolate.
Or if I bring a _sword_ upon
that land, and say, Sword, go
through the land; so that I
cut off from it man and beast;
though these three men were in
it, as I live, saith the Lord
God, they shall deliver
neither sons nor daughters,
but they only shall be
delivered themselves.
Or if I send a _pestilence_ into
that land, and pour out my
fury upon it in blood, to cut
off from it man and beast;
though Noah, Daniel, and Job,
were in it, as I live, saith
the Lord God, they shall
deliver neither son nor
daughter; they shall but
deliver their own souls by
their righteousness.
(1) Both Babylonian words are in the singular, but probably
used collectively, as is the case with their Hebrew
equivalent in Ezek. xiv. 15.
It will be seen that, of the four kinds of divine punishment mentioned,
three accurately correspond in both compositions. Famine and pestilence
occur in both, while the lions and leopards of the Epic find an
equivalent in "noisome beasts". The sword is not referred to in the
Epic, but as this had already threatened Jerusalem at the time of the
prophecy's utterance its inclusion by Ezekiel was inevitable. Moreover,
the fact that Noah should be named in the refrain, as the first of the
three proverbial examples of righteousness, shows that Ezekiel had the
Deluge in his mind, and increases the significance of the underlying
parallel between his argument and that of the Babylonian poet.(1) It may
be added that Ezekiel has thrown his prophecy into poetical form, and
the metre of the two passages in the Babylonian and Hebrew is, as Dr.
Daiches points out, not dissimilar.
(1) This suggestion is in some measure confirmed by the
_Biblical Antiquities of Philo_, ascribed by Dr. James to
the closing years of the first century A.D.; for its writer,
in his account of the Flood, has actually used Ezek. xiv. 12
ff. in order to elaborate the divine speech in Gen. viii. 21
f. This will be seen from the following extract, in which
the passage interpolated between verses 21 and 22 of Gen.
viii is enclosed within brackets: "And God said: I will not
again curse the earth for man's sake, for the guise of man's
heart hath left off (sic) from his youth. And therefore I
will not again destroy together all living as I have done.
(But it shall be, when the dwellers upon earth have sinned,
I will judge them by _famine_ or by the _sword_ or by fire
or by _pestilence_ (lit. death), and there shall be
earthquakes, and they shall be scattered into places not
inhabited (or, the places of their habitation shall be
scattered). But I will not again spoil the earth with the
water of a flood, and) in all the days of the earth seed
time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and autumn, day and
night shall not cease . . ."; see James, _The Biblical
Antiquities of Philo_, p. 81, iii. 9. Here wild beasts are
omitted, and fire, earthquakes, and exile are added; but
famine, sword, and pestilence are prominent, and the whole
passage is clearly suggested by Ezekiel. As a result of the
combination, we have in the _Biblical Antiquities_ a
complete parallel to the passage in the Gilgamesh Epic.
It may of course be urged that wild beasts, famine, and pestilence are
such obvious forms of divine punishment that their enumeration by
both writers is merely due to chance. But the parallelism should be
considered with the other possible points of connexion, namely, the fact
that each writer is dealing with discrimination in divine punishments
of a wholesale character, and that while the one is inspired by the
Babylonian tradition of the Flood, the other takes the hero of the
Hebrew Flood story as the first of his selected types of righteousness.
It is possible that Ezekiel may have heard the Babylonian Version
recited after his arrival on the Chebar. And assuming that some form of
the story had long been a cherished tradition of the Hebrews themselves,
we could understand his intense interest in finding it confirmed by the
Babylonians, who would show him where their Flood had taken place. To
a man of his temperament, the one passage in the Babylonian poem that
would have made a special appeal would have been that quoted above,
where the poet urges that divine vengeance should be combined with
mercy, and that all, righteous and wicked alike, should not again be
destroyed. A problem continually in Ezekiel's thoughts was this very
question of wholesale divine punishment, as exemplified in the case of
Judah; and it would not have been unlikely that the literary structure
of the Babylonian extract may have influenced the form in which he
embodied his own conclusions.
But even if we regard this suggestion as unproved or improbable,
Ezekiel's reference to Noah surely presupposes that at least some
version of the Flood story was familiar to the Hebrews before the
Captivity. And this conclusion is confirmed by other Babylonian
parallels in the early chapters of Genesis, in which oral tradition
rather than documentary borrowing must have played the leading part.(1)
Thus Babylonian parallels may be cited for many features in the story
of Paradise,(2) though no equivalent of the story itself has been
recovered. In the legend of Adapa, for example, wisdom and immortality
are the prerogative of the gods, and the winning of immortality by man
is bound up with eating the Food of Life and drinking the Water of
Life; here too man is left with the gift of wisdom, but immortality is
withheld. And the association of winged guardians with the Sacred Tree
in Babylonian art is at least suggestive of the Cherubim and the Tree
of Life. The very side of Eden has now been identified in Southern
Babylonia by means of an old boundary-stone acquired by the British
Museum a year or two ago.(3)
(1) See Loisy, _Les mythes babyloniens_, pp. 10 ff., and cf.
S. Reinach, _Cultes, Mythes et Religions_, t. II, pp. 386
ff.
(2) Cf. especially Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 90 ff. For the
latest discussion of the Serpent and the Tree of Life,
suggested by Dr. Skinner's summary of the evidence, see
Frazer in _Essays and Studies presented to William Ridgeway_
(1913), pp. 413 ff.
(3) See _Babylonian Boundary Stones in the British Museum_
(1912), pp. 76 ff., and cf. _Geographical Journal_, Vol. XL,
No. 2 (Aug., 1912), p. 147. For the latest review of the
evidence relating to the site of Paradise, see Boissier, "La
situation du paradis terrestre", in _Le Globe_, t. LV,
Mémoires (Geneva, 1916).
But I need not now detain you by going over this familiar ground. Such
possible echoes from Babylon seem to suggest pre-exilic influence rather
than late borrowing, and they surely justify us in inquiring to what
periods of direct or indirect contact, earlier than the Captivity, the
resemblances between Hebrew and Babylonian ideas may be traced. One
point, which we may regard as definitely settled by our new material, is
that these stories of the Creation and of the early history of the
world were not of Semitic origin. It is no longer possible to regard
the Hebrew and Babylonian Versions as descended from common Semitic
originals. For we have now recovered some of those originals, and they
are not Semitic but Sumerian. The question thus resolves itself into an
inquiry as to periods during which the Hebrews may have come into direct
or indirect contact with Babylonia.
There are three pre-exilic periods at which it has been suggested the
Hebrews, or the ancestors of the race, may have acquired a knowledge
of Babylonian traditions. The earliest of these is the age of the
patriarchs, the traditional ancestors of the Hebrew nation. The second
period is that of the settlement in Canaan, which we may put from 1200
B.C. to the establishment of David's kingdom at about 1000 B.C. The
third period is that of the later Judaean monarch, from 734 B.C. to 586
B.C., the date of the fall of Jerusalem; and in this last period there
are two reigns of special importance in this connexion, those of Ahaz
(734-720 B.C.) and Manasseh (693-638 B.C.).
With regard to the earliest of these periods, those who support the
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch may quite consistently assume that
Abraham heard the legends in Ur of the Chaldees. And a simple retention
of the traditional view seems to me a far preferable attitude to any
elaborate attempt at rationalizing it. It is admitted that Arabia was
the cradle of the Semitic race; and the most natural line of advance
from Arabia to Aram and thence to Palestine would be up the Euphrates
Valley. Some writers therefore assume that nomad tribes, personified
in the traditional figure of Abraham, may have camped for a time in
the neighbourhood of Ur and Babylon; and that they may have carried
the Babylonian stories with them in their wanderings, and continued to
preserve them during their long subsequent history. But, even granting
that such nomads would have taken any interest in traditions of settled
folk, this view hardly commends itself. For stories received from
foreign sources become more and more transformed in the course of
centuries.(1) The vivid Babylonian colouring of the Genesis narratives
cannot be reconciled with this explanation of their source.
(1) This objection would not of course apply to M. Naville's
suggested solution, that cuneiform tablets formed the medium
of transmission. But its author himself adds that he does
not deny its conjectural character; see _The Text of the Old
Testament_ (Schweich Lectures, 1915), p. 32.
A far greater number of writers hold that it was after their arrival in
Palestine that the Hebrew patriarchs came into contact with Babylonian
culture. It is true that from an early period Syria was the scene of
Babylonian invasions, and in the first lecture we noted some newly
recovered evidence upon this point. Moreover, the dynasty to which
Hammurabi belonged came originally from the north-eastern border of
Canaan and Hammurabi himself exercised authority in the west. Thus a
plausible case could be made out by exponents of this theory, especially
as many parallels were noted between the Mosaic legislation and that
contained in Hammurabi's Code. But it is now generally recognized that
the features common to both the Hebrew and the Babylonian legal systems
may be paralleled to-day in the Semitic East and elsewhere,(1) and
cannot therefore be cited as evidence of cultural contact. Thus the
hypothesis that the Hebrew patriarchs were subjects of Babylon in
Palestine is not required as an explanation of the facts; and our first
period still stands or falls by the question of the Mosaic authorship of
the Pentateuch, which must be decided on quite other grounds. Those who
do not accept the traditional view will probably be content to rule this
first period out.
(1) See Cook, _The Laws of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi_,
p. 281 f.; Driver, _Genesis_, p. xxxvi f.; and cf. Johns,
_The Laws of Babylonia and the Laws of the Hebrew Peoples_
(Schweich Lectures, 1912), pp. 50 ff.
During the second period, that of the settlement in Canaan, the Hebrews
came into contact with a people who had used the Babylonian language as
the common medium of communication throughout the Near East. It is an
interesting fact that among the numerous letters found at Tell el-Amarna
were two texts of quite a different character. These were legends, both
in the form of school exercises, which had been written out for practice
in the Babylonian tongue. One of them was the legend of Adapa, in which
we noted just now a distant resemblance to the Hebrew story of Paradise.
It seems to me we are here standing on rather firmer ground; and
provisionally we might place the beginning of our process after the time
of Hebrew contact with the Canaanites.
Under the earlier Hebrew monarchy there was no fresh influx of
Babylonian culture into Palestine. That does not occur till our last
main period, the later Judaean monarchy, when, in consequence of the
westward advance of Assyria, the civilization of Babylon was once more
carried among the petty Syrian states. Israel was first drawn into the
circle of Assyrian influence, when Arab fought as the ally of Benhadad
of Damascus at the battle of Karkar in 854 B.C.; and from that date
onward the nation was menaced by the invading power. In 734 B.C., at the
invitation of Ahaz of Judah, Tiglath-Pileser IV definitely intervened
in the affairs of Israel. For Ahaz purchased his help against the allied
armies of Israel and Syria in the Syro-Ephraimitish war. Tiglath-pileser
threw his forces against Damascus and Israel, and Ahaz became his
vassal.(1) To this period, when Ahaz, like Panammu II, "ran at the
wheel of his lord, the king of Assyria", we may ascribe the first marked
invasion of Assyrian influence over Judah. Traces of it may be seen in
the altar which Ahaz caused to be erected in Jerusalem after the pattern
of the Assyrian altar at Damascus.(2) We saw in the first lecture, in
the monuments we have recovered of Panammu I and of Bar-rekub, how the
life of another small Syrian state was inevitably changed and thrown
into new channels by the presence of Tiglath-pileser and his armies in
the West.
(1) 2 Kings xvi. 7 ff.
(2) 2 Kings xvi. 10 ff.
Hezekiah's resistance checked the action of Assyrian influence on Judah
for a time. But it was intensified under his son Manasseh, when Judah
again became tributary to Assyria, and in the house of the Lord altars
were built to all the host of heaven.(1) Towards the close of his long
reign Manasseh himself was summoned by Ashur-bani-pal to Babylon.(2) So
when in the year 586 B.C. the Jewish exiles came to Babylon they could
not have found in its mythology an entirely new and unfamiliar subject.
They must have recognized several of its stories as akin to those they
had assimilated and now regarded as their own. And this would naturally
have inclined them to further study and comparison.
(1) 2 Kings xxi. 5.
(2) Cf. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 ff.
The answer I have outlined to this problem is the one that appears to
me most probable, but I do not suggest that it is the only possible
one that can be given. What I do suggest is that the Hebrews must have
gained some acquaintance with the legends of Babylon in pre-exilic
times. And it depends on our reading of the evidence into which of the
three main periods the beginning of the process may be traced.
So much, then, for the influence of Babylon. We have seen that no
similar problem arises with regard to the legends of Egypt. At first
sight this may seem strange, for Egypt lay nearer than Babylon to
Palestine, and political and commercial intercourse was at least as
close. We have already noted how Egypt influenced Semitic art, and how
she offered an ideal, on the material side of her existence, which
was readily adopted by her smaller neighbours. Moreover, the Joseph
traditions in Genesis give a remarkably accurate picture of ancient
Egyptian life; and even the Egyptian proper names embedded in that
narrative may be paralleled with native Egyptian names than that to
which the traditions refer. Why then is it that the actual myths and
legends of Egypt concerning the origin of the world and its civilization
should have failed to impress the Hebrew mind, which, on the other hand,
was so responsive to those of Babylon?
One obvious answer would be, that it was Nebuchadnezzar II, and not
Necho, who carried the Jews captive. And we may readily admit that the
Captivity must have tended to perpetuate and intensify the effects of
any Babylonian influence that may have previously been felt. But I think
there is a wider and in that sense a better answer than that.
I do not propose to embark at this late hour on what ethnologists know
as the "Hamitic" problem. But it is a fact that many striking parallels
to Egyptian religious belief and practice have been traced among races
of the Sudan and East Africa. These are perhaps in part to be explained
as the result of contact and cultural inheritance. But at the same time
they are evidence of an African, but non-Negroid, substratum in the
religion of ancient Egypt. In spite of his proto-Semitic strain, the
ancient Egyptian himself never became a Semite. The Nile Valley, at
any rate until the Moslem conquest, was stronger than its invaders; it
received and moulded them to its own ideal. This quality was shared in
some degree by the Euphrates Valley. But Babylonia was not endowed with
Egypt's isolation; she was always open on the south and west to the
Arabian nomad, who at a far earlier period sealed her Semitic type.
To such racial division and affinity I think we may confidently trace
the influence exerted by Egypt and Babylon respectively upon Hebrew
tradition.