Chapter 16

(1) See Daiches, "Ezekiel and the Babylonian Account of the Deluge", in the _Jewish Quarterly Review_, April 1905. It has of course long been recognized that Ezekiel, in announcing the punishment of the king of Egypt in xxxii. 2 ff., uses imagery which strongly recalls the Babylonian Creation myth. For he compares Pharaoh to a sea-monster over whom Yahweh will throw his net (as Marduk had thrown his over Tiamat); cf. Loisy, _Les mythes babyloniens et les premiers chaptires de la Genèse_ (1901), p. 87.

(2) Ezek. xiv. 21 f.

In the passage of the Babylonian Epic, Enlil had already sent the Flood and had destroyed the good with the wicked. Ea thereupon remonstrates with him, and he urges that in future the sinner only should be made to suffer for his sin; and, instead of again causing a flood, let there be discrimination in the divine punishments sent on men or lands. While the flood made the escape of the deserving impossible, other forms of punishment would affect the guilty only. In Ezekiel the subject is the same, but the point of view is different. The land the prophet has in his mind in verse 13 is evidently Judah, and his desire is to explain why it will suffer although not all its inhabitants deserved to share its fate. The discrimination, which Ea urges, Ezekiel asserts will be made; but the sinner must bear his own sin, and the righteous, however eminent, can only save themselves by their righteousness. The general principle propounded in the Epic is here applied to a special case. But the parallelism between the passages lies not only in the general principle but also in the literary setting. This will best be brought out by printing the passages in parallel columns.

Gilg. Epic, XI, 180-194 Ezek. xiv. 12-20

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.

APPENDIX I

COMPARATIVE TABLE OF THE SUMERIAN, SEMITIC-BABYLONIAN, HELLENISTIC, AND HEBREW VERSIONS OF CREATION, ANTEDILUVIAN HISTORY, AND THE DELUGE

N.B.--Parallels with the new Sumerian Version are in upper-case.

Sumerian Version. Seven Tablets Gilgamesh Epic, XI Berossus('Damscius) Earlier Heb. (J) Later Heb. (P) (No heaven or earth No heaven or earth Darkness and water Creation of earth Earth without form First Creation from Primaeval water- (Primaeval water- and heaven and void; darkness primaeval water gods: Apsû-Tiamat, gods: {'Apason- No plant or herb on face of _tehôm_, without conflict; Mummu Tauthe}, {Moumis} Ground watered by the primaeval water cf. Later Sum. Ver. Generation of: Generation of: mist (or flood) Divine spirit moving Lakhmu-Lakhamu {Lakhos-Lakhe} (cf. Sumerian (hovering, brooding) Anshar-Kishar {'Assoros-Kissare} irrigation myth of upon face of waters Creation)

The great gods: Birth of great gods: Birth of great gods: ANU, ENLIL, ENKI, ANU, Nudimmud (=EA) {'Anos, 'Illinos, and Ninkharsagga, Apsû and Tiamat 'Aos, 'Aois-Lauke, creating deities revolt Belos) Conquest of Tiamat Conquest of {'Omorka}, Creation of light by Marduk as Sun- or {Thamte}, by god {Belos} Creation of covering Creation of heaven and Creation of firmament, for heaven from earth from two halves or heaven, to divide half of Tiamat's of body of Thamte waters; followed by body, to keep her emergence of land waters in place Creation of vegetation Creation of luminaries Creation of luminaries Creation of luminaries (Creation of (probable order) Creation of animals vegetation)