According to its rubric, this tablet contains a series of “questions” (mašʾaltu) on a ritual against the “evil signs that are seen against a man and his house.” The base text of the commentary is preserved in a tablet from Assur, LKA 115, which was edited by Maul as “Ein Namburbi-Ritual gegen das Unheil, das von beliebigen Omenanzeigem ausgeht, die im Hause eines Menschen gesehen wurden.” This is in fact the only known commentary on a Namburbi ritual. However, the first entry of the commentary that can be related to the base text appears only in line 10: it is therefore uncertain to which text the preceding 9 lines of the commentary refer.
The commentary addresses several basic philological issues, mostly with the help of the Mesopotamian lexical tradition. Thus the first entry explains the Akkadian noun rigmu, “noise,” as “cry” (šisītu), and justifies the equation by stating that both terms are paired with the Sumerian word gú.dè in lexical lists. Other entries refer rather to astronomical bodies: in these cases, the text draws its explanations mostly from the astronomical compendium Mulapin. This is the case in ll. 6-7, which explain the logogram mulmu.bu.kéš.da as da-num ra-bu-ú šá an-e dni-i-ri, “the great Anu of Heaven, (i.e.), the Yoke constellation,” a quotation from Mulapin.
Some of the explanations are not drawn from the lexical tradition, but rather created ad hoc. Thus for instance the inconspicuous phrase “(vessel) of clay” (šá im) is explained in the commentary as an “unfired vessel” (lā bašāl), i.e., a vessel of unbaked clay. Similarly, the phrase “a figurine of clay” (nu im) is explained as “a figurine of the sorcerer and the sorceress.” It thus makes explicit what was ambiguous in the text.
Other entries of the commentary do not attempt to explain philologically difficult words or specify ambiguous elements of the ritual. They are perhaps better regarded as a display of erudition and ingenuity, since they explain common words using sophisticated hermeneutical techniques such as etymography. Thus the god name Išum is etymologically translated as “the attentive slaughterer,” since the two syllables of the name, i and šum, correspond to Sumerian verbs with the meaning “to be attentive” and “to slaughter,” respectively (ll. 12-13). Similarly, the logogram dab.ba, “friend,” is explained as “he who is loyal to a man,” and a series of alternative etymological renderings of the word are provided on the reverse of the tablet.
The tablet stems in all likelihood from Babylon and dates, perhaps, to the Hellenistic period. Although it was previously unpublished, a copy by Pinches was made accessible to Landsberger and is cited in MSL 8/2 105. Similarly, an unpublished transliteration by Finkel is cited in CAD Š/3 101b and 112b.
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