The Theodicy is one of the most sophisticated literary texts in the long history of Mesopotamian belles lettres. Written as an acrostic in a very rigid metric structure, the conciseness of the poetic diction of the poem, combined with its taste for obscure words and abstruse metaphors, meant that its understanding posed a challenge for generations of scribes. Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that it was one of the few literary texts from Mesopotamia known to have received an ancient commentary.
The commentary is preserved only on the tablet edited below, formed by seven smaller fragments, five of which were rejoined by Irving Finkel. 82 unusually long lines are preserved. When complete, the present tablet must have fall slightly short of one hundred lines, which makes it one of the longest known text commentaries. The lišlim-formula on the top edge of the tablet suggests that it stems from Babylon or Borsippa (since it invokes Marduk and Nabû) and dates to the late Achaemenid or Hellenistic period. The partially preserved colophon states that the tablet belonged to a Nabû-nādin-šumi (or Nabû-šuma-iddina) son of Bēl-…
The commentary is concerned almost exclusively with philological matters. These matters include, first, the explanation of some of the obscure words used by the poem. The exegesis proceeds in different ways. Wherever there is lexical information available, the commentary simply cites it: thus, in l. o 16 the commentary cites “in vertical” the lexical list Malku to explain the difficult word taḫanātu, “help.”
Frequently the commentary provides the lemmata of verbs or nouns, introduced by ana (e.g. ll. o 5, 7 (3×), 14, 15 (2×), 22, [24], 28, 36, 39, r 7′, 11′, 13′, 14′, 29′, 31′, 32′, [38′]) as a way of analyzing them. Thus, in o 15 irimmu (Theodicy 41) is said to stem ana rêmi, “from ‘to take pity’.” In a couple of instances the commentary adduces a dialectal form to explain a Standard Babylonian one (o 14 and r 12′): e.g. in l. o 14 it equates samku with sangu. Difficult words are often explained by means of etymographical (notarikon) analyses (ll. o 4, o 19–20, 21, 25, 37, 42, r 11′, 21′–22′, 33′–34′): thus, in o 21 the goddess name Mami is explained as “the creatress of the people,” since ma means “to create” and me means “people.” Interestingly, the technical term ana muḫḫi is used in this commentary exclusively for introducing these sorts of etymographical analyses (ll. o 16, 20, and 25).
The exegete also makes full use of the principle of “lexical transitivity,” i.e., the idea that, if two words share a logogram, then they are equivalent. The present commentary makes the link explicit by quoting the logogram in question (ll. o 4–5, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, [26]–27, 30, r 8′, 16′, 21′, 37′, 38′): thus, in r 38′, “‘Has thrown me away’ — šub [means ‘to throw away,’ šub means ‘to] leave’.” Usually the explanandum is cited before citing the logograms, but it is also frequently omitted (e.g. o 15 and 19). The technical term umma is used once, in o 17.
Another important concern of the exegete is to explain that the word “wise,” wherever it appears in the Theodicy, refers to the “scribe”: in fact, the equation “‘sage’ means ‘scribe’” appears five times in the commentary: o 3, r 9′, 12′, 17′, r 19′–20′, cf. also r 10′. In r 9′ the exegete first states that the word “sage” means “scribe”; then he adds an alternative explanation according to which the “sage” in question is the god of wisdom, Ea. Interestingly, this alternative elucidation is justified by means of a previously unidentified quotation from a syncretistic hymn to Ninurta, in which Ea is said to be that god’s “ears” (i.e., intelligence).
Some of the explanations appear more or less verbatim several times: thus, o 29 = r 30′ and o 30 = r 38′. This fact, together with the various ways for quoting words from the base text (see above), suggests that the commentary is a work that grew over time, rather than a homogeneous composition of a single scribe.
The edition below has greatly profited from the use of an unpublished copy by W. G. Lambert (Folios 1568–1573), kindly made available by Andrew R. George. However, it also includes several collations, which are of relevance for the interpretation of both the commentary and the original text, and which are marked with an asterisk (o 12, r 24′, 30′, and, in particular, o 17 and r 9′).
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