This small and badly damaged tablet contains a commentary that deals with the first sixty-eight lines of the literary prayer Lord, Sage of the Igigi, a text frequently called, after Lambert’s pioneering edition, Marduk no. 2. This text is a long wisdom composition, of over two hundred lines, whose main goal is to extol the god Marduk as punisher of the wicked and benefactor of the pious. It was one of the most popular texts in first millennium BCE Babylon, and scribes frequently copied passages from it during the first stages of their training.
The prayer Lord, Sage of the Igigi is written in a highly literary style: on the one hand, it contains many obscure words and several hapax legomena; on the other, the conciseness of its style makes many of its line very difficult to interpret. Its text is much more complex than that of other long literary prayers, such as the Šamaš Hymn and the prayer Marduk no. 1. This is the reason why Marduk no. 2 is one of the very few Akkadian literary texts to receive an ancient commentary, an honor only shared by Enūma eliš, Ludlul bēl nēmeqi and the Theodicy (for a list of commentaries on Akkadian literary texts, see here).
The commentary is very straightforward: its only interest is to provide philological explanations to difficult words. Most of them are explained by means of synonyms (thus, nagbu, “entire” is explained as napḫaru, “all,” in l. 28). The exegete provides roots for certain words (thus ll. 10, 13, 24, 39, 48, 52–53), once using the technical term ana muḫḫi (l. 15). One of the most interesting explanations can be found in l. 38, in which the word [e]-ri-mu is explained by means of the Sumerian word ne.ru (glossed as e-rim), as raggu, “wicked.” Complete lines are quoted twice (ll. 21 and perhaps 50), perhaps with the purpose of providing a periphrasis. Unfortunately, the explanation is broken in both cases.
The tablet is formed by two fragments, BM 54644 (82-5-22, 964) and BM 66895 (82-9-18, 6889), joined by W. G. Lambert. They both belong to the British Museum’s “Sippar Collection,” and probably stem from Achaemenid or Hellenistic Babylon. The edition below is greatly indebted to W. G. Lambert’s copy of the tablet, which is scheduled to be published as no. 115 in the volume of copies of Lambert’s Nachlass prepared for publication by Andrew R. George. Thanks are expressed to A. R. George for making Lambert’s copy available before its publication.
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