Ancient texts / Enuma Elish (The Babylonian Epic of Creation)
Enuma Elish (The Babylonian Epic of Creation) Tablet VII + Epilogue
The gods proclaim Marduk's fifty names. The epilogue tells fathers to teach the names to their sons.
1O ASARI,--giver of plantations, appointer of sowing time,
2Who dost make grain and fibrous plants, who makest garden herbs to spring up.
3O ASARU-ALIM--who art weighty in the council-chamber, who art fertile in counsel,
4To whom the gods pay worship (?) reverent ...
5O ASARU-ALIM-NUNA--the adored light of the Father who begat him,
6Who makest straight the direction of Anu, Bel, [and Ea].
7He is their patron who fixed [their] ...
8Whose drink is abundance, who goeth forth ...
9O TUTU--creator of their new life,
10Supplier of their wants, that they may be satisfied [or, glad],
11Let but [Tutu] recite an incantation, the gods shall be at rest;
12Let but [the gods] attack him (i.e., Tutu) in wrath, he shall resist them successfully;
13Let him be raised up on a high throne in the assembly of the gods....
14None among the gods is like unto him.
15O god TUTU, who art the god ZI-UKKINA, life of the host of the gods,
16Who stablished the shining heavens for the gods,
17He founded their paths, he fixed [their courses].
18Never shall his deeds be forgotten among men.
19O god TUTU, who art ZI-AZAG, was the third name they gave him--holder (i.e., possessor) of holiness,
20God of the favourable wind, lord of adoration and grace,
21Creator of fulness and abundance, stablisher of plenty,
22Who turneth that which is little into that which is much.
23In sore straits we have felt his favouring breeze.
24Let them (the gods) declare, let them magnify, let them sing his praises.
25O TUTU, who art the god AGA-AZAG in the fourth place--let men exult.
26Lord of the holy incantation, who maketh the dead to live,
27He felt compassion for the gods who were in captivity.
28He riveted on the gods his enemies the yoke which had been resting on them.
29In mercy towards them he created mankind,
30The Merciful One in whose power it is to give life.
31His words shall endure for ever, they shall never be forgotten,
32In the mouth of the Black-headed whom his hands have made.
33O God TUTU, who art the god MU-AZAG in the fifth place--let their mouth recite a holy incantation [to him],
34Who by his own holy incantation hath destroyed all the evil ones.
35O god SHAZU, the wise heart of the gods, who searchest the inward parts of the belly,
36Who dost not permit the worker of evil to go forth by his side,
37Establisher of the company of the gods ... their hearts.
38Reducer of the disobedient ...
107Verily, he holdeth the beginning and the end of them, verily ...
108Saying, "He who entered into the middle of Tiamat resteth not;
109"His name shall be 'Nibiru' the seizer of the middle.✦ Genesis 2:2
110"He shall set the courses of the stars of the heavens,
111"He shall herd together the whole company of the gods like sheep.
112"He shall [ever] take Tiamat captive, he shall slit up her treasure (variant, life), he shall disembowel her."
113Among the men who are to come after a lapse of time,
114Let [these words] be heard without ceasing, may they reign to all eternity,
115Because he made the [heavenly] places and moulded the stable [earth].
116Father Bel proclaimed his name, "Lord of the Lands."
117All the Igigi repeated the title.
118Ea heard and his liver rejoiced,
119Saying, "He whose title hath rejoiced his fathers
120"Shall be even as I am; his name shall be Ea.
121"He shall dispose of all the magical benefits of my rites,
122"He shall make to have effect my instructions."
123By the title of "Fifty times" the great gods
124Proclaimed his names fifty times, they magnified his going.
125Let the first comer take them and repeat them;
126Let the wise man and the learned man meditate upon all of them;
127The father shall repeat them to his son that he may lay hold upon them.
128Let them (i.e., the names) open the ears of the shepherd and the herdsman.
129Let [man] rejoice in Marduk, the Lord of the Gods,
130That his land may be fertile and he himself abide in security.
131His word is true, his command altereth not.
132No god hath ever brought to the ground that which issueth from his mouth.
133They (i.e., the gods) treated him with contempt, he turned not his back [in flight],
134No god could resist his wrath at its height.
135His heart is large, his bowels of mercy are great.
136Of sin and wickedness before him ...
137The first comer utters his complaint of humiliation before him.
Lines 39-106 are wanting. The positions of the fragmentary lines supplied by duplicate fragments are uncertain; in any case they give no connected sense.
Lines 138-142 are too fragmentary to translate.
Editorial restorations by the translator are in [square brackets]; “…” and italic notes mark where the tablet is broken. Bracketed scene-headings are the translator's, not part of the text.