3V 



THE AUTHOR'S REPLT. 



To the foregoing suggestive remarks of Prof. Hommel, I liavo 

 but little to add. 



I fully accept Prof. Hommel's rendering of Kirbis Tiamat as 

 " the central ocean," i.e., " the waters under the earth " (such has, 

 indeed, been my view all along), but I still think that Kirbis 

 ought to be retained as part of the name, for it was apparently to 

 distinguish Tiamat of the creation-story from tiamat or the ocean 

 in general, that Kirbis, " in the midst " was added to it. 



Though quite inclined to accept Prof. Hommel's fuller renderings 

 of simri and l-.nhutti, I should, nevertheless, like to see a determi- 

 native prefix to one or both of these words. 



With regard to proper names compounded with those of deities 

 tlie proportion in favour of certain of the divine components 

 naturally differs with time and place. The god Sin was certainly 

 a very favourite deity during the time of the dynasty to which 

 Hammu-rabi belongs. 



Prof. Hommel's reference to Kabti-ilani-Marduk, son of Nabu- 

 tabni-usur, variant Tabnia, is very important, and is a parallel to 

 my quotation from a tablet of nearly 1,700 years earlier (cf. p. 13, 

 paragraph 3). In connection with the divine termination ia {ya 

 or aa), I, too, have often asked myself, "May not Prof. Fiied. 

 Delitzsch be right, after all, as to the Sumerian (Akkadian) origin 

 of Jah ? " The character J^, ni, bore the name of i or iau (yau). 

 In its reduj^licate form J^ J^ the syllabaries indicate that it was 

 pronounced Hi, which is constantly found as the word for " God " 

 in Archaic contracts (^^ ^H *^]^ JJ^ jfi^ ^f, Na-ra-am- 

 ili-su, "beloved of his god," Jffb- J^ ^ jj^ *II^ > Ili-i-din-nam, 

 " God has given, etc.), and yatt, the name of the simple form 

 (Assyr. J^, Bab. J!^), might, upon occasion, have been read, in 

 these strange names, instead oi Hi. Jah (Yd) may therefore have 

 been derived from it. I do not believe, with Prof. Hommel, that 

 J\loses knowingly transformed a form of the divine name >">f' 

 ^yyyy ]\, Ea, the god of the eai-tli, and of the waters beneath, into 

 la hie. Ea was, it is true, a creator, but he was apparently not so 



