SHAMASH, THE RISING SUN. 93 
not the notched sword, but a battle-ax, such as is more frequently found in the art 
of the countries north and west of Assyria, although very rarely in ancient Babylonia. 
The meaning of this scene has already been anticipated. Indeed it is strange 
that it should have been so misconceived by George Smith who, followed by many 
others, saw in it the construction of a tower, like that of Babel (“Chaldean Account 
of Genesis,” p. 158). Ménant came nearer to the true idea when he called the 
gates those of the lower world, and the scene one in the abode of the dead, where 
Ishtar passed through seven gates (“Pierres Gravées,” 1, pp. 125, 126); and he 
saw in the Sun-god a deity of the lower world receiving the spirit of the dead. But 
it was Heuzey who, as stated above, first recognized the meaning of the gates and 
suggested that the scene had a “caractére sidéral.” 
The thought of the sun as a god traveling through the heavens was central to 
all Eastern worship of the heavenly bodies. “The Egyptians saw in the sun the 
god Ra, sailing in his boat through the sky and the underworld, and they provided 
the underworld with twelve great pylons guarded by serpents, through one of which 
the sun must pass every hour. ‘The Hebrew Scriptures show evidence of a similar 
notion. In Ps. 19: 4-6, the sun issuing from his chamber-doors is thus described: 
In them [the heavens] hath he set a tabernacle for the Sun [Hebrew Shemesh], 
Who is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, 
And rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course. 
His going forth is from the end of the heavens, 
And his circuit unto the ends of it: 
And there is nothing hid from his heat. 
In the Song of Deborah, we read, Judges 5: 31, “Let them that love him be 
as the Sun when he goeth forth in his might.” It was something more than a figure 
of speech when, in the fragment of an old song, Joshua 1s represented as command- 
ing the sun to stand still that he might slay his Amorite enemies (Joshua Io: 12): 
Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; 
And thou, Moon, in the valley of Ayalon, 
as written in the Book of Jashar. ‘That the sun and moon were both conceived as 
carrying weapons is implied in Ps. 121: 6, 
The Sun shall not smite thee by day, 
Nor the Moon by night. 
In Ps. 24 we have in the opening verses a brief cosmogony: 
The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, 
The world, and they that dwell therein. 
For he hath founded it upon the sea, 
And established it upon the floods, 
which is in accordance with the ancient idea that the earth rests like an island on 
an ocean; and the psalm concludes with an address to the gates through which 
the sun, or here Jehovah, enters: 
Lift up your heads, O ye gates, 
And be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, 
And the King of glory shall come in. 
Who is the King of glory? 
Jehovah, strong and mighty, 
Jehovah, mighty in battle. 
The gates of Hades are mentioned in Job 38:17, and Matt. 16: 18, and doors 
with bars to the sea in Job 38: to. 
