^{Hemerological related Texts from Yale Babylonian Collection and seventh-day}

^{koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; Thd)}

^{Visiting Professor}

^{Kyungpook National University}

^{Sangju Campus}

^{South Korea}

^{Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College}

^Australia

^{1 November 2011}

Six texts from the Yale Babylonian Collection dealing with the Seventh-day

             When the texts from Warka or Erech, that are under review here, originated, Cyrus took Babylon in 538 BCE. In that year, after the two year inclusive reign of Darius the Mede or Gobryas (Daniel 5:31), Cyrus issued a decree "Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the temple , the place where sacrifices are offered, be rebuilt and let its foundations be retained, and its height being 60 cubits and its width 60 cubits with three layers of huge stones, and one layer of timbers. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury" (Esther 6:3-4). It gives us some background of the texts in the Yale Babylonian Collection from Warka or Erech that are dated from Cyrus 5th year in 533 BCE until Cambyses 6th year in 523 BCE. Some Israelites may have left already and others may have stayed behind. Societies are of a mixed character, some orthodox, some reformed style, some liberal style and some totally secular. Thus, the religious ones may have left but some reformed, more liberal and almost all secular Israelites may have decided to stay. A careful reading of Ezra 6 explains that the same decree was issued three times before it was successful, Cyrus, then Darius and lastly Artaxerxes in 457 BCE. So if we have a dragging population clinging in Babylon finding it problematic to leave abrupt back to Israel, then it can explain also some of the features we are finding in the Yale Babylonian Collection as published by Clay in drawings but transliterated by us and translated also. There were 23 discovered but 6 are presented here. It is at present not possible to ascertain whether the others were also published.

             In the fifth year of Cyrus in 533 BCE, calculating from 538 BCE as taking the throne, after something happened to Darius the Mede, information that we do not have, in that year, a text presented by A. Clay in Miscellaneous Inscriptions in the Yale Babylonian Collection (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1915): 75-81 as Text 46 or YBC 3974 originated. It is just a receipt for the offerings at the local temple there but very insightful pertaining to the days the offerings were to be brought. There are only 29 days indicated on this text for the month of kišlu but there is a possibility that it had 30 days. The Hemerological texts were productions by astrologers and astronomers that acted as "prophets" or "seers" or “diviners” and who then predicted what evil or good may befall the king on every day in the year and what the king should or shouldn't do to avoid or gain these. These Hemerological texts of which we have many dating as early as the Kassite period in 1180 BCE and also a number of fragments from the neo-Babylonian period when Israel was in Babylon and Assyria already from 723 BCE, are evidence of a 360 day for a year cycle. Each month had 30 days and there are 12 months so the year consisted of 360 days. It was considered to be the economical year or some also considered it to be the divine year. The religious year consisted of 354 days since it was based on the lunar calendar. This 360 day cycle is important for the interpretation of the year calculations of the book of Daniel. The three and a half year period in Daniel 7:25 is based upon a 360 day year cycle since the control check cross-reference for the same period is Revelation 12:14 linked to verse 6 mentioning 1260 days, which, with the year-day principle in prophetic interpretation, are 1260 years.

             Text 47 also just has 29 days on the text itself explicitly, and Text 46 also have only 29 days. There are 29 days in Text 49. But Texts 48, 50 and 51 have 30 days. There is reason to conclude that all these texts had 30 days but there is no evidence for three of them, it seems. It would be interesting to see how many of the whole corpus of 23 texts is mentioning 29 and how many 30 days.

             Seventh-day cycle

             A very important feature of these six texts, and probably also of the other 17 unpublished at Yale, is the seventh-day cycle. We have evidence of a week here in these tablets. These 6 Yale Babylonian Collection texts explain that on the days 7, 14, 21 and 28 a special offering took place. The note next to these days reads: urisu sihru hi-it-pi which is translated by A. Clay in 1915 as: "one kid for an offering" taking the root meaning of hi-it-pi from an Egyptian meaning of htp as meaning "offering". It originally meant literally in Egypt "something to quiet" (Clay 1915: 77 and footnote 7). Regardless whether people want to object against Clay's meaning of this word. It is only at these days, spaced out exactly in sevens, that this phrase or note occurs. It is not only on one text but in Text 46 or YBC 3974; Text 48 or YBC 3961; Text 50 or YBC 3972; and Text 51 or YBC 3967. Exceptional cases are Text 49 or YBC 3971 and Text 47 or YBC 3963. What A. Clay did not mention in his discussion of these six texts, is that there are gross errors in Text 49 or YBC 3971 and Text 47 or YBC 3963.

             Errors or Slips of the Hand and Slips of the Eye

             In two of these texts with different or incomplete information of the seventh-day cycle pattern, we find errors. Notice how in Text 47 or YBC 3963, at line 25, the scribe was supposed to enter UD 19 kam just like we find explicit at Text 46 or YBC 3974; Text 48 or YBC 3961. The scribe rather read by an error of a Slip of the Hand UD 21 kam "on the 21st day" for UD 19 kam "on the 19th day". The same error was repeated in Text 49 or YBC 3971; Text 50 or YBC 3972; Text 51 or YBC 3967. Let us first establish that it was really an error. Is there any proof that the scribe was in error? We must answer in the affirmative and lines 32 and 33 of Text 49 or YBC 3971 provides the answer. The scribe entered UD 29 kam in line 32 and again in line 33 UD 29 kam! With the error established here, it is then reasonable to suggest that Text 49 with an error in UD 21 kam instead of UD 19 kam, is also an error. Then it follows further that the entry of the note urisu sihru hi-it pi "one kid for an offering" in Text 49 or YBC 3971 at line 26 for UD 22 kam, is also an error and should have been where the seventh-day cycle has it for the other texts, at UD 21 kam. The gross error at the end of Text 49 or YBC 3971 permits us to enlarge the scope of the margin of errors to include these other irregularities, using the majority of the six texts at least, as "canon" of expectation. The seventh-day pattern on Text 49 or YBC 3971 is disturb due to errors by the scribe since he entered the note after he first wrote all the UD (number) kams. He probably came to the end of the text and was seeking a space to enter the note but viewing that there is UD 29 kam following UD 27 kam said to himself, that if UD 29 kam is in line 32, he will place the note in UD 27 kam, which is probably (and he was wrong again) UD 28 kam. He was trying to correct himself but in doing so, lost scope of the whole text and entered it, (by haste?) into that space. The point here is that the intention of the scribe of Text 49 or YBC 3971 in line 31 was actually to be correct, namely to enter in day 28, like all the other regular seventh-day cycles. We suggest here that the reason Text 49 or YBC does not fit the "canon" for the seventh-day cycles, is because the scribe made many errors. He also entered the note in line 10 of the same text in the wrong day then with "day 6th" instead of "day 7th". We suggest that his eye was looking for the expression bahadu and since one do not find bahadu in the headers to the receipts regularly, in Text 49 or YBC 3971 in line 3, unfortunately there was at the end of the line a bahadu that caught his eye, Slip of the Eye, and counting from it seven spaces down, he entered the note that was supposed to be on the 7th day, on the wrong day, namely, 6th day. It would be interesting to see the other 17 texts in the Yale Babylonian Collection on this issue. In only Text 49 or YBC 3971 is there in line 5 a bahadu note. It would have created for him a subconscious expectation that seven days down from that would be the 7th day for the note, but due to the wrong distraction and line counting, he ended up in day 6 instead of 7 (line 10 instead of line 11). This is our explanation of the error and this is not discussed by A. Clay in 1915.

             The final result of the 'errors investigation' in these 6 texts, lead us to conclude that Text 47 or YBC 3963 with only 3 note entries at days 7, 14 and 21 but nothing at 28; and also Text 49 or YBC 3971 especially, cannot be used to establish rules regarding the importance or non-importance of the seventh-day cycle at Warka or Erech of this period after the rebuilding decree of Jerusalem by Cyrus.

             Origin of the seventh-day sacrifices in Babylonia

             A. Clay discussed these six texts in 1915 under the heading "Babylonian Sabbath". A very interesting heading. The word "sabbath" is not used in these texts. However, the regularity of seventh-day sacrifices on these texts led him to conclude that there was a concept of "seventh-day sabbath" in Babylonia. "These tablets, with this interesting phenomenon, furnish the first actual observance of anything that suggests the existence of a parallel to the sabbath in Babylonia; and has an important bearing upon the question, which has been frequently discussed, as to whether the Babylonians did observe such a day" (Clay 1915: 78).

             Clay went of to discuss sappatu or UD 15 kam "on the 15th day", just like others before him, like Theophilus G. Pinches, "Sappatu, the Babylonian Sabbath" Society of Biblical Archaeology February 10 (1904): 51-57 including the plate of an important text. In a separate article, one should spent time on this issue of sapattu in neo-Babylonian texts. Let us make brief remarks here:

a. There is no proof that sapattu was the 15th day of the Calendar in any ANE nation before the neo-Babylonian times.

b. Israel was in exile since 723 BCE in Niniveh and surroundings and Babylon and surroundings since 605 BCE.

c. The Mosaic tradition included a seventh-day cycle and the books of Moses were preserved and cherished and followed by faithful Jews in exile.

d. The Hemerological texts like the one published by R. Labat from the Kassites in 1180 BCE records the whole year of 360 days but there is no evidence of any seventh-day cycle (see R. Labat, “Un calendrier Cassite” Sumer 8 [1952]: 17-36). Then again, Israel was not in Babylon in 1180 BCE.

             Our conclusion on the origin of the seventh-day cycle on these six (and possibly the other 17 unpublished ones at Yale University) is that the seventh-day cycle originated with the presence of Israelites or Jews in the society of Babylon in 533 BCE until 523 BCE. We have seen before that aspects that compare very strongly in the Gilgamesh Flood Epic with Genesis, cannot be found in equal strong terms in earlier Flood cuneiform accounts. Again the dating of these strong resemblances overlap the presence of Israelites at Niniveh since 723 BCE and later. The Rebellion in Heaven motif in the text "Seven evil spirits" as well as the "Incantation of the worm" and the "Fall of man" texts and also a Hemerological related text published by Rawlinson coming also from Niniveh when Israelites were around, namely, the days of Ashurbanipal 663-620 BCE also a witness to a seventh-day cycle, are all evidence of Israelite heavy hands on Babylonian traditions during their exile. Hybridization took place of cultures assimilating and transforming. These Mosaic elements in neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian cuneiform texts, are standing out too isolated from the rest of the earlier cuneiform traditions in each of these cultures, except early Hebrew traditions, and they happen to be in a time when the exiles were around, so that it would be strange to ignore such clear evidence of Babylonian borrowing of Hebrew elements.

             The other conclusion, since this particular cycle was foreign to the Babylonian sciences and maths, with their sexagomenal systems and 12 and even decimal systems, is that the employment of seven and seventh-day cycles, are indicative also of Israelite and Hebrew traditions in the ANE, and that it was, judging on their own merits, an intrusive element in ANE cultures, except the Hebrew culture and literature, where it is explicitly honored.

             This observation begs another serious study to be done, namely on the presence and origin of the use of seven in the Ancient Near East. Seven was used and widely so for days, spirits, gods, sisters, weapons, symbols, thunders, years, and more.  This should also be left for a separate article.

^{Transliteration and Translations of the Six Texts (in progress)}