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The word uru, "city," became yeru or yiru in Hebrew pronunciation, and between this and yireh the difference is not great. Yahveh-yireh, "the Lord sees," might also be interpreted "the Lord of Yeru." The temple-hill was emphatically "the mount of the Lord." The term reminds us of Babylonia, where the mercy-seat of the great temple of Bel-Merodach at Babylon was termed Du-azagga, "the holy hill."
In confirmation of this view, a syllabary identifies the Du-azagga with the Apsu. Marduk, by virtue of his original quality as a solar deity, would naturally be pictured as coming forth from Du-azagga. In this sense the title Mar-Du-azaga, 'son of Du-azagga, is applied to him, just as he is called Mar-Apsi, the son of Apsu.
But the same conception would hold good of Shamash, of Ninib, and of some other solar deities, though not of all. That Du-azagga came to be especially associated with Marduk is due simply to the preëminent rank that he came to occupy. Whether there was also a popular basis for the conception of an Ubshu-kenna, an 'assembly room' of the gods, is a question more difficult to answer.
This council chamber was situated at the eastern end of the great mountain, and was known as Du-azagga, that is, 'brilliant chamber. The chamber itself constituted the innermost recess of the eastern limit of the mountain, and the special part of the mountain in which it lay was known as Ubshu-kenna, written with the ideographic equivalents to 'assembly room. It will be apparent that such a view of the papakhu is the result of theological speculation, and is not due, as is the conception of the zikkurat, to popular beliefs.
As Marduk in Babylon was surrounded by his court, so in Ubshu-kenna the gods assemble to pay homage to the one freely acknowledged by them as the greatest, and who is pictured as sitting on his throne in Du-azagga.
The assembly of the gods presupposes a systematization of the pantheon, and the fact that it is only the papakhu in Marduk's temple which is known as Du-azagga is a sufficient indication of the influences at work which produced this conception. In the creation epic, there is a reference to the Ubshu-kenna which shows the main purpose of a divine assembly in the eyes of the priests of Babylon.
The popular phase of the conception of a general assembly house could, in any case, hardly have proceeded further than the assumption of some particular part of the great mountain, where the gods were wont to come together. The connection of this assembly place with the Du-azagga is distinctly the work of the theologians of Babylon.
The Du-azagga is older than the Ubshu-kenna. Situated in the extreme east, the 'brilliant chamber' is evidently the place whence the sun rises in the morning. A hymn to Shamash expressly speaks of the sun rising out of the Du-azagga, and, since the sun also appears to rise up out of the ocean, the Du-azagga is placed at a point close to the great Apsu, which flows underneath the mountain.
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