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We have already set forth the reasons for the popularity of the Nabu cult in Assyria. Suffice it to recall that the peculiar character of the god as the patron of wisdom placed him beyond the reach of any jealousy on the part of the other members of the pantheon.
A later chiefly theoretical amalgamation of Nabu with a god Nusku will be discussed in a subsequent chapter. Hammurabi and his immediate successors, it is noteworthy, do not make mention of Nabu. A sufficient number of inscriptions of this period exists to make it probable that this omission is not accidental. This dynasty was chiefly concerned in firmly establishing the position of Marduk.
Nebopolassar, however, does not go to the extent of endeavoring to make Nabu supersede Marduk. He contents himself with manifesting his partiality for the former, and it is probably no accident that both his official name and that of his son contain the god Nabu as one of their elements, and not Marduk.
Marduk was merely one solar deity among several, and a minor one at that, whereas the attributes of wisdom given to Nabu point to the intellectual importance that Borsippa had acquired. The Nabu cult was combined with the worship of Marduk simply because it could not be suppressed.
The Hebrew word for prophet, nabi, is of the same stem as the Assyrian Nabu, and the popular tradition is placing the last scene in the life of Moses on Mt. Nebo is apparently influenced by the fact that Moses was a nabi. See above, p. 123. E.g., in the so-called Grotefend Cylinder, col. ii. 34. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde d. Morgenlandes, iv. 301-307.
In consequence, as Hammurabi and his successors endeavored to ignore Nabu, the Assyrian rulers now turned the tables by manifesting a preference for Nabu; and obliged as they were to acknowledge that the intellectual impulses came from the south, they could accept a southern god of wisdom without encroaching upon the province of Ashur, whose claims to homage lay in the prowess he showed in war.
Upon the first appearance of dawn, There arose from the horizon dark clouds, Within which Ramman caused his thunder to resound. Nabu and Sharru marched at the front, The destroyers passed across mountains and land, Dibbarra lets loose the.... Ninib advances in furious hostility.
For at early dawn a black cloud came up from the horizon, Adad the Storm-god thundering in its midst, and his heralds, Nabû and Sharru, flying over mountain and plain.
A message of this kind could hardly have been satisfactory except as a general encouragement. The popularity of the Nabu cult in Assyria, it will be recalled, is an offset against the supremacy of Marduk in the south. The Assyrian kings found it to their interest to incorporate as much of the Babylonian cult as was possible into their own religious ritual.
When we come to the cult of Marduk at Babylon and of Nabu at Borsippa, the inscriptions, chiefly those of Nebuchadnezzar, come to our aid in showing us the arrangement of the various chapels that were comprised within the sacred precincts of E-Sagila and E-Zida, respectively.
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