The Arbel Pass - A narrow point next to the Sea of Galilee on the major route from Egypt and the Mediterranean coast of Israel to the lands in the north including Damascus and Assyria.Ancient Assyrian Poetry
Translated by Erica Reiner
Why are you adrift, like a boat, in the midst of the river,
Your thwarts in pieces, your mooring rope cut?
Your face covered, you cross the river of the Inner City.
How could I not be adrift, how could my mooring rope not be cut?
The day I bore the fruit, how happy I was,
Happy was I, happy my husband.
The day of my going into labor, my face became darkened,
The day of my giving birth, my eyes became clouded.
With open hands I prayed to Beletili:
You too have borne a child, save my life!
Hearing this Beletili veiled her face.
‘Why do you keep praying to me?’
My husband who loved me uttered a cry,
Why do you take from me the wife in whom I rejoice?
I loved her for years on end.
All those many days I was with my husband,
I lived with him who was my lover.
Death came creeping into my bedroom:
It drove me from my house,
It tore me from my husband,
It set my feet into a land of darkness.
It is very difficult to date this text closer than about 2000-1000 BC. This is roughly the age of the patriarchs, Abraham and the stories of Genesis. It is written in Cuneiform script on a clay tablet that has survived to this day. I have taken the liberty to smooth out several of the textual problems that were left un-translated in the original publication. Unlike much Babylonian literature that was copied over and over in an anthology of sorts there is only one known copy of this work. Therefore this poem is particularly interesting as the honest plea of one who has known one of the most painful of all life experiences.
In the Assyrian/Babylonian culture a ship coming to port was a common metaphor for a child that was about to be born. Hence the thwarts and mooring rope language of the initial lines would have been a clear indication of the subject and tragedy of the poem.
The gripping nature of this elegy gives us a window into the minds of those that came before us. People familiar with death and tragedy, love and joy. There is something in the human soul that transcends time and culture. We are a people seeking for the answers to life’s hard questions wondering in our most painful hour why we have been treated as we are. The woman in this writing prays to Beletili a god of childbirth. It is stunning when the goddess who has borne children herself turns her back on her and allows her to fade into the darkness. I praise the Living God that he has revealed himself to us and that he never turns his back on us. Though in this world we will face trouble, perhaps the same exact fate of this woman, we know that Christ never turns his back on us and that he listens and cares for us in the midst of trouble. He is always faithful and always just. When we eventually fall victim to the struggles of this world we will rest in Him forever. How wrenching it is to know that many people in our world today still do not know the hope and the peace that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. What must we do to reach them so that they do not go to the earth grasping at what is false?
~Though you have not seen him you love him; and even though you do not see him now you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. I Peter 1:8-9
