and "the judge;" he also certainly has the
gates, which in early times were the seats of justice, under his special
protection. Thus he would seem to be the god of justice and judgment--an
idea which may have given rise to the Hebrew name of the planet Jupiter,
viz. _sedek,_ "justitia." Bel-Merodach was worshipped in the early
Chaldaean kingdom, as appears from the Tel-Sifr tablets. He was probably
from a very remote time the tutelary god of the city of Babylon; and
hence, as that city grew into importance, the worship of Merodach became
more prominent. The Assyrian monarchs always especially associate
Babylon with this god; and in the later Babylonian empire he becomes by
far the chief object of worship. It is his temple which Herodotus
describes so elaborately, and his image, which, according to the
Apocryphal Daniel, the Babylonians worshipped with so much devotion.
Nebuchadnezzar calls him "the king of the heavens and the earth," "the
great lord," "the senior of the gods," "the most ancient," "the supporter
of sovereignty," "the layer-up of treasures," etc., and ascribes to him
all his glory and success.

We have no means of determining which among the emblems of the gods is to
be assigned to Bel-Merodach; nor is there any sculptured form which can
be certainly attached to him. According to Diodorus, the great statue of
Bel-Merodach at Babylon was a figure "standing and walking." Such a form
appears more often than any other upon the cylinders of the Babylonians;
and it is perhaps allowable to conjecture that it may represent this
favorite deity. [PLATE XIX., Fig. 8.]

ZIR-BANIT.

Bel-Merodach has a wife, with whom he is commonly associated, called
Zir-banit. She had a temple at Babylon, probably attached to her
husband's, and is perhaps the Babylonian Juno (Hera) of Diodorus. The
essential element of her name seems to be Zir, which is an old Hamitic
root of uncertain meaning, while the accompanying _banit_ is a
descriptive epithet, which may be rendered by "genetrix." Zir-banit was
probably the goddess whose worship the Babylonian settlers carried to
Samaria, and who is called Succoth-benoth in Scripture.

NERGAL.

Nergal, the planet Mars, whose name was continued to a late date, under
the form of Nerig in the astronomical system of the Mendaeans, is a god
whose character and attributes are tolerably clear and definite. His
name is evidently compounded of the two Hamitic roots _nir,_ "a man,"