the god of dreams stand at my head.
Let me enter into E-sagila, the temple of the gods, the house of life.
Commend me to Marduk, the merciful one, for favor,
I will be subservient to thy greatness, I will exalt thy divinity.

There follows a line from which one may further conclude that the psalm
is one composed for the royal chief of Babylonia. It is evidently only a
ruler who can assure the deity that

The inhabitants of my city,[486] may they glorify thy power.

We know from the historical texts that previous to a military engagement
the kings were particularly desirous of some sign from the deity that
might serve to encourage the soldiery. Such a sign was ordinarily a
dream. The circumstances, therefore, seem to point to our psalm being a
royal prayer for forgiveness of transgressions, uttered before some
impending national crisis, in the hope of securing, with the divine
pardon, the protection of the deity who, up to this point in the
campaign, must have manifested his displeasure rather than his favor.
More distinct references to national events are found in another royal
penitential psalm:[487]

How long, O my mistress, will the mighty foe oppress thy land,
In thy great city Erech famine has settled,
In E-ulbar, the house of thy oracle, blood is poured out like water,
Throughout thy districts he has kindled conflagrations, and poured
[fire] over them in columns (?).[488]
O my mistress, I am abundantly yoked to misfortune,
O my mistress, thou hast encompassed me, thou hast brought me into
pain,
The mighty foe has trodden me down as a reed,
I have no judgment, I have no wisdom,
Like a 'dry field' I am desolate night and day,
I thy servant beseech thee,
May thy heart be at rest, thy liver be pacified.

At times specific requests are inserted into these hymns, such as
release from physical ills. Sickness being, as any other evil, due to
divine anger, the sick man combines with his prayer for forgiveness of
the sin of which he is guilty, the hope that his disease, viewed as the
result of his sin, may be removed. A hymn addressed to Ishtar of Nineveh
by Ashurnasirbal, a king of Assyria,[489] is of this character. It
begins by an adoration of the goddess, who is addressed as

The producer, the queen of heaven, the glorious lady,
To the one who dwells in E-babbara ... who hath spread my fame,
To the queen of the gods to whom has been entrusted the commands of
the