hese psalms tell their own story. They point to seasons of
distress, when recourse had to be taken to appeals to the gods,
accompanied by the confession of wrongs committed. As against the
incantations which are the outcome of the purely popular spirit, and
which are the _natural_ expression of popular beliefs, the penitential
psalms seem to represent a more official method of appealing to the
gods. The advance in religious thought which these productions signal
may, therefore, be due, in part at least, to a growing importance
attached to the relationship existing between the gods and the kingdom
as a whole, as against the purely private pact between a god and his
worshippers. The use of these psalms by Assyrian rulers, among whom the
idea of the kingdom assumes a greater significance than among the
Babylonians, points in this direction. It is significant, at all events,
that such psalms were also produced in Assyria; and while they are
entirely modeled upon the earlier Babylonian specimens, the contribution
to the religious literature thus made in the north must be regarded, not
as the outcome of the extension of the literary spirit prevailing in
Babylonia, but as prompted by a special significance attached to the
penitential ritual in removing the obstacles to the advancement of the
affairs of state.

Despite, therefore, the elevated thought and diction found in these
psalms, there is a close bond existing between them and the next branch
of the religious literature to be taken up,--the oracles and omens,
which similarly stand in close contact with affairs of state, and to
which, likewise, additions, and indeed, considerable additions, to the
stock received from Babylonia were made by the Assyrian _literati_.

FOOTNOTES:

[465] _Babylonische Busspsalmen_, pp. 1, 2.

[466] _I.e._, of the deity.

[467] See an article by Francis Brown, "The Religious Poetry of
Babylonia," _Presbyterian Review_, 1888.

[468] Compare the relationship existing between Ea and Marduk, noted
above, p. 276. Similarly, Nusku was the messenger to Bel. See p. 279.

[469] On the wider aspects of this conception of the priest among
ancient nations, see Frazer, _The Golden Bough_, passim.

[470] Zimmern, no. 1; IVR. 29, no. 5.

[471] Lit., 'accepts.'

[472] In the original appears a phrase which signifies literally 'when
at last,'--an abbreviation for 'when will there be rest,' and which has
become a kind of technical phrase to indicate,