Note 121.6 — Chapter VII · The Deities as Social-Powers.

And this religion affords a unique illustration of the intimacy of the bond between the king as head of the State and the divine powers. The gods are the rulers of destiny: and in the Hall of Assembly at Esagila each year the Council of the Gods under the presidency of Nebo fixed the destiny of the king and the Empire for the ensuing year.121.6 This award must have signified the writing down of oracles concerning the immediate future, and no doubt the questions were prepared by the king and the priests. The good king who was devoted to the service of the gods was glorified by the priesthood in much the same terms as are applied in the Old Testament to the king who was devoted to the service of Jahwé: in the cult-inscription of Sippar in the British Museum,122.1 Nabupaladdin, who reigned 884-860 B.C., and who re-established the cult of Shamash, is praised by the priest as “the called of Marduk, the darling of Anu and Ea, the man wholly after the heart of Zarpanit.”