The Babylonian Temple-Tower and the Altar of Burnt-Offering (January 1, 1920)

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The Babylonian Temple-Tower and the Altar of Burnt-OfferingAuthor(s): W. F. AlbrightSource: Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 39, No. 3/4 (1920), pp. 137-142Published by: The Society of Biblical LiteratureStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3260203.

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ALBRIGHT: THE BABYLONIAN TEMPLE-TOWER&C. 137

IT~1NlM. The Mesfilkimare the angels of the upperworld,and the Er'elim are the angels of the lowerworld, who defeatthe formerand carry he arkof God (i. e. RabbiJudah)captive.MidrasK6nen(BenYehuda,Thesaurus,s. v.) names as differentclasses of angels the PN4'1S, DXCt, andWIDIS, so that theEr'elim appearas the lowest category,the Ofannimbeing theangels in the Y3'713, or Chariotof God.

THE BABYLONIANTEMPLE-TOWER ND THE ALTAROFBURNT-OFFERING

W. F. ALBRIGHTAMERICAN SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH, JERUSALEM

The studies of my friend Mr. Feigin have placed the oldproblemof Ariel in a muchclearerlight, thoughI am not ableto agree with all his suggestions. There can be no doubt thatthe balance of probabilityis now in favor of the Assyrianetymology ong maintainedby Jeremias and others. In Meso-potamian cosmologyMountAral(l)ft,Sum.Arali (for etymologycf. AJSL., XXXV, 191, n. 1), in the far north was the homeof the shades, whence Hades was called in Sumerian ku'r,mountain,and in Assyrianhur.gdn,mountain, as Zimmern hasrecently shown. Aralsf is written ideographicallyP--KUR-U(BAD), House of the mountain of the dead. Aral(1)f is alsothe mountainof the gods,E-#arsag-gal-kicr-ktir-ra,ouse of thegreat mountain of the lands, and is furtheridentifiedwith thefabulousmountain of gold in the land of the gods. As _J-kikrand AE-garsag-kitr-kir-raere two of the most popular namesof zikkurdti, or temple-towers, we may safely suppose thatthe latter, being the terrestrialrepresentations f the mountainof the gods, sharedits nameAralli. Originally,of course, themountainof the gods and the mountain of the shades weredistinctconceptions,but since both were placedin the far norththey were naturallyconfused.

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138 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATUREIn Is. 29 2, 51~N1clearly meansHades:

***7 s , ,Cr)151),rn9l1Thou shalt become like Hades; I will encamplike a wall against thee.***The voice of a shade shall be thine; from the dust thou shalt utter chirps.

The denizens of the underworldwere supposed to becomebirds, clad in feathers (Descent of Istar, line 10). The con-ceptionthat the soul of a dead man is embodied in a bird,especially an owl, is almostuniversal. Is. 337,is evidently,followingthe Talmudic tradition(see Mr.Feigin'sarticle), to be renderedas follows:Beholdthe Ar'elimcry without; the propitiousangelswail bitterly.

The thoughtseems to be that the destructivespirits of thelower world have invadedthe land, howlinglike jackalswithoutwhile they spreadfamineand pestilence; the spirits of heavenweep bitterlyoverthe godlessnessof the land andits consequentsuffering. The shades were called both Ar'elim and Beni Ar'el(II Sam. 23 20, LXX), just as they are also both.Refa'im andBend Raf4,Anakim and Bene 'Anak.2 These expressionsareused in the Bible just as in Egypt and Mesopotamiafor thedemigodsand heroes of a bygone age as well as for the shadesof the lower worldin general.

There is no phonetic objection to the combinationof Ar'elwith Aralf; the final Ui s dropped n Hebrew loan-words romAssyrian, as in edi >V.,inundation. The variouswritingspointunmistakably o a loan-wordwhichwas adapted to Hebrew bypopular etymology n differentways. The pronunciationAri'elis evidentlybased on a reminiscenceof Nergal-Irra, called garArali and usuallyrepresentedas a lion. The variant har'el in

I Pronounce metrically kbbmeres.2 For the etymology of WnMIee Haupt, AJSL., XXXIII, 48; thestem is Mi = rabii, set, of the sun. Similarly w'pr may be connectedwith Ar. anakaa, set, of the stars (cf. AJSL., XXIV, 142). This is, ofcourse, very doubtful, but is at least more likely than the old combinationwith anak, long-necked.



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ALBRIGHT: THE BABYLONIAN TEMPLE-TOWER &C. 139Ez. 43 15 means

mnountainf god,like

Arallfi.That the wordshould be a genuineHebrewcompounds impossible,as we haveno parallels. Moreover, he renderinghearthof God s excludedby the fact that there is no wordiriah, hearth, in Arabic, aslightly assumedby all the commentators.The word supposedto mean hearth is one of the manyforms of the word iri, arni,drii, arniah,crib,stall, enclosure(cf.Barth,ZDMG., LVII, 636),a pre-Islamic oan from Aram.urid, itself derivedfromAssyr.uriT,stall, enclosure, another loan from Sum. jir (Sumerisches

Glossar,p. 49, itr VI), with the same meaning.As seen by Jeremias,Ariel as the name of MountZion3isidenticalwithArallfi,mountainof god,Heb. har k6deS.Similarly,the highest of the three stages of the altar c1 burnt-offeringnthe temple of Solomon and Ezekiel bears the same name. Thestrikingresemblanceof this altar to the Babylonianstage-towerwas pointed out many years ago by Haupt, who said (Toy,Ezekiel, p. 187): The Templeresembled, to a certain extent,a Babyloniantemple-towerof three stories, and the altar ofburnt-offering s practically a Babylonian temple-toweron asmallerscale, or rather,the temple-tower s, as it were, a hugealtar. The commonesttype of stage-towerhad three stages;cf. the illustrations in Gressmann,AltorientalischeTexte undBilder, II, 39. Descriptions of stage-altars may be found inDalman'sPetra, pp. 141 (onthe summitof a high-place),288 (ona terrace), and 299, but all of these are crude comparedwiththe Jewish altar, which was certainlybased on Mesopotamianmodels, comingthroughPhoenicia.Thereconstruction f the altar of burnt-offeringEz.43 13-17)given in the commentaries cf-Kraetzschmar,Handkommentar,p. 279, and Toy, Ezekiel, p. 191) requiresa slight modification.The V171 '4)1 is not the lowest of four stages, but is thefoundationof the altar,just as renderedby the Targum,whichgives t8~'1lZI. Since its surfacewas then on a level with the

3 The name Zion probably means mountain rather than necropolis;Ar. ~iuah means mound as well as stone-heap= Heb. p.,and Eg. dumeans mountain.4 Restore yw;nalso after pjn in is; it has fallen out beforelnbN byhaplography.



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140 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATUREsurroundingpavement t becomes clear why the 51W,boundary(13,17), was necessary to mark the limit of the sacred altar-area.Thus, while the total height from the bottom of the foundationto the top of the horns was twelve cubits (1+2 4 + 4 + 1), theactual elevation of the surface of the ar'el above the pavementwas ten cubits (2+4 + 4), agreeing exactly with the ten cubitsstated in II Chr. 4 1 as the height of the altar of Solomon'stemple, the cubit being here also presumablythe Babyloniancubit of 21 inches specifiedby Ezekiel. Moreover, he boundary(13) was half a cubit (one span) from the base of the lowerstage,5 another span in width (17), while the r41projectedacubit beyondthe boundary,so the total lengthand width of thealtar would be 12+1+1 +2+4 - 20 cubits, just as stated inII Chr. 4 1.The enigmaticalexpression '1147I, bosomof the earth, isveryimportant,as it is simplya literal translationof Assyr. iratkigalli, bosom of the kigallu, commonlyused to denote thefoundationof a temple-tower. The word kigallu, literallygreatearth, meansunderworld,site, basis, and foundation-platform,the latter sense arising from the fancy that the temple-towerwas the link of heaven and earth (dur-an-ki), founded in theunderworldand reachingheaven, a hyperbolerecurringcount-less times in the inscriptions.No less characteristicallyMesopotamianis the use of theterm ar'el for the highest stage of the altar, ratherthan forthewhole altar. Assyr.zikkuratu means properly mountain-peak(zikkurat gadi), and refers primarilyto the topmost stage,though it may be extendedby metonymy o include the entiretemple-tower,whose originalnamewas ekurru,mountain-house,

5 The term NrVY,enerally misunderstood, and even combined withAssyr. usurtu, means properly terrace, terrace-platform. Ar. '5dirah isterraced court beforea house, and South. Ar. nii has the same meaning(contrast Weber, MVAG., 1901, p. 66). The primary sense is what issupported,upheld from the stem 'dr, support,help. The nl't of Solomon'stemple (II Chr.4 9613) corresponds exactly to Assyr. kisallu, the terrace-platform in front of the temple. Here Solomon erected his bronze %ir(also Babylonian, as pointed out JAOS., XXXVI, 232) on which to addressthe multitude assembled before the temple.



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ALBRIGHT: THE BABYLONIANTEMPLE-TOWER&C. 141whence Aram. ekurrd, shrine, idol. The cosmic symbolismappears clearly in the four horns, or rather four mountains, fwe may judge from the four horns on an altar at Petra. Ifthere were any possibledoubtregarding he correctnessof ourinterpretation, it should be removed by the variant har-el,mountainof god, in verse 15 (see above).From Mr. Feigin's discussion it appears that ar'el in theMesha stone means massebah, pesel, and not pillar-altar oraltar-hearth,as commonlyassumed. As is well-known,amongthe Western Semites the symbolof deity was rarelymore thana stone menhiror a wooden post, and it is seldom possibletodistinguish sharply between massebah and pesel. It is notcertain how ar'el came to mean pesel. Porphyrysays that thealtar was regarded as the symbol of deityby the Arabs (cf.Lagrange,Religions s6mitiques,p. 191) and Robertson Smith(Religion of the Semites,p. 201ff.) maintainsthat the altar isa developmentof the massebah.While the latter view cannotbeseriouslydefended, it mustbe admittedthat there is often noclear distinctionbetweenthe two. On the whole I am inclinedto favor Lagrange's theory that the utassebahas a stele re-presentingdivinityreflects the Mesopotamianemple-tower op.cit. p. 192ff.), thoughI would not go as far as he does. Theconception s, of course, primitive, takingroot in a fetishismfound all over the world; the cult-symbolismof later times,however, is often unmistakablyMesopotamian n origin. It ismore thanlikelythatEgyptian nfluenceshave alsobeen at workhere. The Egyptian analogueof the zikkuratis the pyramid,which assumes two forms, the stage-towersurmountedby apyramidion,whichdevelopedinto the later stageless pyramid,and the obelisk crowned by a pyramidion. This pyramidionbore the name bn or bnbnt,6also applied by metonymy o the

6 For the relation between the obelisk and the pyramidioncf. Breasted,Developmentof Religion and Thoughtin Ancient Egypt, p. 70ff. The bnwas further combined by paronomasia with the bnu, phoenix, also sym-bolizing the sun. For the etymology of bn,bnbntsee A.ISL., XXXIV, 223,note. Here also belongs Ar. bandn, fingers, extremities of the body;cf. Assyr. uLdnAadi, mountain peak, lit. finger (ubdanu>ibham is notetymologically connected with bnbnt)of the mountain.



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142 JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATUREwhole obelisk, just as in the case of the Babylonianzikkurat.The pyramidioncalled bn, whichstood in the templeof the sunat Heliopolis, correspondso the massebahor hammanof ?ama'or Ba'al, just as the wooden dd pillar of Osiris is parallel to theAgirat post, as pointed out by Ember. While the pyramidionwas originallyonlya specialized type of macssebah,n the courseof time it certainlycame to representthe mountainof the earth.Thoughthe obelisk had other symbolismalso, one can hardlydoubt that the two obelisksflankingthe pyla of someEgyptiantemples, reappearingas architectural oans in Phoenician andSyrian temples, represent primarily the mountains of dawn,figuringso often in West-Asiatic and Egyptian literatureandart. As is well-known, these obelisks finally appear as laki~andla'oz(?) in the templeof Solomon,also facing the east, thesit Samni. All this cosmologicalsymbolismis comparativelyrecent, eventhoughappearing n ouroldestmonumental ources.

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The Babylonian Temple-Tower and the Altar of Burnt-Offering (January 1, 1920)