426 The Religions of Ancient Egypt and BabyloniaBabylonianasipor“prophet”was not an astrologer; he left to
others the interpretation of the stars, and contented himself with
counselling or foretelling the destinies of men. Like his master
[464] Bel-Merodach, he was the interpreter of the wisdom of Ea, and
the revealer of his counsels. The Holy of Holies in the great
temple of Babylon, where Bel uttered his oracles, was known as
the“house of prophecy,”like the ship also in which the image of
the god was ferried across the stream.^361 The prophet may have
been part of the heritage bequeathed by Eridu to the Babylonian
people.
By the side of the prophet stood the seer (sabrû).^362 , where
PA{FNSmeans“the official.”
The seer and the prophet were distinct from one another; there
was no confusion between their offices, as seems to have been
at one time the case in Israel. The seer was not the“speaker”
who declared the will of the gods or the fate that was decreed
for man; it was, on the contrary, through visions and trances that
the future was made known to him. Assur-bani-pal tells us how,
on the eve of the Elamite war, after he had invoked the aid and
(^361) Ê-kua and Mâ-Kua,bit-assaputiandelip-assaputiin Semitic. Jastrow
mistranslates“dwelling-house”instead of“oracle”or“prophecy”; the true
meaning of the word was already discovered by Oppert in the early days of
cuneiform decipherment.
(^362) Thesabrûwas distinct from thebarû, whose name seems to have a more
general signification, and Professor Haupt is probably right in regarding it as
theshaphelform of the latter. He givesbarû, however, too wide a meaning
when he makes it denote a“diviner”of every kind and sort. It is true that magic
was taken under the ægis of Babylonian theology, and that just as theasipi
or“prophets”might be made to include the“enchanters”and“pronouncers”
of spells, so thebarimight include those who sought to divine the future by
examining the entrails of victims or by means of a cup (cp. Gen. xliv. 5). But,
properly speaking, thebarû, like thesabrû,“revealed”the future by means of
dreams. Haupt's correction ofbaddîmintobârîm,“diviners,”in Isa. xliv. 25
and Jer. l. 36, is brilliant (Babylonian Elements in the Levitic Ritual, p. 57).
The Sumerian equivalent ofbarûis KHAL{FNS(or more correctlyâkhal); that
ofsabrû, PA-AL{FNS