ABSTRACT
Recent research, particularly that of F.W. Dobbs-Allsopp (1993), has shown close connections between ON and Sumerian city laments. In our formal analysis of ON-IJE, passages designated “Lament” are basically calls to lamentation rather than the actual words of the lament itself, though such words occur in some places. This chapter will be mainly concerned with the light thrown on ON-IJE through a study of the Lament passages with their ritual and mythological connections. The concern of the present chapter is to highlight the resemblance between the oracle as a whole and the Sumerian Laments. It might even be permissible to expunge the usual title “Oracles about the Nations” and to replace it with the title “Lamentations over the Nations”. What has been traditionally called “Oracles about the Nations” proves to be extraordinarily similar to what have been called “Sumerian Psalms of Lament”. Form and content overlap, the great difference being that ON-IJE are deeply influenced by creation mythologies drawn from a wide international spectrum and incorporated in the worship of the temple in Jerusalem. The difference between Dobbs-Allsopp’s study and the present enquiry is that he has taken passages of ON which most closely resemble the city laments and has confined himself to a comparison between these two genres, recognizing ON as a Hebrew equivalent but native to the Hebrew tradition. In contrast, the present work looks at the whole corpus of ON, identifies a common form and recognizes the wider field of mythology including, eventually, the Exodus tradition, now seen as the ultimate source of ON.
