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Your glory, O Israel, lies slain upon your high places! How the mighty have fallen! (v. 19)
Cuneiform, the writing employed by several ancient civilizations, consists of a series of up, down, and slanting lines inscribed by a sharp instrument into soft clay tablets. For hundreds of years it remained the primary method of writing for different civilizations writing in markedly different languages.
Although it began as a means of recording taxes owed and received, cuneiform developed into a method of recording poetry, story, and song! For the Sumerians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians, among many other civilizations, cuneiform was a living, growing thing, and the stories they wrote, passed along, and inherited, were in constant change as well.
In the 19th century, treasure troves of cuneiform tablets were discovered by archaeologists, adventurers, and conquerors, and specialists in the field began to decipher them. Some were dull as dishwater, but others opened up windows into lost civilizations. In 1872, an assistant researcher at the British Museum named George Smith began to decipher a small square tablet when his heart began to pound with excitement. Inscribed in 7th century BC Assyrian, and part of the archives of the emperor Ashurbanipal, the tablet described a great flood instituted by the gods to destroy humanity, and how one god let a single human named Uta-napishti in on the secret, and instructed that person how to build a great boat in which he was to bring on board his wife and the animals in order to survive the flood. When at last the rains stopped the man (named Utnapishtim) released a bird and when it did not return he knew there was land out there.
Smith began to act wildly in the hallowed halls of the British Museum, removing his clothes and dancing about, believing he had discovered the source of the biblical flood narrative, as indeed many people thought when it was first published. However, it turned out to be more complicated than that. Many cultures had memories of a great flood. What Smith had found was one of the eleven tablets that comprise the great epic of Gilgamesh, a great king of legend and myth. Gradually other tablets were discovered among the treasure trove, and even today new pieces of the puzzle are being discovered and fitted into the great saga.
Gilgamesh is introduced as the greatest king who ever lived, taller and broader than any other human, capable of great feats of strength and cruelty. When the great Enkidu, a human who has lived among the animals, is introduced to human society the two wrestle and neither wins. After that the two are inseparable. Together they engage in great adventures, and kill the great monster Humbaba.
But in the end Enkidu dies, and Gilgamesh at first refuses to believe it can happen. Only after many days does he finally admit that his friend really perished. He then laments the loss of the one person who was his friend and equal.
Listen, young men. Listen to me.
Listen, elders of great Uruk. Listen to me. I weep for my friend Enkidu
Like a grief-stricken woman, I howl in despair.
The shaft at my side, the bedrock of my strength,
The sword at my belt, the shield before me,
The clothing for my festivals, the sash of my pleasure
A fiendish force sprang up to snatch him from me.
On and on the lament proceeds. Gilgamesh pours out the deepest of griefs from the depths of his soul. In the end, Gilgamesh endures great danger and adventure as he seeks out Uta-napishti, that sole survivor of the great flood, who has been granted immortality, to learn how he might bring back his friend Enkidu from death. Gilgamesh fails, and last is forced to admit that he, too, is mortal, and will someday die. He returns home, a broken and exhausted man who nevertheless has made his peace with death and life.
The grief Gilgamesh experienced for an inconsolable loss is something we all share. David shared it when he lost his friend Jonathan in his wars with his friend’s father, Saul. And I don’t doubt that we have each wondered if there was anything we could do or say to turn back the hands of the clock, to return to a time when our dearest heart was still alive. But as David’s predecessor, Saul, discovered, when he called the shade of the prophet Samuel back from the dead to bring words of advice and comfort, it’s no good. The only way we can proceed is forward, in life, through death, and beyond, to God’s grace and goodness.
(Want to know more? You might read “Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic,” by Sophus Helle, Yale University Press, 2021, “Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem,” by Michael Schmidt, Princeton University Press, 2019, and “Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative,” by Herbert Mason, New American Library, 1972.
Cuneiform, the writing employed by several ancient civilizations, consists of a series of up, down, and slanting lines inscribed by a sharp instrument into soft clay tablets. For hundreds of years it remained the primary method of writing for different civilizations writing in markedly different languages.
Although it began as a means of recording taxes owed and received, cuneiform developed into a method of recording poetry, story, and song! For the Sumerians, the Babylonians, and the Assyrians, among many other civilizations, cuneiform was a living, growing thing, and the stories they wrote, passed along, and inherited, were in constant change as well.
In the 19th century, treasure troves of cuneiform tablets were discovered by archaeologists, adventurers, and conquerors, and specialists in the field began to decipher them. Some were dull as dishwater, but others opened up windows into lost civilizations. In 1872, an assistant researcher at the British Museum named George Smith began to decipher a small square tablet when his heart began to pound with excitement. Inscribed in 7th century BC Assyrian, and part of the archives of the emperor Ashurbanipal, the tablet described a great flood instituted by the gods to destroy humanity, and how one god let a single human named Uta-napishti in on the secret, and instructed that person how to build a great boat in which he was to bring on board his wife and the animals in order to survive the flood. When at last the rains stopped the man (named Utnapishtim) released a bird and when it did not return he knew there was land out there.
Smith began to act wildly in the hallowed halls of the British Museum, removing his clothes and dancing about, believing he had discovered the source of the biblical flood narrative, as indeed many people thought when it was first published. However, it turned out to be more complicated than that. Many cultures had memories of a great flood. What Smith had found was one of the eleven tablets that comprise the great epic of Gilgamesh, a great king of legend and myth. Gradually other tablets were discovered among the treasure trove, and even today new pieces of the puzzle are being discovered and fitted into the great saga.
Gilgamesh is introduced as the greatest king who ever lived, taller and broader than any other human, capable of great feats of strength and cruelty. When the great Enkidu, a human who has lived among the animals, is introduced to human society the two wrestle and neither wins. After that the two are inseparable. Together they engage in great adventures, and kill the great monster Humbaba.
But in the end Enkidu dies, and Gilgamesh at first refuses to believe it can happen. Only after many days does he finally admit that his friend really perished. He then laments the loss of the one person who was his friend and equal.
Listen, young men. Listen to me.
Listen, elders of great Uruk. Listen to me. I weep for my friend Enkidu
Like a grief-stricken woman, I howl in despair.
The shaft at my side, the bedrock of my strength,
The sword at my belt, the shield before me,
The clothing for my festivals, the sash of my pleasure
A fiendish force sprang up to snatch him from me.
On and on the lament proceeds. Gilgamesh pours out the deepest of griefs from the depths of his soul. In the end, Gilgamesh endures great danger and adventure as he seeks out Uta-napishti, that sole survivor of the great flood, who has been granted immortality, to learn how he might bring back his friend Enkidu from death. Gilgamesh fails, and last is forced to admit that he, too, is mortal, and will someday die. He returns home, a broken and exhausted man who nevertheless has made his peace with death and life.
The grief Gilgamesh experienced for an inconsolable loss is something we all share. David shared it when he lost his friend Jonathan in his wars with his friend’s father, Saul. And I don’t doubt that we have each wondered if there was anything we could do or say to turn back the hands of the clock, to return to a time when our dearest heart was still alive. But as David’s predecessor, Saul, discovered, when he called the shade of the prophet Samuel back from the dead to bring words of advice and comfort, it’s no good. The only way we can proceed is forward, in life, through death, and beyond, to God’s grace and goodness.
(Want to know more? You might read “Gilgamesh: A New Translation of the Ancient Epic,” by Sophus Helle, Yale University Press, 2021, “Gilgamesh: The Life of a Poem,” by Michael Schmidt, Princeton University Press, 2019, and “Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative,” by Herbert Mason, New American Library, 1972.
