Ea — Sumerian Enki — was the god of fresh water, wisdom, and magic. He presided over the Apsu, the subterranean freshwater ocean that was the source of all springs and rivers. His great temple at Eridu, É-abzu — House of the Apsu — stood at the edge of the marshes where the Euphrates once emptied into the Persian Gulf, and archaeologists have found offerings of fish buried deep in its foundations. He is the benevolent god, the one who warns Atram-hasîs of the flood, who holds the civilizing arts in his hands, who sent the seven antediluvian sages to teach humanity what it needed to survive. When incantations are needed, it is Ea who knows. A phrase echoes through the ritual literature: "Ea has done, Ea has undone." His word is power. His incantation gives life to the dying.

This prayer is a shuilla — a lifted-hand prayer, named for the gesture of open palms raised toward the god. It is one of the most carefully structured examples of the genre. The opening hymn (lines 1–13) moves through four stanzas. The first six lines pile up epithets: Ea as wise king, worthy lord of E-abzu, hero of Eridu, sage of the Igigi, shelter of his ziggurat E-unir. Then two lines celebrate his mastery over water and abundance — seas and reed-thickets, meadows and rivers. Then three lines describe who praises him: Anu and Ellil above, the Anunnaki in the depths, the people between. Then two lines close the hymn: he counsels the great gods, and — the hinge line — his incantation of life can hold back death from the dying. Everything that follows turns on that fact.

The supplication (lines 14–28) unfolds in two halves. The first asks for effective speech: lift my head, call my name, let my words be heard, let god and king do what I say. Life and social standing are understood here as one thing. The second half escalates into an anti-witchcraft petition of growing intensity. First the supplicant asks that nothing evil approach. Then that whatever evil is already present turn back. Then — the bonds have tightened — that the binding of the warlock and witch be loosed. Then Marduk, Ea's son, is recruited as agent. Finally the petition bottoms out in the simplest possible request: may my limbs be clean, may my body be whole. The prayer ends not with the usual personal promise of praise but with three lines of cosmic crescendo — let the heavens, the Apsu, and all the great gods be glad — as if the healing of one person ripples outward through the entire ordered world.

This is a Good Works Translation from Standard Babylonian Akkadian, produced by the New Tianmu Anglican Church with AI assistance.

(šiptu: incantation)

O king of wisdom, maker of discernment —
august leader, worthy one of E-abzu —
Enlilbanda, expert one, reverently greeted —
hero of Eridu, sage of the Igigi —
lord of E-engura, shelter of E-unir —
bringer of the flood of plenty, who makes the rivers glad —

in the seas and the reed-thickets you pour out abundance;
in the meadows you bring forth the life of the people.

Anu and Ellil rejoice over you with joy.
The Anunnaki greet you in their shrines.
The people of the land sing out your honored name.
To the great gods you give counsel.
O Ea — by your incantation of life, the dying need not die.

Lift my head! Call out my name!
By your command, may my words be heard.
By your decree, may I attain good things.
Grant me life — may I remain well forever!

May my speech be sweet to my god and my goddess.
May god and king do what I say.
May mouth and tongue pray on my behalf.

May nothing evil — nothing that is not good —
the workings of the warlock and the witch —
not approach me, not reach me.

O Ea, by your incantation of life:
may all evil, all that is not good, turn back in their own chests.
May the incantation of Eridu loose the bonds of the warlock and witch.
May Marduk, sage of the great gods, loose their evil bonds.

May my limbs be cleansed.
May my body be whole.

May the heavens be glad for you;
may the Apsu rejoice for you.
May the great gods praise you with lordly voice.
May the Igigi gods speak of your good fortune.

(It is the wording of a lifted-hand to Enlilbanda.)

Colophon

Standard Babylonian Akkadian, first millennium BCE. Classified as Ea 1a in the shuilla corpus. The prayer follows the tripartite structure typical of the genre: hymnic introduction (lines 1–13), supplication (lines 14–28), and closing praise (lines 29–31), followed by a Sumerian rubric (line 32) and a partial ritual instruction (line 33). The manuscript tradition is not described in detail in the accessible source (the primary edition being Mayer, UFBG, 442–49, unavailable); text is accessed through Alan Lenzi's grammatical commentary in Lenzi, ed., Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns: An Introduction (Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), pp. 227–241, which works line by line through a normalised Akkadian text. Multiple manuscripts are referenced in the commentary (MSS A–F for various lines); MS A (Mayer's primary) provides the base text throughout. The prayer was incorporated into several ritual complexes: its incipit is cited in a royal investiture ritual, a universal namburbi handbook (SpBTU II, no. 18, rev. 27), and the purification series Bīt rimki (Zimmern, BBR 26 iii 45). See also Benjamin R. Foster, Before the Muses (2005), 643–44; Marie-Joseph Seux, Hymnes et prières aux dieux de Babylonie et d'Assyrie (1976), 275–77; Wolfram von Soden, Aus dem Garten Eden (1971), 295–96. Normalised Akkadian assembled line by line from Lenzi's grammatical commentary. Translation independently derived from the normalised Akkadian; Lenzi's commentary consulted for verbal forms, epithet meanings, and manuscript variants; Lenzi's English not used. Translated by the New Tianmu Anglican Church with AI assistance, March 2026.

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Source Text: A Prayer to Ea (Ea 1a, Akkadian)

Normalised Akkadian Transliteration
(Ea 1a, Standard Babylonian; text after Lenzi/Mayer UFBG, following commentary in Lenzi 2011, pp. 227–241)

(šiptu:)
(1) šarru nēmeqi bānû tašīmti
(2) massû ṣīru usum E-abzu
(3) Enlilbanda itpēšu karūbu
(4) uršānu Eridu apkal Igigi
(5) bēl E-engura ṣulūl E-unir
(6) bābil mīl ḫegalli murīš nāri
(7) ina tâmāt u ṣuṣê tudešši nuḫša
(8) ina qerbeti tušabši napišti nišī
(9) Anu u Ellil ḫadiš rīšūka
(10) Anunnakkī ina māḫāzīšunu ikarrabūka
(11) nišū māti ištammarā zikirka kabta
(12) ana ilī rabûti tanamdin milka
(13) Ea ina têka ša balāṭi lā imât mīta
(14) ulli rēšīya ibi šumu
(15) qibītukka liššemû zikrūya
(16) ina qībīka ana damiqti lukšud
(17) šurkam-ma balāṭa lubūr ana dāri
(18) atmêya liṭīb eli ili u ištari
(19) ilu u šarru ša qabêya līpušū
(20) pû u lišānu lištēmiqūni
(21) ayy-iqribanni ayy-ikšudanni
(22) mimma lemnu mimma lā ṭābu
(23) u šunu upīš kaššāpi u kaššapti
(24) Ea ina têka ša balāṭi mimma lemnu mimma lā ṭābu
(25) linēʾū irāssun
(26) rikis kaššāpi u kaššapti lipaṭṭir šipti ša Eridu
(27) riksīšunu lemnūti lipaṭṭir apkal ilī rabûti Marduk
(28) lībibā minâtūya mešrêtūya elīya liṭībā
(29) šamû liḫdūka Apsû lirīška
(30) ilū rabûtu etelliš lišālilūka
(31) dumqīka liqbû ilū Igigi
(32) ka-inim-ma šu-íl-lá den-líl-bàn-da-kám
(33) lū ina riksi lū ina nignakki teppeš

Source Colophon

Normalised Akkadian assembled line by line from Alan Lenzi's grammatical commentary in Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns: An Introduction (2011), pp. 229–237, following the base text Mayer, UFBG, 442–49. Each line's commentary provides one or two lines of normalised Akkadian; these have been assembled here in sequence. Line 21 is uncertain in its first half (Lenzi notes the arrangement differs from Mayer's edition; the vetitive construction and qerēbu are suggested as most probable). Lines 24–25 run as one extended clause across two text-lines. Line 32 is the Sumerian shuilla-rubric: ka-inim-ma šu-íl-lá den-líl-bàn-da-kám, "wording of a lifted-hand to Enlilbanda" (= Ea); one MS redirects the prayer to Enki, another to Marduk. Line 33 is the ritual instruction, preserved in a single manuscript: "either with a ritual arrangement or with an incense burner you shall perform it" — the full ritual from which this is a catchphrase is not preserved.

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