Chapter Three
**** Magic: Why Do People Want to Do It? ****

• Personal improvement: Spells of Success - to Satisfy one's Needs and Desires
• Counter-spells: Spells of Protection - to Prevent the Loss of What One Already Has
  • Serpent Charmer's [melakhash] Story - a protective poem from Ugarit, tablet RS 24.244
  • Amulet from Arslan Tash - on a small limestone plaque, dated from the 7th C. BCE
• Spells of Retrieval - to Regain What One Has Lost.
• Exorcisms: Spells of Disbursal - to get rid of something one may have that one doesn't want
• Curses: Spells of Vengeance - to Avenge Irretrievable Loss or Unforgivable Hurt.
• Some Common Forms of Magic

Although the spell has an even number of verses, notice that there are actually a shabbattum, a double seven, i.e., fourteen in all.

Compare Verse 13 with this prayer from the Babylonian ritual text Maqlu:

May the tamarisk whose branches grow high purify me
may the date palm that faces every wind absolve me,
may the mashtakal which fills the earth cleanse me
may the pine cone that is full of seeds absolve.

The above verse from Maqlu may be related to a ritual from another Akkadian table, text K 3365:

You go to the river bank, you dig a well.
At the edge of the well you draw seven designs with flour.
Upon them you throw tamarisk, mashtakal-plant, date shoots and qan-shalali.
You have the man kneel over them
The liturgist stands over him,
and three times that man raises his eyes.
You recite the incantation 'you angered the god.'

After this there are sprinkling the plants with water from the well and more incantations and fumigations. Finally, the plants are, in all probability, thrown into the river. This action is based on the following, from R. Caplice's Text No. 10 - after a complicated performance and incantation:

"you throw tamarisk, dil.bat-plant (= mashtakal), qan-shalali, a date palm shoot and the izbu (the abnormal animal )
together with its provisions and its gifts, into the river"

Engraved on a limestone plaque 8.5 X 7 cm. with a rounded upper edge pierced by a hole for hanging, in an undetermined Canaanite dialect, in Aramaic writing, seeming to date from the 7th C. BCE. Ssm is possibly a mythological being of Anatolian or Egyptian provenance, but not a full-fledged god such as is pictured on the reverse of the plaque. The incantation is directed against a winged sphinx and a she-wolf devouring a human being, both pictured on the obverse and collectively called the 'stranglers,' female demons who cause the death of infants and children. However, some scholars in the 1990's have begun to believe it is a forgery.

[`Ephata - Aramaic plural feminine name of the nightly shadows, seen in popular belief as she-demon flying in the dark, and called in targumic Aramaic also (Heb. i.n.l.t), “shadow-demons” These shadow-demons themselves are seen in human form, for they are originally the spirits of the dead who, according to popular belief, return into their bodies and haunt the earth in the darkness of the night]

[SSM - The name Ssm, from which are also derived the proper names Shashmai in Akkadian, (Heb. i.m.s.s.) in the Bible, (Heb. m.s.s d.b.‘a) in Ugaritic inscriptions, is therefore the name of a god, and it is he who is represented on the reverse of the tablet, threatening the demons.]

[She-strangler - Heb. (t.q.n.h), Aramaic incantations texts from Nippur, spelled (’a.t.q.n.‘a) or (’a.t.q.n.’a) ?honeqot, modern Arabic name of the feminine demon Qar nah, chanouq al-hamal, “strangler of the lamb”]

[Chauron - Gaster points out that since CHoron is the god of the underworld, the reference to his consort would accord perfectly with the frequernt invocation of Ereshkigal, wife of Nergal, even in late Greek charms. Moreover, it is significant that in Lamashtu I iii 41 the sorcerer similarly calls upon Ninkarrak, “mistress of the underworld” (abarakkat Ekur ). Then, too Torczyner's elimination of the epithet (Heb. read right to left: i.p m.t sh.’a) overlooks the point that this is the perfect equivalent of the Accadian sha pushu ellu, so common in incantations when “saving deities” are invoked.]

On the “sphinx” :

[H. Torczyner says: "a winged lion (called in Hebrew Ariel or Cherub with a human head and a pointed helmet - I find in CHoron the name of the deity represented in our tablet in the figure of the winged lion"]:

translation by Franz Rosenthal:

Alternate translation by H. Torczyner: Spoken by the conjurer to the demons:
19. To the ‘Ephata -demons in the chamber of darkness say:
20. Go away, terror, my nightly terror!

On the she-wolf:
21. To the robbing slaying female say: Go Away! 21
22. The god's reply to the conjurer:
23. With olive oil thou hast washed, and it is gone.

[She-wolf - description by H. Torczyner:
a she-wolf with a scorpion's tail, devouring what looks like a human figure of which only the legs project from her jaws the she-wolf is not one of the demons threatened by our incantation If such a demon or evil spirit is shown in the drawing, he [sic] (as on Aramaic incantation bowls) is bound and fettered hand and foot and thus made incapable of harming anybody. the she-wolf is shown in the act of devouring other beings, she is a helpful deity, devouring the evil spirits, and not herself one of them ]

[Torczyner expands: "Thou (who lieth here in the chamber of darkness) hast washed (thy body) with (cleansing) olive oil, (and already the nightly terror) has gone..."]

On and around the deity:

[description by W. F. Albright: a marching god, brandishing a small axe in his right hand; he wears the short Assyrian tunic and long cloak, opened so as to leave the left leg free; to his girdle is attached a short sword and on his head is a turban surmounted by a lily]

22. Sz zt, may his [mouth] not (?) open
23. Let the sun rise, eternally, eternally!
Spoken by the conjurer to the she-wolf:
Sz, open an olive for me, that we shall have light,
until the sun rises, the morning shines.

[Sz zt - Sz zt defended by Gaster as representing ‘that hissing and spitting which was a frequent element of incantations - such a name as Sz is nowhere known, and to say that it may be Hurrian is simply to resort to that elusive factor which is coming, unfortunately, to be employed as a virtual synonym of the unknown or inexplicable’]

[open an olive - and since the whole incantation is invoked against the spirits of the darkness, and since in the continuation the rising of the sun is mentioned, the opening of an olive certainly serves to make oil and light; kindling a lamp filled with olive oil until the sun rises expels the spirits of the night, which are not allowed to remain after daybreak. Until then, the lighting of such a magic lamp has the power to drive away the evil demons]

Alternate translation by other scholars, but according to Franz Rosenthal, based upon the doubtful reconstruction of missing words and upon an uncertain and, it seems, unwarranted emendation of what is actually written:

22. May her womb be opened and may she give birth!
23. When the sun rises, travail, and give birth!