82 Michael L. Barré serpent’s bile for poisoning missiles such as arrows and spears in warfare. Yet important as these witnesses are, they do not in themselves provide sufficient evidence to justify reading rmeT; in Hab 3,9a and translating it “to (smear weapons with) poison”. First, all are from the end of first century B.C.E. to first century C.E., and thus postdate the writing of Habakkuk by at least several centuries. Second, all of them come from the Greco-Roman world, not the Near East. Third, none of these sources contains a verb with the meaning proposed. To substantiate this hypothesis, one must adduce ancient Near Eastern texts that refer to poisoning weapons with serpent’s gall. One should also be able to present evidence of a verbal use of the root m-r-r in association with projectiles in such texts. Arming projectiles with serpent’s gall is attested in ancient Akkadian literature. In the Old Babylonian version of the Epic of Anzu the goddess Belet-ili, Ninurta’s mother, tells the warrior god: tulul qaπta πukud¨ka imta libillu, “Draw (your) bow, let your arrows carry poison” (II 63) (48). In the Epic of Erra (first millennium B.C.E.) Erra, the god of pestilence, itâmi ana kakkˇπu litpat˝ imat m¨ti — “says to his (seven) weapons: ‘Be smeared with deadly poison!’” (I 7) (49). He then “determines the destiny” of each of the weapons. When he comes to the seventh the poet says, sibâ imat baπme is≥ˇnπuma πumqita napiπta, “He loaded the seventh (weapon) with viper’s poison (saying), ‘Strike down (every) living thing!’” (I 38) (50). These three passages are significant parallels to Hab 3,9a. All three are from mythological works and describe a deity acting as a god of war or pestilence. The Anzu text speaks of a god drawing a bow and poisoning his arrows, which is similar to Yahweh’s baring his bow and poisoning his arrows in the Habakkuk text. The Erra passages are striking insofar as in both them and Hab 3,9a the protagonist is a god of pestilence (51) daubing his seven weapons with viper’s poison in preparation for battle. It is plausible, in my view, that the “seven arrows” of Hab 3,9a reflect the imagery of this epic, given other striking connections between these two poems (52). Relevant here too is the fact that imtu (“poison”) in these three Akkadian passages is the cognate of Hebrew hm;je, the word used in Job 6,4 to refer to the poison from Yahweh’s deadly arrows. But one important piece of evidence is still missing: an ancient Near Eastern use of the verb m-r-r in the sense of poisoning weapons. That (48) CAD ∏/3 here (p. 228) reads the singular (“your arrow”), whereas CAD I reads instead the plural πukud¨ka (“your arrows”) in the same passage (p. 140). The u ending on the verb libillu is clearly plural. (49) L. CAGNI, L’Epopea di Erra (Studi Semitici 34; Rome 1969) 58. The next line contains the parallel to ana kakkˇπu, namely ana dSibitti, “to the Sibitti/the Seven”. (50) Ibid., 62. (51) For Yahweh as a god of pestilence in Habakkuk 3, note his connection with rb,D< and πv,r< in v. 5. (52) I mention here the most striking verbal connection between Habakkuk 3 and the Epic of Erra, Út,ynIj} qr"B] Hg"nOl] (“at the lightning-brightness of your spear”) in Hab 3,11a and πa . . . ana πubruq ulmˇπu (“who, . . . when he makes his spears flash lightning”) in Erra I 5. CAD ∏/2, 331, translates ulmˇπu “his axes”, whereas CAD B, 104, translates “his lances”; cf. the translation “his spear” by B. R. FOSTER, Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature (2 vols.; Bethesda, MD 1993) II, 772. In either case, the term in both texts refers to a deity’s weapon.