The worship of Ramman in later times came very much into prominence. It
was only in the days of Khammurabi that he came into his kingdom, as
it were, and even then his worship was not very firmly established in
Babylonia. With the rise of the Kassite dynasty, however, we find him
coming more into favour, and his name bestowed upon Babylonian kings.
He seems to have formed a triad with Sin and Shamash, and in the Hymn
of Khammurabi we find him appealed to along with Shamash as 'Divine
Lords of Justice.' Nebuchadrezzar I appears to have held him in high
esteem, although he was unfriendly to the dynasty which first brought
him into prominence, and this monarch couples him with Ishtar as the
divinity who has chiefly assisted him in all his great undertakings.
Indeed, Nebuchadrezzar evinced much partiality for Ramman, perhaps
feeling that he must placate the especial god of those he had cast from
power. He speaks of him as the 'lord of the waters beneath the earth,'
and of the rains from heaven.
The place of Ramman's origin seems obscure. We have already dealt with
his manifestations in more primitive days, but opinions appear to
differ regarding the original seat of his worship, some authorities
holding that it was Muru in Southern Babylonia, others that it is
necessary to turn to Assyria for traces of his first worship. His cult
is found in Damascus and extended as far south as the Plain of Jezreel.
As Milton says:
"... Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
He also 'gainst the house of God was bold
A leper once he lost, and gained a king,
Ahaz his sottish conqu'ror, whom he drew
God's altar to disparage and displace
For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn
His odious offerings, and adore the gods
Whom he had vanquish'd."
This later theory would make him of Aramaic origin, but his cult
appears to have been of very considerable antiquity in Assyria, and it
might have been indigenous there. Moreover, the earliest mention of
his worship is in the city of Asshur. As has been indicated, he was
probably a storm-god or a thunder-and-lightning god, but he was also
associated with the sun-god Shamash. But whatever he may have been in
Babylonia, in Assyria he was certainly the thunder-deity first and
foremost.
A Babylonian text of some antiquity contains a really fine hymn to
Ramman, which might be paraphrased as follows, omitting redundancies:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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