If the Hebrew priest did borrow from the Babylonian myth, what was it that he borrowed? Not the existence of sea and land, of sun and moon, of plants and animals, of birds and beasts and fishes. For surely the Hebrew may be credited with knowing this much of himself, without any need for a transportation to Babylon to learn it. "In writing an account of the Creation, statements as to what are the things created must of necessity be inserted,"[31:2] whenever, wherever, and by whomsoever that account is written. What else, then, is there common to the two accounts? _Tiamat_ is the name given to the Babylonian mother of the universe, the dragon of the deep; and in Genesis it is written that "darkness was upon the face of the _deep_ (_tehōm_)." Here, and here only, is a point of possible connection; but if it be evidence of a connection, what kind of a connection does it imply? It implies that the Babylonian based his barbarous myth upon the Hebrew narrative. There is no other possible way of interpreting the connection,--if connection there be. The Hebrew word would seem to mean, etymologically, "_surges_," "_storm-tossed waters_,"--"Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts." Our word "_deep_" is apt to give us the idea of stillness--we have the proverb, "Still waters run deep,"--whereas in some instances _tehōm_ is used in Scripture of waters which were certainly shallow, as, for instance, those passed through by Israel at the Red Sea:-- "Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The _depths_ have covered them." In other passages the words used in our Authorized Version, "_deep_" or "_depths_," give the correct signification. But deep waters, or waters in commotion, are in either case natural objects. We get the word _tehōm_ used continually in Scripture in a perfectly matter-of-fact way, where there is no possibility of personification or myth being intended. Tiamat, on the contrary, the Babylonian dragon of the waters, is a mythological personification. Now the natural object must come first. It never yet has been the case that a nation has gained its knowledge of a perfectly common natural object by de-mythologizing one of the mythological personifications of another nation. The Israelites did not learn about _tehōm_, the surging water of the Red Sea, that rolled over the Egyptians in their sight, from any Babylonian fable of a dragon of the waters, read by their descendants hundreds of years later.