As has been said above, Merodach was the god that was regarded by the Babylonians and Assyrians as he who went about doing good on behalf of mankind. If he saw a man in affliction—suffering, for instance, from any malady—he would go and ask his father Aa, he who knew all things, and who had promised to impart all his knowledge to his royal son, what the man must do to be cured of the disease or relieved of the demon which troubled him. The following will give some idea of what the inscriptions detailing these charms and incantations, which the god was supposed to obtain from his father, were like— “Incantation: The sickness of the head hath darted forth from the desert, and rushed like the wind. Like lightning it flasheth, above and below it smiteth, The impious man(3) like a reed it cutteth down, and His nerves like a tendril it severeth. (Upon him) for whom the goddess Ištar hath no care, and whose flesh is in anguish, Like a star of heaven it (the sickness) flasheth down, like a night-flood it cometh. Adversity is set against the trembling man, and threateneth him like a lion— It hath stricken that man, and The man rusheth about like one who is mad— Like one whose heart is smitten he goeth to and fro, Like one thrown into the fire he burneth, Like the wild ass that runneth (?), his eyes are filled with cloud, Being alive, he eateth, yet is he bound up with death. The disease,(4) which is like a violent wind, nobody knoweth its path— Its completed time, and its connection nobody knoweth.” (Here come abbreviations of the set phrases stating that the god Merodach perceived the man who was suffering, and went to ask his father Aa, dwelling in the Abyss, how the man was to be healed of the sickness that afflicted him. In the texts that give the wanting parts, Aa is represented as asking his son Merodach what it was that he did not know, and in what he could still instruct him. What he (Aa) knows, that Merodach shall also know. He then tells Merodach to go and work the charm.) “The ḫaltigilla plant groweth alone in the desert Like the sun-god entering his house, cover its head with a garment, and Cover the ḫaltigilla plant, and enclose some meal, and In the desert, before the rising sun Root it out from its place, and Take its root, and Take the skin of a young goat, and Bind up the head of the sick man, and May a gust (?) of wind carry it (the disease) away, and may it not return to its place. O spirit of heaven, exorcise; spirit of earth, exorcise.”