The struggle between Tiamât, the dragon of darkness, and Merodach, the god of light, must originally have symbolised the dispersion of the black rain-cloud and raging tempest by the rays of the sun. But the author of the poem evidently regards it from a cosmological point of view. For him it is the victory of order over chaos, of the present creation over the formless world of the past, and of fixed law over anarchy and confusion. The conception of a law, governing the universe and unable to be broken, lay deep in the Babylonian mind. Even the gods could not escape it; they too had to submit to that inexorable destiny which distinguished the world in which we live from the world of chaos. All they could do was to interpret and reveal the decrees of fate; the decrees themselves were unalterable. It was not Bel who issued them; they were contained in the tablets of destiny which he wore on his breast as the symbol of his supremacy, and which enabled him to predict the future. These were, indeed, the Urim and Thummim which, like the high priest of Israel, he was privileged to consult.(311) What they did was not to make him the arbiter of fortune, but its interpreter and seer. He learned from them how the laws of the universe were going to work, what destiny had in store for it, and how, therefore, it was needful to act. It does not even seem that his prevision extended beyond a year; at all events, when Bel of Nippur had yielded up his rights to Bel of Babylon, we are told that the latter had to sit each New Year’s day in the mystic “chamber of the fates,” determining the destiny of mankind during the ensuing year. The victory over Tiamât was followed by the assignment of particular posts in the sky to Anu, Bel, and Ea. This again harmonises but ill with the cosmology of the preface to the poem; but the astronomers had long since divided the heaven between the gods of the Babylonian triad, and the honour of first doing so is accordingly assigned to Merodach. Then comes an account of the creation of the heavenly bodies— “He prepared the stations of the great gods; the stars corresponding to them he established as constellations; he made known the year, and marked out the signs of the zodiac. Three stars he assigned to each of the 12 months, from the beginning of the year till (its) close. He established the station of Jupiter that they might know their bounds, that they should not sin, should not go astray, any one of them. The stations of Bel and Ea he fixed along with it. He opened gates on both sides, he strengthened (their) bolts on the left hand and the right; in the middle he set a staircase.(312) He made the moon appear illuminating the night; he established it as the luminary of night that the days might be known.”