Begins at Sumer, 3rd rev. ed., Samuel Noah Kramer, 285 [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1981]); and of Ashurbanipal of Assyria (668–627 B.C.), “Assurbanipal whom … the great gods, truly desired (while still) in the womb of his mother, and decreed his rule” (Shalom M. Paul, “Deutero-Isaiah and Cuneiform Royal Inscriptions,” JAOS 88 [1968]: 184). A close parallel from Egypt regarding Pharaoh Pianchi (751–730 B.C.) reads, “It was in the belly of your mother that I said concerning you that