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240 dagger, conflagration, hunger and disease.' " A postscript by Ashurbanipal to this report of a dream stated: "This dream Theard and put my trust in the word of my Lord Sin." In another instance it was asserted that one and the same dream—vision might be a better term—was experienced by a whole army. In the relevant record Ashurbanipal explains that when his army reached the river Idide it was a raging torrent and the soldiers were afraid to try a crossing. "But the goddess Ishtar who dwells in Arbela let my army have a dream in the middle of the night." In this mass dream or vision Ishtar was heard to say, "I shall go in front of Ashurbanipal, the king whom I have myself made." The army, Ashurbanipal added as a_ postscript, "relied upon this dream and crossed the river Idide safely." (Historical data confirm a crossing of this river by Ashurbanipal's army circa 648 B.C.) In the introduction to another dream concerning his reign Ashurbanipal claimed that the dream, by a priest of the god- dess Ishtar, resulted from a prior auditory communication from the goddess directly to the king himself. "The goddess Ishtar heard my anxious sighs and said to me, ‘Fear not ... inasmuch as you have lifted your hands in prayer and your eyes are filled with tears, I have mercy upon you.'" It was during that very same night of the above epiphany that "a seer-priest went to bed and saw a dream; when he awoke with a start, Ishtar made him see a night-vision." As reported by the priest to Ashurbanipal, what he saw in the nocturnal vision was this: "The goddess Ishtar who dwells in Arbela came in; quivers were hanging at her right and her left; she held the bow in her hand; her sharp sword was drawn for battle. You were standing before her and she spoke to you like a real mother." Then, the priest reported, he heard in the night-vision Ishtar say to the king: "Wait with the attack; wherever you go, I shall go ahead of you ... Stay here, eat, drink wine and make merry and praise my divinity, while I shall go ahead and accomplish the task that you have asked for." Then, the priest continued to describe the vision: The goddess embraced the king and wrapped him in her pro- tective aura; "her countenance shone like fire, and she left the room." The vision, the seer-priest told the king, meant DIVINE ENCOUNTERS