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344 But it was only after the passage of seventy years sinee its defilement—the same interval that later on applied to the dese- crated temple in Jerusalem—that the temple of Nippur could be re- built by the third successor on the throne of Isin, Ishme-Dagan. In a long poem of twelve stanzas dedicated to Nippur, he described how its divine couple responded to his appeals to restore the city and its great temple, so that "Nippur's brickwork be restored" and "the divine tablets be returned to Nippur." There was great jubilation in the land when the great temple was rededicated to Enlil and Ninlil. in the year 1953 B.C.: it was only then that the cities of Sumer and Akkad were officially declared habitable again. The official return to normalcy, however, only served to stir up old rivalries among the gods. The successor to Ishme-Dagan bore a name indicating his allegiance to Ishtar. Ninurta put a quick end to that, and the next ruler at Isin—the last one ever to bear a Sumerian name—was one of his followers. But this claim of Ninurta to the restored land could not be upheld: after all. he had caused, even if indirectly. Sumer's destruction. As the next successor's name sug- gests. Sin then sought to reassert his authority: but the days of his and Ur's supremacy were over. And so. by the authority vested in them. Anu and Enlil finally accepted Marduk's claim to supremacy at Babylon. Commemorat- ing the fateful decision in the preamble to his law code, the Babylo- nian king Hammurabi put it in these words: Lofty Anu, lord of the gods who from Heaven came to Earth, and Enlil. lord of Heaven and Earth the Enlil-functions over all mankind; Made him great among the gods who watch and see. Called Babylon by name to be exalted. made it supreme in the world; And established for Marduk, in its midst. Babylon, then Assyria, rose to greatness. Sumer was no more; but in a distant land, the baton of its legacy passed from the hands of Abraham and Isaac his son unto the hand of Jacob, the one re- named Isra-E]l, THE WARS OF GODS AND MEN who determines the destinies of the land. Determined for Marduk. the firstborn of Enki. an everlasting kingship.