Enuma Elish V

The Seven Tablets of Creation
Ancient Near East

He fashioned heavenly stations for the great gods, And set up constellations, the patterns of the stars. He appointed the year, marked off divisions, And set up three stars each for the twelve months. After he had organized the year, He established the heavenly station of Ne-beru to fix the stars' intervals. That none should transgress or be slothful He fixed the heavenly stations of Enlil and Ea with it. Gates he opened on both sides, And put strong bolts at the left and the right. He placed the heights of heaven in her Tia-mat's belly, He created Nannar, entrusting to him the night.

1 Enoch 72:2

Pseudepigrapha

2 And this is the first law of the luminaries: the luminary the Sun has its rising in the eastern portals of the heaven, and its setting in the western portals of the heaven. 3 And I saw six portals in which the sun rises, and six portals in which the sun sets and the moon rises and sets in these portals, and the leaders of the stars and those whom they lead: six in the east and six in the west, and all following each other in accurately corresponding order: also many windows to the right and left of these portals.

 Notes and References

"... 1 Enoch 72:2 is the first passage in which we meet the central topic of the heavenly gates. The concept of a door or gate th rough which the sun passes upon rising is familiar from Akkadian literature. In the Hymn to the Sun-God, in a context speaking of Shamash's rising, a gate is mentioned (I.13-15), while in Enuma Elish V.9-10, as Marduk is arranging the luminaries, one reads ... In Gilgamesh IX.42-45, as the hero Journeys to Utnapishtim ... that is, there appears to be a gate for the rising and setting sun ..."

Nickelsburg, George W. E. A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 37-82 (p. 420) Fortress Press, 2012

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