PHILOLOGICAL COMMENTARY

• The word magal is an adverb meaning ‘very (much), in large amounts, abundantly’ (CAD M/1, 29 s.v. magal). Its placement in the sentence also indicates it is an adverb modifying the verb ŠUB.MEŠ-­ni ‘they fall’. Nevertheless, If a City 2 (175, *32.24’) translates it as an adjective modifying EME.DIR ‘lizard’.

         If many lizards fall from the beams in a man’s house—abandonment of the house.

See also 32.A.63 for a similar confusion with magal.

• Though If a City 2 (196, *32.24’ B9’) omits the sign ÙR from its reading of line VAT 09793 9’, the hand copy KAR 393 indicates that the head of a horizontal wedge is present on the manuscript’s broken right-hand edge. This broken sign is also included in the line’s reading in KAL 1 (16-17 Rs. 26’ B9’). Apart from that small omission, both lines on the two manuscripts are read as above in the earlier editions.
• See 32.A.79’ for entwined lizards falling from the roof beams.