The chain of ezibs regularly ends with the phrase lū nashā lū bêrā, usually written logographically with or without phonetic complements (ZI.MEŠ-ha, BAR.MEŠ-ra), the last word occasionally also syllabically (bé-e-ra 53:4, 76:12 and passim).[[55]] This phrase is usually translated "whether excerpted or only a selection" (see, e.g. AHw 122b and CAD B 213a), and taken to refer to the diviner's recitation of the ritual formulary. However, since it always comes at the end of the ezib section and is not dependent on what precedes it, it is more likely to be a closing plea expressed as a precative, summarizing the contents of the ezib section.
lū nashā would then mean "let them (i.e. the undesirable things specified in the ezib chain) be 'taken out'," i.e. left out of consideration, removed from the scene of the extispicy. This does not fit the meaning of the other precative lū bērâ, if derived from the verb bêru "to select," but if the latter is taken as the feminine plural stative lū bērā of bêru/bêšu "to depart, move out" (CAD B 214, logogram BAR), with the meaning "set apart, moved away" (note the verbal adjectives bēru/bēšu "far apart, distant" [CAD B 207-208 (s.v. bēru B) and 214, logogram BAR]), the two precatives parallel each other perfectly. Note that BAR is not attested as a logogram for bêru or any other Akkadian verb meaning "to select," and that the basic semantic range of Sumerian bar is "outside, foreign," or, as a verb, "to set aside, take/go away" (PSD B 93ff and 110ff), corresponding to Akkadian ahu, itû, kamāti, kīdu, šahatu "outside," bêru/bêšu "to depart, move away" nesû/nussû "to depart/remove," and uššuru, ukkušu, uṣṣu "to remove, oust, release."
Accordingly, the rendering of lū bērâ adopted in this edition is "let them be put aside," and the whole phrase is understood to mean "let these (undesirable) things be excluded and left out of consideration."
55 ZI.MEŠ-ha is never so spelled in the extant queries. The reading nashā (stative fem. plural of nasāhu "to extract, pull out," etc.) is, however, made certain by the phonetic complement and the parallelism with bērā.
Ivan Starr
Ivan Starr, 'The Conclusion of the Ezib Chain', Queries to the Sungod: Divination and Politics in Sargonid Assyria, SAA 4. Original publication: Helsinki, Helsinki University Press, 1990; online contents: SAAo/SAA04 Project, a sub-project of MOCCI, 2020 [http://oracc.org/saao/saa04/formularyandterminology/conclusionoftheezibchain/]