Akkadian Poetry, Hebrew Scriptures, and the Language of Trauma
What if some of the Bible’s most haunting verses aren’t just theological arguments or historical reflections—but ancient trauma poems?
Long before the Psalms gave us language for sorrow, before Job asked his searing questions of heaven, there was another literary tradition emerging from the heart of the ancient Near East. It was written in Akkadian, the language of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, and it speaks in rhythms of loss, disorientation, and divine absence. Today we call it Akkadian poetry, but what we’re really encountering is some of the earliest recorded human wrestling with suffering.
Akkadian poetry includes a wide array of literary texts—myths, laments, hymns, and prayers—that date back as far as the second millennium BCE. These works were not simply ritual incantations or state propaganda. Many of them, especially the laments and wisdom texts, are saturated with emotion, complexity, and a raw psychological depth that still hits hard today. They speak in the voice of someone who has been undone, whose world has fallen apart, and who is left with nothing but the ache of a question: Why?
One striking example is Ludlul Bēl Nēmeqi, often referred to as ‘The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer.’ It tells the story of a man who was once prosperous and pious, but who now finds himself abandoned, afflicted, and confused. He describes illness, betrayal, loss, and spiritual darkness—yet without turning to blame or tidy resolution. His cry is not unlike Job’s: bewildered, persistent, and honest to the point of scandal. Another example is The Lamentation over the Destruction of Ur, a poetic reflection on the fall of a city. It imagines the gods themselves weeping as the temples burn, and the people are dragged into exile. There is no easy hope in these lines—only grief, remembered glory, and unanswered prayer.
These Akkadian poems don’t just resemble biblical laments; they predate and echo them in profound ways. The book of Lamentations, written in the aftermath of Jerusalem’s destruction, could sit side by side with the Lament for Ur. The voice of Job—righteous, angry, confused—has its counterpart in the Righteous Sufferer. Even many Psalms (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) reflect this same ancient tradition of letting trauma speak.
What makes these texts so powerful is not just their literary artistry, but the psychological insight they offer. They don’t flinch from despair. They don't rush to solve pain with platitudes or moral lessons. Instead, they stay in the place of suffering. They allow questions to hang unanswered. They name the chaos, the silence, the betrayal, the numbness. And in doing so, they perform something remarkable: they bear witness.
Modern trauma theory increasingly recognises the value of such witnessing. One of the first steps in healing is being able to speak—however haltingly—about what has happened. Trauma, by its very nature, resists narrative. It shatters time, language, memory. But poetry has always had a strange ability to hold what prose cannot. Its metaphors, repetitions, and rituals of lament create a structure that can carry unspeakable things.
In this light, the overlap between Akkadian poetry and the Hebrew Bible is not just a historical curiosity. It reveals something deeply human: that across time and culture, when catastrophe strikes, people reach for poetry. And not just any poetry, but lament; the art of staying present to suffering without rushing to close the wound.
This shared poetic tradition helps us see the Bible differently. When we read Job or Lamentations or certain Psalms, we’re not reading distant theology, but entering a sacred archive of human trauma. These texts are not neat answers—they are faithful articulations of disorientation. They are survival texts.
Perhaps that is why they still resonate so powerfully today. In a world of war, displacement, personal loss, and collective anxiety, we don’t always need an explanation. Sometimes we need the honesty of ancient voices who dared to say: I don’t understand. I hurt. I have been faithful, and I have been crushed.
Akkadian poetry and Hebrew Scriptures share this brutal, beautiful honesty. And in that honesty, they invite us to believe that naming pain is not the opposite of faith—it may be its deepest expression.
These ancient laments are not just relics. They are companions. They are proof that we are not the first to feel lost, or broken, or abandoned. And maybe, just maybe, their survival across millennia is its own quiet answer: not a solution, but a presence. A whisper that says, You are not alone.