I. Name
The name of the Babylonian goddess Beltu (var. Belit, Belti) is the feminine form of Bel (‘Lord’), and means ‘Lady’. She is identified either with Ishtar or Ṣarpanitu. Her mention in the Hebrew Bible is conjectural; P. de Lagarde (Symmicta [Göttingen 1877] 105) was the first to emendate biltî in Isa. 10.4 into bēltî, ‘my Lady’. The proposal cannot be seen in isolation from the emendation, in the same verse, of ʾassîr (‘prisoner’) into ʾōsîr (Osiris).
II. Identity
Since the name Beltu is not rea…