Nabû is the Babylonian god of writing, occurring in Isa. 46.1 with his father Marduk, and as a theophoric element in Babylonian personal names rendered into biblical Hebrew such as Nebuchadrezzar and Nebuzaradan.
Nabû appears in Akk. sources from early in the second millennium bce as Na-bi-um, a form which suggests his name comes from the base nbʾ, ‘to call’, and may mean ‘herald’ (see AHW 697–698). There is no trace of Nabû in the texts from Ebla, or in Old Akkadian. In…