The god Nabu or Nebo is represented as embodying divine wisdom.  Jastrow thinks that as the Babylonians associated wisdom with the watery deep, the origin of Nabu was aqueous.  He thinks that Nabu and Ea (q.v.) were originally related.  In any case, Nabu is referred to as the irrigator and fertilizer of fields, and became a patron of agriculture.  He was especially the god of Borsippa, but in the days of Hammurabi he had to give place to Marduk (q.v.).  He reappeared, however, as the son of Marduk, and in some cases received greater prominence than his father.  The Assyrian kings paid him great homage, and several of them were named afer him (Nabupolassar, Nebuchadrezzar, Nabonnedos).  Marduk-baladan II describes himself as "worshipper of Nabu and Marduk."  As the herald of the gods he was called Papsukal, the supreme messenger.  His symbols were the stylus of the writer and the sceptre of the ruler.  His consort would seem to have been originally Erua; afterwards it was Tashmitum (q.v.).  In the Deluge-story, Nabu figures prominently among the gods who are active in storm.  Nabu was sometimes identified with Nusku (q.v.).  He came to be identified also with Mercury.  In the procession on New Year's Day Nabu was carried in a magnificent ship. (An Encyclopedia of Religions, Canney, 1921)