dies, that is, ceases to exist in human form, his life passes into the
waters where he is buried; and this again is merely a theory to bring
the divine water or the divine fish into harmony with anthropomorphic
ideas. The same thing was sometimes effected in another way by saying
that the anthropomorphic deity was born from the water, as Aphrodite
sprang from sea foam, or as Atargatis, in another form of the
Euphrates legend, ... was born of an egg which the sacred fishes found
in the Euphrates and pushed ashore."[33]

As "Shar Apsi", Ea was the "King of the Watery Deep". The reference,
however, according to Jastrow, "is not to the salt ocean, but the
sweet waters flowing under the earth which feed the streams, and
through streams and canals irrigate the fields".[34] As Babylonia was
fertilized by its rivers, Ea, the fish god, was a fertilizing deity.
In Egypt the "Mother of Mendes" is depicted carrying a fish upon her
head; she links with Isis and Hathor; her husband is Ba-neb-Tettu, a
form of Ptah, Osiris, and Ra, and as a god of fertility he is
symbolized by the ram. Another Egyptian fish deity was the god Rem,
whose name signifies "to weep"; he wept fertilizing tears, and corn
was sown and reaped amidst lamentations. He may be identical with
Remi, who was a phase of Sebek, the crocodile god, a developed
attribute of Nu, the vague primitive Egyptian deity who symbolized the
primordial deep. The connection between a fish god and a corn god is
not necessarily remote when we consider that in Babylonia and Egypt
the harvest was the gift of the rivers.

The Euphrates, indeed, was hailed as a creator of all that grew on its
banks.

O thou River who didst create all things,