Enuma Elish Commentary?

Is anyone familiar with a scholarly commentary on the Enuma Elish? Or, the best resource that discusses it in detail?

In particular, I'm interested in the meaning of the bold line from Tablet 6, where Marduk says at the creation of humanity, “I shall compact blood, I shall cause bones to be, I shall make stand a human being, let ‘Man’ be its name. I shall create humankind, They shall bear the gods’ burden that those may rest."

If anyone has an opinion, I'm glad to hear it.

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Don Awalt

I found this as the best theory in my library, which imho seems consistent with the myth's story line:

The gods needed people to feed and care for them through the sacrifices and cult.
The lot in life for the average person was to be quiet, (Don: some comments indicate 'quiet' meant 'not doing evil deeds') keep the land in good order and attend to the needs of the gods, yet the number of requests for divine intervention show that the purposes of the gods were not clearly discernible. The plans or principles which kept the cosmos running smoothly were designated by the Sumerian word ME, the exact meaning of which is still uncertain.11 These divinely ordained decrees covered over one hundred aspects of human life and civilisation, though many are still obscure in meaning due to the fragmentary nature of the texts where they are listed, translation problems, and the difficulty inherent in attempting to understand a culture that has not existed for over three thousand years. Thus individuals were concerned to live according to the divine order that regulated virtually all areas of life.
For the ordinary human the more prominent deities seemed remote and unapproachable, thus the main focus in religion had to do with personal gods, who were seen as intercessors between a worshipper and the great gods. The personal god was closely involved with an individual’s success or failure, and was often viewed or addressed as a parent. Under this metaphor the god was seen in four ways: (1) the physical aspect (the father as engenderer of a child or the mother who gave birth), (2) the provider aspect, (3) the protector and intercessor, and (4) the claim parents have upon children for honour and obedience.

Daniel P. Bricker, “Innocent Suffering in Mesopotamia,” Tyndale Bulletin 51, no. 2 (2000): 195–196.

DMB

I don't know of any E/E commentaries that you'd like (search Amazon!). There is some irony in the metal band Blood of Kingu from Ukraine.

But the refrain to human-creation isn't necessarily negative in similar accounts. I don't know if you have:

Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton (Gunkel, Zimmern, Whitney), and the thread thru Berossus:

"When Bel saw the earth without inhabitants and fruit, he commanded one of the gods to cut off his head and to mix the blood that flowed from it with earth, and thus to form humanity and animals, who would be able to hold up the sky. Bel also completed the stars, the sun, the moon, and the five planets.—

Berossus actually narrates this according to the witness of Alexander Polyhistor: [“This god himself took off his head, and the other gods mixed the blood, which flowed forth, with earth, and from this humanity was formed; for this reason, they [human beings] are reasonable, partaking of the divine wisdom.”]