[4] The precise meaning of this Sumerian term is a matter of scholarly debate, though it is generally accepted that it referred first and foremost to a type of string instrument.

[5] Some translators, for example Wolfgang Heimpel, favor interpreting balaĝ as a harp,[2] but Uri Gabbay argues the available evidence makes it more likely that it was a lyre.

[6] This conclusion is also supported by Dahlia Shehata, who points out that possible references to two people playing a balaĝ at once makes it more plausible to interpret it as a large standing lyre than as a harp.

[7] The name of the position held by Ninigizibara in the court of Inanna was written in cuneiform as GU4.BALAG, which can be literally translated from Sumerian as "balaĝ-bull",[10] most likely a reference to the bull-shaped decorations on the sound box of the instrument.

[14] However, as pointed by Joan Goodnick Westenholz, Ninigizibara was associated both with Inanna (under the name Ninibgal) but also with Gula in Umma, where she took part in a procession of both of these goddesses to Zabalam.

[20] Böck also points out Ninizigibara is also attested in association with another medicine goddess, Ninisina, the tutelary deity of Isin, whose entourage overlaps to a degree with Inanna's.

[21][a] Attempts have been made to prove that Ninigizibara originally belonged to the circle of Ninisina rather than Inanna, and only came to be linked to the latter through syncretism between these two goddesses, but the evidence supporting this proposal is limited.

[26] She considers it more likely that the priests active in the late first millennium BCE introduced or reintroduced various minor goddesses from god lists such as An = Anum to the pantheon of the city as part of an effort to restructure Ishtar's retinue to make it as theologically complete as possible.

[28] An offering to Ninigizibara and the goddess Ninme ("lady of battle"), possibly an epithet of Inanna, is also mentioned in a document from the reign of Sumu-El presumed to originate in Larsa.

[30] Ninmeurur (Sumerian: "lady who collects all the me") also appears next to Ninigizibara and yet another minor goddess from Inanna's entourage, Ninḫinuna, in the Isin god list.

[31] In a single late copy of Uru-Ama'irabi an Akkadian gloss refers to Ninigizibara as a male deity; later on in the same manuscript identifies him as Inanna's husband.

[32] Wolfgang Heimpel considers this attestation to be dubious evidence for Ninigizibara being perceived as male, as elsewhere the composition refers to Dumuzi as Inanna's husband, and the sign nin in Ninigibzara's name is translated into Emesal as feminine gašan.