Trinity Journal 3 NS (1982) 18-38.
Copyright
© 1982 by Trinity Journal, cited with permission.
THE CONCEPT OF GOD/THE GODS AS KING IN
THE
ANCIENT NEAR EAST AND THE BIBLE
GARY
V. SMITH
By its very nature, language about God
must include analogical terms which
try to
communicate the idea of "God" in ways which man understands.
Because
man's experiences and cultures have varied so tremendously, it is
difficult and
dangerous to make generalizations about the ancient Near Eastern
concept of
god. Rudolph Otto in his study The Idea of the Holy1
found a com-
mon mysterium
tremendum et facinasum
in all religions. This represents a
power
within things which results in man's special treatment of them. An
object
might be considered sacred or taboo, but would receive reverence
regardless,
because of its power.
This power within nature, objects or
people was perceived in different ways.
In most
cases it had control over aspects of nature, objects or persons to which
it was
related. This vital force, or god, was sometimes described in terms of the
structure of
the culture in which the people lived. These powers were thought
to have
personalities or wills which were related to one another in ways similar
to the
social relationships between men. Some powers were higher than others,
as a
master is above his slave, while others were offsprings
of higher and more
potent
gods. Destructive forces like fire might be described as judges, or the
earth as a
mother who gives birth to vegetation. It seems natural then, that the
chief gods
or powers would be described in terms of the highest analogical
power on
earth: the king.2
The first section of this paper will
survey some of the texts which archeolo-
gists have found in the ancient Near Eastern
world to see how men describe
their
gods. Because the ancient world had so many gods, because of the large
number of
texts and because of the complexity of trying to reproduce an
accurate
conceptualization of a term like "god," there will be no attempt to
present a
total picture of each god, during each period, as it was seen by each
different
class group within the society. Instead, the main purpose will be to
examine the
concept of king as it relates to the gods of the ancient Near
" Eastern world. Are gods called king, lord, ruler or other terms which
relate to
18
[1] Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy (London: Oxford University Press, 1943) 12-41.
2 T. Jacobsen, "Formative Tendencies in
Sumerian Religion," The Bible and the Ancient Near
East:
Essays in Honor of W. F. Albright, ed.
G. E. Wright (Garden City: Doubleday, 1965) 27.
SMITH.
GOD/THE GODS AS KING 19
the king
(sitting on a throne, holding a scepter)? Do such references occur in all
types of
literature and art, and is kingship or rulership one
of the central
factors
which characterize a god? In order to get a full picture of kingship,
various roles
which the earthly king has (judging, ruling, commander-in-chief)
will be
compared to the functions of the gods who are kings.
In the second section, various biblical
references to the kingship of Yahweh
are
compared with ancient Near Eastern ideas in order to identify both simi-
larities and differences. How does
God's
kingship compare with the Egyptian, Canaanite, Hittite and Mesopo-
tamian concepts? Is the kingship or rulership of God central to Old Testament
thinking? The
answers to these questions in past studies are very diverse. Some
see a
relationship between Mari social customs and the Abraham story but they
deny any
theological relationship between
a
basic "pattern" in the many similarities of language, culture, ritual
and
theology:
thus, Israelite religion is derived from and understood in light of
other
religions in the ancient Near East. One of the important issues in this
debate is the
concept of kingship, and in this area one must not ignore either
the
similarities or the differences between
God/god.
I. THE
CONCEPT OF A GOD AS KING IN
There is much about the beliefs of the
peoples of
suggests a
common culture throughout their history. But cultures and times
changed
throughout the Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian periods. New gods
came to
prominence and variations of detail are abundant. Although Jacobsen
has reconstructed
the religion of the fourth millennium B.C. around aspects of
fertility, the
religion of the third millennium B.C. around the metaphor of gods
conceived as
rulers, and the religion of the second millennium B.C. around the
more
personal concept of the gods as parents,3 all these aspects were present to
some
extent during each period. The metaphor of a god as ruler dates back to
the protoliterate age and continued throughout Mesopotamian
history. It
would seem
to be precarious to tie a people's concept of their gods solely to
one
aspect of their economic, political or personal experiences. One of these
factors may
be more influential in certain pieces of literature, but all three
factors
contributed varying degrees of emphasis at all times. A god of fertility
can be a
personal god who is prayed to for economic aid and still be the king or
lord of
fertility. The terminology of kingship and lordship which dominates the
Mesopotamian
literature suggests that the power and authority of the gods was
an essential
factor in their thinking.
The description of earthly kings found
during the early period includes the
conceptual
terms of "lord," "one who exercises lordship,"
"kingship," "the
leader of
the military forces," "shepherd of the land" and "the dispenser
of
3 T.
Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1976) 20-21.
20 TRINITY JOURNAL
righteous
judgment."4 This concept and the power of kingship which the
Mesopotamian kings enjoyed was "lowered from heaven "5 by the gods. The
similarity
between the gods and the kings was expressed in the proverb "the
king is
like the (very) image of god."6
The Mesopotamian tendency was to view the
world as a state.7 Since every-
thing in
the world has a character, will and power, it is part of the total society
of the
ancient man. The political and social terminology is thus extended by
analogy,
beyond the relationship of men, to include all "powers." Although
some
"powers" were inferior gods in relationship to the chief gods of the
pan-
theon, they were still considered the lord in
their own areas of responsibility.
A. The
Kingship of An, Enlil and Enki
An/Anu, the god
of heaven, was regarded as the highest god and head of the
pantheon of
the gods. Anu is addressed as king in the story of
Adapa,8
the
myth of Enki and Sumer9 and the hymn to Ishtar.10
"Anu the Great, the
father of
the gods,"11 is the father of Enlil who is called
the king of the lands
in the
prologue to the Lipit-Ishtar law code.12 The
prologue and epilogue to
Hammurabi's law
code give first place to "lofty Anum, the king
of the
Anunnaki,"
and second to his chief executive, "Enlil, lord
of heaven and earth,
the
determiner of destinies."13 In the lamentation over the destruction
of
a
similar relationship is found between "Anu, the
king of the gods" and "Enlil"
the king
of the lands."14 Enlil's kingship is proclaimed over and
over again in,
the myth
of Enlil and Ninlil15 and
he is said to have a throne and crown.16
Ringgren
says, "He (Anu) is above all, the gods of
kingship; it is from him that the
office of
kingship comes, and he is himself king of the gods…. Enlil
was
4 J. B.
Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts (hereafter ANET) (
ton University Press, 1955)
496. Shu-sin is called "lord" nine times in
this "love song to a
king." For further
examples see pp. 45-52 (Gilgamesh); 164-5, 177-80 (Hammurabi's
law
code), 265-6 (Sumerian king
list), 480-81 (Ibbi-Sin) and T. Jacobsen, Toward
the Image;
of
Tammuz and other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture (
University Press) 158; N. Postgate, The Making of the Past: The First Empires (
Elsevier Phaidon, 1977) 23-5; S. Smith,
“The Practice of Kingship in Early Semitic King-
doms," Myth, Ritual and Kingship (Oxford: Clarendon, 1958) 22-73.
5 ANET 114
line 14; 159-61; 164; 265; 481 line 18. H. Frankfort (Kingship
and the,
Gods [
(249-74) and the question of the deification of the kings (295-312).
6 ANET 426.
7 T.
Jacobsen and others, Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of
Ancient
Man (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1959) 140.
8 ANET 101, B 17; 102, B 46.
9 S. N.
Kramer, Sumerian Mythology (
1972) 59.
10
ANET 383 line 34.
11ANET 390 line 12.
12ANET 159.
13ANET 164; 179 line 42;
91.
14ANET 462 lines 381-2.
15Kramer, Mythology 45-6.
16 ANET 113.
SMITH.
GOD/THE GODS AS KING 21
the
'king of the lands' (i.e. of the earth), and like his father, Anu, could be
'called 'the father of the gods' and the 'king of the gods'.17
Enki, whose name
literally means "the lord of the earth" is related to the
earth, the
water, wisdom and craftsmanship, but his status as a god in his own
realm is
that of a king. Jacobsen posits that Enki's office in
the world state is
that of
"a great nobleman of the realm….a councilor….But he is not king,
not a
ruler in his own right. The position derives from Anu
and Enlil; he is their
minister."18 But
in the myth of Enki and Ninhursag,
Enki is called "the king"
by Isimud his messenger,19 thus giving his position in his own
realm. In Enki's
power
struggle with Enlil, he is called "the lord
defiant, the prince defiant, the
king
defiant."20 In the myth of Enki and
"king of the abyss."21 The myth of Enki
and Eridu refers to "the lord of the
abyss, the
king Enki" and Enlil
announces that "My son has built a house, the
king
Enki."22 Inanna is presented the "throne of
kingship…the exalted
scepter,
staffs, the exalted shrine, shepherdship,
kingship"23 by Enki who is
addressed as
king by Isimud and Inanna in
the myth of Inanna and Enki.24 Ea,
the Akkadian name of Enki, is called
king in the story of Adapa,25 the descent
of lshtar into the nether world,26 and
in a psalm to Marduk.27 He is called
lord on
numerous occasions in the Atrahasis epic,28 as
well as "king of the
Apsu."
B. The
Kingship of Other Gods
Ninurta is king of
the land in the myth of Kur29 and in a similar manner
Enkimdu, the
farmer god, is twice called "the king of dike and ditch" in the
dispute
between the shepherd-god and the farmer-god.30 Ereshkigal, the
goddess of
the nether world, is pictured as sitting on a throne31 and
called
queen of
the nether world in the myth of Inanna's descent into
the nether
world.32 In the story of Kumma's
vision of the nether world, Nergal who was
granted
"dominion over the wide nether world,"33 is
seated on a royal throne
17
ANET 54.
18 ANET 160.
19 ANET 39 lines 97, 117; 40 lines 200-215.
20
Kramer,
Mythology X.
21 Ibid. 60.
22 Ibid. 62-3.
23 Ibid. 66.
24 Ibid. 67.
25 ANET 102 c 8-10.
26 ANET 107 lines 27-8; 108 line 4.
27 ANET 390 line 18.
28
ANET 105-106; W. G. Lambert and A. R. Millard,
Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story
of the Flood (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969) 49, 67,89.
29 Kramer, Mythology 81.
30 ANET 42 lines 37, 71.
31
ANET 55 line 162; 104 line 78.
32
ANET 54-5 lines 91-5. The same title is given
to Ishtar (107 line 23; 110 line 18; \
87, VI iv 50).
33 ANET 104 line 83.
22 TRINITY
JOURNAL
wearing a
crown of royalty and holding a scepter.34 He is bowed to, his feet
are
kissed, and he is called ruler. The myth of Zu
describes the gods' loss of
their rulership when the tablets of destiny are stolen.35 The
Assyrian version
of the
myth identifies the exercise of "Enlilship"
(rulership) with "the crown
of his
sovereignty, the robe of his godhead."36 Rulership is
the essence of the
gods
which Zu took in order that he might rule and set
himself on a throne. In
the
lamentation over the destruction of
referred to
as a shepherd and the queen of Ur.37 A Kassite
inscription has eight
references to
the gods as kings38 and in a hymn to Shamesh, the sun god,
the
people
would sing, "prince of the gods, righteous judge…king of heaven and
earth,
lord of destinies…[you] govern mankind; you rule over the heavenly
beings."39
In
the Enuma Elish, Marduk is described in extraordinary terms, being far
above the
other gods at the time of his birth.40 But it is Kingu
who is elevated
as
chief of the assembly, commander-in-chief, supreme controller of destinies
and the
one elevated to the rank of Anu.41 In contrast to the power of Tiamat
whom none
can destroy and Kingu who was made supreme by Tiamat, is
Marduk who is
given a throne, complete authority, the most honored position
and
kingship of the universe.42 After he is given a scepter and a throne,
he is
proclaimed to
be king and lord repeatedly.43 Hammurabi, in
the prologue and
epilogue to
his law code, refers to Marduk as the supreme one
whose kingship
was
established in Babylon.44 Nebuchadnezzar II at a later period also
calls
Marduk lord
and king.45 Nabonidus and Cyrus call Marduk "king of the gods
and lord
of lords,"46 but sometime in the reign of Nabonidus his attention was
turned to
the god Sin whom he calls the king of the gods.47 The
historical
texts from
called
king.49
Descriptions of the gods in terms of
kingship are found in ritual texts,
hymns and
prayers. Two of the many praises given to Ishtar are
"queen of
women"
and the "goddess of goddesses who wears the crown of dominion."50
34 ANET 110 lines 11, 15-16.
35 ANET 1111ines 14, 16.
36 ANET 112 ii5-6.
37 ANET461 lines 305, 315, 331, 369, 373, 383-4.
38 ANET 58-59, fragment A vii; c iv, vi; D V.
39 H. Ringgren, Religions of the Ancient Near East (London: SPCK, 1973) 59.
40 ANET62 lines 80-104.
41 ANET 62-63 I 146-160; II 34-6; III38-49, 95-107.
42 ANET 66 IV 1-15.
43 ANET 66-69 IV 28;VI 20, 39, 142-3; VII 91, 95, 101.
44 ANET 164; 10-20; ii 9; 178 xxv 20-59.
45 ANET 307.
46 ANET 309 i; 310 ix; 315.
47 ANET 311-12.
48 ANET 275-301. The title "lord" is found over twenty-five times in these pages.
49 ANET 281
in the Inscription by Adad-Nirari III and page 289 in
prism B by
Esarhaddon.
50 ANET 383-5.
SMITH. GOD/THE GODS AS KING 23
The
moon-god, Nanna or Sin, is called "lord of the
shining crown of dominion,
of hero
of the gods, Father Nanna, who is grandly perfected
in kingship."51 The
New Year's
festival at
country"
which parallels the title given to Marduk who is
"the great lord,"
the
"the lord of the world, king of the gods…who holds kingship, grasps
In lordship."52
The seemingly contradictory proclamations, that a multitude of deities are
king, can
be understood only if one realizes that different gods ascended to
the
kingship at different times and that the kingships described often pertain to
different
areas of rulership. Thus An,
Enlil and Enki who were
supreme among
the
Sumerians, gave way in later history to the increased importance of Marduk
and Ashur as well as Shamesh, Ishtar and Sin. Whoever the chief god may be, it
far
appears from the literary evidence that he was described in terms of kingship
or
lordship from
the Sumerian through the Babylonian periods.
II. THE
CONCEPT OF A GOD AS KING IN UGARITIC LITERATURE
In the northwest Semitic culture at
conceptual
terms are found In the epic literature as well as in later Greek
authors who
describe their religion.53 The description of the Ugaritic earthly
kings
provides a criterion for identifying kingship terminology that was applied
to
their gods. Although there is a limited amount of information on kings out-
side the
"mythological" literature, the image of the king in the epics appears
to
be a
realistic representation of the ruling earthly kings.
The Keret epic
describes several disasters which threaten Keret's
role as
king. The
king, who is the "son of El,"54 is the one who leads the army, judges
righteously, and
sits enthroned ruling with authority.55 In the initial section,
after Keret loses his family and has his authority undermined, El
asks him, "Is
it
kingship like Bull his father's he desires, or authority like the Father of
Man's?"56 In
the final paragraphs Keret is returned "to his
former estate; he
sits upon
the throne of his kingship; upon the dais, the seat of his
authority."57 The
plot of this epic is clearly put in terms of kingship and
specifically relates to Keret's ability to maintain
his kingship in spite of
sickness,
death, plagues and other disasters. Yassib, Keret's son, attempts to
usurp Keret's position and declares, "Descend from thine kingship-I'll reign,
from thine authority-I'll sit enthroned."58 The
epic of Keret explicitly com-
51 ANET 385.
52 ANET 331-2.
53
Ringgren, Religions
124-7. These include the important works of Lucian On the
Syrian Goddess and Philo of Byblos who
is quoted in Eusebius' Praeparatio Evangelica
1.10.15-29.
54 ANET 147, KRT C i 10,20,25.
55
Ringgren, Religions
169-73; J. Gray, "Canaanite Kingship in Theory and Practice,"
VT 2 (1952) 193-220; J. Gray, The
KRT Text in the Literature of Ras Shamra
(
Brill, 1964)2, 5-8; R. deLanghe,
"Myth, Ritual, and Kingship in the Ras Shamra Tablets,"
Myth, Ritual and Kingship (Oxford: Clarendon, 1958) 142-8.
56 ANET 143, KRT A i 41.
57 ANET 149, KRT C vi 23-25.
58 ANET 149, KRT C vi 37-38; 53-54.
24 TRINITY
JOURNAL
pares the
kingship of El with that of Keret and gives a basis
for understanding
kingship as
an essential concept in ANE thought about the gods.
The Aqhat epic
describes the struggles of a righteous king59 or a righteous
village
elder60 who "sits at the gate…judging the fatherless."61 Most of the
epic
deals with the desire for, birth and death of, and the search for Aqhat. The
position of El
is identified when Anath enters "the pavilion of
the king, Father
Shunem,"62 the abode of El, to gain his approval for the
death of Aqhat. El
the king
is bowed to and reverenced but later mistreated and threatened during
the
temper tantrum of Anath. Pope and others interpret El's
reaction as a sign
of
weakness which demonstrates that El's kingship was more nominal than
real.63
A. El the
King
The attributes and epithets of El have
been outlined by M. Pope, and
include: (a)
"father," with its more specific identification of "father of
years,"
"father of mankind," "father of the gods," and
"father of eternity" which
point to El's
position in the family of the gods and his advanced age;64
(b)
"Bull," which symbolizes his procreative powers;"65 (c)
"wise, beneficent,
holy, and
kind;"66 (d) "creator of creatures" and "creator of
earth;"67 and
(e) "king."68
The significance and status of El in
relationship to his kingship is perceived
differently. Dussaud gives El a very high position and identifies him
with the
solar Aton, the god of the Egyptian Empire (because of the solar
disc above El
on a stela). This near monotheistic position was later eroded by
the ascendance
of Baal
who supplanted EI and reigned in his stead.69
Nielsen sees El as the chief Semitic god
who was connected to the moon.
Roggia and Eissfeldt interpret El worship to be nearly monotheistic,
with
Eissfeldt
giving El the monarchial position of being the king and highest god
59
Ringgren,
Religions 172; G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends (
T. & T. Clark, 1956) 8; J. Gray, Near Eastem Mythology (London: Hamlyn, 1969) 91, 99.
60
J.
C. L. Gibson, "Myth, Legend and Folk-lore in the Ugaritic
Keret and Aqhat:
Texts," VTS 28 (1975) 60-68 and H. H. P. Dressler, "The Identification of the Ugaritic,
DNIL with the Daniel of Ezekiel," VT 29 (1979) 152-3.
61 ANET 151, AQHT A v 5-8; 153, AQHT C i 22-5.
62 ANET 152, AQHT A vi 49.
63
M.
Pope, El in the Ugaritic Texts (Leiden: Brill, 1955) 25-9. A similar view is held:
by A. Kapelrud,
Baal in the Ras Shamra
Texts (Copenhagen: G. Gad, 1952); U. Cassuto,
The Goddess Anat (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1971) 53-7.
64
Pope,
EL 32-4. Pope connects snm with the
Arabic root meaning "to shine, be,
high, exalted in rank"
while U. Oldenburg, The Conflict Between El and Baal in Canaanite,:
Religion (Leiden: Brill,
1969) 17-19 translates snm as
"luminaries" since El was the father
of shr the morning star and slm the evening star.
65 Pope, EL 35-42.
66 Ibid. 42-5.
67 Ibid. 47-54.
68 Ibid. 25-32.
69
Ibid. 82-4. for Pope's
criticism of R. Dussaudi, Les découvertes
de Ras Shamra
(
SMITH GOD/THE GODS AS KING 25
(the other gods are emanations of his power) and Roggia finding a gradual take-
over by
Baal of El's position of power and authority.70 Ringgren calls El
the
"supreme authority among the gods, where he reigns as
king."71 Pope dis-
covers in
El only a nominal head of the pantheon and a nominal king of the
gods
because Anath forced El's hand when she requested a
house for Baal and
when she
demanded Aqhat's bow, because the messengers of
Prince Yamm
refused to
bow to El, and because Yamm and Baal are also called
"king" and
"lord" in their successful struggle for dominion.72 Lokkegaard interprets El's
so-called
weakness as a virtue in a ruler. El's action is based on moderation,
tolerance,
self-reliance and a true sense of security in one's position.73
Olden-
burg's
analysis of El in Sanchuniathon's Phoenician
History reveals an "omni-
potent
monarch ruling from
kingship is
usurped by Baal in the Ugaritic mythology.75
Albrecht
Alt's identification of the patriarchal God as "the God of the
Fathers"76 is
expanded by F. Cross who compares the Ugaritic god El
to "the
God of the Fathers."77
Cross concludes that "the exercise of authority by El
over his
council suggests that his role is more that of a patriarch, or that of a
judge in
the council of a league of tribes, than the role of a divine king."78
Certainly El
is the aged divine father, and it is true that the office of a judge
over a
league and a king are quite similar, but the titles and functions of El go
much
beyond that of a judge or patriarch. Cross believes that El was not an
absolute
ruler79 but this recent trend to diminish El's power does not go as far
as what
the text demands.80 The power of a king is not destroyed if he gives
authority to
others or is influenced by wives, friends, and threats. Cross has
properly
drawn attention to the distinctive character of El's rule and concedes
that El
reflects "the organized institution of kingship"81 as
well as the patriar-
chal society.
In the Baal epic, as in
many mythological texts, a description. of the
gods'
70 Ibid.
83-90 for Pope's fuller description and criticism of D. Nielsen, Ras Shamra
Mythologie und Biblische Theologie
(Leipzig: Teubner, 1936) 9-26 and R. G. Roggia,
"Alcume osservationi suI culto di El a Ras-Samra,"Aevum (1941) 559-75.
71 Ringgren, Religions 129.
72 Pope, EL 90-91.
73 F. Lokkegard, "A Plea for EL the Bull, and other Ugaritic Miscellanies," Studia
Orientalia loanni Pedersen septuagenario
dicta (Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard,
1953)
233.
74
75
76 A.
Alt, Essays in Old Testament History and Religion (
1966) 3-86.
77 Cross, Canaanite Myth 12.
78 Ibid. 39.
79 Ibid. 40.
80 W.
Kaiser, "The Ugaritic Pantheon"
(unpublished Ph.D. dissertation at Brandeis
University, 1973) 26-7 and C. E. L'Heureux,
Rank Among the Canaanite Gods (Mis-
sou1a: Scholars Press, 1979) 3-28 for a full discussion of the objections raised by Pope.
81 Cross, Canaanite Myth 41.
26 TRINITY
JOURNAL
struggle for
power is expressed in terms of kingship. After permission for
building a
house for Yammis granted from "the pavilion of
king, Father
Shunem"82 who has power to grant and "overturn
the throne of thy kingship!
Yea, break
the scepter of thy dominion,"83 Baal goes "to El the king his
begetter"84 to get permission to have a house built
for himself. This is fol-
lowed by Asherah's trip to "the pavilion of king, Father
Shunem."85 In their
dialogue, El
wonders if "El the king's love stirs"86 her,
to which Asherah asks
"the king"87 to build a house for Baal. Later in the
epic both Anath and Mot
refer to
"the pavilion of king, Father Shunem"88 and Shapsh tells Mot that El
has the
power to "overturn thy throne of kingship, break thy staff of
dominion."89
"Eternal king" is another epithet used of El90 who
is enthroned
and sits
as judge.91 These references to concepts relating to kingship demon-
strate the importance of the conceptual analogy
of the king in the Ugaritic
concept of
the chief god El.
The graphic representation of El on a
limestone stela as a majestic figure on
an
ornate throne, wearing a crown, supports the kingly view of the god El.92 A
bronze
statuette of El with an Egyptian crown was also found at Ugarit.93
B. Kingship
of other gods
The struggle for power and kingship of
other gods is illustrated in the Baal
epic. The
fertility cults' nature cycles are conceived in terms of the dominance
of
various gods as king of the earth for a limited period of time.
Prince Yamm
desires a house or palace like El and authority over Baal.94
Yarmm has
a throne but Kothar wa-Khasis
tells Baal "thou'lt take
thine eternal
kingdom, thine everlasting dominion…chase Yamm
from his throne, Nahar
from the
seat of his dominion."95 Baal also requests a house like the gods
with
a
gorgeous throne. Once Baal's throne is built and Baal dwells in his house, Baal
declares his
dominion over the earth and the gods,96 and is called Lord of the
earth.97 But soon Baal is "chas'd from his throne of kingship, from the dais,
82 ANET 129,
B III AB C 7. See L. Fisher, ed., Ras Shamra Parallels vol. I (
Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1972) 111, 233-4.
83 ANET 129, B III AB C 16-17.
84 ANET 131, B II AB 7.
85 ANET 133, B II AB iv 24.
86 ANET 133, B II AB iv 38.
87 ANET 133, B II AB iv 42-47.
88 ANET 137, BV AB E 17; 139 B I* AB vi 2.
89 ANET 141, BlAB vi 28-29.
90 Cross, Canaanite Myth 16, 20; L. Fisher, Ras Shamra 266.
91 Cross, Canaanite Myth 21.
92 Gray, Mythology 71 for a picture of this stela. See Pope's discussion, EL 45-6.
93
C.
Virolleavd, Comptes
Rendus de l’Academie des
Inscriptions et Belles Letters
(Paris: Geuthner, 1960) 340-41.
94 ANET 129, Bill AB C 8-9. i
95 ANET 131, Bill AB A 10-13,20.
96 ANET 135, B
L. Bonner, The Stories of Elijah and Elisha (Leiden: Brill, 1968) 90.
97 ANET 135, B V AB A
8; L. Fisher, Ras Shamra
262-3.
SMITH
GOD/THE GODS AS KING 27
the seat
of his dominion"98 and "Puissant Baal is dead, the
Prince, Lord of the
Earth is
perished."99 Consequently, EI suggests to Asherah,
"one of thy sons,
I'll make
king,”100 to which Asherah first replies
"why, let's make Yadi
Yalhan
king,"101 and secondly, "let Ashtar the
Tyrant be king."102 Ashtar
does not
fit on Baal's throne and thus his reign is ended. When Baal returns to
life he
is repeatedly called "Lord of the Earth"; and it is said of him,
"Baal
mounts his
throne of kingship, Dagon's son his seat of dominion."103
Other
unspecified
lesser gods are pictured as dwelling on "thrones of princeship."104
These examples give us insight into the
conceptual framework of the ancient
Near Eastern mind. Kingship was the significant factor in the struggle of the
gods for
power.105 There is no fight to steal the essence of what Baal, Mot, or
Yamm
represent. The conflict is for a particular god to have dominion and
kingship over
all other powers. The king was the figure of power which
provided the
most ideal analogy to symbolize a dominant force in nature. A
god by
definition was not necessarily a king, but when a god held dominion, he
sat on
the throne of his kingship and ruled the world. The frequent Ugaritic use
of such
notions as king, lord, dominion, to sit enthroned, and authority reflects
the
dominant commonality in gods in Ugaritic literature.
III. THE
CONCEPT OF A GOD AS KING AMONG THE HITTITES
Although the
early Hittite kings may have been elected,106 the Hittite
society was
essentially feudal with the "Great King" at the top. The king was
the
"supreme commander of the army, supreme judicial authority, and chief
priest."107 The
preamble to the Hittite suzerainty treaties indicates the high
status of
the king who was the head of the religion as well as the state.
The relationship between the gods and men
was “that of a servant to his
master or
that of a subject to his king."108 This attitude was especially preva-
lent in
the Hittite prayers where the term "my lord" occurs with great
frequency
after the name of a god. In the plague prayer of Mursilis,
the son of
98 ANET 137, B V AB D 45-6.
99 ANET 139, B I* AB vi 9-10; 140, B I AB i 41-2.
100 ANET 140, B I AB i 46
101 ANET 140, B I AB i 48.
102 ANET 140, B I AB i 54; L. Fisher, Ras Shamra 7.
103 ANET 141,
B I AB v 5-6; vi 33. For an extensive study of Baal
see A. S. Kapelrud,
Baal in the Ras Shamra Texts (Copenhagen: G. Gad, 1952).
104 ANET 130, B III AB B 20-30.
105 Gray,
Mythology 115. Gray calls this struggle for kingship the central theme
of the
Canaanite New Year's festival.
106 O. R. Gurney, The Hittites (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1952) 63.
107 Ibid. 65. See also H. A. Hoffner,
"The Hittites and Hurrians," Peoples of
Old Testa-
ment
Times (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973) 208-10; O. R. Gurney, "Hittite
Kingship," Myth,
Ritual and Kingship, ed. S. Hooke
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958) 105-21;
C. W. Ceram, The Secrets of the Hittites (New York: Knopf, 1956) 119-31.
108 O. R.
Gurney, Some Aspects of Hittite Religion (
also 1977) 1-20; H. G. Guterbock, "Hittites Religion," Ancient
Religions (
sophical
Library, 1950) 99; P. H. Houwink Ten Cate, "Hittite Royal Prayers," Numen
16 (1969) 82.
28 TRINITY
JOURNAL
Suppiluliumas, "my lord" is used over twenty five times.109 Furlani considers
this
relationship to be the most basic aspect of the Hittite religion.110 He bases
this
hypothesis on the instructions for
laws.
A. The
Kingship of Alalu, Anu and Kumarbi
Hittite mythology describes how" Alalus was king in heaven"112 for
nine
years.
After Anu vanquished Alalu,
Anu sat upon his throne and ruled as king
in
heaven for nine years. The cycle continued when Anu
was defeated by
Kumarbi, who
in turn was defeated by Tesub, the storm-god, the
king of
Kummiya,
appears to have taken Kumarbi's place, for Tasmisus, the storm-
god's
attendant, says that if Tesub moves from his place
"there will be no king
in
heaven."113 In the "Song of Ullikummis," Kummarbi, who has been
connected with
the Sumerian god Enlil,114 the Ugaritic
god El115 and even
Dagan,116
attempts to gain victory over the storm-god so that Ullikumis
may
"ascend to heaven for kingship."117 The
desire of each of the gods is to rule as
king and
their struggle for authority is described in their literature in terms of
kingship.
B. The
Kingship of the sun and storm gods
The Hittite sun-goddess of Arinna is twice proclaimed to be the one who
"regulates kingship and queenship"
in the treaty between Suppiluliumas and
Mattiwaza."118 In Pudu-hepa's
prayer to the sun-goddess, she is called the
"Queen
or heaven and earth, O Sun-goddess of Arinna, queen
of all the
countries."119 At Arinna, the sun-goddess who was called Wurusemu,
was the
principal
deity.120 Although she was "the supreme patroness of the Hittite
state and
monarchy"121 it was the sun-god who was the King of the gods.122
Thus, his
name appears before the sun-goddess of Arinna on some
Hittite
treaties.123
Tesub, the Hurrian storm or weather-god is
called king in the song of
109 ANET 394-6.
110 G.
Fur1ani, "Basic Aspects of Hittite Religion," Harvard Theological
Review 31
(1938) 251-62.
111 ANET 207-10.
112 ANET 120.
113 ANET 124.
114 Gurney, "Hittite Religion," Ancient Religions 103.
115 Pope,
EL 32; M. C. Astour, "Semitic Elements in
the Kumarbi Myth: An Onomas-
tic Inquiry," JNES 27 (1968) 172.
116 E. Laroche, Ugaritica V (
117 ANET 122,125.
118 ANET 205.
119 ANET 393.
120 O. R. Gurney, The Hittites (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1961) 136.
121 1bid. 139. The text is found in Pritchard, ANET 398.
122 1bid.
123 ANET 205.
SMITH
GOD/THE GODS AS KING 29
Ullikimus and
is considered by some to be the "supreme king. ..the
real king
and
owner of the
addressed as
"my lord" and "the king of heaven."125 In a
treaty he is called
the
"lord of heaven and earth."126 Among the other gods, Ea is once referred
to as
"the king of wisdom”;127 and
Telepinus is told, "There is no other deity
more
noble and mighty than thou…thou watchest over
kingship in heaven
and
earth."128
In the oath formula which invokes the
gods, one finds kingship terms used
of. “Ishara, queen of the oath, Hebat,
.queen of heaven"129 and in other
writings the Luwian god Santas is called king.130
These examples illustrate how the Hittites
used the kingship analogy to des-
cribe their chief gods. A great deal remains
unknown about the relationships
between the
Hittite gods but the struggle for power and dominant position is
consistently stated in kingship terminology.
IV. THE
CONCEPT OF A GOD AS KING IN
An integrated description of Egyptian
religion is partially hidden behind the
vast
array of religious images found in Egyptian literature and art. A funda-
mental part
of Egyptian thinking concerning their Pharaohs was that the king
was
divine. In art, the white crown and vulture of
crown and
cobra of
Upper and
Lower Egypt," "Lord of the
fied kings. Since the Pharaoh was divine,
"kingship in
channel
through which the powers of nature flowed into the body politic to
bring
human endeavor to fruition."131 Thus the maintenance of nature and
civilization were dependent on the king.
The rule of the king was absolute in
maintain
justice and order over the land, to serve as an intermediary with the
gods, to
be commander-in-chief of the army and the highest judicial official in
the
land.132 An impressive synthesis of the meaning of "king" in
found in
running
throughout the long history of Egyptian cultic tradition which explain
how the
Egyptians saw the divine at work in the world. These themes are:
creation,
fertility, resurrection and kingship.133 The motif of kingship
penetrates into
the very fiber of all of history, for the earthly kings, and the
gods who
were kings, were the participants which made creation, fertility and
124 Guterbock, "Hittite Religion," 88.
125 ANET 394-5,398.
126 ANET 206.
127 ANET 356.
128 ANET 397.
129 ANET 205.
130 Gurney, The Hittites 138.
131 H.
34.
132 S. Morenz, Egyptian Religion (London: Methuen, 1973)
11-13; A. Erman, Life in
Ancient
133
30
TRINITY JOURNAL
resurrection possible. Each was a demonstration of the kingship of the Pharaoh
and the
chief gods.
The close association of certain gods with
the Pharaoh resulted in the identi-
fication of the two. "The monarchy was
conceived as a reality in the world of
the gods
as well as the world of men."134 "The forms of the state began to
pass over
into the world of the gods, and an important god would be called a
'king.' "135 "In the cult the gods were treated
as if they were kings on
earth."136 The
Egyptians believed that the king and his authority were derived
from and
patterned after the gods. Thus the sun-god, Atum-Re,
established
order and
justice and the Pharaoh who was a replica of the god-king-judge, Re,
was the
supreme judge in Egypt.137 The importance of the earthly king in
A. The
Kingship of Re
The Turin Papyrus and Manetho
list Re, the sun-god, as the first king in
dual
names, goes back to the time of creation. "Monarchial rule, then, was
coeval with
the universe; the Creator had assumed kingship over his creation
from the
first."139 The early sun-god of
begetter of
the Ennead proclaims, "I am Re in his (first) appearances, when he
began to
rule that which he had made. Who is he? This…means that Re
began to
appear as a king."140
The kingship of Re is frequently expressed
in the formula "king of the
gods."
The booty from the capture of Joppa is to be given to the house of
"Amon-Re, King of the Gods"141 and
on Wen-Amon's journey to
obtain
wood, he refers to Amon-Re as "King of the
Gods" ten different
times.142 Amon-Re is
called "King of the Gods" in a Twentieth Dynasty legal
document,143 in two texts which relate to the Hyksos period,144 and by
Thut-mose III
who introduces himself as one who is "Enduring in Kingship,
like Re
in heaven,"145 who serves "Amon-Re, Lord of the
Thrones of the Two
Lands."146 The title "Amon-Re,
King of the Gods" is found in a document
about a
runaway slave,147 a list of the properties which belonged to the
134 Ibid.33.
135 J. H. Breasted, The Dawn of Conscience (New York: Scribner's, 1934) 19.
136
V.
Ions, Egyptian Mythology (Middlesex: Harnlyn,
1968) 14.
137
138 ANET 446-47. Thut-mose III sits upon the throne of Re.
139
140 ANET 3-4.
141 ANET 23.
142 ANET 25-8.
143 ANET 214.
144 ANET 231-2.
145 ANET 234.
146 ANET 236. See also the title by
Amen-hotep II (246), the tomb of a visier under(
-Thut-mose III (248), Seti 1(255), Thutmose III (373), and Amen-hotep III (375).
147 ANET 259.
SMITH.
GOD/THE GODS AS KING 31
temple of
Amon,148 and in ritual texts.149
Of special importance are a number of
hymns to Amon-Re. In one hymn
Amon-Re
is the
chief of all gods. ..Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands…
father of the gods, who made mankind and created
the beasts…
the king of Upper and
lofty of White Crown…Lord of the Double Crown…lord of
the gods…who gave commands, and the gods came into being
...the chief of the Great Ennead…the sole king…maker of all
mankind, Creator and maker of all that is….150
B. The
Kingship of other gods
The theology which developed at
the gods
and of all creation.151 At first, the god Seth was made the king of
Upper Egypt
and the god Horus the king of
Horus the kingship over all
created the
world by his word and took on the kingly title of "Lord of the
Two Lands."152 In the final paragraph the god Horus, the son of Osiris,
appears as
the king of Upper and
cation of the dead Pharaoh with Osiris and his successor with Horus.153
The position of Horus
as the new king explains why the Egyptian Pharaohs
Re were
identified with Horus. The earthly king sits upon the
throne of Horus154
who is
called "the good king of
and
Seth.155 In celebration of the ascension of Mer-ne-Ptah
to the throne, he
is said
to be "great of kingship like Horus,"156 and
at the ascension of Ramses
IV, Horus is proclaimed to be "upon the throne of his
father Amon-Re."157
"Pharaoh,
then, is an incarnation of Horus, the Great(est) God, Lord of
Heaven."158
Beliefs about the god Osiris
primarily relate to fertility and resurrection. His
identification with burial rites and especially the dead Pharaoh ultimately lead
to the
place where Osiris is "considered the supreme
god of
mythology, Osiris was a king after Geb his
father, until he was murdered and
went to
the world of the dead where he was known as the "King of the
Dead."160 The fertility aspect of Osiris related his death land resurrection to
148 ANET 261.
149 ANET 325.
This text also includes the title "Lord of the thrones of the Two
Lands."
150 ANET 365-7.
151
152 ANET 4-5.
153
154 Morenz, Egyptian Religion 34.
155 ANET 17.
156 ANET 378.
157 ANET 379.
158
159 Ions, Egyptian Mythology 50.
160 Ibid. 55;
32 TRINITY JOURNAL
the
seasonal agriculture cycle, the seasonal rise and fall of the
daily
rebirth of the sun.161 Osiris is called "King
Wen-nofer"162 and the dead
King Unis is said to sit on the "throne of Osiris."163
Although the popular
Osiris cult
challenged the solar cult of Re, the merger did not remove Re from
his
position as king of the living. At times both Re and Osiris
appear to be
supreme
kings but the kingship of Osiris is exclusively in
the realm of the
dead.164
These examples illustrate the centrality
of the kingship of the gods to
Egyptian thinking. These gods are called kings, they sit on
thrones, rule, judge
and wear
the crown and hold the scepter of a king. As representatives of
elements of
the universe "they establish a bond between nature and man, and
that in
the only manner in which Egyptians could conceive such a bond-
through
kingship."165
IV. THE
CONCEPT OF GOD AS KING IN
The truth within C. T. Gadd's
observation in his 1945 Schweich Lectures,
that
"God and king are two conceptions so nearly coupled in the oriental mind
that the
distinction is constantly blurred,"166 has been illustrated in the cul-
tures around
two
ideas in Israelite beliefs varies considerably according to the hermeneutical
approach
being used.
S. H. Hooke and
his followers in the
from the
earlier works of Frazer,167 developed a standard pattern of myth and
ritual
which was allegedly present in all the Near Eastern religions. The kin,
who
functions as the chief god, is at the center of this pattern in the great New
Year's festival. In the myth and ritual, the god (i.e. the king) goes through
humiliation,
death, resurrection, and a sacred marriage to bring fertility to the
land for
the coming year. S. Mowinckel, one of the
Scandinavian scholars who
accepts a
common ritual pattern, admits that this coherent "pattern" has been
misused by some
and that it is really an "artificial schematization."168 This
tendency
toward over-identification is also found in I. Engnell's169
study of
“royal ideology."
dency to generalize and overemphasize the unity
between the concept of the
king in
161
162 ANET 14.
163 ANET 32.
164 Breasted, Dawn of Conscience 113.
165
166
C.
T. Gadd, Ideas of Divine Rule in the Ancient East
(
Press, 1948) 33.
167
J.
G. Frazer, Lectures on the Early History of
Kingship (London: Macmillan, 1905).
168
S.
Mowinckel, He That Cometh (New York: Abingdon,
1954) 24-5; J. Gray,
Biblical Doctrine of the Reign of God (Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1979) 7-38 summarize,
some of this debate.
169
I.
Engnell, Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient
Near East (
and Wiksells,
1943). See also the careful analysis of the myth-ritual school in J. W. Roger-
son, Myth in Old Testament Interpretation (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974) 66-84.
170
SMITH.
GOD/THE GODS AS KING 33
study of
the "Ideal of Kingship in Ancient Israel" and concludes that
borrow
aspects of Caananite kingship, but this did not
amount to a takeover of
Canaanite
religion and its view of sacred kingship in an unaltered form.171
Nevertheless,
Mowinckel does find a considerable interrelationship,
especially
in his
study of royal psalms.172
Israelite kings ruled, shepherded and
governed their people, sat upon a
throne in a
palace, judged important court cases, and were the commanders-in-
chief of
the army just like the kings in other neighboring nations.173 But
the
Israelites
did not believe the human king was a mediator between God and
men, or
the one who integrated and harmonized man with the natural world, as
was the
case in
did not
serve in the cultic drama which re-enacted a divine battle in the New
Year's festival. Human kingship in
tion of the nation, so this institution
appears less significant than kingship in
cultures
around
These factors draw the focus of attention
to the unique character of
true
king, Yahweh. This uniqueness does not deny certain conceptual or func-
tional similarities with the ancient Near
Eastern ideas about the kingship of the
gods.
Three primary components which unite themselves in the Israelite meta-
phor of God as king are similar to those used
in other religions: (a) Yahweh
(as other gods) is Lord and king of the world; (b) Yahweh (as
other gods) is a
mighty
warrior who destroys his enemies; and (c) Yahweh (as other gods) is a
judge over
his kingdom.174
A. The
Metaphor of Yahweh the king
L. Köhler
maintains that "God is the ruling Lord: that is the one funda-
mental
statement in the theology of the Old Testament….Everything else
derives from
it. Everything else leans upon it. Everything else can be under-
stood with
reference to it and only it."175 Seeing a similar emphasis, J. Gray
and
of the
Old Testament.176 Martin Buber defines the Israelite
religion as the
171 Mowinckel, He That Cometh 21-95, esp. 56-9.
Compare this with the view of
W.
H. Schmidt, Konigtums Gottes
in
172 S. Mowinckel, The Psalms in
Israelite Worship (New York: Abingdon, 1962). In
contrast to Mowinckel is the view of Weiser
who believes that the enthronement Psalms
were used at the covenant
renewal ceremony: A. Weiser, The Psalms (
minster, 1957) 30.
173 A. R.
Johnson, "The Role of the King in the
S. H. Hooke (London: Macmillan, 1935)
71-111; J. H. Eaton, Kingship and the Psalms
(London: SCM, 1976); C. R. North, "The Religious Aspect of
Hebrew Kingship," ZA W 9
105 (1932) 8-38, T. Ishida, The Royal Dynasties in Ancient
Israel (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977)
38-40, 99-117; K. W. Whitelam, The Just King (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1979)
17-38,
207-18.
174 J. L.
McKenzie, Myth and Realities: Studies in Biblical Theology (
Bruce, 1963) 114-16.
175 L. Köhler, Old Testament Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957) 30.
176 Mowinckel, The Psalms.l.
106-92; J. Gray, "The Kingship of God in the Psalms
and
Prophets," VT 11 (1961) 1.
34
TRINITY JOURNAL
belief in
the kingship of God,177 while
binds the
Old and New Testament together "is the irruption of the Kingship of;
God into this world and its establishment here."178
The word "lord" is often used of
God. Lordship implies rulership (Gen
45:8; Ps
105:21), but some question the extent to which this emphasis is
present in
this title of honor.179 Certainly formulas like "Lord of all the
earth"
(Josh
and lord
of lords" (Deut
The frequent
reference to earthly kings as "my lord, the King" in the Joseph
story 180 and
throughout the historical books support the position that the
epithet was
not without meaning. In Isaiah's vision, he identifies God the King,
with
Yahweh of hosts (6:5) and the Lord who was sitting on a throne (6: 1).
The frequent
use of "lord" in prayers, parallel to the usage in other religions,
suggests a
relationship of a servant to a master. The term does not require king-
ship
imagery (only a higher power who has authority), but when lordship
terminology like
"my Lord God" or "the Lord God of hosts"181 are inte-
grated with
other epithets, an emphasis on the dominion of God results.182
Although "lord" is used more frequently,
kingship terminology more
precisely
identifies the Israelite metaphor which describes God. Psalms contains
the
praise of God who is "King of all the earth. ..[who]
sits on his holy
throne"
(Ps 47:2, 8), the King of Zion (Ps 48:2). He is worshipped as “my
God, my
King" (Ps 68:24; 84:3; 145:1) and
149:2) for
"the Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his
sovereignty
rules over all" (Ps 103: 19).
The kingship of Yahweh relates to all the
earth, for the Hebrews like the
other
nations connected kingship to creation.183
God is my King from of old, who works deeds of deliverance in the
midst of the earth. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength, thou
didst break the heads of the sea-monsters in the waters….thine is
the day, thine is the night, thou has
prepared the light and the sun,
thou hast established all the boundaries of the earth (Ps 74: 12-17).
He is
"King at the flood, yes, the Lord sits as King forever," (Ps 29:10),
for
just as
"the world is firmly established…thy throne is established from of
old"
(Ps 93:2). These all point to the fact that "the Lord is a great God, and
a
great King
above all gods, in whose hands are the depths of the earth...for it
was he
who made it" (Ps 95:3-5), for "The earth is the Lord's and all"
contains"
(Ps 24:1).
The kingship of Yahweh is established in
the present because "He rules over
the
nations" (Ps
177 M. Buber, Kingship
of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1967).
178 W. Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961) 26.
179 Ibid. 203.
180 Gen 40:1,7; 42:10, 30, 33; 44:5,7,8,9,16,18,19,20,22,24,33,45:9; 47:25
181 A designation which is related to the concept that God is a warrior.
182 ANET 3-4.
183 G. yon Rad, "melek und
malkut irn Alten Testament," TWNT 1 (1933) 563-5.
SMITH.
GOD/THE GODS AS KING 35
nations" (Ps 47:2,
7-8). Mowinckel translates the enthronement Psalms,
"Yahweh
has become King" (Ps 93:1; 96:10; 97:1; 99:1),184 but Maag denies'
Mowinckel's
emphasis and interpretation and suggests the translation "Yahweh
(and none
other) is King."185 Either way, these Psalms relate the
kingship of
God to his
just rule (Ps 96:10;97:1-2;99:4).
Both Yahweh and earthly kings attempt to
establish justice; and being a
judge was
part of the function of a king. The Psalmist in trouble cried out for
help to
"my King and my God…thou dost hate all who do iniquity. Hold
them
guilty, O God" (Ps 5:2, 5, 10). Yahweh, who is pictured as a king,
"dost
sit on
the throne judging righteously…hast rebuked the nations…des-
troyed the wicked" (Ps 9:4), for "he
has established his throne for judgment,
and he
will judge the world in righteousness" (Ps 9:7). In parallelism to
"The
Lord reigns" in Ps 96:10 is God's judgment of the peoples
with equity which is
further
emphasized in v 13. A parallel concept is found in Ps 98:6 and 9.
Because Yahweh rules and carries out his
judgments against his enemies,
God is the
Divine Warrior who functions as the King of the earth (Psalm 2), for
"the Lord is King forever and ever, nations have perished
from his land" (Ps
the Lord
of hosts, he is the King of Glory,"186 and the Psalmist prays: because
"Thou
art my King, O God; command victories for Jacob" (Ps 44:4). "He is a
great King
over all the earth, he subdues peoples under us, and nations under
our
feet" (Ps 47:2-3).
B.
Similarities and Comparisons
The metaphor of Yahweh as King, found in
the Psalms, correlates kingship
with
component ideas which show harmony as well as contrast when they are
compared to
statements concerning the kingship of the gods in
tamia,
appear in
varying degrees from country to country. These technical similarities
relate to a
common feeling of inferiority before the powerful chief gods/God
and a
common anthropomorphic way of describing the gods/God with socio-
political
metaphors.187 The functional similarities derive from common expec-
tations and responsibilities which are placed on
chief rulers (i.e. defence,
settling
disputes, governing justly). These similarities are human responses
which do
not require a theory of borrowing, for these factors are represented
and
understood differently in different cultures.
The contrast between ideas of kingship in
the ancient Near Eastern cultures
around
another, can
only be obtained by defining the precise content given to kingship
ideas in
each nation. The identification of kingship and the gods is total in
184 Mowinckel, Psalms.l.l07.
185 Maag, "Malkut Jhwh," SVT 4 (1960) 129-53.
186
P.
C. Craigie, The
Problem of War in the Old Testament (
1978) 43; Gray, "Kingship," VT 12 (1962) 2-12.
187 Cross, Canaanite Myth
91-111.
36 TRINITY
JOURNAL
fertility and
life after death. In
the king
and the gods was understood in terms of adoption; this maintained a
distinction
between the human king and the gods who were kings. The human
king was
elected or chosen by the gods according to their wise plans in Meso-
potamia.188 Thus the gods who are kings have the real
powers in Mesopo-
tamia; the human kings are servants of the
gods. The cultic worship became the
vehicle by
which the Mesopotamian king maintained his close relationship to
the gods
in order to bring prosperity and harmony between the nation and the
forces of
nature. Because of these differences the focus of kingship is directed
toward the
Pharaoh in
Not enough is known about the conceptual
framework of the Hittites to
differentiate their way of thinking. Phraseology similar to both
Mesopotamian
thinking but there is only minimal information on the exact
interrelationship between the king and the gods.190
The biblical concepts relate more closely to
Mesopotamian ideas where the
gods are
the true sovereigns of the world. Both include the adoption of the
human king
as the son of the gods/God (1 Sam
king the
servant of the gods/God and both recognize that the real power of the
universe
rests in the hands of the god-kings, not the human kings. But the con-
trast between the two cultures is possibly more
striking than the similarities.
C. Distinctive
Aspects of the Kingship of Yahweh
The biblical concept of God, the relationship
of man to God, and the
relationship of the king to God are unique in
thinking was
due to
the
environment of Abram's youth. Mesopotamian polytheism identified the
gods with
the innumerable powers within nature. These were organized into
socio-political and family structures which sometimes destroyed other gods to
gain
dominance. The biblical concept of God, especially that found in the
Psalms which
relate to the kingship of Yahweh, distinguish clearly between the
Creator and the forces of nature. Nature has no power except Yahweh's for
"The
Lord of all the earth" established the sea and earth and regulates their
boundaries (Ps
74: 15-17). When the power of a thousand nature gods is cen-
tralized in the power of one God, he becomes the
king in a way which was
foreign to
Mesopotamian thinking.
A second major contrast between Israelite
and Mesopotamian thinking was
the
distinctive relationship which existed between man and this one true God
srael's relationship was defined by the word of
God and the acts of God on
behalf of
with the
forces of nature, but the integration of man's will with the will of God
188 G. E. Wright, The Old Testament Against its Environment (
189 Prankfort, Kingship 238-9.
190 Mowincke1,
He That Cometh 51-2.
SMITH.
GOD/THE GODS AS KING 37
who
elected and redeemed him.191 Yahweh, as King, is the sovereign ruler
of
all
history; and his decisive intervention as the Divine Warrior at the time of the
exodus (Exod 15:3; Ps 74: 12-14) demonstrated both his election of
his people
and his
own redemptive power. Through his victory over the Egyptians and
their
gods, his rulership over all the earth was
established (Exod
through the
covenant with the Israelite kingdom, Yahweh was established as
the
"great Suzerain." The revelation "You are a holy people to the
Lord your
God; the
Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession
out of
all the families who are on the face of the earth" (Deut 7:6), sum-
marizes the unique relationship between
Yahweh an
exclusive position because of his grace, and required total devotion
and
obedience to the Suzerain. G. E. Wright believes "the all-pervading sense
of election
and covenant, therefore, is the chief clue for the understanding of
knowledge,
there was no comparable conception."192
A third contrast involves the relationship
of the king and God. In
king was
not the high priest and it was not through the king that God revealed
his will
to
and
especially by the prophets, for they were primarily servants of Yahweh,
the real
King of Israel. The covenant carefully defined the king's limitation and
demanded
obedience to the will of God, the Suzerain (Deut
governed and
ruled the nation with his laws, defeated the king's enemies, set up
the
standards for justice, and received all worship. The sanctity of human king-
ship
never developed because the covenant with God, the Great Suzerain,
cemented God
and the people together long before the monarchy was accepted
as
normative. This depreciation of human kingship parallels a counterbalancing
emphasis on
the sovereignty and kingship of Yahweh. The centrality of the
covenant
relationship to the unique position of Yahweh as king supports the
premonarchal belief in the kingship of Yahweh.
When
human kingship was introduced during the time of the judges, it was
seen as a
partial rejection of the kingship of Yahweh (1 Kgs
8:7;
earlier
attempt to raise up Gideon to be king was unacceptable because it was
Yahweh who ruled over the people (Judg
the
kingship of God are found in Deuteronomy 33:5, where God's kingship is
connected to
the establishment of the covenant of Sinai, Num 23:21-22; 24:
7-8, which
associate kingship with God's victories over the military enemies
of
V. CONCLUSION
The evidence which has been gathered
indicates that the ancient Near
Eastern
people described their chief gods by using the metaphor of the king.
The use of
the same metaphor in
191 Engnell (Divine Kingship) makes too much
of the Ugaritic material as Noth
main-
tains:
"God, King, and Nation in the Old Testament," The Laws in the
Pentateuch (Phila-
delphia: Fortress, 1967) 157-60.
192 Wright, Old Testament Against its Environment 62-3.
193 See Cross (Canaanite Myth
121-44) for extensive bibliographic notations.
38 TRINITY
JOURNAL
in
which
pictured the
relationship between man and God/the gods. Although
terminology was
the same as the terms used in other ancient Near Eastern cul-
tures, the conceptual images which these terms
represent were not always
identical. In
all these nations, God/the gods who are kings represented the
highest
power, the authority which had the greatest control; but the character,
number and
function of God/the gods were quite different. When compared to
other
gods, the distinctive authority of Yahweh, the King of Israel, goes far
beyond the
dominion of Re who shared his power with the Pharaoh, or Anu
who was
one of several gods who were called king. Both these factors have an
effect on
our theology of God and raise several questions.
Could the centrality of kingship terminology
in the religions of the ancient
Near Eastern
world be an aid which enables the modem mind, which generally
looks
negatively on absolute monarchs, to enter the ancient Near Eastern world
view?
Could the ancient Near Eastern literature which unites the ruling, judging
and
warrior concepts around the central ideology of the kingship of the gods,
be a
conceptual framework which will unite the biblical functions of God into
an
overarching framework? The present survey suggests that a careful compari-
tive methodology can alert the modem mind to
connect and interrelate
conceptual
ideas which are distinct in our thinking. This restructuring should
lead to a
clearer view of
textual
background and thus highlights some of the similarities and differences
among
these religions. It also broadens one's focus and argues against theo-.
logical
systems which emphasize only one function of God or only one unique
Israelite idea. For example, the idea of the covenant is of prime importance to
Israelite
theology, but it is not inclusive enough a theme to encompass the
universal
activity of God. If God is only a national covenant God, the full
picture of
God is blurred, limited and actually distorted. The study of the
ancient Near
Eastern literature puts the concept of Yahweh into perspective,
and the
biblical literature suggests that the kingship or sovereign rule of
Yahweh is of
central importance in developing a biblical theology of the Old
Testament.
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
Trinity Journal
2065 Half Day Rd.
www.tiu.edu/trinityjournal/index.html
Please
report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at:
thildebrandt@gordon.edu