ABSTRACT
In the case of kingship they are externalities, the less important since they did not affect the basic oddness of the Hebrew institution. If kingship counted in Egypt as a function of the gods, and in Mesopotamia as a divinely ordained political order, the Hebrews knew that they had introduced it on their own initiative, in imitation of others and under the strain of an emergency. If the Hebrews, like the Mesopotamians, remembered a kingless period, they never thought that "kingship descended from heaven". The conviction of the Hebrews that they were a "chosen people" is the one permanent, as it is the most significant, feature in their history. The tenacity of the Hebrew struggle for existence in the sordid turmoil of the Levant was rooted in the consciousness of their election. In the light of Egyptian, and even Mesopotamian, kingship, that of the Hebrews lacks sanctity.
