"This volume presents Nicolas Wyatt's discussions of royal ideology, its mythic and ritual expressions and various literary treatments in ancient Israel, viewed from a comparative perspective. Exploring the possibility that in many of the manifestations of Israelite kingship we can detect the influence of broader cultural patterns, notably as found in Egyptian and West Semitic contexts, Nicolas Wyatt explores the main early cultural influences on Israel and emphasizes the mythic dimension in which the 'divinity' of the king is a real factor."--BOOK JACKET.