Chapter 2 tests the claim that the biblical god Yhwh is uniquely aggressive by rereading a sample of six memorial inscriptions, including the Mesha Inscription, the Zakkur Inscription, the Tel Dan Inscription, the Hadad Inscription, the Azatiwada Inscription, and the Amman Citadel Inscription. The chapter finds that in these inscriptions, the aggression of the patron god targets external enemies of the king and country, while the king himself is wholly exempted from the god’s destructiveness. However, an important complication obtains: the curse sections of the memorial inscriptions pray vengeance on anyone who harms the inscription—including members of the king’s own community and country, and, in a couple cases, his own family. The loyalty of the god to his one individual king trumps all other loyalties.

Chapter 3 tests the claim that the biblical god Yhwh is uniquely aggressive by rereading several biblical royal psalms, including Psalm 2, Psalm 110, Psalm 20, and Psalm 21. The chapter finds that in these psalms, the aggression of the biblical god Yhwh targets external enemies of the king and country; conversely, Yhwh’s favor towards his client king is completely guaranteed. The choral voice of the psalms aligns itself with Yhwh and his king; the community of readers and reciters somehow shares in the king’s own prior and paradigmatic relationship of divine favor. However, the rhetoric of the psalms also places the texts’ own readers and reciters in potential danger of Yhwh’s aggression, if they should refuse the psalms’ rhetorical appeal.

Chapter 5 tests the claim that the biblical god Yhwh is uniquely aggressive by reading a sampling from several biblical prophets, specifically eighth-century minor prophets such as Hosea and Micah, though also more briefly from Amos and Zephaniah. These texts share several features with the royal psalms of preceding chapters: they are focused on the king, and they are short and non-narrative. Like the royal psalms of defeat in chapter 4, they witness to Yhwh’s aggression against his own client country and its king; and, although this destructiveness is future in the literary presentation of the prophets and not past as in the psalms, the former, too, merit description as texts of defeat. The chapter finds that prophetic defeat texts do not make divine aggression against the king the focal point of the theological crisis they articulate. Rather, the king is one among other leaders caught up in judgement, and the monarchy is but one institution suffering divinely wrought harm.

Chapter 1 introduces a contrast that has played an important role in biblical studies. Pivotal figures like Julius Wellhausen and Walther Eichrodt alike claim that the biblical god Yhwh is distinct from his ancient divine counterparts in that he alone acts destructively against his own king and country. To test this long-standing thesis, the chapter argues that memorial inscriptions from the Levant constitute the most interesting and productive comparand available for assessing the uniqueness of Yhwh’s aggression, and this for several reasons: their relative cultural and linguistic proximity to ancient Israel and Judah; their relative length as texts, as over against other royal inscriptions like dedicatory inscriptions; the relative richness of their deity profile; and especially their closing curse sections that provide examples of divine aggression.

Chapter 4 tests the claim that the biblical god Yhwh is uniquely aggressive by rereading two biblical royal psalms, Psalms 89 and Psalm 132.These royal psalms share many features with the royal psalms of Chapter 3—but they differ in one crucial respect: where all the previous royal psalms exempted Yhwh’s favoured king from experiencing divine aggression, Psalms 89 and 132 reflect Yhwh’s past aggression exactly towards his own king. The chapter thus identifies these texts as psalms of defeat because in them, a past event of divinely sponsored damage to the king comes to speech: and shocked and alarmed speech at that, particularly in Psalm 89. As such, they begin to articulate a unique theological contribution with regard to divine aggression: a real departure from the unconditional loyalty of a patron god for his individual, favoured king.

Chapter 6 offers summary reflections on the conclusions and contributions of the present work, including its findings for the study of the royal palms, the study of Syro-Palestinian inscriptions, Hebrew Bible theology, and the history of Israelite religion. In addition to proposing a new analytic for royal psalms (i.e. psalms of defeat), the book adds depth and specificity to previous scholarship on the theology of the royal psalms. It draws in sharper silhouette the animating commitment of royal psalms: Yhwh’s loyalty to his one individual client king. The book also calls attention to the non-narrative and lyric qualities of inscriptions, and it emphasizes the rhetorical centrality of their closing curse sections. For the study of Hebrew Bible theology, the present work holds up the important and distinctive theological offer of royal psalms. Historically, Levantine memorial inscriptions reflect an earlier engagement with Neo-Assyrian royal ideology and its monuments than scholars have argued heretofore, and a deeper indigenization.