02_Walton_179_200_179_200 10/07/15 11:58 Pagina 188 188 JONATHAN H. WALTON 188 rule without attention to its divine source, his actions usually gave rise to conflicts and contradictions within a community that dimin- ished its vitality and even led to its fragmentation” 48. The king and gods may be dependent on each other, but the gods are the stronger of the parties; the king is expendable (he is replaced at least once a generation, inevitably), but the gods remain. It may be true that the gods do not technically “rule” in the sense of having absolute au- thority to do anything they want exactly as they please with no con- sequences, but the king does not “rule” in this way either, and so it is not accurate to say that the king has “replaced” the god. “A signif- icant check against a king’s arbitrary exercise of power was the re- ality of God or the gods as actors in the political affairs of the kingdom” 49. It is true that YHWH does rule in the absolute sense, and the elders, as we will see, want to change that, but in no real sense does this amount to “replacing” deity with a human king. Second, as discussed above, the Deuteronomistic History as a whole speaks too positively of kingship to locate the problem inherently in the word. The king in Deuteronomy 17 is melek; the king that Israel does not have in Judges is melek; David who receives the royal covenant is melek. Israel is allowed to maintain the accidents of ancient Near Eastern cultic practice, even while overwriting their theology. “The nations” offer sacrifices to feed their gods; Israel also offers sacrifices, even though God does not need to be fed. “The nations” have temples to house their gods; Israel also has a temple, even though God does not need a house (and makes a point to say so, 2 Sam 7,6-7). “The nations”, if Green- wood is correct, have kings to rule in place of their gods; Israel also has a king […] even though God still rules over him. The object does not dictate the theology. It is not possible for a synchronic reader of the Deuteronomistic History to locate the problem in the title melek, the problem must lie somewhere else. probably have required an oracle permitting regicide” (271-272). Likewise, “The voices of previous generations and of the gods constituted a check upon the desires of the king” (284). 48 LAUNDERVILLE, Piety, 289. 49 LAUNDERVILLE, Piety, 315.