2 - The Royal and Divine Victory Banquet

Summary

This chapter has demonstrated that both gods and human kings were frequently portrayed as celebrating their triumphs with feasting, as a further marker of their sovereignty. The portrayals of divine and human victory, far from being mutually exclusive, were typically synonymous. But not every banquet reflected historical victories; some were aspirational, and some of the aspirations failed. The social function of the victory banquet motif in Isa 24–27 was to summon the people of the former Northern Kingdom to unite themselves to Judah in an enlarged Israel. Josiah’s vision failed in this respect; the political narrative he championed never became reality. As discussed in this chapter and the previous one, however, later scribes appear to have wrestled with and partly salvaged its power.