God against Messiah | 95as well as the earlier interlude of monotheism under the iconoclastic Pharaoh
Akhenaten, to focus on what he characterizes as an Egyptian mainstream, con-
sisting of several elements: Amun-Re, the sun god, unifies Egypt and rules over
both the upper and lower countries; he departs for heaven and is succeeded by a
human dynasty as that of father to son. For Buber, the replacement of Pharaohs
by priests does not change things in this regard, which reflects his view of the au-
thoritarian nature of hierocracy. Amun remains in regular communication with
his sons, who are themselves divinized and immunized against death, and he
helps them make just decisions. Verbal appeal can be made to Amun if his sons
abuse their power. Although this is a hierocratic structure, and Buber presents
it as the furthest from the Israelite case, it nonetheless admits the idea of a god
as true political ruler (albeit “behind the scenes” as a guide) and therefore can
serve Buber’s point about the “religio-historical level of that epoch” (the Theban
hierocracy being roughly contemporary with the rise of the Israelite monarchy).
Buber refers to the Babylonian-Assyrian example as a “preliminary form” of
Israelite theocracy. Here we have more concrete representations of gods as politi-
cal rulers; they are referred to as “genuine kings” and depicted as the signers of
peace treaties. The human king, chosen by the god, is legitimized as sovereign
through the god’s pronunciation of his name; he is the adopted son of the god
and not generated by the god directly. As such he is mortal, but a vessel of the
divine splendor. Buber sees the human regent as invested with a stronger sense
of responsibility to his divine master in Babylon than in Egypt; he is called on to
establish the god’s law in the land, and if he fails, the god is expected to set things
right.^44
Finally, in South Arabia, there is no question of a context for considering an-
cient Israel, since the evidence available to Buber about the Minaean and Sabaean
cultures dated back only to the beginning of the first millennium BCE. Despite
this, Buber takes up this case because it closely follows his view of the Israelite
distinction. He sees here an example of “a theocratic constitution of society.” The
legal formula for the state comprises god, king, and people; a recurrent feast com-
memorates and renews this relationship as a covenant, through the transfer of
land and rule from the property of the god to the king as regent. Divine owner-
ship of the soil is accepted as a real principle; “private property is feudal tenure.”^45
The king, living symbol of the covenant, is simultaneously its “servant”; in this
respect the analogy to Israel is closest.^46
Buber also sees South Arabia as analogous to Israel in a more politically and
historically resonant sense. He evokes the moment of the priest-king’s mediatory
announcement during the renewal ritual, in which he takes the title of malik.
Following Nikolaus Rhodokanakis, Buber refers to this moment as a “world-ing”
(Verweltlichung), in that the rulership is transferred to the human king; he argues
that this initiates the human control of the land itself.^47 In Israel, in the same way,