| From the Preface to the First Edition | 11 |
| Preface to the Fifth Revised Edition | 13 |
| Preface to the English Edition | 17 |
| Translator's Preface | 23 |
| Abbreviations | 24 |
I. | Old Testament Theology: The Problem and the Method | 25 |
II. | The Covenant Relationship | 36 |
1. | The meaning of the covenant concept | 36 |
2. | The history of the covenant concept | 45 |
I | The jeopardizing of the Yahweh covenant | 45 |
II | The re-fashioning of the covenant concept | 49 |
III. | The Covenant Statutes | 70 |
A. | The Secular Law | 74 |
1. | Its distinctive character | 74 |
2. | Some crucial phases in the development of the law | 83 |
IV. | The Covenant Statutes (continued) | 98 |
B. | The Cultus | 98 |
1. | The significance of the cultus for religion in general | 98 |
2. | The significance of the cultus in the religion of Israel | 101 |
I | Sacred sites | 102 |
II | Sacred objects | 107 |
III | Sacred seasons | 119 |
IV | Sacred actions | 133 |
(a) | Consecration and purity rites | 133 |
(b) | Sacrificial worship | 141 |
(c) | Prayer | 172 |
V | Synthesis | 176 |
V. | The Name of the Covenant God | 178 |
1. | General semitic designations of God | 178 |
2. | Specifically Israelite designations of God | 187 |
3. | Epithets of Yahweh | 194 |
VI. | The Nature of the Covenant God | 206 |
A. | Affirmations About The Divine Being | 206 |
1. | God as personal | 206 |
2. | God as spiritual | 210 |
3. | God as one | 220 |
VII. | The Nature of the Covenant God (continued) | 228 |
B. | Affirmations About The Divine Activity | 228 |
1. | The power of God | 228 |
2. | The lovingkindness of God (hesed Yahweh) | 232 |
3. | The righteousness of God | 239 |
4. | The love of God | 250 |
5. | The wrath of God | 258 |
6. | The holiness of God | 270 |
7. | The relation of the Old Testament picture of God to the moral norm | 282 |
8. | Synthesis | 286 |
VIII. | The Instruments of the Covenant | 289 |
A. | The Charismatic Leaders | 289 |
1. | The founder of the religion | 289 |
2. | The seers | 293 |
3. | The Nazirites | 306 |
4. | The judges | 306 |
5. | Nabism | 309 |
I | The basic characteristics of the phenomenon | 309 |
(a) | The phenomenon of group ecstasy | 309 |
(b) | The general religious character of the phenomenon | 313 |
(c) | The effects of spirit-possession | 319 |
II | The theological significance of nabism | 318 |
III | The degeneration of nabism | 332 |
6. | Classical prophecy | 338 |
I | Links with nabism | 339 |
II | The distinctive character of classical prophecy | 341 |
III | The religious structure of classical prophecy | 345 |
(a) | The new experience of the divine reality | 345 |
(b) | The working out of the experience of God in the prophetic system of thought | 353 |
([alpha]) | The new sense of the unity of life | 353 |
([beta]) | The divine-human relationship transferred to the individual level | 356 |
([gama]) | The prophetic critique of daily life | 360 |
([delta]) | The prophetic attitude to the cultus | 364 |
([varepsilon]) | The prophetic attitude to the national religion | 369 |
(1) | Common presuppositions | 369 |
(2) | The prophetic re-shaping of the national religion | 371 |
([zeta]) | Sin and judgment | 374 |
([eta]) | The prophetic conception of history | 381 |
([theta]) | Eschatology | 385 |
(c) | Synthesis | 387 |
IX. | The Instruments of the Covenant (continued) | 392 |
B. | The Official Leaders | 392 |
1. | The priests | 392 |
I | The formation of the priesthood in the history of Israel | 392 |
II | The religious structure of the priesthood | 402 |
(a) | General | 402 |
(b) | The distinctive character of the priestly conception of God | 406 |
(c) | The relations between God and the world | 410 |
(d) | The place of man in the world | 415 |
([alpha]) | Human right conduct | 415 |
([beta]) | Cultic activity | 419 |
([gama]) | Human existence in time (history and eschatology) | 424 |
(e) | Synthesis | 433 |
2. | The king | 436 |
I | The origin of the monarchy | 438 |
II | The ambivalent assessment of the monarchy in the sources | 441 |
III | The monarchy as a religious office in the history of the covenant people | 442 |
IV | The religious effects of the monarchy | 452 |
X. | Covenant-Breaking and Judgment | 457 |
I. | Judgment as a guarantee and restoration of the covenant | 457 |
I | The possibility of annulment | 457 |
II | A new evaluation of God's covenant | 458 |
III | The hope of the overthrow and punishment of Israel's enemies | 459 |
IV | Foreign influences | 461 |
V | An execution of Yahweh's righteous judgment | 461 |
2. | Judgment as abrogation of the covenant | 462 |
I | The transformation of the limited vision of the future | 462 |
II | The change in the character of the expectation of doom | 464 |
III | Individual retribution | 467 |
3. | Individualist and universalist elements in the expectation of judgment | 467 |
XI. | Fulfilling the Covenant: The Consummation of God's Dominion | 472 |
1. | The principal forms of the Old Testament hope of salvation | 473 |
2. | The importance of the hope of salvation for the doctrine of God | 490 |
I | The entry of God into history | 490 |
II | The supramundane character of the messianic kingdom | 491 |
III | The solution of the pressing problems of religion | 492 |
3. | The origins of the Old Testament hope of salvation | 494 |
I | Mythical elements | 494 |
II | Its cultic derivation | 497 |
III | Its nationalist origin | 498 |
IV | Its religous core | 499 |
4. | Prediction and fulfilment | 501 |
I | The various attempts at a solution | 502 |
II | The double relationship of prediction and fulfilment | 508 |
| Excursus: The Problem of Old Testament Theology | 512 |
| Index of subjects | 521 |
| Index of modern authors | 530 |
| Index of biblical passages | 535 |