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“Through the “transference” of the king-god relationship and the king-people relationship to the relationship between God and his people, Assyrian state ideology is converted into Israelite covenant theology. The fact that God makes his covenant with the people as a whole, rather than through the intercession of royalty, priesthood, or some other representative authority, becomes the basis for a new, specific, emphatic, and to some extent “democratic” conception of the people. The people—not Moses, not the seventy elders, not Aaron, not the Levites—assume the role of a sovereign partner in the covenant. This directness of access to God is what lends the biblical concept its democratic force.” — Jan Assmann
Through the “transference” of the king-god relationship and the king-people relationship to the relationship between God and his people, Assyrian state ideology is converted into Israelite covenant theology. The fact that God makes his covenant with the people as a whole, rather than through the intercession of royalty, priesthood, or some other representative authority, becomes the basis for a new, specific, emphatic, and to some extent “democratic” conception of the people. The people—not Moses, not the seventy elders, not Aaron, not the Levites—assume the role of a sovereign partner in the covenant. This directness of access to God is what lends the biblical concept its democratic force.