This collection of essays contains a wide range of topics reflecting the depth and breadth of interest of the scholar in whose honour they were commissioned - Kevin J. Cathcart.
The central focus is Near Eastern, and covers a range of philological, linguistic, exegetical, historical and interpretative issues. The Near Eastern languages examined include Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, Septuagintal Greek, Syriac and Ugaritic, while exegetical and text-critical topics include treatments of issues in Deuteronomy, 1 Kings, Isaiah, Amos, Psalms and the Song of Songs. Hermeneutical and historical essays touch on Ancient Israel's history and its interpretation, as well as on the significance of such individuals as the consular official John Dickson, E.H. Palmer in the Cambridge Libraries, William Lithgow of Lanark, and the contribution to Semitic epigraphy of the explorer Julius Euting.
This is volume 375 in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series.

Preface
Abbreviations
List of Contributors
PART I
TEXTS AND THEMES IN THE BIBLE
JOHN DAY
Does the Old Testament refer to Sacred Prostitution and did it actually exist in Ancient Israel?
ROBERT P. GORDON
The Philistines: the Ideological Foe
HENRY WANSBROUGH
The Finale of the Davidic Succession Narrative?
HUGH G.M. WILLIAMSON
The Formation of Isaiah 2.6-22
JOHN BARTON
The Day of Yahweh in the Minor Prophets
CHARLES CONROY
The 'Four Servant Poems' in Second Isaiah in the Light of Recent Redaction-Historical Studies
JOHN A. EMERTON
Some Problems in Psalm 88.16
PART II
TEXTS AND THEMES IN THE ANCIENT VERSIONS
KNUD JEPPESEN
'The Lord GOD has spoken, who can but prophesy?' From Osee to Jonas in the Septuagint
CARMEL MCCARTHY
Samaritan Pentateuch Readings in Deuteronomy
SEBASTIAN P. BROCK
A Neglected Revision of the Peshitta Psalter
CÉLINE MANGAN
Wisdom, Torah and Creation in Targumic Literature
MARTIN MCNAMARA
The Colophon of Codex Neofiti 1: The Scribe Menahem and the Roman Medical Family of Manuele
PART III
INTERPRETATION AND HISTORY OF THE BIBLE
ANDREW D.H. MAYES
Marx, Weber and the Religion of Ancient Israel
JOHN R. BARTLETT
Between Scylla and Charybdis: The Problem of Israelite Historiography
JOHN J. COLLINS
The Politics of Biblical Interpretation
GERARD J. NORTON
Dahood's Commentary on the Psalms: A Review of an Academic Grandparent's Work after Thirty Years
MICHAEL MAHER
'A Lily among Thorns': Cant. 2:2 in the Latin Exegetical Tradition
PART IV
NEAR EASTERN PHILOLOGY AND HISTORY
WILFRED G.E. WATSON
Akkadian Loanwords in Ugaritic: The Hippiatric Texts
MANFRED KROPP
Ethiopic Names in Sabaic and the Question of matres lectionis in Epigraphic South Arabian
G. REX SMITH
Classical Arabic Pattern Fa(a4li Revisited
REINHARD PUMMER
Foot-Soldiers of the Byzantines or Spies for the Muslims? The Role of the Samaritans in the Muslim Conquest of Palestine
PART V
NEAR EASTERN NOTABLES
C. EDMUND BOSWORTH
William Lithgow of Lanark's travels in Hungary, Transylvania and Poland, 1616
JOHN F. HEALEY
'Sicherheit des Auges': the Contribution to Semitic Epigraphy
of the Explorer Julius Euting (1839-1913)
GRAHAM I. DAVIES
Fresh Evidence on E.H. Palmer's Travels from Cambridge Libraries
DAVID MORRAY
A Late-Victorian Consul in the Near East: John Dickson (1846-1906)