[German Version]
I.
In preexilic times the expression “people of YHWH” denoted the state and people of Israel (People and nationhood: II). In the crisis in ancient Israelite YHWH religion that began with the defeat of Samaria in 722 bce the expression took on a new meaning that transcended political and territorial circumstances. Basic to this new meaning is the negation of the relationship, until then unquestioned and so hardly the subject of reflection, that YHWH as the God of the state and the dynas…