view has found many advocates in the modern period, cultic activity here regarded as an inferior form of religion (Rudolph 1966: 140), or is here replaced by an ‘ethical monotheism’ (Wellhausen 1885: 474–475); the text offers a ‘prophetic radicalism against the cult’ (Mays 1969: 98). But such a reading can be maintained only by ignoring the rhetorical device. Heinz Kruse called the technique ‘dialectical negation’ (Kruse 1954; cf. Du Toit 1986). One denies something absolutely in order to relativize