keep David in a perpetual dither, stewing about what could be at the bottom of it all. He reveals guilt. Guilt can then be faced, hopefully atoned for. Mercy makes guilt clear. I doubt most believers appreciate the God of the Bible in this regard. In J.B. Pritchard’s Ancient Near Eastern Texts there is a moving and pathetic piece from the late Babylonian period. The translator has called it ‘Prayer to Every God’.9 The worshiper prays to all the gods and goddesses, the ones he knows and those he doesn’t