some empirical basis for their claims, which the Judahite king did not, but political propaganda is seldom constrained by reality. Neither do Aramaisms require a postexilic date; Aramaic was already the lingua franca of the Near East in the Neo-Assyrian period, and Judean leaders could allegedly speak it in the time of Sennacherib (2 Kings 18:26).52 Psalm 2 has a far more plausible Sitz im Leben in the period of the monarchy, in the context of an enthronement ceremony.53 Some scholars who regard