Such a tax, levied occasionally on the
king's numerous progeny for the good of the country, would neither
extinguish the divine stock nor break the father's heart, who
divided his paternal affection among so many. At all events, if, as
there seems reason to believe, Semitic kings were often regarded at
the same time as hereditary deities, it is easy to understand the
frequency of Semitic personal names which imply that the bearers of
them were the sons or daughters, the brothers or sisters, the
fathers or mothers of a god, and we need not resort to the shifts
employed by some scholars to evade the plain sense of the words.
This interpretation is confirmed by a parallel Egyptian usage; for
in Egypt, where the kings were worshipped as divine, the queen was
called "the wife of the god" or "the mother of the god," and the
title "father of the god" was borne not only by the king's real
father but also by his father-in-law. Similarly, perhaps, among the
Semites any man who sent his daughter to swell the royal harem may
have been allowed to call himself "the father of the god.
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