> It is important not to make prior assumptions about what the
> Biblical writer
> would do. I think it is best to try to read this poem and let it
> speak for itself,
> taking into consideration the various allusions that it makes and
> suggestions
> it evokes.
But immediate context, and particularly the biblical materials and the
specific book itself,
would seem much more important for trying to suss out what the writer meant.
It seems to
me that some tend to bypass that and jump straight to the wider Canaanite
milieu, at the
expense of the immediate written context.