The studies on the cuneiform texts from ancient Western Asia have been used to classify the related texts in terms of ‘contract’, ‘oath’, and ‘treaty’, according to their respective legal, religious and political contents. In fact, there are no such distinctions in the corresponding ancient languages. The studies concerned focused on Esarhaddon’s Succession Oath Documents (ESOD) issued by the Assyrian king, Esarhaddon in 672 BC, and included the study of the Tayinat version of ESOD, recently discovered in a temple in Tayinat and published. This version made it much clearer that the Documents were not treaties but oath documents composed according to a legal form and ratified by the Assyrian supreme god Ashur with his seals, and furthermore that the Documents themselves had been deified. The studies assume that Manasseh of Judah had also enshrined a tablet of ESOD in Jerusalem, which later influenced the reform of Josiah that aimed to establish a religion based on the covenant.