Well, I applied to the NELC PhD in Hebrew Bible/Near Eastern Civ., but I had no expectations of getting in (I was assuming I'd end up doing an MA at Brandeis or Toronto). Luckily this new Ancient CMES MA seems to be pretty ideal for preparing for a PhD in ANE studies, especially since the funding is pretty generous for an MA.
But yeah, my focus would be on Israel's religious history. As far as my current interests, I wanted to look at the changes in Israel's religious beliefs over time and how they interacted with the religious ideas of the cultures around them, especially under Babylonian hegemony.
As an undergrad at a school that didn't put much emphasis on research... (LOVED my school, but they just weren't about that life) I was completely in the dark when I wrote my statement of purpose. So, what I rattled off as far as a potential dissertation topic was "using modern theories of intertextuality (understanding "texts" broadly to refer to any cultural feature) to model Israel's religious change during the Exile." Pretty much just the most pretentious way imaginable of saying, "how religions change." Figured with Chicago's obsession with theory it might go over well.
But yeah, all primarily with the end goal of exegesis in the book of Ezekiel and the Pentateuch.
I'm assuming your language will be Middle Egyptian? No chance you'd be taking.... Akkadian?
Also, have you met any other CMES students? Any idea how big the cohort is? What they're like? I'm currently pretty ill-informed about everything so far because I've been up to other things...