>Y^LH'¥IM]I¥HIESinrY- iLUMR&iRir DIVINITY SCHOOL TROWBRIDGE LIBRARY Stanford^ Gta>grap)zLaaL Establishment PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE BY The Rev. A. H. SAYCE PROFESSOR OP ASSYRIOLOGY, OXFORD WITH A MAP PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTE LONDON: ^ ,,.,; --v SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNO\7v*EEBG&r ' NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C. BRIGHTON : 129, north street. New York: E. & J. 13. Y O U N G & CO, 1895- HP3^ Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, London & Bunc;ay. PREFACE A FEW years ago the subject-matter of the present volume might have been condensed into a few pages. Beyond what we would gather from the Old Testament, we knew but little about the history and geography of Canaan before the age of its conquest by the Israelites. Thanks, however, to the discovery and decipherment of the ancient monuments of Babylonia and Assyria, of Egypt and of Palestine, all this is now changed. A flood of light has been poured upon the earlier history of the country and its inhabitants, and though we are still only at the beginning of our discoveries we ,can already sketch the outlines of Canaanitish liistory, and even fill them in here and there. Throughout I have assumed that in the narrative of the Pentateuch we have history and not fiction. Indeed the archaeologist cannot do otherwise. Monumental research is making it clearer every day that the scepticism of the so-called " higher criticism " is not justified in fact. Those who IV PREFACE would examine the proofs of this must turn to my book on The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments. There I have written purely as an archaeologist, who belongs to no theological school, and consequently readers of the work must see in it merely the irreducible minimum of confidence in the historical trustworthiness of the Old Testament, with which oriental archaeology can be satisfied. But it is obvious that this irreducible minimum is a good deal less than what a fair-minded historian will admit. The archaeological facts support the traditional rather than the so-called " critical " view of the age and authority of the Pentateuch, and tend to show that we have in it not only a historical monument whose statements can be trusted, but also what is substantially a work of the great Hebrew legislator himself. For those who " profess and call themselves Christians," however, there is another side to the question besides the archaeological. The modern " critical " views in regard to the Pentateuch are in violent contradiction to the teaching and belief of the Jewish Church in the time of our Lord, and this teaching and belief has been accepted by Christ and His Apostles, and inherited by the Christian Church. It is a teaching and belief which lies at the root of many of the dogmas of the Church, and if we are to reject or revise it, we must at the same time reject and revise historical Christianity. It is difficult to see how we can call ourselves Christians in the sense which the term PREFACE V has borne for the last eighteen hundred years, and at the same time repudiate or modify, in accordance with our individual fancies, the articles of faith which historical Christianity has maintained everywhere and at all periods. For those who look beyond the covers of grammars and lexicons, the great practical fact of historical Christianity must outweigh all the speculations of individual scholars, however ingenious and elaborate they may be. It is for the individual to harmonize his conclusions with the immemorial doctrine of the Church, not for the Church to reconcile its teaching with the theories of the individual. Christ promised that the Spirit of God should guide His Apostles and their followers into " all truth," and those who believe the promise cannot also believe that the " Spirit of Truth " has been at any time a Spirit of illusion. Oriental archaeology, at all events, is on the side of those who see in the Hebrew patriarchs real men of flesh and blood, and who hold that in the narratives of the Pentateuch we have historical records many of which go back to the age of the events they describe. Each fresh discovery made by the archaeologist yields fresh testimony to the truth of the Old Testament stories. Since the manuscript of the present work was ready for the press,' two such discoveries have been made by Mr. Pinches, to whom oriental archaeology and Biblical research are already under such deep obligations, and it has been possible only to glance at them in the text. vi PREFACE He has found a broken cuneiform tablet which once gave an account of the reign of Khammurabi, the contemporary of Chedor-laomer and Arioch, of the wars that he carried on, and of the steps by which he rose to the supreme power in Babylonia, driving the Elamites out of it, overthrowing his rival Arioch, and making Babylon for the first time the capital of a united kingdom. Un fortunately the tablet is much broken, but what is left alludes to his campaigns against Elam and Rabbatu — perhaps a city of Palestine, of his reduction of Babylon, and of his successes against Eri-Aku or Arioch of Larsa, Tudghulla or Tidal, the son of Gazza . . ., and Kudur-Lagamar or Chedor-laomer himself. The Hebrew text of Genesis has thus been verified even to the spelling of the proper names. The other discovery of Mr. Pinches is still more interesting. The name of Ab-ramu or Abram had already been found in Babylonian contracts of the age of Khammurabi ; Mr. Pinches has now found in them the specifically Hebrew names ofYa'qub-ilu or Jacob-el and Yasup- ilu or Joseph-el. It will be remembered that the names of Jacob-el and Joseph-el had already been detected among the places in Palestine conquered by the Egyptian monarch Thothmes III., and it had been accordingly inferred that the full names of the Hebrew patriarchs must have been Jacob-el and Joseph-el. Jacob and Joseph are abbreviations analogous to Jephthah by the side of Jiphthah-el (Josh. xix. 14), of Jeshurun by the side of Isra-el, PREFACE Vll or of the Egyptian Yurahma by the side of the Biblical Jerahme-el. As is mentioned in a later page, a discovery recently made by Prof. Flinders Petrie has shown that the name of Jacob-el was actually borne not only in Babylonia, but also in the West. Scarabs exist, which he assigns to the period when Egypt was ruled by invaders from Asia, and on which is written the name of a Pharaoh Ya'aqub- hal or Jacob-el. Besides the names of Jacob-el and Joseph-el, Mr. Pinches has met with other distinctively Hebrew names, like Abdiel, in deeds drawn up in the time of the dynasty to which Khammurabi belonged. There were therefore Hebrews — or at least a Hebrew- speaking population — living in Babylonia at the period to which the Old Testament assigns the lifetime of Abraham. But this is not all. As I pointed out five years ago, the name of Khammurabi himself, like those of the rest of the dynasty of which he was a member, are not Babylonian but South Arabian. The words with which they are compounded, and the divine names which they contain, do not belong to the Assyrian and Babylonian language, and there is a cuneiform tablet in which they are given with their Assyrian translations. The dynasty must have had close relations with South Arabia. This, however, is not the most interesting part of the matter. The names are not South Arabian only, they are Hebrew as well. That of Khammu-rabi, for instance, is compounded with the name of the god Viii PREFACE Am, which is written Ammi in the name of his descendant Ammi-zaduqa, and Am or Ammi characterizes not only South Arabia, but the Hebrew-speaking lands as well. We need only mention names like Ammi-nadab or Ben-Ammi in illustration of the fact. Equally Hebrew and South Arabian is zaduqa or zadoq ; but it was a word unknown to the Assyrian language of Babylonia. When Abraham therefore was born in Ur of the Chaldees, a dynasty was ruling there which was not of Babylonian origin, but belonged to a race which was at once Hebrew and South Arabian. The contract tablets prove that a population with similar characteristics was living under them in the country. Could there be a more remarkable confirmation of the statements which we find in the tenth chapter of Genesis ? There we read that " unto Eber were born two sons : the name of the one was Peleg," the ancestor of the Hebrews, while the name of the other was Joktan, the ancestor of the tribes of South Arabia. The parallelism between the Biblical account and the latest discovery of archaeological science is thus complete, and makes it impossible to believe that the Biblical narrative would have been compiled in Palestine at the late date to which our modern " critics '' would assign it. All recollection of the facts embodied in it Would then have long passed away. Even while I write Prof. Hommel is announcing fresh discoveries which bear on the early history PREFACE IX of the Book of Genesis. Cuneiform tablets have turned up from which we gather that centuries before the age of Abraham, a king of Ur, Ine-Sin by name, had not only overrun Elam, but had also conquered Simurru, the Zemar of Gen. x. 18, in the land of Phoenicia. A daughter of the same king or of one of his immediate successors, was high- priestess both of Elam and of Markhas or Mer'ash in Northern Syria, while Kimas or Northern Arabia was overrun by the Babylonian arms. Proofs consequently are multiplying of the intimate relations that existed between Babylonia and Western Asia long before the era of the Patriarchs, and we need .no longer feel any surprise that Abraham should have experienced so little difn\ culty in migrating into Canaan, or that he should have found there the same culture as that which he had left behind in Ur. The language and script of Babylonia must have been almost as well known to the educated Canaanite as to himself, and the records of the. Patriarchal Age would have been preserved in the libraries of Canaan down to the time of its conquest by the Israelites. Perhaps a word or two is needed in explanation of the repetitions which will be found here and there in the following pages. They have been necessitated by the form into which I have been obliged to cast the book. A consecutive history of Patriarchal Palestine cannot be written at present, if indeed it ever can be, and the subject therefore has to be treated under a series of separate heads. X PREFACE This has sometimes made repetitions unavoidable without a sacrifice of clearness. In conclusion it will be noted, that the name of the people who were associated with the Philistines in their wars against Egypt and occupation of Palestine has been changed from Zakkur to Zakkal. This has been in consequence of a keen-sighted observation of Prof. Hommel. He has pointed out that in a Babylonian text of the Kassite period, the people in question are mentioned under the name of Zaqqalu, which settles the reading of the hieroglyphic word. (See the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology for May 1895.) A. H. SAYCE. September 30, 1895, THE KINGS OF EGYPT AND BABYLONIA DURING THE PATRIARCHAL AGE. EGYPT. Dynasties XV., XVI., and XVII.— Hyksos or Shepherd-kings (from Manetho). Dynasty XV.— i. Salatis reigned 2. Beon, or Bnon ... ,, 3. Apakhnas, or Pakhnan ,, 4. Apfiphis I , 5. Yanias or Annas ... ,, 6. Assis , Of the Sixteenth Dynasty nothing is known. Of the Seventeenth the monuments have given us the names of Ap&phis II. (Aa-user-Ra) and ApSphis III. (Aa-ab-tani-Ra), in whose reign the war of independence began under the native prince of Thebes, and lasted for four generations. yrs. mth: 13 0 44 0 36 7 61 0 5° 1 49 2 Dynasty XVIII.— 1. Neb-pehuti-Ra, Ahmes (more than 20 years). u. Ser-ka-Ra, Amon-hotep I., his son (20 years 7 months. ) 3. Aa-kheper-ka-Ra, Thofhmes I. , his son, and queen Amen-sit. 4. Aa-kheper-n-Ra, Thothmes II., his son, and wife Hatshepsu I. (more than 9 years). 5. Khnum-Amon, Hatshepsu II., MH-ka-Ra his sister (more than 16 years). 6. Ra-men-Kheper, Thothmes III., her brother (57 years, 11 months, 1 day, from March 20, B.c. 1503 to Feb. 14, B.C. 1449). 7. Aa-khepru-Ra, Amon-hotep II., his son (more than 5 years). 8. Men-khepru-Ra, Thothmes IV., his son (more than 7 years). 9. Neb-ma-Ra, Amon-hotep III. , his son (more than 35 years), and queen Teie. 10. Nefer-khepru-Ra, Amon-hotep IV., Khu- n-Aten (also called Khuriya), his son (more than 17 years). 11. Ankh-khepru-Ra and queen Meri-Aten. , 12. Tut-ankh-Amon Khepru-neb-Ra,and queen Ankh-nes-Amon. 13. Aten-Ra-nefer-nefru-mer-Aten. 14. Ai kheper-khepru-ar-ma-Ra, and queen Thi (more than 4 years). 15. Hor-m-hib Mi-Amon Ser-khepru-ka (more than 3 years). Manetho. Amosis. Amenophis I. Chebron. Arnensis. Misaphris. Misphragmutho- sis. Touthmosis. Amenophis II. Horos. Akherres. Rathotis. Armais. Xll LIST OF BABYLONIAN KINGS Dynasty XIX.— I. Men-pehuti-Ra, Ramessu I. (more than 2 Ramesses. years). n. Men-ma-Ra, Seti I., Mer-n-Ptah I. (more than Sethos. 27 years), his son. 3. User-ma-Ra, Sotep-n-Ra, Ramessu II., Mi- Amon (B.C. 1348 — 1281), his son. 4. Mer-n-Ptah II., Hotep-hi-ma Ba-n-Ra, Mi- Ammenephthes. Amon, his son. 5. User-khepru-Ra, Seti II., Mer-n-Ptah III., his Sethos Ramesses. brother. 6. Amon-mesu Hik-An Mer-Kha-Ra Sotep-n- Amenemes. Ra, usurper. 7. Khu-n-Ra Sotep-n-Ra, Mer-n-Ptah IV., Si- Thuoris. Ptah (more than 6 years), and queen Ta-user. Dynasty XX.— 1. Set-nekht, Merer-Mi-Amon (recovered the kingdbm from the Phoenician Arisu). 2. Ramessu III., Hik-An, his son (more than 32 years). 3. Ramessu IV., Hik-Ma Mi-Amon (more than n years). 4. Ramessu V. , User-Ma-s-Kheper-n-Ra Mi-Amon (more than 4 years). 5. Ramessu VI., Neb-ma-Ra Mi-Amon Amon-hir-khopesh-f (Ramessu Meri-Tum, a rival king in Northern Egypt). 6. Ramessu VII., At-Amon User-ma-Ra Mi-Amon. 7. Ramessu VIII., Set-hir-khopesh-f Mi-Amon User-ma-Ra Khu-n- Amon. 8. Ramessu IX., Si-Ptah S-kha-n-Ra Mi-Amon (19 years). 9. Ramessu X., Nefer-ka-Ra Mi-Amon Sotep-n-Ra (more than 10 years). 10. Ramessu XL, Amon-hir-khopesh-f Kheper-ma-Ra Sotep-n-Ra. n. Ramessu XII., Men-ma-Ra Mi-Amon Sotep-n-Ptah Kha-m-Uas (more than 27 years). Dynasty I. of Babylon — 1. Sumu-abi, 15 years, B.C. 2458. 2. Sumu-la-ilu, his son, 35 years. 3. Zabft, his son , 14 years. 4. Abil-Sin, his son, 18 years. 5. Sin-muballidh, his son, 30 years. 6. Khammu-rabi, his son, 55 years (at first under the sovereignty of Chedor- laomer, the Elamite ; by the conquest of Eri-Aku and the Elamites he unites Babylonia, B.C. 2320). 7. Samsu-iluna, his son, 35 years. 8. Ebisum, or Abi-esukh, his son, 25 years. 9. Ammi-satana, his years. son, 25 10. Ammi-zaduga, his son, 21 years. 11. Samsu-satana, his son, 31 years. Dynasty II. of Uru-azagga, B.C. 2154— 1. Anman, 51 (or 60) years. 2. Ki-nigas, 55 years. 3. Damki-ili-su, 46 years. 4. Iskipal, 15 years. 5. Sussi, his brother, 27 years. 6. Gul-kisar, 55 years. 7. Kirgal-dararnas, his son, 50 years. 8. A-dara-kalama, his son, 28 years. 9. A-kur-du-ana, 26 years. 10. Melamma-kurkura, 6 years. 11. Bel-ga[mil ?], 9 years. LIST OF BABYLONIAN KINGS Xlll Dynasty III., of the Kassites, B.C. 1786^- 1. Gandis, or Gaddas, 16 years. 2. Agum-Sipak, his son, 22 years. 3. Guya-Sipak, his son, 22 years. 4. Ussi, his son, 8 years. 5. Adu-medas, ... years. 6. Tazzi-gurumas, ... years. 7. Agum-kak-rimi, his son, ... years. 14. Kallimma-Sin. 1 15. Kudur-Bel. 16. Sagarakti-buryas, his son. 17. Kuri-galzu I. 18. Kara-indas. 19. Burna-buryas, his nephew, B.C. 1400. 20. Kara-Khardas, son of Kara- indas. 21. Nazi-bugas, or Su-zigas, an usurper. 22. Kuri-galzu 1 1. , son of Burna- buryas, 2 .. years. 23. Nazi-Maruttas, his son, 26 years. 24. Kadasman-Turgu, his son, 17 years. 25. Kadasman-Burias, his son, 2 years. 26. Gis-amme . . ti, 6 years. 27. Saga-rakti-suryas 13 years. 28. Kasbat, or Bibe-yasu, his son, 8 years. 29. Bel-nadin-sumi, 1 year 6 months. 30. Kadasman-Kharbe, 1 year 6 months. 31. Rimmon- nadin-sumi, 6 years. 32. Rimmon-sum-utsur, 30 years (including 7 years of oc cupation of Babylon by the Assyrian king, Tiglath- Ninip). 33. Mile-Sipak, 15 years. 34. Merodach-baladan I., his son, 13 years. 35. Zamama-nadin-sumi I., 1 year. 36. Bel-sum-iddin, 3 years. 1 The following order of succession is taken from Dr. Hilprecht. CONTENTS PREFACE ... ... ... Ill LISTS OF DYNASTIES ... ... ... XI CHAP. I. THE LAND ... 15 II. THE PEOPLE ... ... ... ... 35 III. THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN, AND THE EGYPTIAN CONQUEST ... ... ... 55 IV. THE PATRIARCHS ... ... ... ... 166 V. EGYPTIAN TRAVELLERS IN CANAAN ... 204 VI. CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION ... 242 INDEX 271 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE CHAPTER I THE LAND Patriarchal Palestine! There are some who would tell us that the very name is a mis nomer. Have we not been assured by the German critics and their English disciples that there were no patriarchs and no Patriarchal Age? And yet, the critics notwithstanding, the Patriarchal Age has actually existed. While criticism, so-called, has been busy in demolishing the records of the Pentateuch, archaeology, by the spade of the ex cavator and the patient skill of the decipherer, has been equally busy in restoring their credit. And the monuments of the past are a more solid argument than the guesses and prepossessions of the modern theorist. The clay tablet and inscribed stone are better witnesses to the truth than literary tact or critical scepticism. That Moses and his contemporaries could neither read nor write may 1 6 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE have been proved to demonstration by the critic ; yet nevertheless we now know, thanks to archaeo logical discovery, that it would have been a miracle if the critic were right. The Pentateuch is, after all, what it professes to be, and the records it contains are history and not romance. The question of its authenticity involves issues more serious and important than those which have to do merely with history or archaeology. We are sometimes told indeed, in all honesty of purpose, that it is a question of purely literary interest, with out influence on our theological faith. But the whole fabric of the Jewish Church in the time of our Lord was based upon the belief that the Law of Moses came from God, and that this God " is not a man that He should lie." And the belief of t>e Jewish Church was handed on to the Christian Church along with all its consequences. To revise that belief is to revise the dogmas of the Christian Church as they have been held for the last eighteen centuries ; to reject it utterly is to reject the primary document of the faith into which we have been baptized. It is not, however, with theological matters that we are now concerned. Patriarchal Palestine is for us the Palestine of the Patriarchal Age, as it has been disclosed by archaeological research,, not the Palestine in which the revelation of God's will to man was to be made. It is sufficient for us that the Patriarchal Age has been shown by modern discovery to be a fact, and that in the narratives of THE LAND 1 7 the Book of Genesis we have authentic records of the past. There was indeed a Patriarchal Palestine, and the glimpses of it that we get in the Old Testament have been illustrated and supplemented by the ancient monuments of the Oriental world. Whether the name of Palestine can be applied to the country with strict accuracy at this early period is a different question. Palestine is Philistia, the land of the Philistines, and the introduction of the name was subsequent to the settlement of the Philistines in Canaan and the era of their victories over Israel. As we shall see later on, it is probable that they did not reach the Canaanitish coast until the Patriarchal Age was almost, if not entirely, past. Their name does not occur in the cuneiform corre spondence which was carried on between Canaan and Egypt in the century before the Exodus, and they are first heard of as forming part of that great confederacy of northern tribes which attacked Egypt and Canaan in the days of Moses. But, though the term Canaan would doubtless be more correct than Palestine, the latter has become so purely geographical in meaning that we can employ it without reference to history or date. Its signifi cation is too familiar to cause mistakes, and it can therefore be used proleptically, just as the name of the Philistines themselves is used proleptically in the twenty-first chapter of Genesis. Abimelech was king of a people who inhabited the same part of the country as the Philistines in later times, and were thus their earlier representatives. B 1 8 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE The term " Palestine " then is used geographic ally without any reference to its historical origin. It denotes the country which is known as Canaan in the Old Testament, which was promised to Abraham and conquered by his descendants. It is the land in which David ruled and in which Christ was born, where the prophets prepared the way for the Gospel and the Christian Church was founded. Shut in between the Desert of Arabia and the Mediterranean Sea on the east and west, it is a narrow strip of territory, for the most part moun tainous, rugged, and barren. Northward the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon come to meet it from Syria, the Anti-Lebanon culminating in the lofty peaks and precipitous ravines of Mount Hermon (9383 feet above the level of the sea), while Lebanon runs southward till it juts out into the sea in its sacred headland of Carmel. The fertile plain of Esdraelon or Megiddo separates the mountains of the north from those of the south. These last form a broken plateau between the Jordan and the Dead Sea on the one side and the Plain of Sharon and the sea- coast of the Philistines on the other, until they finally slope away into the arid desert of the south. Here, on the borders of the wilderness, was Beer- sheba the southern limit of the land in the days of the monarchy, Dan, its northern limit, lying far away to the north at the foot of Hermon, and not far from the sources of the Jordan. Granite and gneiss, overlaid with hard dark sand- THE LAND IQ stone and masses of secondary limestone, form as it were the skeleton of the country. Here and there, at Carmel and Gerizim, patches of the tertiary nummulite of Egypt make their appearance, and in the plains of Megiddo and the coast, as well as in the " Ghor " or valley of the Jordan, there is rich alluvial soil. But elsewhere all is barren or nearly so, cultivation being possible only by terracing the cliffs, and bringing the soil up to them from the plains below with slow and painful labour. It has often been said that Palestine was more widely cultivated in ancient times than it is to-day. But if so, this was only because a larger area of the cultivable ground was tilled. The plains, of the coast, which are now given over to malaria and Beduin thieves, were doubtless thickly populated and well sown. But of ground actually fit for culti vation there could not have been a larger amount than there is at present. It was not in any way a well-wooded land. On the slopes of the Lebanon and of Carmel, it is true, there were forests of cedar-trees, a few of which still survive, and the Assyrian kings more than once speak of cutting them down or using them in their buildings at Nineveh. But south of the Lebanon forest trees were scarce ; the terebinth was so unfamiliar a sight in the landscape as to become an object of worship or a road-side mark. Even the palm grew only on the sea-coast or in the valley of the Jordan, and the tamarisk and sycamore were hardly more than shrubs. 20 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE Nevertheless when the Israelites first entered Canaan, it was in truth a land " flowing with milk and honey." Goats abounded on the hills, and the bee of Palestine, though fierce, is still famous for its honey-producing powers. The Perizzites or " fellahin " industriously tilled the fields, and high- walled cities stood on the mountain as well as on the plain. The highlands, however, were deficient in water. A few streams fall into the sea south of Carmel, but except in the spring, when they have been swollen by the rains, there is but little water in them. The Kishon, which irrigates the plain of Megiddo, is a more important river, but it too is little more than a mountain stream. In fact, the Jordan is the only river in the true sense of the word which Palestine possesses. Rising to the north of the waters of Merom, now called Lake HQleh, it flows first into the Lake of Tiberias, and then through a long deep valley into the Dead Sea. Here at a depth of 1293 feet below the level of the sea it is swallowed up and lost ; the sea has no outlet, and parts with its stagnant waters through evaporation alone. The evaporation has made it intensely salt, and its shores are consequently for the most part the picture of death. In the valley of the Jordan, on the other hand, vegetation is as luxuriant and tropical as in the forests of Brazil. Through a dense undergrowth of canes and shrubs the river forces its way, rushing forward towards its final gulf of extinc- THE LAND 21 tion with a fall of 670 feet since it left the Lake of Tiberias. But the distance thus travelled by it is long in comparison with its earlier fall of 625 feet between Lake Huleh and the Sea of Galilee. Here it has cut its way through a deep gorge, the cliffs of which rise up almost sheer on either side. The Jordan has taken its name from its rapid fall. The word comes from a root which signifies "to descend," and the name itself means "the down-flowing." We can trace it back to the Egyptian monuments of the nineteenth and twen tieth dynasties. Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the Oppression, has inscribed it on the walls of Karnak, and Ramses III., who must have reigned while the Israelites were still in the wilderness, enumerates the "Yordan" at Medinet Habu among his conquests in Palestine. In both cases it is associated with " the Lake of Rethpana," which must accordingly be the Egyptian name of the Dead Sea. Rethpana might correspond with a Hebrew Reshphdn, a derivative from Resheph, the god of fire. Canaanite mythology makes the sparks his " children " (Job v. 7) and it may be, therefore, that in this old name of the Dead Sea we have a reference to the over throw of the cities of the plain. Eastward of the Dead Sea and the Jordan the country is again mountainous and bare. Here were the territories of Reuben and Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh ; here also were the king doms of Moab and Ammon, of Bashan and the 22 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE Amorites. Here too was the land of Gilead, south of the Lake of Tiberias and north of the Dead Sea. We can read the name of Muab or Moab on the base of the second of the six colossal statues which Ramses II. erected in front of the northern pylon of the temple of Luxor. It is there included among his conquests. The statue is the only Egyptian monument on which the name has hitherto been found. But this single mention is sufficient to guarantee its antiquity, and to prove that in the days before the Exodus it was already well known in Egypt. To the north of Moab came the kingdom of Ammon, or the children of Ammi. The name of Ammon was a derivative from that of the god Ammi or Ammo, who seems to have been regarded as the ancestor of the nation, and " the father of the children of Ammon " was accordingly called Ben- Ammi, " the son of Ammi " (Gen. xix. 38). Far away in the north, close to the junction of the rivers Euphrates and Sajur, and but a few miles to the south of the Hittite stronghold of Carche- mish, the worship of the same god seems to have been known to the Aramaean tribes. It was here that Pethor stood, according to the Assyrian in scriptions, and it was from Pethor that the seer Balaam came to Moab to curse the children of Israel. Pethor, we are told, was "by the river (Euphrates) of the land of the children of Ammo," where the word represents a proper name (Num. THE LAND 23 xxii. 5). To translate it " his people," as is done by the Authorized Version, makes no sense. On the Assyrian monuments Ammon is sometimes spoken of as Beth-Ammon, " the house of Ammon," as if Ammon had been a living man. Like Moab, Ammon was a region of limestone mountains and barren cliffs. But there were fertile fields on the banks of the Jabbok, the sources of which rose not far from the capital Rabbath. North of Gilead and the Yarmuk was the volcanic plateau of Bashan, Ziri-Basana, or "the Plain of Bashan," as it is termed in the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna. Its western slope towards the Lakes of Merom and Tiberias was known as Golan (now Jolan) ; its eastern plateau of metallic lava was Argob, " the stony " (now El Lejja). Bashan was included in the Hauran, the name of which we first meet with on the monuments of the Assyrian king Assur-bani-pal. To the north it was bounded by Ituraea, so named from Jetur, the son of Ishmael (Gen. xxv. 1 5), the road through Ituraea (the modern Jedur) leading to Damascus and its well-watered plain. The gardens of Damascus lie 2260 feet above the sea. In the summer the air is cooled by the mountain breezes ; in the winter the snow some times lies upon the surface of the land. Westward the view is closed by the white peaks of Anti- Lebanon and Hermon ; eastward the eye wanders over a green plain covered with the mounds of old towns and villages, and intersected by the clear 24 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE and rapid streams of the Abana and Pharphar. But the Abana has now become the Barada, or " cold one," while the Pharphar is the Nahr el-Awaj. The Damascus of to-day stands on the site of the city from which St. Paul escaped, and " the street which is called Straight" can still be traced by its line of Roman columns. But it is doubtful whether the Damascus of the New Testament and of to-day is the same as the Damascus of the Old Testament. Where the walls of the city have been exposed to view, we see that their Greek founda tions rest on the virgin soil ; no remains of an earlier period lie beneath them. It may be, there fore, that the Damascus of Ben-Hadad and Hazael is marked rather by one of the mounds in the plain than by the modern town. In one of these the stone statue of a man, in the Assyrian style, was discovered a few years ago. An ancient road leads from the peach-orchards of Damascus, along the banks of the Abana and over Anti-Lebanon, to the ruins of the temple of the Sun-god at Baalbek. The temple as we see it is of the age of the Antonines, but it occupies the place of one which stood in Heliopolis, the city of the Sun-god, from immemorial antiquity. Relics of an older epoch still exist in the blocks of stone of colossal size which serve as the founda tion of the western wall. Their bevelling reminds us of Phoenician work. Baalbek was the sacred city of the Bek'a, or "cleft" formed between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon THE LAND 2$ by the gorge through which the river Litany rushes down to the sea. Once and once only is it referred to in the Old Testament. Amos (i. 5) declares that the Lord "will break the bar of Damascus and cut off the inhabitant from Bikath-Qn " — the Bek'a of On. The name of On reminds us that the Heliopolis of Egypt, the city of the Egyptian Sun-god, was also called On, and the question arises whether the name and worship of the On of Syria were not derived from the On of Egypt. For nearly two centuries Syria was an Egyptian province, and the priests of On in Egypt may well have established themselves in the "cleft" valley of Ccele-Syria. From Baalbek, the city of " Baal of the Bek'a," the traveller makes his way across Lebanon, and under the snows of Jebel Sannin — nearly 9000 feet in height — to the old Phoenician city of Beyrout. Beyrout is already mentioned in the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna under the name of Beruta or Beruna, " the cisterns." It was already a seaport of Phoenicia, and a halting-place on the high road that ran along the coast. The coastland was known to the Greeks and Romans as Phoenicia, "the land of the palm." But its own inhabitants called it Canaan, "the lowlands." It included not only the fringe of cultivated land by the sea-shore, but the western slopes of the Lebanon as well. Phoenician colonies and outposts had been planted inland, far away from the coast, as at Laish, the future Dan, where 26 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE " the people dwelt careless," though " they were far away from the Sidonians," or at Zemar (the modern Sumra) and Arka (still called by the same name). The territory of the Phoenicians stretched south ward as far as Dor (now Tanturah), where it met the advance guard of the Philistines. Such was Palestine, the promised home of Israel. It was a land of rugged and picturesque mountains, interspersed with a few tracts of fertile country, shut in between the sea and the ravine of the Jordan, and falling away into the waterless desert of the south. It was, too, a land of small extent, hardly more than one hundred and sixty miles in length and sixty miles in width. And even this amount of territory was possessed by the Israelites only during the reigns of David and Solomon. The sea-coast with its harbours was in the hands of the Phoenicians and the Philistines, and though the Philistines at one time owned an unwilling allegiance to the Jewish king, the Phoenicians preserved their independence, and even Solomon had to find harbours for his merchantmen, not on the coast of his own native kingdom, but in the distant Edomite ports of Eloth and Ezion-geber, in the Gulf of Aqabah. With the loss of Edom Judah ceased to have a foreign trade. The Negeb, or desert of the south, was then, what it still is, the haunt of robbers and marauders. The Beduin of to-day are the Amalekites of Old Testament history ; and then, as now, they infested the southern frontier of Judah, wasting and robbing THE LAND 27 the fields of the husbandman, and allying them selves with every invader who came from the south. Saul, indeed, punished them, as Romans and Turks have punished them since ; but the lesson is remembered only for a short while : when the strong hand is removed, the " sons of the desert " return again like the locusts to their prey. It is true that the Beduin now range over the loamy plains and encamp among the marshes of Lake Huleh, where in happier times their presence was unknown. But this is the result of a weak and corrupt government, added to the depopula tion of the lowlands. There are traces even in the Old Testament that in periods of anarchy and confusion the Amalekites penetrated far into the country in a similar fashion. In the Song of Deborah and Barak Ephraim is said to have con tended against them, and accordingly " Pirathon in the land of Ephraim " is described as being " in the mount of the Amalekites" (Judges xii. 15). In the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna, too, there is frequent mention of the " Plunderers " by whom the Beduin, the Shasu of the Egyptian texts, must be meant, and who seem to have been generally ready at hand to assist a rebellious vassal or take part in a civil feud. Lebanon, the " white " mountain, took its name from its cliffs of glistening limestone. In the early days of Canaan it was believed to be the habita tion of the gods, and Phoenician inscriptions exist dedicated to Baal-Lebanon, " the Baal of Lebanon,' 28 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE He was the special form of the Sun-god whose seat was in the mountain-ranges that shut in Phoenicia on the east, and whose spirit was supposed to dwell in some mysterious way in the mountains themselves. But there were certain peaks which lifted themselves up prominently to heaven, and in which consequently the sanctity of the whole range was as it were concentrated. It was upon their summits that the worshipper felt himself peculiarly near the God of heaven, and where therefore the altar was built and the sacrifice performed. One of these peaks was Hermon, " the consecrated," whose name the Greeks changed into Harmonia, the wife of Agenor the Phoenician. From its top we can see Palestine spread as it were before us, and stretching southwards to the mountains of Judah. The walls of the temple, which in Greek times took the place of the primi tive altar, can still be traced there, and on its slopes, or perched above its ravines, are the ruins of other temples of Baal — at Der el-'Ashair, at Rakleh, at Ain Hersha, at Rasheyat el-Fukhar — all pointing towards the central sanctuary on the summit of the mountain. The name of Hermon, "the consecrated," was but an epithet, and the mountain had other and more special names of its own. The Sidonians, we are told (Deut. iii. 9), called it Sirion, and another of its titles was Sion (Deut. iv. 48), unless I indeed this is a corrupt reading for Sirion. Its Amorite name was Shenir (Deut. iii. 9), which ap- ; THE LAND 29 pears as Saniru in an Assyrian inscription, and goes back to the earliest dawn of history. When the Babylonians first began to make expeditions against the West, long before the birth of Abraham, the name of Sanir was already known. It was then used to denote the whole of Syria, so that its restric tion to Mount Hermon alone must have been of later date. Another holy peak was Carmel, "the fruitful field," or perhaps originally "the domain of the god." It was in Mount Carmel that the mountain ranges of the north ended finally, and the altar on its summit could be seen from afar by the Phoeni cian sailors. Here the priests of Baal called in vain upon their god that he might send them rain, and here was " the altar of the Lord " which Elijah repaired. The mountains of the south present no striking peak or headland like Hermon and Carmel. Even Tabor belongs to the north. Ebal and Gerizim alone, above Shechem, stand out among their fellows, and were venerated as the abodes of deity from the earliest times. The temple-hill at Jerusalem owed its sanctity rather to the city within the boundaries of which it stood than to its own character. In fact, the neighbouring height of Zion towered above it. The mountains of the south were rather high lands than lofty chains and isolated peaks. But on this very account they played an import ant part in the history of the world. They were not too high to be habitable ; they were high 30 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE enough to protect their inhabitants against invasion and war. " Mount Ephraim," the block of moun tainous land of which Shechem and Samaria formed the centre, and at the southern extremity of which the sacred city of Shiloh stood, was the natural nucleus of a kingdom, like the southern block of which Hebron and Jerusalem were similarly the capitals. Here there were valleys and uplands in which sufficient food could be grown for the needs of the population, while the cities with their thick and lofty walls were strongholds difficult to approach and still more difficult to capture. The climate was bracing, though the winters were cold, and it reared a race of hardy warriors and indus trious agriculturists. The want of water was the only difficulty ; in most cases the people were dependent on rain-water, which they preserved in cisterns cut out of the rock. This block of southern mountains was the first and latest stronghold of Israel. It constituted, in fact, the kingdoms of Samaria and Judah. Out of it, at Shechem, came the first attempt to found a monarchy in Israel, and thus unite the Israelitish tribes ; out of it also came the second and more successful attempt under Saul the Benjamite and David the Jew. The Israelites never succeeded in establishing themselves on the sea-coast, and their possession of the plain of Megiddo and the southern slopes of the Lebanon was a source of weakness and not of strength. It led eventually to the over throw of the kingdom of Samaria. The northern THE LAND 31 tribes in Galilee were absorbed by the older popula tion, and their country became " Galilee of the Gentiles," rather than an integral part of Israel. The plain of Megiddo was long held by the Canaanites, and up to the last was exposed to invasion from the sea-coast. It was, in fact, the battle-field of Palestine. The army of the invader or the conqueror marched along the edge of the sea, not through the rugged paths and dangerous defiles of the mountainous interior, and the plain of Megiddo was the pass which led them into its midst. The possession of the plain cut off the mountaineers of the north from their brethren in the south, and opened the way into the heart of the mountains themselves. But to possess the plain was also to possess chariots and horsemen, and a large and disciplined force. The guerilla warfare of the mountaineer was here of no avail. Success lay on the side ot the more numerous legions and the wealthier state, on the side of the assailant and not of the assailed. Herein lay the advantage of the kingdom of Judah. It was a compact state, with no level plain to defend, no outlying territories to protect. Its capital stood high upon the mountains, strongly fortified by nature and difficult of access. While Samaria fell hopelessly and easily before the armies of Assyria, Jerusalem witnessed the fall of Nineveh itself. What was true of the later days of Israelitish 32 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE history was equally true of the age of the patri archs. The strength of Palestine lay in its southern highlands ; whoever gained possession of these was master of the whole country, and the road lay open before him to Sinai and Egypt. But to gain possession of them was the difficulty, and campaign after campaign was needed before they could be reduced to quiet submission. In the time of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty Jerusalem was already the key to Southern Palestine. Geographically, Palestine was thus a country of twofold character, and its population was neces sarily twofold as' well. It was a land of mountain and plain, of broken highlands and rocky sea-coast. Its people were partly mountaineers, active, patriotic, and poor, with a tendency to asceticism ; partly a nation of sailors and merchants, industrious, wealthy, and luxurious, with no sense of country or unity, and accounting riches the supreme end of life. On the one hand, it gave the world its first lessons in maritime exploration and trade ; on the other it has been the religious teacher of man kind. In both respects its geographical position has aided the work of its people. Situated midway between the two great empires of the ancient Oriental world, it was at once the high road and the meeting-place of the civilizations of Egypt and Babylonia. Long before Abraham migrated to Canaan it had been deeply interpenetrated by Babylonian culture and religious ideas, and long THE LAND 33 before the Exodus it had become an Egyptian province. It barred the way to Egypt for the in vader from Asia ; it protected Asia from Egyptian assault. The trade of the world passed through it and met in it ; the merchants of Egypt and Ethiopia could traffic in Palestine with the traders of Babylonia and the far East. It was destined by nature to be a land of commerce and trade. And yet while thus forming a highway from the civilization of the Euphrates to that of the Nile, Palestine was too narrow a strip of country to become itself a formidable kingdom. The empire of David scarcely lasted for more than a single generation, and was due to the weakness at the same time of both Egypt and Assyria. With the Arabian desert on the one side and the Mediter ranean on the other, it was impossible for Canaan to develop into a great state. Its rocks and mountains might produce a race of hardy warriors and energetic thinkers, but they could not create a rich and populous community. The Phoenicians on the coast were driven towards the sea, and had to seek in maritime enterprise the food and wealth which their own land refused to grant. Palestine was essentially formed to be the appropriator and carrier of the ideas and culture of others, not to be itself their origin and creator. But when the ideas had once been brought to it they were modified and combined, improved and generalized in a way that made them capable of universal acceptance. Phoenician art is in no way 34 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE original ; its elements have been drawn partly from Babylonia, partly from Egypt ; but their combina tion was the work of the Phoenicians, and it was just this combination which became the heritage of civilized man. The religion of Israel came from the wilderness, from the heights of Sinai, and the palm-grove of Kadesh, but it was in Palestine that it took shape and developed, until in the fullness of time the Messiah was born. Out of Canaan have come the Prophets and the Gospel, but the Law which lay behind them was brought from elsewhere. CHAPTER II THE PEOPLE IN the days of Abraham, Chedor-laomer, king of Elam and lord over the kings of Babylonia, marched westward with his Babylonian allies, in order to punish his rebellious subjects in Canaan. The invading army entered Palestine from the eastern side of the Jordan. Instead of marching along the sea-coast, it took the line of the valley of the Jordan. It first attacked the plateau of Bashan, and then smote "the Rephaim in Ash- teroth Karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in the plain of Kiriathaim." Then it passed into Mount Seir, and subjugated the Horites as far as El-Paran " by the wilderness." Thence it turned northward again through the oasis of En-mishpat or Kadesh-barnea, and after smiting the Amalekite Beduin, as well as the Amorites in Hazezon-tamar, made its way into the vale of, Siddim. There the battle took place which ended in the defeat of the king of Sodom and his allies, who were carried away captive to the north. But at Hobah, "on the left hand of Damascus," the 36 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE invaders were overtaken by " Abram the Hebrew," who dwelt with his Amorite confederates in the plain of Mamre, and the spoil they had seized was recovered from them. The narrative gives us a picture of the geography and ethnology of Palestine as it was at the begin ning of the Patriarchal Age. Before that age was over it had altered very materially ; the old cities for the most part still remained, but new races had taken the place of the older ones, new kingdoms had arisen, and the earlier landmarks had been displaced. The Amalekite alone continued what he had always been, the untamable nomad of the southern desert. Rephaim or " Giants " was a general epithet applied to the prehistoric population of the country. Og, king of Bashan in the time of the Exodus, was "of the remnant of the Rephaim " (Deut. iii. n); but so also were the Anakim in Hebron, the Emim in Moab, and the Zamzummim in Ammon (Deut. ii. n, 20). Doubtless they represented a tall race in comparison with the Hebrews and Arabs of the desert ; and the Israelitish spies described them selves as grasshoppers by the side of them (Numb. xiii. 33). It is possible, however, that the name was really an ethnic one, which had only an accidental similarity in sound to the Hebrew word for "giants." At all events, in the list of conquered Canaanitish towns which the Pharaoh Thothmes III. of Egypt caused to be engraved on the walls of Karnak, the name of Astartu or Ashteroth THE PEOPLE 37 Karnaim is followed by that of Anaurepa, in which Mr. Tomkins proposes to see On-Repha, " On of the Giant(s)." In the close neighbourhood in classical days stood Raphon or Raphana, Arpha of the Dekapolis, now called Er-Rafeh, and in Raphdn it is difficult not to discern a reminiscence of the Rephaim of Genesis. Did these Rephaim belong to the same race as the Emim and the Anakim, or were the latter called Rephaim or " Giants " merely because they represented the tall prehistoric population of Canaan ? The question can be more easily asked than answered. We know from the Book of Genesis that Amorites as well as Hittites lived at Hebron, or in its immediate vicinity. Abram dwelt in the plain of Mamre along with three Amorite chieftains, and Hoham, king of Hebron, who fought against Joshua, is accounted among the Amorites (Josh. x. i). The Anakim may therefore have been an Amorite tribe. They held themselves to be the descendants of Anak, an ancient Canaanite god, whose female counterpart was the Phoenician goddess Onka. But, on the other hand, the Amor ites at Hebron may have been intruders ; we know that Hebron was peculiarly a Hittite city, and it is at Mamre rather than at Hebron that the Amorite confederates of Abram had their home. It is equally possible that the Anakim themselves may have been the stranger element ; we hear nothing about them in the days of the patriarchs, and it is only when the Israelites prepare to enter 38 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE Canaan that they first make their appearance upon the stage. Og, king of Bashan, however, was an Amorite ; of this we are assured in the Book of Deuteronomy (iii. 8), and it is further said of him that he only " remained of the remnant of the Rephaim." The expression is a noticeable one, as it implies that the older population had been for the most part driven out. And such, in fact, was the case. At Rabbath, the capital of Ammon, the basalt sarco phagus of the last king of Bashan was preserved ; but the king and his people had alike perished. Ammonites and Israelites had taken their place. The children of Ammon had taken possession of the land once owned by the Zamzummim (Deut. ii. 20). The latter are called Zuzim in the narrative of Genesis, and they are said to have dwelt in Ham. But Zuzim and Ham are merely faulty transcriptions from a cuneiform text of the Hebrew Zamzummim and Ammon, and the same people are meant both in Genesis and in Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy also the Emim are mentioned, and their geographical position defined. They were the predecessors of the Moabites, and like the Zamzummim, " a people great and many and tall," whom the Moabites expelled doubtless at the same time as that at which the Ammonites conquered the Zamzummim. The " plain of Kiri- athaim," or " the two cities," must have lain south of the Anion, where Ar and Kir Haraseth were built. THE PEOPLE 39 South of the Emim, in the rose-red mountains of Seir, afterwards occupied by the Edomites, came the Horites, whose name is generally supposed to be derived from a Hebrew word signifying " a cave." They have therefore been regarded as Troglodytes, or cave-dwellers, a savage race of men who possessed neither houses nor settled home. But it is quite possible to connect the name with another word which means " white," and to see in them the representatives of a white race. The name of Hor is associated with Beth-lehem, and Caleb, of the Edomite tribe of Kenaz, is called "the son of Hur" (i Chron. ii. 50, iv. 4). There is no reason for believing that cave-dwellers ever existed in that part of Palestine. The discovery of the site of Kadesh-barnea is due in the first instance to Dr. Rowlands, secondly to the archaeological skill of Dr. Clay Trumbull. It is still known as Ain Qadts, " the spring of Qadis," and lies hidden within the block of moun tains which rise in the southern desert about mid way between Mount Seir and the Mediterranean Sea. The water still gushes out of the rock, fresh and clear, and nourishes the oasis that surrounds it. It has been marked out by nature to be a meeting-place and " sanctuary " of the desert tribes. Its central position, its security from sudden attack, and its abundant supply of water all combined to make it the En-Mishpat or " Spring of Judgment," where cases were tried and laws enacted. It was here that the Israelites lingered year after year 40 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE during their wanderings in the wilderness, and it was from hence that the spies were sent out to explore the Promised Land. In those days the mountains which encircled it were known as " the mountains of the Amorites" (Deut. i. 19, 20). In the age of the Babylonian invasion, however, the Amorites had not advanced so far to the south. They were as yet only at Hazezon-tamar, the " palm-grove " on the western shore of the Dead Sea, which a later generation called En-gedi (2 Chron. xx. 2). En-Mishpat was still in the hands of the Amalekites, the lords of " all the country " round about. The Amalekites had not as yet intermingled with the Ishmaelites, and their Beduin blood was still pure. They were the Shasu or " Plunderers " of the Egyptian inscriptions, sometimes also termed the Sitti, the Sute of the cuneiform texts. Like their modern descendants, they lived by the plunder of their more peaceful neighbours. As was prophesied of Ishmael, so could it have been prophesied of the Amalekites, that their "hand should be against every man, and every man's hand against " them. They were the wild offspring of the wilderness, and accounted the first-born of mankind (Numb. xxiv. 20). From En-Mishpat the Babylonian forces marched northward along the western edge of the Dead Sea. Leaving Jerusalem on their left, they descended into the vale of Siddim, where they found themselves in the valley of the Jordan, and consequently in THE PEOPLE 41 the land of the Canaanites. As we are told in the Book of Numbers (xiii. 29), while " the Amalekites dwell in the land of the south, and the Hittites and the Jebusites and Amorites dwell in the mountains, the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the coast of Jordan." The word Canaan, as we have seen, meant " the lowlands," and appears sometimes in a longer, sometimes in a shorter form. The shorter form is written Khna by the Greeks : in the Tel el-Amarna tablets it is Kinakhkhi, while Canaan, the longer form, is Kinakhna. It is this longer form which alone appears in the hieroglyphic texts. Here we read how Seti I. destroyed the Shasu or Amalekites from the eastern frontier of Egypt to " the land of Kana'an," and captured their fortress of the same name which Major Conder has identified with Khurbet Kan'an near Hebron. It was also the longer form which was preserved among the Israel ites as well as among the Phoenicians, the original inhabitants of the sea-coast. Coins of Laodicea, on the Orontes, bear the inscription, " Laodicea a metropolis in Canaan," and St. Augustine states that in his time the Carthaginian peasantry of Northern Africa, if questioned as to their descent, still answered that they were " Canaanites." {Exp. Epist. ad Rom. 13.) In course of time the geographical signification of the name came to be widely extended beyond its original limits. Just as Philistia, the district of the Philistines, became the comprehensive Palestine, 42 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE so Canaan, the land of the Canaanites of the coast and the valley, came to denote the whole of the country between the Jordan and the sea. It is already used in this sense in the cuneiform corre spondence of Tel el-Amarna. Already in the century before the Exodus Kinakhna or Canaan represented pretty nearly all that we now mean by " Palestine." It was in fact the country to the south of " the land of the Amorites," and " the land of the Amorites " lay immediately to the .north of the Waters of Merom. In the geographical table in the tenth chapter of Genesis Canaan is stated to be the son of Ham and the brother of Mizraim or Egypt. The state ment indicates the age to which the account must go back. There was only one period of history in which Canaan could be geographically described as a brother of Egypt, and that was the period of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, when for a while it was a province of the Pharaohs. At no other time was it closely connected with the sons of Ham. At an earlier epoch its relations had been with Babylonia rather than with the valley of the Nile, and with the fall of the nineteenth dynasty the Asiatic empire of Egypt came finally to an end. The city of Sidon, we are further told, was the first-born of Canaan. It claimed to be the oldest of the Phoenician cities in the " lowlands " of the coast. It had grown out of an assemblage of " fishermen's " huts, and Said the god of the fisher- THE PEOPLE 43 men continued to preside over it to the last. The fishermen became in time sailors and merchant- princes, and the fish for which they sought was the murex with its precious purple dye. Tyre, the city of the " rock," which in later days disputed the supremacy over Phoenicia with Sidon, was of younger foundation. Herodotus was told that the great temple of Baal Melkarth, "the city's king," which he saw there, had been built twenty-three centuries before his visit. But Sidon was still older, older even than Gebal, the sacred city of the goddess Baaltis. The wider extension of the name of Canaan brought with it other geographical' relationships besides those of the sea-coast. Hittites and Amorites, Jebusites and Girgashites, Hivites and the peoples of the southern Lebanon, were all settled within the limits of the larger Canaan, and were therefore accounted his sons. Even Hamath claimed the right to be included in the brotherhood. It is said with truth that " afterwards were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad." Hittites and Amorites were interlocked both in the north and in the south. Kadesh, on the Orontes, the southern stronghold of the Hittite kingdom of the north, was, as the Egyptian records tell us, in the land of the Amorites ; while in the south Hittites and Amorites were mingled together at Hebron, and Ezekiel (xvi. 3) declares that Jerusalem had a double parentage : its birth was in the land of Canaan, but its father was an 44 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE Amorite and its mother a Hittite. Modern research, however, has shown that Hittites and Amorites were races widely separated in character and origin. About the Hittites we hear a good deal both in the hieroglyphic and in the cuneiform inscriptions. The Khata of the Egyptian texts were the most formidable power of Western Asia with whom the Egyptians of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties had to deal. They were tribes of mountaineers from the ranges of the Taurus who had descended on the plains of Syria and established themselves there in the midst of an Aramaic population. Carchemish on the Euphrates became one of their Syrian capitals, commanding the high-road of commerce and war from east to west. Thothmes III., the conqueror of Western Asia, boasts of the gifts he received from " the land of Khata the greater," so called, it would seem, to distinguish it from another and lesser land of Khata — that of the Hittites of the south. The cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna, in the closing days of the eighteenth dynasty, represent the Hittites as advancing steadily southward and menacing the Syrian possessions of the Pharaoh. Disaffected Amorites and Canaanites looked to them for help, and eventually "the land of the Amorites " to the north of Palestine fell into their possession. When the first Pharaohs of the nine teenth dynasty attempted to recover the Egyptian empire in Asia, they found themselves confronted , THE PEOPLE 45 by the most formidable of antagonists. Against Kadesh and " the great king of the Hittites " the Egyptian forces were driven in vain, and after twenty years of warfare Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the Oppression, was fain to consent to peace. A treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, was drawn up between the two rivals, and Egypt was henceforth compelled to treat with the Hittites on equal terms. The Khatta. or Khata of the Assyrian inscriptions are already a decaying power. They are broken into a number of separate states or kingdoms, of which Carchemish is the richest and most important. They are in fact in retreat towards those mountains of Asia Minor from which they had originally issued forth. But they still hold their ground in Syria for a long while. There were Hittites at Kadesh in the reign of David. Hittite kings could lend their services to Israel in the age of Elisha (2 Kings vii. 6), and it was not till B.C. 717 that Carchemish was captured by Sargon of Assyria, and the trade which passed through it diverted to Nineveh. But when the Assyrians first became acquainted with the coastland of the Mediterranean, the Hittites were to such an extent the ruling race there that they gave their name to the whole district. Like " Palestine," or " Canaan," the term "land of the Hittites" came to denote among the Assyrians, not only Northern Syria and the Lebanon, but Southern Syria as well. Even Ahab of Israel and Baasha the Ammonite are included by Shalmaneser II. among its kings. 46 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE This extended use of the name among the Assyrians is illustrated by the existence of a Hittite tribe at Hebron in the extreme south of Palestine. Various attempts have been made to get rid of the latter by unbelieving critics, but the statements of Genesis are corroborated by Ezekiel's account of the foundation of Jerusalem. They are, moreover, in full harmony with the monumental records. As we have seen, Thothmes III. implies that already in his day there was a second and smaller land of the Hittites, and the great Baby lonian work on astronomy contains references to the Hittites which appear to go back to early days. Assyrian and Babylonian texts are not the only cuneiform records which make mention of the '' Khata " or Hittites. Their name is found also on the monuments of the kings of Ararat or Armenia who reigned in the ninth and eighth centuries before our era, and who had borrowed from Nineveh the cuneiform system of writing. But the Khata of these Vannic or Armenian texts lived considerably to the north of the Hittites of the Bible and of the Egyptian and Assyrian monuments. The country they inhabited lay in eastern Asia Minor in the neighbourhood of the modern Malatiyeh. Here, in fact, was their original home. Thanks to the Egyptian artists, we are well acquainted with the Hittite physical type. It was not handsome. The nose was unduly pro- THE PEOPLE 47 trusive, while the chin and the forehead retreated. The cheeks were square with prominent bones, and the face was beardless. In colour the Hittites were yellow-skinned with black hair and eyes. They seem to have worn their hair in three long plaits which fell over the back like the pigtail of a Chinaman, and they were distinguished by the use of boots with upturned toes. We might perhaps imagine that the Egyptian artists have caricatured their adversaries. But this is not the case. Precisely the same profile of face, sometimes even exaggerated in its ugliness, is represented on the Hittite monuments by the native sculptors themselves. It is one of the surest proofs we possess that these monuments, with their still undeciphered inscriptions, are of Hittite origin. They belong to the people whom Israelites, Egyp tians, Assyrians, and Armenians united in calling Hittites. In marked contrast to the Hittites stood the Amorites. They too are depicted on the walls of the Egyptian temples and tombs. While the Hittite type of features is Mongoloid, that of the Amorite is European. His nose is straight and somewhat pointed, his lips and nostrils thin, his cheek-bones high, his mouth firm and regular, his forehead expressive of intelligence. He has a fair amount of whisker, ending in a pointed beard. At Abu-Simbel the skin is painted a pale yellow — the Egyptian equivalent for white — his eyes blue, and his beard and eyebrows red. At Medinet 48 PATRIARCHAL PALESTINE Habu, his skin, as Prof. Petrie expresses it, is ".rather pinker than flesh-colour," while in a tomb of the eighteenth dynasty at Thebes it is painted white, the eyes and hair being a light red-brown. The Amorite, it is clear, must be classed with the fair-skinned, blue-eyed Libyans of the Egyptian monuments, whose modern descendants are the Kabyles and other Berber tribes of Northern Africa. The latter are not only European in type, they claim special affinities to the blond, " golden- haired " Kelt. And their tall stature agrees well with what the Old Testament has to tell us about the Amorites. They too were classed among the Rephaim or "giants," by the side of whom the Israelite invaders were but as " grasshoppers." While the Canaanites inhabited the lowlands, the highlands were the seat of the Amorites (Num. xiii. 29). This, again, is in accordance with their European affinities. They flourished best in the colder and more bracing climate of the mountains, as do the Berber tribes of Northern Africa to-day. The blond, blue-eyed race is better adapted to endure the cold than the heat. Amorite tribes and kingdoms were to be found in all parts of Palestine. Southward, as we have seen, Kadesh-barnea was in " the mountain of the Amorites," while Chedor-laomer found them on the western shores of the Dead Sea. When Abraham pitched his tent in the plain above Hebron, it was in the possession of three Amorite chieftains, and at the time of the Israelitish conquest, Hebron THE PEOPLE 49 and Jerusalem, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon were all Amorite (Josh. x. 5). Jacob assured Joseph the. inheritance of his tribe should be in that district of Shechem which the patriarch had ta