The Old Testament In the Light of The Historical Records and Legends Part 28

If we accept the theory that Rameses II. was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, and that the Exodus took place in 1335 B.C., then Moses, who was eighty years old at the time of the Exodus, must have been born in the year 1415 B.C., _i.e._ the fifteenth year of Amenophis III. Now the chief wife of this ruler was queen Teie (see p. 275), a woman who was certainly of foreign, probably Asiatic, race. In all probability, therefore, Teie, being an alien and of a different religion from the Egyptians, was not by any means in favour with the Egyptian priesthood, however much the Pharaoh may have delighted in her. The daughter of such a woman, as will easily be understood, would find little or no opposition to the adoption by her of a child of one of the Hebrews, an Asiatic like her mother. This, of course, would explain excellently how it was that Moses came to be adopted and educated by an Egyptian princess at her father's court, and that he had no real sympathy with the people among whom he lived, though it raises somewhat of a difficulty, for it is hard to understand how the Egyptian king, sympathizing, as we may expect him to have done, with Asiatics, should have ordered the destruction of their children. Nevertheless, circ.u.mstances may easily have arisen to cause such a decree to be issued.

Another difficulty is, to explain who the people hostile to Moses were, who in the thirteenth year of Rameses II. died (Exod. iv. 19). This has generally been understood to be the king and one or more of his advisers, though this objection, like the other, really presents no difficulty worthy of the name, as there was no indication that the king was included.

Of course there is no statement to the effect that Pharaoh was killed with his army by the returning flood after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea (in Ps. cx.x.xvi. 15 he must be regarded as having been overwhelmed therein in the persons of his warriors, who suffered the fate which ought to have stricken also the king), so that little or no difficulty exists in this portion of the narrative.(77) On the other hand, a difficulty is got rid of if we suppose that the Exodus took place in the time of Rameses II. Dr.

Mahler points out, that Meneptah was succeeded by his son and heir, User-kheperu-Ra', who did not die, but reigned thirty-three years. The eldest sons of Rameses II., on the other hand, all died during their father's lifetime, and it was the fourteenth of his numerous progeny who ultimately came to the throne.

Dr. Mahler clinches the matter by making the plague of darkness to have been a solar eclipse.

Whatever may be the defects of Dr. Mahler's seductive theory, it must be admitted that it presents fewer difficulties than any other that has yet been put forward, and on that account deserves special attention.

CHAPTER IX. THE NATIONS WITH WHOM THE ISRAELITES CAME INTO CONTACT.

The Amorites-The Hitt.i.tes-The Jebusites-The Girgas.h.i.+tes-Moab.

Amorites.

The earliest mention of the Amorites in the Old Testament is the pa.s.sage in Gen. x. 16, where the name occurs along with that of the Jebusites and the Girgas.h.i.+tes, from which may be gathered that they were all three very powerful tribes, though their power is in all probability not to be measured by the order of their names, the most important of the three being the Amorites, whose name comes second. They were regarded by the ancient Jews as an iniquitous and wicked people (Gen. xv. 6; 2 Kings xxi.

11), though they may not, in reality, have been worse than other nations which were their contemporaries. That they were a powerful nation is implied by the statement in Gen. xlviii. 22, where Jacob speaks of the tract which he had taken out of the hand of the Amorite with his sword and his bow, as a feat of which a warrior might be proud.

The Amorites in Babylonia have already been referred to in Chap. V., and from that part of the present work it will easily be understood that they were an extensive and powerful nationality, capable, with organization, of extending their power, as they evidently did from time to time, far and wide. Indeed, as has been pointed out, there is great probability that the Babylonian dynasty called by Berosus Arabic, was in reality Amorite. In any case, the kings of this dynasty held sway over Amoria, as the inscription of Ammi-?itana, translated on p. 155, clearly shows. The importance of this nationality in the eyes of the Babylonians is proved by the fact that their designation for "west" was "the land of Amurru," and the west wind was, even with the a.s.syrians, "the wind of the land of Amurru" (though the Hitt.i.tes, in a.s.syrian times, seem to have been the more powerful nation), and this designation of the western point of the compa.s.s probably long outlived the renown of the nationality from which the expression was derived. Among other Biblical pa.s.sages, testifying to the power of the Amorites, may be quoted as typical Amos ii. 9, 10, and in this the Babylonian and the Hebrew records are quite in agreement.

As has been pointed out by Prof. Sayce, in process of time a great many tribes-Gibeonites, Hivites, Jebusites, and even Hitt.i.tes-were cla.s.sed as Amorites by the ancient Jewish writers, a circ.u.mstance which likewise testifies to the power of the nationality. These identifications must be to a large extent due to the fact that all the tribes or nationalities referred to were mountaineers, and, as we have seen (p. 122), the Akkadian character for a mountainous region or nationality, stood not only for Armenia, and the land of the Amorites, but also for the land of Akkad, because the Akkadians came from a mountainous country, perhaps somewhere in the neighbourhood of the mountains of Elam. This character was p.r.o.nounced Ari when it stood for Amoria, but ceased to be used for that on account of its signifying also the mountainous region of Armenia, and Akkad, for which it still continued to be employed, and it is only the context, in many cases, which enables the reader to gather which is meant.

Other groups used for Amoria were the sign for foot, twice over (sometimes with one of them reversed), [Cuneiform], and [Cuneiform], the ordinary p.r.o.nunciation of which is Sarar, though it is probable that the latter was p.r.o.nounced, in Akkadian, like the former, _i.e._ Tidnu. In the inscriptions of Gudea, viceroy of Laga about 2700 B.C., there occurs the name of a country called Tidalum, "a mountain of Martu," from which a kind of limestone was brought. This Hommel and Sayce regard as another form of Tidnu, by the interchange of _l_ and _n_, which is not uncommon in Akkadian. The fact that Martu is also used in the inscriptions for Amurru, (the land of) the Amorites, and also, with the prefix for divinity, for the Amorite G.o.d (_ilu Amurru_), which was introduced into Babylonia at an exceedingly early date, confirms this explanation. In all probability there is not at present sufficient data for ascertaining the dates when these names first appear, but Tidnu or Tidalu was probably the earlier of the two.

What the exact boundaries of the district were are doubtful. Prof. Sayce, after examining the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, comes to the conclusion that it denoted the inland region immediately to the north of the Palestine of later days. In this Petrie concurs, the country being, according to him, the district of middle and lower Orontes, and certainly covering a large area. This, of course, would be the position of the tract over which they held sway in the earlier ages, but later they must have extended their power so as to embrace the Jebusites (Jerusalem), and even Mamre in Gen.

xiv. 13. From this wide extension of the dominions of the Amorites in the book of the Bible dealing with the earliest period of Jewish history, and from the fact that the a.s.syro-Babylonians used the word to indicate the west in general, it is clear that the Amorites occupied a wide tract in the earlier ages, and must have been pushed gradually back, probably by the Babylonians under Sargon of Agade, leaving, however, centres of Amorite influence in the south, which, when the power of Egypt, which followed that of Babylonia, waned and disappeared, left certain independent states under Amorite rulers. It is thus that, at the time of the Exodus, we find Og ruling at Bashan, who had threescore cities, all the region of Argob, his chief seats being Edrei and Ashtaroth. This ruler and his people were of the remnant of the Rephaim, regarded by Sayce as of Amorite origin (Hastings's _Dictionary of the Bible_, under "Amorites").

Whatever doubt there may be, however, about the origin of the Bashanites, there is none concerning Sihon king of the Amorites dwelling more to the south. A man of great courage and daring, he had driven the Moabites out of their territory, obliging them to retreat across the Arnon. On the entry of the Israelites, he gathered his troops and attacked them, but was defeated and killed. Josephus (_Ant._ iv. 5, sect. 2) has some curious details of this battle, in which he states that the Amorites were unable to fight successfully when away from the shelter of their cities, but in view of their successes against the Moabites, we may be permitted to doubt this.

In the Tel-el-Amarna tablets the ruler of the Amorites is apparently Abdi-Airti,(78) who, with his son Aziru, warred successfully against Rib-Addi (Rib-Hadad), governor of Phnicia, driving him from ?umuru and Gublu (Gebal), which last city was occupied, according to Petrie's a.n.a.lysis, by the two hostile parties in turn. Naturally there are a great many recriminations on the part of Rib-Addi against Abdi-Airti on account of the hostility between them, and the former is constantly complaining to the Pharaoh of what the latter had done, frequently calling him a dog, and once seemingly referring to the Amorites as "dogs." (Elsewhere Abdi-Airti applies this word to himself as an expression of humility.) His letters to the king of Egypt, however, are merely a.s.surances of fidelity, and are all short:-

"To the king my lord say then thus: '(It is) Abdi-Atarti, the king's servant. At the feet of the king my lord I fall down-seven (times at) the feet of the king my lord, and seven times again (?) both front part and back. And may the king my lord know that strong is the hostility against me, and let it be acceptable before the king my lord, and let him direct one of the great men to protect me.'

" 'Secondly, the king my lord has sent word to me, and I have heard-I have heard all the words of the king my lord. Behold, the ten women forgotten (?) I have brought' " (?).

(It is here worthy of note, that he does not, in this letter, call himself Abdi-Airti, "servant of the Ashera," but Abdi-Atarti, "servant of Astarte," using the a.s.syro-Babylonian ideograph for Itar, the original of the G.o.ddess in question. On another doc.u.ment from him, the word is spelled out, Ab-di-a-ta-ti, in which the scribe intended to write Ab-di-a-ta-ar-ti, but omitted the last character but one. Yet another letter gives his name as Abdi-A-ra-tum, in the second element of which we must see another form of Abdi-Airti, unless the scribe has also made a mistake in this case, and written Aratum for Ataratum, which is just possible. In any case, it shows a close connection between the G.o.ddess Atarte or Itar, and the Ashera, which was in Palestine, at that date, and for centuries before and after, her emblem. To be the servant of the one was to be the servant of the other, though the bearer of the name seems to have the desire rather to be considered the priest of the G.o.ddess. Even unintentional variants in names furnish valuable contributions at times to comparative mythology.)

If there are but few letters from the father, there is a sufficient number, and of considerable extent, from the son. He, too, is the faithful servant of the Pharaoh, and he writes also to Dudu (a form of the name David) and ?ai, telling of the difficulties which he had with regard to the king of the Hitt.i.tes. It is apparently this prince to whom the Pharaoh writes in the letter translated on pp. 300-302, a circ.u.mstance which leads to the belief that the complaints of Rib-Addi with regard to Abdi-Airti and his son Aziru were well-founded. That the king of Egypt asks therein for the delivery to him of certain persons whom he names, implies that he had trustworthy information as to who the intriguers were, and though apparently willing to give Aziru the benefit of the doubt, he certainly did not hold him blameless.

It will probably be long ere the true order of these letters is known, and until this be found, much of the history of the period to which they refer must necessarily remain uncertain.

Hitt.i.tes.

Another nationality which took a predominant part in the politics of ancient Palestine is the Hitt.i.tes. To all appearance they were a later power than the Amorites, as their name does not occur in the inscriptions of Babylonia and a.s.syria until a comparatively late date, whilst the Amorites are mentioned 2200 years before Christ, and their name had become the common a.s.syro-Babylonian expression for "the west." That the Hitt.i.tes were nevertheless of considerable antiquity, however, is implied by the presence of the sons of Heth at Mamre in the time of Abraham, who purchased from Ephron the Hitt.i.te the cave of Machpelah in that place. It is difficult to a.s.sign to these people any definite limits, especially in early times, but it seems certain that they began to act far in the north, and gradually extended their power southwards. In the times of Joshua, the tract between the Lebanon and Euphrates is described as theirs, and their domain was, in fact, the country to the north of Palestine. It was no doubt due to their predominating power that the a.s.syrians of later days called the whole of Palestine "the land of ?atti," a designation not altogether correct, but sufficient for their purpose, namely, that of indicating the position of the nationalities enumerated. Nevertheless, it had some justification, several colonies of these people inhabiting that district, as is indicated by Gen. xxiii. 3, xxv. 10; Numbers xiii. 29, etc. The statement in Ezekiel xvi. 3, that the father of Jerusalem was an Amorite and its mother a Hitt.i.te, shows what was the opinion of the more learned Jews of the time in the matter.

The earliest mention of the Hitt.i.tes outside the Bible is in the Egyptian monuments, where, in the annals of Thothmes III., it is recorded for the year 1470 B.C., that the king proceeded to the banks of the Euphrates, and received tribute from "the greater" land of the Hitt.i.tes. In the year 1463 B.C., the king of this district again paid tribute. During the reign of Thothmes IV., grandson of Thothmes III., the relations between the two countries must have changed, and the Egyptian king had to repel an attack made by the Hitt.i.tes upon Tunib (now Tennib) in Northern Syria. This hostile policy was continued by them also at a later date, for the successors of Thothmes IV., Amenophis III. and his son, Amenophis IV., had often to oppose the Hitt.i.te king, who either attacked Northern Syria, or stirred up strife among the Egyptian va.s.sals in Canaan.

Here, again, the Tel-el-Amarna tablets come in, and supply a ma.s.s of details. At times the ?atti still send tribute, both to Amenophis III. and IV., but at the close of the reign of the former, hostilities again broke out, the Hitt.i.tes being, to all appearance, the aggressors. Duratta, king of Mitanni, writes that he sends to the king of Egypt tribute of the spoils which he had taken from the ?atti; and the king of Nu?ae, who bears the a.s.syrian name of Addu-nirari, and whose grandfather had been appointed by Thothmes III., complains that the king of the ?atti is against him, and asks for help. From these and other statements it would seem, that whoever was on the side of the king of Egypt was the enemy of the Hitt.i.tes, and therefore to be attacked by them. Akizzi, king of Qatna, complains in one of the letters that the ?atti had burned down a city, and reports in another that they had tried to win him over to their side.

Aziru, another prince in the neighbourhood, complains that the king of ?atti has entered Nu?ae, and for this reason he could not leave his own territory to go to the king of Egypt. At the end of one of his communications, Akizzi states that the Sun-G.o.d had taken away the king of the ?atti, but as no name is given, any historical importance which this fact might have is greatly minimized. In other letters they are spoken of as despoiling the princes of Gebal, capturing a personage named Lupakku and the cities of Amki "even from the cities of Aaddu" (or Bin-Addu = Ben-Hadad). As we have seen (pp. 288-289), at least a portion of them was led by Etakama of Kinza.

As is well known, a large number of hieroglyphic inscriptions of a people regarded as the Hitt.i.tes exist, and many attempts have been made to translate them. In addition to these, there are many sculptures, mostly on rocks, and still _in situ_. The most remarkable of these are at Bogaz Keui, Eyouk, Iasili-Kaia, Ghiaour-kalesi, Doganlu-deresi, Ibriz, Eflatun-bunar, Karabeli, and elsewhere in Asia Minor, as well as at Jerabis (anciently called Carchemish), Hamah (Hamath), and monuments of the Hitt.i.tes have even been found at Babylon. How they came to this last place is not at present known, but they may have formed part of the spoils brought from the west by any of the later conquerors (such a supposition would probably be better than attributing to them a very early date), or sent thither as presents or as specimens of Hitt.i.te work. It is noteworthy that the inscriptions, with the exception of the bowl brought from Babylon, are all in relief and boustrophedon. A large number of seals, both of the ordinary kind and cylindrical, are known, and though there are bilingual inscriptions (Hitt.i.te and Babylonian), none of them are of sufficient length to make them really serviceable in translating other texts in the same character.

Notwithstanding the great difficulty attending such a task as the translation of these inscriptions, a certain amount of success has been attained. Those who have advanced the study most are Prof. Sayce in England, and Profs. Jensen and Hommel in Germany. It will be many years, however (unless some unexpected help come to light), before renderings in any real sense of the word useful can be made.

In the opinion of Prof. Sayce, Cappadocia was the earliest home of this nationality, which spread thence in every direction (except, perhaps, northwards), and made itself master of a part of Palestine, from which circ.u.mstance the district came to have, in a.s.syrian literature, the name of "the land of ?atti." Though later than the Amorite invasion, it nevertheless took place at a very early date, as is shown by the fact that Abraham had dealings with Ephron, a Hitt.i.te or "son of Heth."

Coming down to a later date, it is interesting to see what is said about them by the kings of a.s.syria. Tiglath-pileser I. (about 1120 B.C.) says as follows-

"... 4000 Kakaians (and) Urumaians, people of the land of ?atte, disobedient, who in their strength had taken the cities of Subarte, subject unto the G.o.d Aur, my lord, heard of my march to Subarte; the brilliance of my power overwhelmed them, they feared the conflict, my feet they embraced. With their goods and II.

_sos_ (120) of chariots of their system of yoking(79) I took from them, and delivered to the people of my land."

Farther on in his record, Tiglath-pileser I. states that he collected his chariots and warriors, and took to the desert, going to the border-people of the Arameans, enemies of Aur his lord. From before the land of Su?i (the Shuhites) as far as the city Carchemish of the land of ?atte, he boasts of having plundered in a single day, slaughtering their soldiers, and taking back to his own country all their property. Some of them fled across the Euphrates, followed by the a.s.syrians in boats of skins, and the result of this flight to seek safety was, that six of their cities at the foot of the mountain known as Biru, were taken, plundered, and destroyed.

In other pa.s.sages of his record also, this king refers to certain districts which were undoubtedly Hitt.i.te, but without calling them by that name. One of these-the interesting description of his operations in Commagene-is especially worthy of notice. It reads as follows-

"In those days the people of Qur?e, who had come with the people of k.u.mmu?i to save and help the land of k.u.mmu?i, I caused to go down like _ube._(80) The corpses of their warriors I heaped up in heaps on the tops of the mountains, the carcases of their warriors the river Name took forth to the Tigris. Kili-Teub son of Kali-Teub, whom Irrupi put to flight (?), their king, my hand took in the midst of the battle. His wives, children, offspring of his heart, his force, III. _sos_ (180) plates of copper, 5 censers of bronze, with their G.o.ds, (objects) of gold and silver, and the best of their property, I carried off. Their spoil and their goods I sent forth, that city and its palace I burned with fire, destroyed (it), laid (it) waste.

"The city Urra?ina, their stronghold, situated in the land of Panari, fear dreading(81) the glory of Aur, my lord, overwhelmed them; to save their lives they carried away their G.o.ds (and their goods), they fled to the peaks of the lofty mountains like a bird. I collected my chariots and troops, (and) crossed the Tigris, a-di-Teub, son of ?attu-ar, king of Urra?ina, not to be captured in his own country, took my feet. The children, offspring of his heart, and his family, I took as hostages. I.

_sos_ (60) plates of copper, libation-vases of bronze, offering-dishes of bronze, great ones, with II. _sos_ (120) men, oxen, sheep, tribute and gifts, he brought, (and) I received it. I had mercy on him, spared his life, (and) set the heavy yoke of my dominion over him for ever. I captured the wide land of k.u.mmu?i to its (whole) extent (and) made it submit to my feet. At that time I offered one bronze offering-dish and one bronze libation-vase of the spoil and gifts of the land of k.u.mmu?i to Aur my lord, (and) I. _sos_ of copper plates, with their G.o.ds, I presented to Hadad who loveth me."

In the above extract the names containing that of the G.o.d Teub show clearly that we have here to do with nationalities in the neighbourhood of Mitanni (see p. 277), and a close relation with the Hitt.i.tes is suggested by the other name ?attu-ar, father of adi-Teub, which is an a.n.a.logous formation to ?attu-il, the Kheta-sir of Egyptologists, with whom Rameses II. made a treaty (cf. p. 304). Another reading of ?attu-ar is ?attu?i, a name which Prof. Sayce translates, "the Hitt.i.te," in the second series of the _Records of the Past_, vol. i. p. 97, note 2. In the same pa.s.sage he a.n.a.lyzes the name of the city Urra?ina as being derived from Urra, with the termination _?i-na_, denoting in Vannite, "the place of the people of."

Another interesting reference to the Hitt.i.tes is that of the a.s.syrian king Aur-na?ir-apli, renowned for his cruelty. The king ruling at the time was Sangara, who had as his capital the city of Carchemish. The text reads as follows-

"I drew near to the land of Carchemish. The tribute of Sangara, king of the land of ?atte-20 talents of gold, bangles (?) of gold, rings of gold, swords of gold, 100 talents of bronze, 250 talents of iron, dishes of bronze, vases of bronze, libation-vases of bronze, a brazier of bronze, and the numerous vessels of his palace, the weight of which was not taken; couches of oak, chairs of oak, tables of oak and ivory inlaid, 200 slave-girls (or virgins), cotton stuffs, woollen cloth, white and black and white and grey, white marble (?), tusks of elephants, a white chariot, an umbrella of gold filled with overlaying (?), the ornament of his royalty, I received. The chariots, horses, (and) grooms of the city Carchemish, (of the Hitt.i.tes(82)) I set (aside) for myself."

The riches and importance of the city of Carchemish are here well indicated, and to all appearance the place maintained its position to the end, long after the power of the Hitt.i.tes had completely disappeared.

Indeed, as will be recognized from the above, Sangara has every appearance of having been a local ruler, implying that the district under Hitt.i.te control was already broken up into small states practically independent of each other. Another prince of the Hitt.i.tes, in the neighbourhood of Diarbekir, from whom this a.s.syrian king received tribute was "the son of Ba?iani." Apparently he was called thus on account of his ancestor, Ba?iani, being chief of a tribe, the district over which he ruled bearing, in Aur-na?ir-apli's second reference to it, the name of Bit-Ba?iani, "the house of Ba?iani." The special products of this tract are well indicated by the nature of the gifts sent to the a.s.syrian king: "chariots, harness, horses, silver, gold, lead, bronze, and vessels of bronze." That these Hitt.i.te districts paid tribute so submissively would seem to indicate that they had no coherence among themselves, and did not feel called upon to aid each other in time of need.

Sargon of a.s.syria, who claims to have subjugated all the land of the Hitt.i.tes, speaks, as do other a.s.syrian kings, of the people of Hamath, and what he did to Ilu-bi'idi or Yau-bi'idi, their king. This, too, was the capital of a Hitt.i.te princ.i.p.ality, and it is in the modern town of Hamah, in which form the name still survives, that the so-called "Hamah-stones,"

now generally regarded as. .h.i.tt.i.te, were found.

The disappearance of the Hitt.i.te confederate states (if such they really were), and the rise in their place from time to time of other powers, caused the a.s.syrians, who regarded this territory as their own special possession, won by conquest, to apply to the whole district the name of mat _?atti_, "the land of Heth," which would seem to have included (probably in its extended sense) Samaria, Sidon, Arvad, Gebal, Ashdod, Beth-Ammon, Moab, Edom, Askelon, and Judah.(83) It thus, to all appearance, took the place of the ancient "land of the Amorites" (not, however, when indicating the points of the compa.s.s), and in this the inscriptions of Esarhaddon and Aur-bani-apli agree.

What the influence of the Hitt.i.tes over the nations contemporary with them may have been is difficult to estimate. The a.s.syrians, to all appearance, borrowed from them a certain style of architecture, used for the entrance-hall of the royal palaces. Their style of art, of which numerous examples are preserved, shows that they had made considerable progress, and that they had individuality as artists. Neither in sculpture nor in engraving of hard stone, however, did they ever attain to the exquisite fineness and finish of the best work of the artists of Babylonia and a.s.syria. The subjects, too, seem to be usually more grotesque, though this suggestion, which their work gives, may be due merely to our ignorance of their religious beliefs and the legends on which the designs were probably based.