Patriarchal Palestine Part 10

Seti I., the father of Ramses II., seems to have been too fully engaged in his wars in Northern Syria, and in securing the road along the coast of the Mediterranean, to attempt the re-conquest of Palestine. At Qurnah, however, we find the names of 'Aka or Acre, Zamith, Pella, Beth-el (Beth-sha-il), Inuam, Kimham (Jer. xli. 17), Kamdu, Tyre, Usu, Beth-Anath, and Carmel among those of the cities he had vanquished, but there is no trace of any occupation of Southern Canaan. That seems to have come later with the beginning of his son's reign.

On the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes there are pictures of the storming and capture of the Palestinian cities. Most of them are now destroyed, but we can still read the names of Ashkelon, of Salem or Jerusalem, of Beth-Anath and Qarbu[tu], of Dapul in the land of the Amorites, of Merom, of Damascus, and of Inuam. Elsewhere we have mention of Yurza and Socho, while at Karnak there are two geographical lists which mark two of the lines of march taken by the troops of Ramses II.

The first list contains the following names: (1) the district of Salem; (2) the district of Rethpana; (3) the country of the Jordan; (4) Khilz; (5) Karhu; (6) Uru; (7) Abel; (8) Carmel; (9) the upper district of Tabara or Debir; (10) s.h.i.+mshon; and (n) Erez Hadashta, "the new land."

In the second list we read: (1) Rosh Kadesh, or Mount Carmel; (2) Inzat; (3) Maghar; (4) Rehuza; (5) Saabata; (6) Gaza; (7) the district of Sala'; (8) the district of Zasr; (9) Jacob-el; and (10) the land of Akrith, the Ugarit of the Tel el-Amarna tablets.

We have already seen that long before the time of Ramses II. Jerusalem was an important city and fortress, the capital of a territory of some size, known by the name of Uru-Salim, "the city of the G.o.d of peace."

"The city of Salem" could easily be abbreviated into "Salem" only; and it is accordingly Salem which alone is used in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis as well as in the inscriptions of Ramses II. and Ramses III. The name of Rethpana, which follows that of Salem, is faultily written in the list of Ramses II., and it is from that of Ramses III. that we have to recover its true form. Ramses III., moreover, tells us that Rethpana was a lake, and since its name comes between those of Jerusalem and the Jordan it must represent the Dead Sea. The Canaanite form of Rethpana would be Reshpon, a derivative from the name of Resheph, the G.o.d of fire and lightning, whose name is preserved in that of the town Arsuf, and whose "children" were the sparks (Job v. 7). The name was appropriate to a region which was believed to have been smitten with a tempest of flames, and of which we are told that "the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire."

Khilz, the fourth name in the list, is probably the Babylonian _Khalzu_, or "fortress." At all events it was the first town on the eastern side of the Jordan, and it may well therefore have guarded the ford across the river. Karhu is the Korkha of the Moabite Stone, perhaps the modern Kerak, which was the capital of Moab in the age of Ahab, and Uru is the Babylonian form of the Moabite Ar, or "city," of which we read in the Book of Numbers (xxi. 28). The land of "Moab" itself is one of the countries which Ramses claims to have subdued. The Carmel mentioned in the list is Carmel of Judah, not the more famous Carmel on the coast. As for Tabara or Debir, it will be that ancient seat of Canaanite learning and literature, called Kirjath-Sepher and Debir in the Old Testament, the site of which is unfortunately still unknown. It must have lain, however, between Carmel and s.h.i.+mshon, "the city of the Sun-G.o.d," with which it is probable that the Biblical Ir-Shemesh should be identified (Josh. xix. 41). Erez Hadashta, "the New Land," is called Hadashah in the Book of Joshua (xv. 37), where it is included among the possessions of Judah.

The second list, instead of taking us through Judah and Moab, leads us southward along the coast from Mount Carmel. Maghar is termed by Ramses III. "the spring of the Maghar," and is the Magoras or river of Beyrout of cla.s.sical geography. The river took its name from the _maghdrat_ or "caves" past which it runs, and of which we have already heard in the _Travels of a Mohar_. The two next names which represent places on the coast to the north of Gaza are quite unknown, but Sala', which is written Selakh by Ramses III. (from a cuneiform original), is possibly the rock-city Sela (2 Kings xiv. 7), better known to us as Petra. Of Jacob-el we have already had occasion to speak.

It is in the ruined temple of Medinet Habu that Ramses III. has recorded his victories and inscribed the names of the peoples and cities he had overcome. We gather from the latter that his armies had followed the roads already traversed by Ramses II., had marched through the south of Palestine into Moab, and had made their way along the sea-coast into Northern Syria. One after the other we read the names of Hir-nam or Har-nam, called Har-Nammata in the _Mohar's Travels_, of Lebanoth, of Beth-Anath and Qarbutu (Josh. xv. 59), of Carmim, "the vineyards," and Shabuduna or Shebtin, of Mashabir (?), of Hebron and its 'en or "Spring," of the "district of Libnah," of 'Aphekah and 'Abakhi (Josh.

xv. 53), of Migdal--doubtless the Migdal-Gad of Josh. xv. 53--and Qarzak, of Carmel of Judah and the Upper District of Debir, of s.h.i.+mshon and Erez Hadasth, of the district of Salem or Jerusalem and the "Lake of Rethpana," of the Jordan, of Khilz the fortress, of Korkha and of Uru. A second list gives us the line of march along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean Sea. First we have 'Akata, perhaps Joktheel in Judah (Josh. xv. 38), then Karka and [Zidi]puth, Abel and the district of Sela', the district of Zasr and Jacob-el, Rehuza, Saaba and Gaza, Rosh-Kadesh, Inzath and the "Spring," Lui-el, which we might also read Levi-el, Bur, "the Cistern," Kamdu, "Qubur the great," Iha, Tur, and finally Sannur, the Saniru of the a.s.syrian texts, the Shenir of the Old Testament (Deut. iii. 9). This brings us to Mount Hermon and the land of the Amorites, so that it is not surprising to find after two more names that of Hamath.

One point about this list is very noticeable. None of the great Phoenician cities of the coast are mentioned in it. Acre, Ekdippa, Tyre, Sidon, and Beyrout are all conspicuous by their absence. Even Joppa is unnamed. After Gaza we have only descriptive epithets like "the Spring"

and "the Cistern," or the names of otherwise unknown villages. With Kamdu in Coele-Syria the catalogue of cities begins afresh.

It is plain that the northern campaign of the Pharaoh was little better than a raid. No attempt was made to capture the cities of the coast, and re-establish in them the Egyptian power. The Egyptian army pa.s.sed them by without any effort to reduce them. Possibly the Philistines had already settled on the coast, and had shown themselves too strong to be meddled with; possibly the Egyptian fleet was acting in concert with the troops on land, and Ramses cared only to lead his forces to some spot on the north Syrian coast, from whence, if necessary, the s.h.i.+ps could convey them home. Whatever may have been the reason, the fact remains that Gaza alone of the cities of the Canaanitish coast fell into the hands of the Pharaoh. It was only in the extreme south, in what was so soon afterwards to become the territory of Judah, that he overran the country and occupied the large towns.

With the lists of Ramses III. our knowledge of the geography of Patriarchal Palestine is brought to a close. Henceforward we have to do with the Canaan of Israelitish conquest and settlement. The records of the Old Testament contain a far richer store of geographical names than we can ever hope to glean from the monuments of Egypt. But the latter show how little change after all was effected by the Israelitish conquest in the local nomenclature of the country. A few cities disappeared like Kirjath-Sepher, but on the whole not only the cities, but even the villages of pre-Israelitish Canaan survived under their old names. When we compare the names of the towns and villages of Judah enumerated in the Book of Joshua with the geographical lists of a Thothmes or a Ramses, we cannot but be struck by the coincidences between them. The occurrence of a name like Hadashah, "the New (Land),"

in both cannot be the result of chance. It adds one more to the many arguments in favour of the antiquity of the Book of Joshua, or at all events of the materials of which it consists. Geography, at all events, gives no countenance to the theory which sees in the book a fabrication of later date. Even the leading cities of the Israelitish period are for the most part already the leading cities of the earlier Palestine. The future capital of David, for example, was already called Jerusalem long before the birth of Moses, and already occupied a foremost place among the kingdoms of Canaan.

CHAPTER VI

CANAANITISH CULTURE AND RELIGION

We have already learned from the annals of Thothmes III. how high was the state of civilization and culture among the merchant princes of Canaan in the age of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. Artistically finished vases of gold and silver, rich bronzes, furniture carved out of ebony and cedar, and inlaid with ivory and precious stones--such were some of the manufactures of the land of Palestine. Iron was excavated from its hills and wrought into armour, into chariots, and into weapons of war; while beautifully shaped vessels of variegated gla.s.s were manufactured on the coast. The amber beads found at Lachish point to a trade with the distant Baltic, and it is possible that there may be truth after all in the old belief, that the Phoenicians obtained their tin from the isles of Britain. The mines of Cyprus, indeed, yielded abundance of copper, but, so far as we know, there were only two parts of the world from which the nations of Western Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean could have procured the vast amount of tin needed in the Bronze Age--the Malayan Peninsula and Cornwall. The Malayan Peninsula is out of the question--there are no traces of any commercial intercourse so far to the East; and it would seem, therefore, that we must look to Cornwall for the source of the tin. If so the trade would probably have been overland, like the amber trade from the Baltic.

Canaan was marked out by Nature to be a land of merchants. Its long line of coast fronted the semi-barbarous populations of Asia Minor, of the aegean, and of the northern sh.o.r.es of Africa, while the sea furnished it with the purple dye of the murex. The country itself formed the high-road and link between the great kingdoms of the Euphrates and the Nile. It was here that the two civilizations of Babylonia and Egypt met and coalesced, and it was inevitable that the Canaanites, who possessed all the energy and adaptive quickness of a commercial race, should absorb and combine the elements of both. There was little except this combination that was original in Canaanitish art, but when once the materials were given, the people of Palestine knew how to work them up into new and graceful forms, and adapt them practically to the needs of the foreign world.

If we would realize the change brought about by this contact of Canaan with the culture of the stranger, we must turn to the rude figures carved upon the rocks in some of the valleys of Phoenicia. Near Tyre, for example, in the Wadi el-Qana we may still see some of these primitive sculptures, in which it is difficult even to recognize the human form. Equally barbarous in style are the early seals and cylinders made in imitation of those of Babylonia. It seems at first sight impossible to believe that such grotesque and child-like beginnings should have ended in the exquisite art of the age of Thothmes III.

At that period, however, Canaan already had behind it a long civilized past. The country was filled with schools and libraries, with richly-furnished palaces, and the workshops of the artisans. The cities on the coast had their fleets partly of merchantmen, partly of wars.h.i.+ps, and an active trade was carried on with all parts of the known world.

The result was that the wealth of Palestine was enormous; the amount carried away by Thothmes is alone sufficient to prove it. Apart from the natural productions of the country--corn, wine, and oil, or the slaves which it had to furnish--immense quant.i.ties of gold, silver, and precious stones, sometimes in their native state, sometimes manufactured into artistic forms, were transported into Egypt. And in spite of this drain upon its resources, the supply seems never to have failed.

The reciprocal influence of the civilizations of Canaan and Egypt one upon the other, in the days when Canaan was an Egyptian province, is reflected in the languages of the two countries. On the one hand the Canaanite borrowed from Egypt words like _tebah_ "ark," _hin_ "a measure," and _ebyon_ "poor," while Canaan in return copiously enriched the vocabulary of its conquerors. As the _Travels of a Mohar_ have shown us, under the nineteenth dynasty there was a mania for using Canaanitish words and phrases, similar to that which has more than once visited English society in respect to French. But before the rise of the nineteenth dynasty the Egyptian lexicon was already full of Semitic words. Frequently they denoted objects which had been imported from Syria. Thus a "chariot" was called a _merkabut_, a "waggon" being _agolta_; _hurpu_, "a sword," was the Canaanitish _khereb_, just as _aspata_, "a quiver," was _ashpah_. The Canaanitish _kinnor_, "a lyre,"

was similarly naturalized in Egypt, like the names of certain varieties of "Syrian bread." The Egyptian words for "incense" (_qadaruta_), "oxen"

(_abiri_), and "sea" (_yum_) were taken from the same source, though it is possible that the last-mentioned word, like _qamhu_, "wheat," had been introduced from Syria in the earliest days of Egyptian history. As might have been expected, several kinds of sea-going vessels brought with them their native names from the Phoenician coast. Already in the time of the thirteenth dynasty the larger s.h.i.+ps were termed _Kabanitu_, or "Gebalite"; we read also of "boats" called _Za_, the Canaanite _Zi_, while a transport was ent.i.tled _qauil_, the Phoenician _gol_. The same name was imported into Greek under the form of _gaulos_, and we are told that it signified "a Phoenician vessel of rounded shape."

The language of Canaan was practically that which we call Hebrew. Indeed Isaiah (xix. 18) speaks of the two dialects as identical, and the so-called Phoenician inscriptions that have been preserved to us show that the differences between them were hardly appreciable. There were differences, however; the Hebrew definite article, for instance, is not found in the Phoenician texts. But the differences are dialectal only, like the differences which the discovery of the Moabite Stone has shown to have existed between the languages of Moab and Israel.

How the Israelites came to adopt "the language of Canaan" is a question into which we cannot here enter. There have been other examples of conquerors who have abandoned the language of their forefathers and adopted that of the conquered people. And it must be remembered, on the one hand, that the ancestors of Israel had lived in Canaan, where they would have learnt the language of the country, and, on the other hand, that their original tongue was itself a Semitic form of speech, as closely related to Hebrew as French or Spanish is to Italian.

The Tel el-Amarna tablets have told us something about the language of Canaan as it was spoken before the days when the Israelites entered the land. Some of the letters that were sent from Palestine contain the Canaanite equivalents of certain Babylonian words that occur in them.

Like the Babylonian words, they are written in cuneiform characters, and since these denote syllables and not mere letters we know exactly how the words were p.r.o.nounced. It is an advantage which is denied us by the Phoenician alphabet, whether in the inscriptions of Phoenicia or in the pages of the Old Testament, and we can thus obtain a better idea of the p.r.o.nunciation of the Canaanitish language in the century before the Exodus than we can of the Hebrew language in the age of Hezekiah.

Among the words which have been handed down to us by the correspondents of the Pharaoh are _maqani_ "cattle," _anay_ "a s.h.i.+p," _susi_ "a horse,"

of which the Hebrew equivalents, according to the Masoretic punctuation, are _miqneh_, _oni_, and _sus_. The king of Jerusalem says _anuki_, "I,"

the Hebrew _anochi_, while _badiu_, the Hebrew _b'yado_, and _akharunu_, the Hebrew _akharono_, are stated to signify "in his hand," and "after him." "Dust" is _ghaparu_, where the guttural _gh_ represents the Canaanitish _ayyin_ ('); "stomach" is _batnu_, the Hebrew _beten_; while _kilubi_, "a cage," corresponds with the Hebrew _chelub_, which is used in the same sense by the prophet Jeremiah. Elsewhere we find _risu_, the Hebrew _rosh_, "a head," _har_ "a mountain," _samama_ "heaven," and _mima_ "water," in Hebrew _shamayim_ and _mayim_, which we gather from the cuneiform spelling have been wrongly punctuated by the Masoretes, as well as _khaya_ "living," the Hebrew _khai_, and _makhsu_, "they have smitten him," the Hebrew _makhatsu_.

It was the use of the definite article _ha(n)_ which mainly distinguished Hebrew and Phoenician or Canaanite one from the other. And we have a curious indication in the Tel el-Amarna tablets, that the same distinction prevailed between the language of the Canaanites and that of the Edomites, who, as we learn from the Old Testament, were so closely related to the Israelites. In the letter to the Pharaoh, in which mention is made of the hostilities carried on by Edom against the Egyptian territory, one of the Edomite towns referred to is called Khinianabi. Transcribed into Hebrew characters this would be 'En-han-nabi, "the Spring of the Prophet." Here, therefore, the Hebrew article makes its appearance, and that too in the very form which it has in the language of Israel. The fact is an interesting commentary on the brotherhood of Jacob and Esau.

If the language of Canaan was influenced by that of Egypt, still more was it influenced by that of Babylonia. Long before Palestine became an Egyptian province it had been a province of Babylonia. And even when it was not actually subject to Babylonian government it was under the dominion of Babylonian culture. War and trade alike forced the Chaldaean civilization upon "the land of the Amorites," and the Canaanites were not slow to take advantage of it. The cuneiform writing of Babylonia was adopted, and therewith the language of Babylonia was taught and learned in the schools and libraries which were established in imitation of those of the Babylonians. Babylonian literature was introduced into the West, and the Canaanite youth became acquainted with the history and legends, the theology and mythology of the dwellers on the Euphrates and Tigris.

Such literary contact naturally left its impress on the language of Canaan. Words which the Semites of Babylonia had borrowed from the older Sumerian population of the country were handed on to the peoples of Palestine. The "city" had been a Sumerian creation; until brought under the influence of Sumerian culture, the Semite had been contented to live in tents. Indeed in Babylonian or a.s.syrian--the language of the Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia and a.s.syria--the word which signified "tent"

was adopted to express the idea of "city" when the tent had been exchanged for city-life. In Canaan, on the other hand, the Sumerian word itself was adopted in a Semitic form, _'Ir_, _'ar_, or _uru_, "city,"

was originally the Sumerian _eri_.

The Canaanitish _hekal_, "a palace," again, came from a Sumerian source.

This was _e-gal_, or "great house." But it had pa.s.sed to the West through the Semitic Babylonians, who had first borrowed the compound word under the form of _ekallu_. Like the city, the palace also was unknown to the primitive Semitic nomads. It belonged to the civilization of which the Sumerians of Chaldaea, with their agglutinative language, were the pioneers.

The borrowing, however, was not altogether one-sided. Palestine enriched the literary language of Babylonia with certain words, though these do not seem to have made their way into the language of the people. Thus we find words like _bin-bini_, "grandson," and _inu_, "wine," recorded in the lexical tablets of Babylonia and a.s.syria. Doubtless there were writers on the banks of the Euphrates who were as anxious to exhibit their knowledge of the language of Canaan as were the Egyptian scribes of the nineteenth dynasty, though their literary works have not yet been discovered.

The adoption of the Babylonian system of writing must have worked powerfully on the side of tincturing the Canaanitish language with Babylonian words. In the age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets there is no sign that any other system was known in the West. It is true that the letters sent to the Pharaoh from Palestine were written in the Babylonian language as well as in the Babylonian script, but we have evidence that the cuneiform characters were also used for the native language of the country. M. de Clercq possesses two seal-cylinders of the same date as the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, on one of which is the cuneiform inscription--"Hadad-sum, the citizen of Sidon, the crown of the G.o.ds," while on the other is "Anniy, the son of Hadad-sum, the citizen of Sidon." On the first, Hadad-sum is represented standing with his hands uplifted before the Egyptian G.o.d Set, while behind him is the G.o.d Resheph with a helmet on his head, a s.h.i.+eld in one hand and a battle-axe in the other. On the seal of Anniy, Set and Resheph again make their appearance, but instead of the owner of the cylinder it is the G.o.d Horus who stands between them.

When the cuneiform syllabary was superseded in Palestine by the so-called Phoenician alphabet we do not know. The introduction of the new script was due probably to the Hitt.i.te invasion, which separated the Semites of the West from the Semites of the East. The Hitt.i.te occupation of Carchemish blocked the high-road of Babylonian trade to the Mediterranean, and when the sacred city of Kadesh on the Orontes fell into Hitt.i.te hands it was inevitable that Hitt.i.te rather than Babylonian influence would henceforth prevail in Canaan. However this may be, it seems natural to suppose that the scribes of Zebulon referred to in the Song of Deborah and Barak (Judges v. 14) wrote in the letters of the Phoenician alphabet and not in the cuneiform characters of Babylonia. As long, indeed, as the old libraries remained open and accessible, with their stores of cuneiform literature, there must have been some who could read them, but they would have been rather the older inhabitants of the country than the alien conquerors from the desert. When the Moabite Stone was engraved, it is clear from the forms of the letters that the Phoenician alphabet had long been in use in the kingdom of Mesha. The resemblance of these letters to those found in the earliest of the Greek inscriptions makes it equally clear that the introduction of the alphabet into the islands of the aegean must have taken place at no distant period from the age of the Moabite Stone. Such an introduction, however, implies that the new alphabet had already taken deep root among the merchants of Canaan, and driven out before it the c.u.mbrous syllabary of Chaldaea. It was in this alphabet that Hiram and Solomon corresponded together, and it is probable that Moses made use of it. We may even conjecture that the Israelitish settlement in Palestine brought with it the gift of the "Phoenician" alphabet.

As we have already seen, the elements of Babylonian art were quickly absorbed by the Canaanites. The seal-cylinder was imitated, at first with but indifferent success, and such Babylonian ornamental designs as the rosette, the sacred tree, and the winged cherub were taken over and developed in a special way. At times the combination with them of designs borrowed from Egypt produced a new kind of artistic ornament.

But it was in the realm of religion that the influence of Babylonia was most powerful. Religion, especially in the ancient world, was inextricably bound up with its culture; it was impossible to adopt the one without adopting a good deal of the other at the same time.

Moreover, the Semites of Babylonia and of Canaan belonged to the same race, and that meant a community of inherited religious ideas. With both the supreme object of wors.h.i.+p was Baal or Bel, "the lord," who was but the Sun-G.o.d under a variety of names. Each locality had its own special Baal: there were, in fact, as many Baals, or Baalim, as there were names and attributes for the Sun-G.o.d, and to the wors.h.i.+ppers in each locality the Baal adored there was the supreme G.o.d. But the G.o.d resembled his wors.h.i.+pper who had been made in his image; he was the father and head of a family with a wife and son. The wife, it is true, was but the colourless reflection of the G.o.d, often indeed but the feminine Baalah, whom the Semitic languages with their feminine gender required to exist by the side of the masculine Baal. But this was only in accordance with the Semitic conception of woman as the lesser man, his servant rather than his companion, his shadow rather than his helpmeet.

The existence of an independent G.o.ddess, unmarried and possessing all the attributes of the G.o.d, was contrary to the fundamental conceptions of the Semitic mind. Nevertheless we find in Canaan an Ashtoreth, whom the Greeks called Astarte, as well as a Baal. The cuneiform inscriptions have given us an explanation of the fact.

Ashtoreth came from Babylonia. There she was known as Istar, the evening star. She had been one of those Sumerian G.o.ddesses who, in accordance with the Sumerian system, which placed the mother at the head of the family, were on an equal footing with the G.o.ds. She lay outside the circle of Semitic theology with its divine family, over which the male Baal presided, and the position she occupied in later Babylonian religion was due to the fusion between the Sumerian and Semitic forms of faith, which took place when the Semites became the chief element in Babylonia. But Sumerian influence and memories were too strong to allow of any transformation either in the name or in the attributes of the G.o.ddess. She remained Istar, without any feminine suffix, and it was never forgotten that she was the evening-star.

It was otherwise in the West. There Istar became Ashtoreth with the feminine termination, and pa.s.sed eventually into a Moon-G.o.ddess "with crescent horns." Ashtoreth-Karnaim, "Ashtoreth with the two horns," was already in existence in the age of Abraham. In Babylonia the Moon-G.o.d of ancient Sumerian belief had never been dethroned; but there was no Moon-G.o.d in Canaan, and accordingly the transformation of the Babylonian G.o.ddess into "the queen of the night" was a matter of little difficulty.

Once domesticated in Palestine, with her name so changed as to declare her feminine character, Ashtoreth soon tended to lose her independence.

Just as there were Baalim or "Baals" by the side of Baal, so there were Astaroth or "Ashtoreths" by the side of Ashtoreth.

The Semites of Babylonia themselves had already begun the work of transformation. They too spoke of Istarat or "Istars," and used the word in the general sense of "G.o.ddesses." In Canaan, however, Ashtaroth had no such general meaning, but denoted simply the various Ashtoreths who were wors.h.i.+pped in different localities, and under different t.i.tles. The individual Ashtoreth of Gebal was separate from the individual Ashtoreth of Bashan, although they alike represented the same divine personality.

It is true that even in the West Istar did not always become the feminine complement of Baal. Here and there the old form of the name was preserved, without any feminine suffix. But when this was the case, the necessary result was that the female character of the deity was forgotten. Istar was conceived of as a G.o.d, and accordingly on the Moabite Stone Ashtar is identified with Chemosh, the patron-G.o.d of Mesha, just as in Southern Arabia also Atthar is a male divinity.

The wors.h.i.+p of Ashtoreth absorbed that of the other G.o.ddesses of Canaan.

Among them there was one who had once occupied a very prominent place.

This was Asherah, the G.o.ddess of fertility, whose name is written Asirtu and Asratu in the tablets of Tel el-Amarna. Asherah was symbolized by a stem stripped of its branches, or an upright cone of stone, fixed in the ground, and the symbol and the G.o.ddess were at times confounded together. The symbol is mistranslated "grove" in the Authorized Version of the Old Testament, and it often stood by the side of the altar of Baal. We find it thus represented on early seals. In Palestine it was usually of wood; but in the great temple of Paphos in Cyprus there was an ancient and revered one of stone. This, however, came to be appropriated to Ashtoreth in the days when the older Asherah was supplanted by the younger Ashtoreth.

We hear of other Canaanitish divinities from the monuments of Egypt. The G.o.ddess Edom, the wife of Resheph, has already been referred to. Her name is found in that of the Gitt.i.te, Obed-Edom, "the servant of Edom,"

in whose house the ark was kept for three months (2 Sam. vi. 10).

Resheph, too, has been mentioned in an earlier page. He was the G.o.d of fire and lightning, and on the Egyptian monuments he is represented as armed with spear and helmet, and bears the t.i.tles of "great G.o.d" and "lord of heaven." Along with him we find pictures of a G.o.ddess called Kedesh and Kesh. She stands on the back of a lion, with flowers in her left hand and a serpent in her right, while on her head is the lunar disk between the horns of a cow. She may be the G.o.ddess Edom, or perhaps the solar divinity who was ent.i.tled a in Babylonian, and whose name enters into that of an Edomite king A-rammu, who is mentioned by Sennacherib.

But, like Istar, a considerable number of the deities of Palestine were borrowed from Babylonia. In the Tel el-Amarna tablets the G.o.d of Jerusalem is identified with the warlike Sun-G.o.d of Babylonia, Nin-ip, and there was a sanctuary of the same divinity further north, in Phoenicia. Foremost among the deities whose first home was on the banks of the Euphrates were Arm and Anat, and Rimmon. Anu, whose name is written Anah in Hebrew, was the G.o.d of the sky, and he stood at the head of the Babylonian pantheon. His wife Anat was but a colourless reflection of himself, a grammatical creation of the Semitic languages.