Patriarchal Palestine Part 5

At Khut-Aten, as the "heretic" Pharaoh called his new capital, he was surrounded by the adherents of the new faith. Many of them were doubtless Egyptians, but many, perhaps the majority, were of Asiatic extraction. Already under his father and grandfather the court had been filled with Canaanites and other natives of Asia, and the great offices of state had been occupied by them. Now under Khu-n-Aten the Asiatic character of the government was increased tenfold. The native Egyptian had to make way for the foreigner, and the rule of the Syrian stranger which seemed to have been expelled with the Hyksos was restored under another form. Canaan was nominally a subject province of Egypt, but in reality it had led its conqueror captive. A semi-Asiatic Pharaoh was endeavouring to force an Asiatic form of faith upon his subjects, and entrusting his government to Asiatic officials; even art had ceased to be Egyptian and had put on an Asiatic dress.

The tombs of Khu-n-Aten's followers are cut in the cliffs at the back of the city, while his own sepulchre is towards the end of a long ravine which runs out into the eastern desert between two lofty lines of precipitous rock. But few of them are finished, and the sepulchre of the king himself, magnificent in its design, is incomplete and mutilated.

The sculptures on the walls have been broken, and the granite sarcophagus in which the body of the great king rested has been shattered into fragments before it could be lifted into the niche where it was intended to stand. The royal mummy was torn into shreds, and the porcelain figures buried with it dashed to the ground.

It is clear that the death of Khu-n-Aten must have been quickly followed by the triumph of his enemies. His capital was overthrown, the stones of its temple carried away to Thebes, there to adorn the sanctuary of the victorious Amon, and the adherents of his reform either slain or driven into exile. The vengeance executed upon them was national as well as religious. It meant not only a restoration of the national faith, but also the restoration of the native Egyptian to the government of his country. The feelings which inspired it were similar to those which underlay the movement of Arabi in our own time, and there was no English army to stand in the way of its success. The rise of the nineteenth dynasty represents the triumph of the national cause.

The cuneiform letters of Tel el-Amarna show that already before Khu-n-Aten's death his empire and power were breaking up. Letter after letter is sent to him from the governors in Canaan with urgent requests for troops. The Hitt.i.tes were attacking the empire in the north, and rebels were overthrowing it within. "If auxiliaries come this year,"

writes Ebed-Tob of Jerusalem, "the provinces of the king my lord will be preserved; but if no auxiliaries come the provinces of the king my lord will be destroyed." To these entreaties no answer could be returned.

There was civil and religious war in Egypt itself, and the army was needed to defend the Pharaoh at home.

The picture of Canaan presented to us by the Tel el-Amarna correspondence has been supplemented by the discovery of Lachish. Five years ago Prof. Flinders Petrie undertook to excavate for the Palestine Exploration Fund in the lofty mound of Tel el-Hesi in Southern Palestine. Tel el-Hesi stands midway between Gaza and Hebron on the edge of the Judaean mountains, and overlooking a torrent stream. His excavations resulted in the discovery of successive cities built one upon the ruins of the other, and in the probability that the site was that of Lachish. The excavations were resumed by Mr. Bliss in the following year, and the probability was raised to practical certainty.

The lowest of the cities was the Lachish of the Amorite period, whose crude brick walls, nearly twenty-nine feet in thickness, have been brought to light, while its pottery has revealed to us for the first time the characteristics of Amorite manufacture. The huge walls bear out the testimony of the Israelitish spies, that the cities of the Amorites were "great and walled up to heaven" (Deut. i. 28). They give indications, however, that in spite of their strength the fortresses they enclosed must have been captured more than once. Doubtless this was during the age of the Egyptian wars in Canaan.

As at Troy, it is probable that it was only the citadel which was thus strongly fortified. Below it was the main part of the town, the inhabitants of which took refuge in the citadel when an enemy threatened to attack them. The fortified part, indeed, was not of very large extent. Its ruins measured only about two hundred feet each way, while the enclosure within which it stands is a quarter of a mile in diameter.

Here a regular series of pottery has been found, dating from the post-exilic age through successive strata back to the primitive Amoritish fortress. To Prof. Petrie belongs the credit of determining the characteristics of these various strata, and fixing their approximate age.

The work begun by Prof. Petrie was continued by Mr. Bliss. Deep down among the ruins of the Amoritish town he found objects which take us back to the time of Khu-n-Aten and his predecessors. They consist of Egyptian beads and scarabs of the eighteenth dynasty, and on one of the beads are the name and t.i.tle of "the royal wife Teie." Along with them were discovered beads of amber which came from the Baltic as well as seal-cylinders, some of them imported from Babylonia, others western imitations of Babylonian work. The Babylonian cylinders belong to the period which extends from 3000 to 1500 B.C., while the imitations are similar in style to those which have been found in the pre-historic tombs of Cyprus and Phoenicia.

But there was one discovery made by Mr. Bliss which far surpa.s.ses in interest all the rest. It is that of a cuneiform tablet, similar in character, in contents, and in age to those which have come from Tel el-Amarna. Even the Egyptian governor mentioned in it was already known to us from the Tel el-Amarna correspondence as the governor of Lachish.

One of the cuneiform letters now preserved at Berlin was written by him, and Ebed-Tob informs us that he was subsequently murdered by the people of his own city.

Here is a translation of the letter discovered at Tel el-Hesi:--

"To ... rabbat (?) [or perhaps: To the officer Baya] (thus speaks) ...

abi. At thy feet I prostrate myself. Verily thou knowest that Dan-Hadad and Zimrida have inspected the whole of the city, and Dan-Hadad says to Zimrida: Send Yisyara to me [and] give me 3 s.h.i.+elds (?) and 3 slings and 3 falchions, since I am prefect (?) over the country of the king and it has acted against me; and now I will restore thy possession which the enemy took from thee; and I have sent my ..., and ... rabi-ilu ... has despatched his brother [with] these words."

(This translation differs in some respects from that previously given by me, as it is based on the copy of the text made from the original at Constantinople by Dr. Scheil (_Recueil de Trailaux relatifs a la Philologie et a l'Archeologie egyptiennes et a.s.syriennes_, xv. 3, 4, 137). As I stated at the time, my copy was made from a cast and was therefore uncertain in several places. I am doubtful whether even now the published text is correct throughout.)

Yisyara was the name of an Amorite, as we learn from one of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, where he is mentioned along with other rebels as being sent in fetters of bronze to the king. Of Dan-Hadad we know nothing further, but Zimrida's letter is as follows:--

"To the king my lord, my G.o.d, my Sun-G.o.d, the Sun-G.o.d who is from heaven, thus (writes) Zimridi, the governor of the city of Lachish. Thy servant, the dust of thy feet, at the feet of the king my lord, the Sun-G.o.d from heaven, bows himself seven times seven. I have very diligently listened to the words of the messenger whom the king my lord has sent to me, and now I have despatched (a mission) according to his message."

It was towards the end of Khu-n-Aten's reign, when the Egyptian empire was falling to pieces, that the murder of Zimrida took place. Ebed-Tob thus describes it in a letter to the secretary of the Pharaoh: "The Khabiri (or Confederates) are capturing the fortresses of the king. Not a single governor remains among them to the king my lord; all are destroyed. Behold, Turbazu thy officer [has fallen] in the great gate of the city of Zelah. Behold, the servants who acted against the king have slain Zimrida of Lachish. They have murdered Jephthah-Hadad thy officer in the gate of the city of Zelah."

We hear of another governor of Lachish, Yabni-el by name, but he probably held office before Zimrida. At all events the following despatch of his has been preserved:--

"To the king my lord, my G.o.d, my Sun-G.o.d, the Sun-G.o.d who is from heaven, thus (writes) Yabni-el, the governor of the city of Lachish, thy servant, the dust of thy feet, the groom of thy horses; at the feet of the king my lord, my G.o.d, my Sun-G.o.d, the Sun-G.o.d who is from heaven, seven times seven I bow myself. Glorious and supreme [art thou]. I the groom of [the horses] of the king my lord, listen to the [words] of the king my lord. Now have I heard all the words which Baya the prefect has spoken to me. Now have I done everything."

Zimrida of Lachish must be distinguished from another Canaanite of the same name who was governor of Sidon. This latter was a personal enemy of Rib-Hadad the governor of Gebal, whose letters to Khu-n-Aten form a considerable portion of the Tel el-Amarna collection. The authority of Rib-Hadad originally extended over the greater part of Phoenicia, and included the strong fortress of Zemar or Simyra in the mountains. One by one, however, his cities were taken from him by his adversaries whom he accuses of rebellion against the Pharaoh. His letters to Egypt are accordingly filled with imploring appeals for help. But none was sent, and as his enemies equally professed their loyalty to the Egyptian government, it is doubtful whether this was because the Pharaoh suspected Rib-Hadad himself of disaffection or because no troops could be spared.

Rib-Hadad had been appointed to his post by Amenophis III., and in one of his letters he looks back regretfully on "the good old times." When his letters were written he was old and sick. Abimelech, the governor of Tyre, was almost the only friend who remained to him. Not content with fomenting rebellion in his district, and taking his cities from him, his enemies accused him to the Pharaoh of disloyalty and misdoing. Those accusations were in some cases founded on truth. He confesses to having fled from his city, but he urges that it was to save his life. The troops he had begged for had not been sent to him, and he could no longer defend either his city or himself. He also alleges that the excesses committed by some of his servants had been without his knowledge. This seems to have been in answer to a despatch of Ammunira, the prefect of Beyrout, in which he informed the king that he was keeping the brother of the governor of Gebal as a hostage, and that the latter had been intriguing against the government in the land of the Amorites.

Chief among the adversaries of Rib-Hadad was Ebed-Asherah, a native of the land of Barbarti, and the governor of the Amoritish territory.

Several of his sons are mentioned, but the ablest and most influential of them was Aziru or Ezer, who possessed a considerable amount of power.

The whole family, while professing to be the obedient servants of the Pharaoh, nevertheless acted with a good deal of independence, and sought to aggrandise themselves at the expense of the neighbouring governors.

They had at their disposal a large body of "plunderers," or Beduin from the eastern desert, and Rib-Hadad accuses them of forming secret alliances with the kings of Babylonia, of Mitanni and of the Hitt.i.tes.

The authority of Aziru extended to the northern frontier of the empire; we find him sent with the Egyptian general Khatip, or Hotep, to oppose the Hitt.i.te invasion, and writing to the king as well as to the prime minister Dudu to explain why they had not succeeded in doing so. Tunip had been invested by the enemy, and Aziru fears that it may fall into their hands. The Hitt.i.tes had already made their way into the land of Nukha.s.se, and were from thence marching up into the land of the Amorites.

On the heels of these despatches came a long letter from the people of Tunip, complaining of the conduct of Aziru, and protesting against his doing to them what he had done to the city of Ni. He was at the time in the land of the Hitt.i.tes, doubtless carrying on the war against the general enemy.

To these accusations Aziru made a full reply. "O my lord," he begins, "hearken not to the wicked men who slander me before the king my lord: I am thy servant for ever." He had been charged with want of respect to the Pharaoh, on the ground that he had not received the royal commissioner Khani on his arrival at Tunip. But, he replies, he did not know that the commissioner was coming, and as soon as he heard that he was on the road he "followed him, but failed to overtake him." In his absence Khani was duly received by the brethren of Aziru, and Belti-el (or Bethuel) furnished him with meat and bread and wine. Moreover, on his way home he was met by Aziru himself, who provided the commissioner with horses and mules. A more serious charge was that of seizing the city of Zemar. To this Aziru answers that it was done in self-defence, as the kings of Nukha.s.se had always been hostile to him, and had robbed him of his cities at the instigation of Khatip, who had also carried away all the silver and gold which the king had placed under his care.

Moreover he had not really seized Zemar, but had won the people over to himself by means of gifts. Lastly, he denied the accusation that he had received the envoy of the king of the Hitt.i.tes and refused to receive the Egyptian messenger, although the country he governed belonged to the king, and the king had appointed him over it. Let the Egyptian envoy make inquiries, he urges, and he will find that Aziru has acted uprightly.

The capture of Zemar forms the burden of many of the letters of Rib-Hadad. It had been besieged for two months by Ebed-Asherah, who had vainly attempted to corrupt the loyalty of the governor of Gebal. For the time Rib-Hadad managed to save the city, but Aziru allied himself with Arvad and the neighbouring towns of Northern Phoenicia, captured twelve of Rib-Hadad's men, demanded a ransom of fifty pieces of silver for each of them, and seized the s.h.i.+ps of Zemar, Beyrout, and Sidon. The forces sent from Gebal to Zemar were made prisoners by the Amorite chief at Abiliya, and the position of Rib-Hadad daily became more desperate.

Pa-Hor, the Egyptian governor of k.u.midi, joined his opponents, and induced the Sute or Beduin to attack his Sardinian guards. Yapa-Hadad, another governor, followed the example of Pa-Hor, and Zimridi the governor of Sidon had from the first been his enemy. Tyre alone remained faithful to his cause, though an "Ionian" who had been sent there on a mission from Egypt had handed over horses, chariots, and men to Ebed-Asherah, and it was accordingly to Tyre that Rib-Hadad sent his family for safety. Tyre, however, now began to suffer like Gebal in consequence of the alliance between Zimridi and Ebed-Asherah.

Zemar eventually fell into the hands of Ebed-Asherah and his sons, its prefect Khayapa or Khaip being slain during the a.s.sault. Abimelech, the governor of Tyre, accuses Zimridi of having been the cause. Whether this were so or not, it placed the whole of Northern Phoenicia under the government or the influence of the Amorite chiefs. If Rib-Hadad spoke the truth, Ebed-Asherah had "sent to the soldiers in Bit-Ninip, saying, 'Gather yourselves together, and let us march up against Gebal, if therein are any who have saved themselves from our hands, and we will appoint governors throughout all the provinces;' so all the provinces went over to the Beduin." Provisions began to be scarce in Gebal, and the governor writes to Egypt for corn.

Rib-Hadad now threatened the Pharaoh with deserting to his enemies if succour was not forth-coming immediately, and at the same time he appealed to Amon-apt and Khayapa, the Egyptian commissioners who had been sent to inquire into the condition of affairs in Canaan. The appeal was so far successful that troops were despatched to Zemar. But it was too late: along with Arka it had already been occupied by Ebed-Asherah, who thereupon writes to the Pharaoh, protesting his loyalty to Khu-n-Aten, declaring that he is "the house-dog" of the king, and that he guards the land of the Amorites for "the king" his lord. He further calls on the Egyptian commissioner Pakhanate, who had been ordered to visit him, to bear witness that he was "defending" Zemar and its fields for the king. That Pakhanate was friendly to Ebed-Asherah may be gathered from a despatch of Rib-Hadad, in which he accuses that officer of refusing to send any troops to the relief of Gebal, and of looking on while Zemar fell. Ebed-Asherah goes on to beg the king to come himself, and see with his own eyes how faithful a governor he really was.

The letters of Abimelech of Tyre told a different tale, and the unfortunate Pharaoh might well be excused if he was as much puzzled as we are to know on which side the truth lay, or whether indeed it lay on either. Abimelech had a grievance of his own. As soon as Zimridi of Sidon learned that he had been appointed governor of Tyre, he seized the neighbouring city of Usu, which seems to have occupied the site of Palaetyros on the mainland, thereby depriving the Tyrians of their supplies of wood, food, and fresh water. The city of Tyre was at the time confined to a rocky island, to which provisions and water had to be conveyed in boats. Hence the hostile occupation of the town on the mainland caused many of its inhabitants to die of want. To add to their difficulties, the city was blockaded by the combined fleet of Sidon, Arvad, and Aziru. Ilgi, "king of Sidon," seems to have fled to Tyre for protection, while Abimelech reports that the king of Hazor had joined the Beduin under Ebed-Asherah and his sons. It may be noted that a letter of this very king of Hazor has been preserved, as well as another from Ebed-Sullim, the Egyptian governor of the city, whose powers were co-extensive with those of the king.

Soon afterwards, however, the Sidonian s.h.i.+ps were compelled to retreat, and the Tyrian governor made ready to pursue them. Meanwhile he sent his messenger Elimelech to Khu-n-Aten with various presents, and gave the king an account of what had been happening in "Canaan." The Hitt.i.te troops had departed, but Etagama--elsewhere called Aidhu-gama--the _pa-ur_ or "prince" of Kadesh, in the land of Kinza, had joined Aziru in attacking Namya-yitsa, the governor of k.u.midi. Abimelech adds that his rival Zimridi of Sidon had collected s.h.i.+ps and men from the cities of Aziru against him, and had consequently defeated him, but if the Pharaoh would send only four companies of troops to his rescue all would be well.

Zimridi, however, was not behindhand in forwarding his version of events to the Egyptian court, and a.s.suring the king of his unswerving fidelity.

"Verily the king my lord knows," he says, "that the queen of the city of Sidon is the handmaid of the king my lord, who has given her into my hand, and that I have hearkened to the words of the king my lord that he would send to his servant, and my heart rejoiced and my head was exalted, and my eyes were enlightened, and my ears heard the words of the king my lord.... And the king my lord knows that hostility is very strong against me; all the [fortresses] which the king gave into [my hand] had revolted" to the Beduin, but had been retaken by the commander of the Egyptian forces. The letter throws a wholly different light on the relations of the two rival parties in Phoenicia.

The a.s.sertions of Rib-Hadad, however, are supported by those of his successor in the government of Gebal, El-rabi-Hor. Rib-Hadad himself disappears from the scene. He may have died, for he complains that he is old and sick; he may have been driven out of Gebal, for in one of his despatches he states that the city was inclined to revolt, while in another he tells us that even his own brother had turned against him and gone over to the Amorite faction. Or he may have been displaced from his post; at all events, we hear that the Pharaoh had written to him, saying that Gebal was rebellious, and that there was a large amount of royal property in it. We hear also that Rib-Hadad had sent his son to the Egyptian court to plead his cause there, alleging age and infirmities as a reason for not going himself. However it may have been, we find a new governor in Gebal, who bears the hybrid name of El-rabi-Hor, "a great G.o.d is Horus."

His first letter is to protest against Khu-n-Aten's mistrust of Gebal, which he calls "thy city and the city of [thy] fathers," and to a.s.sert roundly that "Aziru is in rebellion against the king my lord." Aziru had made a league (?) with the kings of Ni, Arvad, and Ammiya (the Beni-Ammo of Num. xxii. 5) (See above, p. 64.), and with the help of the Amorite Palasa was destroying the cities of the Pharaoh. So El-rabi-Hor asks the king not to heed anything the rebel may write about his seizure of Zemar or his ma.s.sacre of the royal governors, but to send some troops to himself for the defence of Gebal. In a second letter he reiterates his charges against Aziru, who had now "smitten" Adon, the king of Arka, and possessed himself of Zemar and the other towns of Phoenicia, so that Gebal "alone" is on the side of the king, who "looks on" without doing anything. Moreover a fresh enemy had arisen in the person of Eta-gama of Kadesh, who had joined himself with the king of the Hitt.i.tes and the king of Naharaim.

Letters to Khu-n-Aten from Akizzi the governor of Qatna, which, as we learn from the inscriptions of a.s.sur-natsir-pal, was situated on the Khabur, represent Aziru in the same light. First of all, the Egyptian government is informed that the king of the Hitt.i.tes, together with Aidhu-gama (or Eta-gama) of Kadesh has been invading the Egyptian territory, burning its cities, and carrying away from Qatna the image of the Sun-G.o.d. Khu-n-aten, it is urged, could not allow the latter crime to go unpunished. The Sun-G.o.d had created him and his father, and had caused them to be called after his own name. He was the supreme object of the Pharaoh's wors.h.i.+p, the deity for whose sake Khu-n-Aten had deserted Thebes.

The Hitt.i.te king had been joined in his invasion of Syria by the governors of some otherwise unknown northern cities, but the kings of Nukha.s.se, Ni, Zinzar (the Sonzar of the Egyptian texts), and Kinanat (the Kanneh of Ezek. xxvii. 23) remained faithful to the Egyptian monarch. The rebel governors, however, were in the land of Ube,--the Aup of the hieroglyphics,--which they were urging Aidhu-gama to invade.

Another letter brings Aziru upon the scene. He is accused of having invaded the land of Nukha.s.se, and made prisoners of the people of Qatna.

The Pharaoh is prayed to rescue or ransom them, and to send chariots and soldiers to the help of his Mesopotamian subjects. If they come all the lands round about will acknowledge him as lord, and he will be lord also of Nukha.s.se; if they do not come, the men of Qatna will be forced to obey Aziru.

It is probable that the misdeeds of Aziru which are here referred to were committed at the time he was in Tunip, professedly protecting it against Hitt.i.te attack. It would seem from what Akizzi says, that instead of faithfully performing his mission, he had aimed at establis.h.i.+ng his own power in Northern Syria. While nominally an officer of the Pharaoh, he was really seeking to found an Amorite kingdom in the north. In this he would have been a predecessor of Og and Sihon, whose kingdoms were built up on the ruins of the Egyptian empire.

A despatch, however, from Namya-yitsa, the governor of k.u.midi, sets the conduct of Aziru in a more favourable light. It was written at a somewhat later time, when rebellion against the Egyptian authority was spreading throughout Syria. A certain Biridasyi had stirred up the city of Inu'am, and after shutting its gate upon Namya-yitsa had entered the city of Ashtaroth-Karnaim in Bashan, and there seized the chariots belonging to the Pharaoh, handing them over to the Beduin. He then joined the kings of Buzruna (now Bosra) and Khalunni (near the Wadi 'Allan), in a plot to murder Namya-yitsa, who escaped, however, to Damascus, though his own brothers turned against him. The rebels next attacked Aziru, captured some of his soldiers, and in league with Etu-gama wasted the district of Abitu. Etakkama, however, as Etu-gama spells his own name, professed to be a loyal servant of the Egyptian king, and one of the Tel el-Amarna letters is from him.

We next hear of Namya-yitsa in Accho or Acre, where he had taken refuge with Suta, or Seti, the Egyptian commissioner. Seti had already been in Jerusalem, and had been inquiring there into the behaviour of Ebed-Tob.

The picture of incipient anarchy and rebellion which is set before us by the correspondence from Phoenicia and Syria is repeated in that from the centre and south of Palestine. In the centre the chief seats of the Egyptian government were at Megiddo, at Khazi (the Gaza of 1 Chron. vii.

28), near Shechem, and at Gezer. Each of these towns was under an Egyptian governor, specially appointed by the Pharaoh.

The governor of Khazi bore the name of Su-yarzana, Megiddo was under the authority of Biridi, while the governor of Gaza was Yapakhi. There are several letters in the Tel el-Amarna collection from the latter official, chiefly occupied with demands for help against his enemies.

The district under his control was attacked by the Sute or Beduin, led by a certain Labai or Labaya and his sons. Labai, though of Beduin origin, was himself professedly an Egyptian official, the Egyptian policy having been to give the t.i.tle of governor to the powerful Beduin sheikhs, and to attach them to the Egyptian government by the combined influence of bribery and fear. Labai accordingly writes to the Pharaoh to defend himself against the charges that had been brought against him, and to a.s.sure Khu-n-Aten that he was "a faithful servant of the king"; "I have not sinned, and I have not offended, and I do not withhold my tribute or neglect the command to turn back my officers." Labai, it would seem, had been appointed by Amenophis III. governor of Shunem and Bene-berak (Joshua xix. 45), and had captured the city of Gath-Rimmon when it revolted against the Pharaoh; but after the death of Amenophis he and his two sons had attacked the Egyptian officials in true Beduin style, and had taken every opportunity of pillaging central and Southern Palestine. As we shall see, Labai and his ally, Malchiel, were among the chief adversaries of Ebed-Tob of Jerusalem.

On one occasion, however, Labai was actually made prisoner by one of the Egyptian officers. There is a letter from Biridi stating that Megiddo was threatened by Labai, and that although the garrison had been strengthened by the arrival of some Egyptian troops, it was impossible to venture outside the gates of the town for fear of the enemy, and that unless two more regiments were sent the city itself was likely to fall.

Whether the additional forces were sent or not we do not know. Labai, however, had to fly for his life along with his confederate Yasdata, who was the governor of some city near Megiddo, as we learn from a letter of his in which he speaks of being with Biridi. Of Yasdata we hear nothing further, but Labai was captured in Megiddo by Zurata, the prefect of Acre, who, under the pretext that he was going to send his prisoner in a s.h.i.+p to Egypt, took him first to the town of Khinatuna ('En'athon), and then to his own house, where he was induced by a bribe to set him free along with his companion, Hadad-mekhir (who, by the way, has bequeathed to us two letters).

It was probably after this that Labai wrote to the Pharaoh to exculpate himself, though his language, in spite of its conventional submissiveness, could not have been very acceptable at the Egyptian court. In one of his letters he excuses himself partly on the ground that even "the food of his stomach" had been taken from him, partly that he had attacked and entered Gezer only in order to recover the property of himself and his friend Malchiel, partly because a certain Bin-sumya whom the Pharaoh had sent against him had really "given a city and property in it to my father, saying that if the king sends for my wife I shall withhold her, and if the king sends for myself I shall give him instead a bar of copper in a large bowl and take the oath of allegiance." A second letter is still more uncompromising. In this he complains that the Egyptian troops have ill-treated his people, and that the officer who is with him has slandered him before the king; he further declares that two of his towns have been taken from him, but that he will defend to the last whatever still remains of his patrimony.

Malchiel, the colleague of Labai in his attack upon Gezer, as afterwards upon Ebed-Tob of Jerusalem, does not appear to have been of Beduin origin. But as long as the Beduin chief could be of use to him he was very willing to avail himself of his a.s.sistance, and it was always easy to drop the alliance as soon as it became embarra.s.sing. Malchiel was the son-in-law of Tagi of Gath, and the colleague of Su-yardata, one of the few Canaanite governors whom the Egyptian government seems to have been able to trust. Both Su-yardata and Malchiel held commands in Southern Palestine, and we hear a good deal about them from Ebed-Tob. "The two sons of Malchiel" are also mentioned in a letter from a lady who bears a Babylonian name, and who refers to them in connection with an attempt to detach the cities of Ajalon and Zorah (Joshua xv. 33) from their allegiance to Egypt. The female correspondents of the Pharaoh are among the most curious and interesting features of the state of society depicted in the Tel el-Amarna tablets; they entered keenly into the politics of the day, and kept the Egyptian king fully informed of all that was going on.

The letters of Ebed-Tob are so important that it is as well to give them in full. They all seem to have been written within a few months, or perhaps even weeks, of one another, when the enemies of the governor of Jerusalem were gathering around him, and no response came from Egypt to his requests for help. The dotted lines mark the words and pa.s.sages which have been lost through the fracture of the clay tablets.