THE BABYLONIANS IN CANAAN AND THE EGYPTIAN CONQUEST
It is in the cuneiform records of Babylonia that we catch the first
glimpse of the early history of Canaan. Babylonia was not yet united
under a single head. From time to time some prince arose whose conquests
allowed him to claim the imperial title of "king of Sumer and Akkad," of
Southern and Northern Babylonia, but the claim was never of long
duration, and often it signified no more than a supremacy over the other
rulers of the country.
It was while Babylonia was thus divided into more than one kingdom, that
the first Chaldæan empire of which we know was formed by the military
skill of Sargon of Akkad. Sargon was of Semitic origin, but his birth
seems to have been obscure. His father, Itti-Bel, is not given the title
of king, and the later legends which gathered around his name declared
that his mother was of low degree, that his father he knew not, and that
his father's brother lived in the mountain-land. Born in secrecy in the
city of Azu-pirani, "whence the elephants issue forth," he was launched
by his mother on the waters of the Euphrates in an ark of bulrushes
daubed with pitch. The river carried the child to Akki the irrigator,
who had compassion upon it, and brought it up as his own son. So Sargon
became an agriculturist and gardener like his adopted father, till the
goddess Istar beheld and loved him, and eventually gave him his kingdom
and crown.
Whatever may have been the real history of Sargon's rise to power,
certain it is that he showed himself worthy of it. He built himself a
capital, which perhaps was Akkad near Sippara, and there founded a
library stocked with books on clay and well provided with scribes. The
standard works on astronomy and terrestrial omens were compiled for it,
the first of which was translated into Greek by Berossos in days long
subsequent. But it was as a conqueror and the founder of the first
Semitic empire in Western Asia that posterity chiefly remembered him. He
overthrew his rivals at home, and made himself master of Northern
Babylonia. Then he marched into Elam on the east, and devastated its
fields. Next he turned his attention to the west. Four times did he make
his way to "the land of the Amorites," until at last it was thoroughly
subdued. His final campaign occupied three years. The countries "of the
sea of the setting sun" acknowledged his dominion, and he united them
with his former conquests into "a single" empire. On the shores of the
Mediterranean he erected images of himself in token of his victories,
and caused the spoil of Cyprus "to pass over into the countries of the
sea." Towards the end of his reign a revolt broke out against him in
Babylonia, and he was besieged in the city of Akkad, but he "issued
forth and smote" his enemies and utterly destroyed them. Then came his
last campaign against Northern Mesopotamia, from which he returned with
abundant prisoners and spoil.
Sargon's son and successor was Naram-Sin, "the beloved of the Moon-god,"
who continued the conquests of his father. His second campaign was
against the land of Magan, the name under which Midian and the Sinaitic
peninsula were known to the Babylonians. The result of it was the
addition of Magan to his empire and the captivity of its king.
The copper mines of Magan, which are noticed in an early Babylonian
geographical list, made its acquisition coveted alike by Babylonians and
Egyptians. We find the Pharaohs of the third dynasty already
establishing their garrisons and colonies of miners in the province of
Mafkat, as they called it, and slaughtering the Beduin who interfered
with them. The history of Naram-Sin shows that its conquest was equally
an object of the Babylonian monarchs at the very outset of their
history. But whereas the road from Egypt to Sinai was short and easy,
that from Babylonia was long and difficult. Before a Babylonian army
could march into the peninsula it was needful that Syria should be
secure in the rear. The conquest of Palestine, in fact, was necessary
before the copper mines of Sinai could fall into Babylonian hands.
The consolidation of Sargon's empire in the west, therefore, was needful
before the invasion of the country of Magan could take place, and the
invasion accordingly was reserved for Naram-Sin to make. The father had
prepared the way; the son obtained the great prize--the source of the
copper that was used in the ancient world.
The fact that the whole of Syria is described in the annals of Sargon as
"the land of the Amorites," implies, not only that the Amorites were the
ruling population in the country, but also that they must have extended
far to the south. The "land of the Amorites" formed the basis and
starting-point for the expedition of Naram-Sin into Magan; it must,
therefore, have reached to the southern border of Palestine, if not even
farther. The road trodden by his forces would have been the same as that
which was afterwards traversed by Chedor-laomer, and would have led him
through Kadesh-barnea. Is it possible that the Amorites were already in
possession of the mountain-block within which Kadesh stood, and that
this was their extreme limit to the south?
There were other names by which Palestine and Syria were known to the
early Babylonians, besides the general title of "the land of the
Amorites." One of these was Tidanum or Tidnum; another was Sanir or
Shenir. There was yet another, the reading of which is uncertain, though
it may be Khidhi or Titi.
Mr. Boscawen has pointed out a coincidence that is at least worthy of
attention. The first Babylonian monarch who penetrated into the
peninsula of Sinai bore a name compounded with that of the Moon-god,
which thus bears witness to a special veneration for that deity. Now the
name of Mount Sinai is similarly derived from that of the Babylonian
Moon-god Sin. It was the high place where the god must have been adored
from early times under his Babylonian name. It thus points to Babylonian
influence, if not to the presence of Babylonians on the spot. Can it
have been that the mountain whereon the God of Israel afterwards
revealed Himself to Moses was dedicated to the Moon-god of Babylon by
Naram-Sin the Chaldæn conqueror?
If such indeed were the case, it would have been more than two thousand
years before the Israelitish exodus. Nabonidos, the last king of the
later Babylonian empire, who had a fancy for antiquarian exploration,
tells us that Naram-Sin reigned 3200 years before his own time, and
therefore about 3750 B.C. The date, startlingly early as it seems to be,
is indirectly confirmed by other evidence, and Assyriologists
consequently have come to accept it as approximately correct.
How long Syria remained a part of the empire of Sargon of Akkad we do
not know. But it must have been long enough for the elements of
Babylonian culture to be introduced into it. The small stone cylinders
used by the Babylonians for sealing their clay documents thus became
known to the peoples of the West. More than one has been found in Syria
and Cyprus which go back to the age of Sargon and Naram-Sin, while there
are numerous others which are more or less barbarous attempts on the
part of the natives to imitate the Babylonian originals. But the
imitations prove that with the fall of Sargon's empire the use of
seal-cylinders in Syria, and consequently of documents for sealing, did
not disappear. That knowledge of writing, which was a characteristic of
Babylonian civilization, must have been carried with it to the shores of
the Mediterranean.
The seal-cylinders were engraved, sometimes with figures of men and
gods, sometimes with symbols only. Very frequently lines of cuneiform
writing were added, and a common formula gave the name of the owner of
the seal, along with those of his father and of the deity whom he
worshipped. One of the seal-cylinders found in Cyprus describes the
owner as an adorer of "the god Naram-Sin." It is true that its
workmanship shows it to belong to a much later date than the age of
Naram-Sin himself, but the legend equally shows that the name of the
conqueror of Magan was still remembered in the West. Another cylinder
discovered in the Lebanon mentions "the gods of the Amorite," while a
third from the same locality bears the inscription: "Multal-ili, the son
of Ili-isme-anni, the worshipper of the god Nin-si-zida." The name of
the god signified in the old pre-Semitic language of Chaldæa "the lord
of the upright horn," while it is worth notice that the names of the
owner and his father are compounded simply with the word _ili_ or _el_,
"god," not with the name of any special divinity. Multal-ili means
"Provident is God," Ili-isme-anni, "O my God, hear me!"
Many centuries have to elapse before the monuments of Babylonia again
throw light on the history of Canaan. Somewhere about B.C. 2700, a
high-priest was ruling in a city of Southern Babylonia, under the
suzerainty of Dungi, the king of Ur. The high-priest's name was Gudea,
and his city (now called Tel-loh by the Arabs) was known as Lagas. The
excavations made here by M. de Sarzec have brought to light temples and
palaces, collections of clay books and carved stone statues, which go
back to the early days of Babylonian history. The larger and better part
of the monuments belong to Gudea, who seems to have spent most of his
life in building and restoring the sanctuaries of the gods. Diorite
statues of the prince are now in the Louvre, and inscriptions upon them
state that the stone out of which they were made was brought from the
land of Magan. On the lap of one of them is a plan of the royal palace,
with the scale of measurement marked on the edge of a sort of
drawing-board. Prof. Petrie has shown that the unit of measurement
represented in it is the cubit of the pyramid-builders of Egypt.
The diorite of Sinai was not the only material which was imported into
Babylonia for the buildings of Gudea. Beams of cedar and box were
brought from Mount Amanus at the head of the Gulf of Antioch, blocks of
stone were floated down the Euphrates from Barsip near Carchemish,
gold-dust came from Melukhkha, the "salt" desert to the east of Egypt
which the Old Testament calls Havilah; copper was conveyed from the
north of Arabia, limestone from the Lebanon ("the mountains of
Tidanum"), and another kind of stone from Subsalla in the mountains of
the Amorite land. Before beams of wood and blocks of stone could thus be
brought from the distant West, it was necessary that trade between
Babylonia and the countries of the Mediterranean should have long been
organized, that the roads throughout Western Asia should have been good
and numerous, and that Babylonian influence should have been extended
far and wide. The conquests of Sargon and Naram-Sin had borne fruit in
the commerce that had followed upon them.
Once more the curtain falls, and Canaan is hidden for a while out of our
sight. Babylonia has become a united kingdom with its capital and centre
at Babylon. Khammurabi (B.C. 2356-2301) has succeeded in shaking off the
suzerainty of Elam, in overthrowing his rival Eri-Aku, king of Larsa,
with his Elamite allies, and in constituting himself sole monarch of
Babylonia. His family seems to have been in part, if not wholly, of
South Arabian extraction. Their names are Arabian rather than
Babylonian, and the Babylonian scribes found a difficulty in
transcribing them correctly. But once in the possession of the
Babylonian throne, they became thoroughly national, and under Khammurabi
the literary glories of the court of Sargon of Akkad revived once more.
Ammi-satana, the great-grandson of Khammurabi, calls himself king of
"the land of the Amorites." Babylonia, therefore, still claimed to be
paramount in Palestine. Even the name of the king is an indication of
his connection with the West. Neither of the elements of which it is
composed belonged to the Babylonian language. The first of them, Ammi,
was explained by the Babylonian philologists as meaning "a family," but
it is more probable that it represents the name of a god. We find it in
the proper names both of Southern and of Northwestern Arabia. The early
Minsaean inscriptions of Southern Arabia contain names like Ammi-karib,
Ammi-zadiqa, and Ammi-zaduq, the last of which is identical with that of
Ammi-zaduq, the son and successor of Ammi-satana. The Egyptian Sinuhit,
who in the time of the twelfth dynasty fled, like Moses, for his life
from the court of the Pharaoh to the Kadmonites east of the Jordan,
found protection among them at the hands of their chieftain Ammu-ânshi.
The Ammonites themselves were the "sons of Ammi," and in numerous Hebrew
names we find that of the god. Ammi-el, Ammi-nadab, and Ammi-shaddai are
mentioned in the Old Testament, the Assyrian inscriptions tell us of
Ammi-nadab the king of Ammon, and it is possible that even the name of
Balaam, the Aramaean seer, may be compounded with that of the god. At
all events, the city of Pethor from which he came was "by the river
(Euphrates) of the land of the children of Ammo," for such is the
literal rendering of the Hebrew words.
Ammi-satana was not the first of his line whose authority had been
acknowledged in Palestine. The inscription in which he records the fact
is but a confirmation of what had been long known to us from the Book of
Genesis. There we read how Chedor-laomer, the king of Elam, with the
three vassal princes, Arioch of Ellasar, Amraphel of Shinar, and Tidal
of Goyyim invaded Canaan, and how the kings of the vale of Siddim with
its pits of asphalt became their tributaries. For thirteen years they
remained submissive and then rebelled. Thereupon the Babylonian army
again marched to the west. Bashan and the eastern bank of the Jordan
were subjugated, the Horites in Mount Seir were smitten, and the
invaders then turned back through Kadesh-barnea, overthrowing the
Amalekites and the Amorites on their way. Then came the battle in the
vale of Siddim, which ended in the defeat of the Canaanites, the death
of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrha, and the capture of abundant booty.
Among the prisoners was Lot, the nephew of Abram, and it was to effect
his rescue that the patriarch armed his followers and started in pursuit
of the conquerors. Near Damascus he overtook them, and falling upon them
by night, recovered the spoil of Sodom as well as his "brother's son."
Arioch is the Eri-Aku of the cuneiform texts. In the old language of
Chaldea the name signified "servant of the Moon-god." The king is well
known to us from contemporaneous inscriptions. Besides the inscribed
bricks which have come from the temple of the Moon-god which he enlarged
in the city of Ur, there are numerous contract tablets that are dated in
his reign. He tells us that he was the son of an Elamite, Kudur-Mabug,
son of Simti-silkhak, and prince (or "father") of Yamut-bal on the
borders of Elam and Babylonia. But this is not all. He further gives
Kudur-Mabug the title of "father of the Amorite land." What this title
exactly means it is difficult to say; one thing, however, is certain,
Kudur-Mabug must have exercised some kind of power and authority in the
distant West.
His name, too, is remarkable. Names compounded with Kudur, "a servant,"
were common in the Elamite language, the second element of the name
being that of a deity, to whose worship the owner of it was dedicated.
Thus we have Kudur-Lagamar, "the servant of the god Lagamar,"
Kudur-Nakhkhunte, "the servant of Nakhkhunte." But Mabug was not an
Elamite divinity. It was, on the contrary, a Mesopotamian deity from
whom the town of Mabug near Carchemish, called Bambykê by the Greeks,
and assimilated by the Arabs to their Membij, "a source," derived its
name. Can it be from this Syrian deity that the father of Arioch
received his name?
The capital of Arioch or Eri-Aku was Larsa, the city of the Sun-god, now
called Senkereh. With the help of his Elamite kindred, he extended his
power from thence over the greater part of Southern Babylonia. The old
city of Ur, once the seat of the dominant dynasty of Chaldæan kings,
formed part of his dominions; Nipur, now Niffer, fell into his hands
like the seaport Eridu on the shores of the Persian Gulf, and in one of
his inscriptions he celebrates his conquest of "the ancient city of
Erech." On the day of its capture he erected in gratitude a temple to
his god Ingirisa, "for the preservation of his life."
But the god did not protect him for ever. A time came when Khammurabi,
king of Babylon, rose in revolt against the Elamite supremacy, and drove
the Elamite forces out of the land. Eri-Aku was attacked and defeated,
and his cities fell into the hands of the conqueror. Khammurabi became
sole king of Babylonia, which from henceforth obeyed but a single
sceptre.
Are we to see in the Amraphel of Genesis the Khammurabi of the cuneiform
inscriptions? The difference in the names seems to make it impossible.
Moreover, Amraphel, we are told, was king of Shinar, and it is not
certain that the Shinar of the fourteenth chapter of Genesis was that
part of Babylonia of which Babylon was the capital. This, in fact, was
the northern division of the country, and if we are to identify the
Shinar of scripture with the Sumer of the monuments, as Assyriologists
have agreed to do, Shinar would have been its southern half. It is true
that in the later days of Hebrew history Shinar denoted the whole plain
of Chaldæa, including the city of Babylon, but this may have been an
extension of the meaning of the name similar to that of which Canaan is
an instance.
Unless Sumer and Shinar are the same words, outside the Old Testament
there is only one Shinar known to ancient geography. That was in
Mesopotamia. The Greek geographers called it Singara (now Sinjar), an
oasis in the midst of deserts, and formed by an isolated mountain tract
abounding in springs. It is already mentioned in the annals of the
Egyptian conqueror Thothmes III. In his thirty-third year (B.C. 1470),
the king of Sangar sent him tribute consisting of lapis-lazuli "of
Babylon," and of various objects carved out of it. From Sangar also
horses were exported into Egypt, and in one of the Tel el-Amarna
letters, the king of Alasiya in Northern Syria writes to the
Pharaoh,--"Do not set me with the king of the Hittites and the king of
Sankhar; whatever gifts they have sent to me I will restore to thee
twofold." In hieroglyphic and cuneiform spelling, Sangar and Sankhar are
the exact equivalents of the Hebrew Shinar.
How the name of Shinar came to be transferred from Mesopotamia to
Babylonia is a puzzle. The Mesopotamian Shinar is nowhere near the
Babylonian frontier. It lies in a straight line westward of Mosul and
the ancient Nineveh, and not far from the banks of the Khabur. Can its
application to Babylonia be due to a confusion between Sumer and Sangar?
Whatever the explanation may be, it is clear that the position of the
kingdom of Amraphel is by no means so easily determined as has hitherto
been supposed. It may be Sumer or Southern Babylonia; it may be Northern
Babylonia with its capital Babylon; or again, it may be the Mesopotamian
oasis of Sinjar. Until we find the name of Amraphel in the cuneiform
texts it is impossible to attain certainty.
There is one fact, however, which seems to indicate that it really is
either Sumer or Northern Babylonia that is meant. The narrative of
Chedor-laomer's campaign begins with the words that it took place "in
the time of Amraphel, king of Shinar." Chedor-laomer the Elamite was the
leader of the expedition; he too was the suzerain lord of his allies;
and nevertheless the campaign is dated, not in his reign, but in that of
one of the subject kings. That the narrative has been taken from the
Babylonian annals there is little room for doubt, and consequently it
would follow from the dating that Amraphel was a Babylonian prince,
perhaps that he was the ruler of the city which, from the days of
Khammurabi onward, became the capital of the country. In that case we
should have to find some way of explaining the difference between the
Hebrew and the Babylonian forms of the royal name.
Lagamar or Lagamer, written Laomer in Hebrew, was one of the principal
deities of Elam, and the Babylonians made him a son of their own
water-god Ea. The Elamite king Chedor-laomer, or Kudur-Lagamar, as his
name was written in his own language, must have been related to the
Elamite prince Kudur-Mabug, whose son Arioch was a subject-ally of the
Elamite monarch. Possibly they were brothers, the younger brother
receiving as his share of power the title of "father"--not "king"--of
Yamutbal and the land of the Amorites. At any rate it is a son of
Kudur-Mabug and not of the Elamite sovereign who receives a principality
in Babylonia.
In the Book of Genesis Arioch is called "king of Ellasar." But Ellasar
is clearly the Larsa of the cuneiform inscriptions, perhaps with the
word _al_, "city," prefixed. Larsa, the modern Senkereh, was in Southern
Babylonia, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, not far from Erech, and
to the north of Ur. Its king was virtually lord of Sumer, but he claimed
to be lord also of the north. In his inscriptions Eri-Aku assumes the
imperial title of "king of Sumer and Akkad," of both divisions of
Babylonia, and it may be that at one time the rival king of Babylon
acknowledged his supremacy.
Who "Tidal king of Goyyim" may have been we cannot tell. Sir Henry
Rawlinson has proposed to see in Goyyim a transformation of Gutium, the
name by which Kurdistan was called in early Babylonia. Mr. Pinches has
recently discovered a cuneiform tablet in which mention is made, not
only of Eri-Aku and Kudur-Lagamar, but also of Tudkhul, and Tudkhul
would be an exact transcription in Babylonian of the Hebrew Tidal. But
the tablet is mutilated, and its relation to the narrative of Genesis is
not yet clear. For the present, therefore, we must leave Tidal
unexplained.
The name even of one of the Canaanite kings who were subdued by the
Babylonian army has found its confirmation in a cuneiform inscription.
This is the name of "Shinab, king of Admah." We hear from
Tiglath-pileser III. of Sanibu, king of Ammon, and Sanibu and Shinab are
one and the same. The old name of the king of Admah was thus perpetuated
on the eastern side of the Jordan.
It may be that the asphalt of Siddim was coveted by the Babylonian
kings. Bitumen, it is true, was found in Babylonia itself near Hit, but
if Amiaud is right, one of the objects imported from abroad for Gudea of
Lagas was asphalt. It came from Madga, which is described as being "in
the mountains of the river Gur(?)ruda." But no reference to the place is
to be met with anywhere else in cuneiform literature.
When Abram returned with the captives and spoil of Sodom, the new king
came forth to meet him "at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's
dale." This was in the near neighbourhood of Jerusalem, as we gather
from the history of Absalom (2 Sam. xviii. 18). Accordingly we further
read that at the same time "Melchizedek, king of Salem," and "priest of
the most High God," "brought forth bread and wine," and blessed the
Hebrew conqueror, who thereupon gave him tithes of all the spoil.
It is only since the discovery and decipherment of the cuneiform tablets
of Tel el-Amarna that the story of Melchizedek has been illustrated and
explained. Hitherto it had seemed to stand alone. The critics, in the
superiority of their knowledge, had refused credit to it, and had denied
that the name even of Jerusalem or Salem was known before the age of
David. But the monuments have come to our help, and have shown that it
is the critics and not the Biblical writer who have been in error.
Several of the most interesting of the Tel el-Amarna letters were
written to the Pharaoh Amenôphis IV. Khu-n-Aten by Ebed-Tob the king of
Jerusalem. Not only is the name of Uru-salim or Jerusalem the only one
in use, the city itself is already one of the most important fortresses
of Canaan. It was the capital of a large district which extended
southwards as far as Keilah and Karmel of Judah. It commanded the
approach to the vale of Siddim, and in one of his letters Ebed-Tob
speaks of having repaired the royal roads not only in the mountains, but
also in the _kikar_ or "plain" of Jordan (Gen. xiii. 10). The possession
of Jerusalem was eagerly coveted by the enemies of Ebed-Tob, whom he
calls also the enemies of the Egyptian king.
Now Ebed-Tob declares time after time that he is not an Egyptian
governor, but a tributary ally and vassal of the Pharaoh, and that he
had received his royal power, not by inheritance from his father or
mother, but through the arm (or oracle) of "the Mighty King." As "the
Mighty King" is distinguished from the "great King" of Egypt, we must
see in him the god worshipped by Ebed-Tob, the "Most High God" of
Melchizedek, and the prototype of "the Mighty God" of Isaiah. It is this
same mighty king, Ebed-Tob assures the Pharaoh in another letter, who
will overthrow the navies of Babylonia and Aram-Naharaim.
Here, then, as late as the fifteenth century before our era we have a
king of Jerusalem who owes his royal dignity to his god. He is, in fact,
a priest as well as a king. His throne has not descended to him by
inheritance; so far as his kingly office is concerned, he is like
Melchizedek, without father and without mother. Between Ebed-Tob and
Melchizedek there is more than analogy; there is a striking and
unexpected resemblance. The description given of him by Ebed-Tob
explains what has puzzled us so long in the person of Melchizedek.
The origin of the name of Jerusalem also is now cleared up. It was no
invention of the age of David; on the contrary, it goes back to the
period of Babylonian intercourse with Canaan. It is written in the
cuneiform documents Uru-Salim, "the city of Salim," the god of peace.
One of the lexical tablets from the library of Nineveh has long ago
informed us that in one of the languages known to the Babylonians _uru_
was the equivalent of the Babylonian _alu_, "a city," and we now know
that this language was that of Canaan. It would even seem that the word
had originally been brought from Babylonia itself in the days when
Babylonian writing and culture first penetrated to the West. In the
Sumerian or pre-Semitic language of Chaldæa _eri_ signified a "city,"
and _eri_ in the pronunciation of the Semites became _uru_. Hence it was
that Uru or Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, received its name at a time
when it was the ruling city of Babylonia, and though the Semitic
Babylonians themselves never adopted the word in common life it made its
way to Canaan. The rise of the "city" in the west was part of that
Babylonian civilization which was carried to the shores of the
Mediterranean, and so the word which denoted it was borrowed from the
old language of Chaldæa, like the word for "palace," _hêkâl_, the
Sumerian _ê-gal_, or "Great House." It is noteworthy that Harran, the
resting-place of Abraham on his way from Ur to Palestine, the half-way
house, as it were, between East and West, also derived its name from a
Sumerian word which signified "the high-road." _Harran_ and _Ur_ were
two of the gifts which passed to Canaan from the speakers of the
primaeval language of Chaldæa.
We can now understand why Melchizedek should have been called the "king
of Salem." His capital could be described either as Jeru-salem or as the
city of Salem. And that it was often referred to as Salem simply is
shown by the Egyptian monuments. One of the cities of Southern
Palestine, the capture of which is represented by Ramses II. on the
walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes, is Shalam or Salem, and "the district
of Salem" is mentioned between "the country of Hadashah" (Josh. xv. 37)
and "the district of the Dead Sea" and "the Jordan," in the list of the
places which Ramses III. at Medînet Habu describes himself as having
conquered in the same part of the world.
It may be that Isaiah is playing upon the old name of Jerusalem when he
gives the Messiah the title of "Prince of Peace." But in any case the
fact that Salim, the god of peace, was the patron deity of Jerusalem,
lends a special significance to Melchizedek's treatment of Abram. The
patriarch had returned in peace from an expedition in which he had
overthrown the invaders of Canaan; he had restored peace to the country
of the priest-king, and had driven away its enemies. The offering of
bread and wine on the part of Melchizedek was a sign of freedom from the
enemy and of gratitude to the deliverer, while the tithes paid by Abram
were equally a token that the land was again at peace. The name of
Salim, the god of peace, was under one form or another widely spread in
the Semitic world. Salamanu, or Solomon, was the king of Moab in the
time of Tiglath-pileser III.; the name of Shalmaneser of Assyria is
written Sulman-asarid, "the god Sulman is chief," in the cuneiform
inscriptions; and one of the Tel el-Amarna letters was sent by
Ebed-Sullim, "the servant of Sullim," who was governor of Hazor. In one
of the Assyrian cities (Dimmen-Silim, "the foundation-stone of peace")
worship was paid to the god "Sulman the fish." Nor must we forget that
"Salma was the father of Beth-lehem" (1 Chron. ii. 51).
In the time of the Israelitish conquest the king of Jerusalem was
Adoni-zedek (Josh. x. 1). The name is similar to that of Melchi-zedek,
though the exact interpretation of it is a matter of doubt. It points,
however, to a special use of the word _zedek_, "righteousness," and it
is therefore interesting to find the word actually employed in one of
the letters of Ebed-Tob. He there says of the Pharaoh: "Behold, the king
is righteous (_zaduq_) towards me." What makes the occurrence of the
word the more striking is that it was utterly unknown to the
Babylonians. The root _zadaq_, "to be righteous," did not exist in the
Assyrian language.
There is yet another point in the history of the meeting between Abram
and Melchizedek which must not be passed over. When the patriarch
returned after smiting the invading army he was met outside Jerusalem
not only by Melchizedek, but also by the new king of Sodom. It was,
therefore, in the mountains and in the shadow of the sanctuary of the
Most High God that the newly-appointed prince was to be found, rather
than in the vale of Siddim. Does not this show that the king of
Jerusalem already exercised that sovereignty over the surrounding
district that Ebed-Tob did in the century before the Exodus? As we have
seen, Ebed-Tob describes himself as repairing the roads in that very
"Kikar," or "plain," in which Sodom and Gomorrha stood. It would seem
then that the priest-king of the great fortress in the mountains was
already acknowledged as the dominant Canaanitish ruler, and that the
neighbouring princes had to pay him homage when they first received the
crown. This would be an additional reason for the tithes given to him by
Abram.
Long after the defeat of Chedor-laomer and his allies, if we are to
accept the traditional belief, Abraham was again destined to visit
Jerusalem. But he had ceased to be "Abram the Hebrew," the confederate
of the Amorite chieftains in the plain of Mamre, and had become Abraham
the father of the promised seed. Isaac had been born to him, and he was
called upon to sacrifice his first-born son.
The place of sacrifice was upon one of the mountains in the land of
Moriah. There at the last moment the hand of the father was stayed, and
a ram was substituted for the human victim. "And Abraham called the name
of that place Yahveh-yireh; as it is said to this day, In the mount of
the Lord it shall be seen." According to the Hebrew text of the
Chronicles (2 Chron. iii. 1), this mount of the Lord where Abraham's
sacrifice was offered was the temple-mount at Jerusalem. The proverb
quoted in Genesis seems to indicate the same fact. Moreover, the
distance of the mountain from Beer-sheba--three days' journey--would be
also the distance of Jerusalem from Abraham's starting-place.
It is even possible that in the name of Yahveh-yireh we have a play upon
the first element in the name of Jeru-salem. The word _uru_, "city,"
became _yeru_ or _yiru_ in Hebrew pronunciation, and between this and
_yireh_ the difference is not great. Yahveh-yireh, "the Lord sees,"
might also be interpreted "the Lord of Yeru."
The temple-hill was emphatically "the mount of the Lord." In Ezekiel
(xliii. 15) the altar that stood upon it is called Har-el, "the mountain
of God." The term reminds us of Babylonia, where the mercy-seat of the
great temple of Bel-Merodach at Babylon was termed Du-azagga, "the holy
hill." It was on this "seat of the oracles," as it was termed, that the
god enthroned himself at the beginning of each year, and announced his
will to mankind. But the mercy-seat was entitled "the holy hill" only
because it was a miniature copy of "the holy hill" upon which the whole
temple was erected. So, too, at Jerusalem, the altar is called "the
mount of God" by Ezekiel only because it represents that greater "mount
of God" upon which it was built. The temple-hill itself was the
primitive Har-el.
The list of conquered localities in Palestine recorded by Thothmes III.
at Karnak gives indirect testimony to the same fact. The name of Rabbah
of Judah is immediately preceded in it by that of Har-el, "the mount of
God." The position of this Har-el leads us to the very mountain tract in
the midst of which Jerusalem stood. We now know that Jerusalem was
already an important city in the age of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty,
and that it formed one of the Egyptian conquests; it would be strange
therefore if no notice had been taken of it by the compiler of the list.
May we not see, then, in the Har-el of the Egyptian scribe the sacred
mountain of Israelitish history?
There is a passage in one of the letters of Ebed-Tob which may throw
further light on the history of the temple-hill. Unfortunately one of
the cuneiform characters in it is badly formed, so that its reading is
not certain, and still more unfortunately this character is one of the
most important in the whole paragraph. If Dr. Winckler and myself are
right in our copies, Ebed-Tob speaks of "the city of the mountain of
Jerusalem, the city of the temple of the god Nin-ip, (whose) name
(there) is Salim, the city of the king." What we read "Salim," however,
is read differently by Dr. Zimmern, so that according to his copy the
passage must be translated: "the city of the mountain of Jerusalem, the
city of the temple of the god Nin-ip is its name, the city of the king."
In the one case Ebed-Tob will state explicitly that the god of
Jerusalem, whom he identifies with the Babylonian Nin-ip, is Salim or
Sulman, the god of peace, and that his temple stood on "the mountain of
Jerusalem"; in the other case there will be no mention of Salim, and it
will be left doubtful whether or not the city of Beth-Nin-ip was
included within the walls of the capital. It would seem rather that it
was separate from Jerusalem, though standing on the same "mountain" as
the great fortress. If so, we might identify Jerusalem with the city on
Mount Zion, the Jebusite stronghold of a later date, while "the city of
Beth-Nin-ip" would be that which centred round the temple on Moriah.
However this may be, the fortress and the temple-hill were distinct from
one another in the days of the Jebusites, and we may therefore assume
that they were also distinct in the age of Abraham. This might explain
why it was that the mountain of Moriah on the summit of which the
patriarch offered his sacrifice was not enclosed within the walls of
Jerusalem, and was not covered with buildings. It was a spot, on the
contrary, where sheep could feed, and a ram be caught by its horns in
the thick brushwood.
In entering Canaan, Abraham would have found himself still surrounded by
all the signs of a familiar civilization. The long-continued influence
and government of Babylonia had carried to "the land of the Amorites"
all the elements of Chaldæan culture. Migration from Ur of the Chaldees
to the distant West meant a change only in climate and population, not
in the civilization to which the patriarch had been accustomed.
Even the Babylonian language was known and used in the cities of Canaan,
and the literature of Babylonia was studied by the Canaanitish people.
This is one of the facts which we have learnt from the discovery of the
Tel el-Amarna tablets. The cuneiform system of writing and the
Babylonian language had spread all over Western Asia, and nowhere had
they taken deeper root than in Canaan. Here there were schools and
teachers for instruction in the foreign language and script, and
record-chambers and libraries in which the letters and books of clay
could be copied and preserved.
Long before the discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets we might have
gathered from the Old Testament itself that such libraries once existed
in Canaan. One of the Canaanitish cities taken and destroyed by the
Israelites was Debir in the mountainous part of Judah. But Debir, "the
sanctuary," was also known by two other names. It was called
Kirjath-Sannah, "the city of Instruction," as well as Kirjath-Sepher,
"the city of Books."
We now know, however, that the latter name is not quite correct. The
Massoretic punctuation has to be emended, and we must read
Kirjath-Sopher, "the city of the Scribe(s)," instead of Kirjath-Sepher,
"the city of Book(s)." It is an Egyptian papyrus which has given us the
exact name. In the time of Ramses II. an Egyptian scribe composed a
sarcastic account of the misadventures met with by a tourist in
Palestine--commonly known as _The Travels of a Mohar_--and in this
mention is made of two adjoining towns in Southern Palestine called
Kirjath-Anab and Beth-Sopher. In the Book of Joshua the towns of Anab
and Kirjath-Sepher are similarly associated together, and it is plain,
therefore, as Dr. W. Max Müller has remarked, that the Egyptian writer
has interchanged the equivalent terms Kirjath, "city," and Beth,
"house." He ought to have written Beth-Anab and Kirjath-Sopher. But he
has given us the true form of the latter name, and as he has added to
the word _Sopher_ the determinative of "writing," he has further put
beyond question the real meaning of the name. The city must have been
one of those centres of Canaanitish learning, where, as in the libraries
of Babylonia and Assyria, a large body of scribes was kept constantly at
work.
The language employed in the cuneiform documents was almost always that
of Babylonia, which had become the common speech of diplomacy and
educated society. But at times the native language of the country was
also employed, and one or two examples of it have been preserved. The
legends and traditions of Babylonia served as text-books for the
student, and doubtless Babylonian history was carried to the West as
well. The account of Chedor-laomer's campaign might have been derived in
this way from the clay-books of ancient Babylonia.
Babylonian theology, too, made its way to the West, and has left records
of itself in the map of Canaan. In the names of Canaanitish towns and
villages the names of Babylonian deities frequently recur. Rimmon or
Hadad, the god of the air, whom the Syrians identified with the Sun-god,
Nebo, the god of prophecy, the interpreter of the will of Bel-Merodach,
Anu, the god of the sky, and Anat, his consort, all alike meet us in the
names sometimes of places, sometimes of persons. Mr. Tomkins is probably
right in seeing even in Beth-lehem the name of the primeval Chaldæan
deity Lakhmu. The Canaanitish Moloch is the Babylonian Malik, and Dagon
was one of the oldest of Chaldæan divinities and the associate of Anu.
We have seen how ready Ebed-Tob was to identify the god he worshipped
with the Babylonian Nin-ip, and among the Canaanites mentioned in the
letters of Tel el-Amarna there is more than one whose name is compounded
with that of a Babylonian god.
Writing and literature, religion and mythology, history and science, all
these were brought to the peoples of Canaan in the train of Babylonian
conquest and trade. Art naturally went hand in hand with this imported
culture. The seal-cylinders of the Chaldæans were imitated, and
Babylonian figures and ornamental designs were borrowed and modified by
the Canaanitish artists. It was in this way that the rosette, the
cherub, the sacred tree, and the palmette passed to the West, and there
served to adorn the metal-work and pottery. New designs, unknown in
Babylonia, began to develop; among others, the heads of animals in gold
and silver as covers for metal vases. Some of these "vases of Kaft," as
they were called, are pictured on the Egyptian monuments, and Thothmes
III. in his annals describes "the paterae with goats' heads upon them
and one with a lion's head, the productions of Zahi," or Palestine,
which were brought to him as tribute.
The spoil which the same Pharaoh carried away from the Canaanitish
princes gives us some idea of the art which they patronized. We hear of
chariots and tent-poles covered with plates of gold, of iron armour and
helmets, of gold and silver rings which were used in the place of money,
of staves of ivory, ebony, and cedar inlaid with gold, of golden
sceptres, of tables, chairs, and footstools of cedar wood, inlaid some
of them with ivory, others with gold and precious stones, of vases and
bowls of all kinds in gold, silver, and bronze, and of the two-handled
cups which were a special manufacture of Phoenicia. Iron seems to have
been worked in Canaan from an early date. The Israelites were unable to
drive out the inhabitants of "the valley" because of their chariots of
iron, and when the chariot of the Egyptian Mohar is disabled by the
rough roads of the Canaanite mountains the writer of the papyrus already
referred to makes him turn aside at once to a worker in iron. There was
no difficulty in finding an ironsmith in Canaan.
The purple dye of Phoenicia had been famous from a remote antiquity. It
was one of the chief objects of the trade which was carried on by the
Canaanites with Egypt on the one side and Babylonia on the other. It was
doubtless in exchange for the purple that the "goodly Babylonish
garment" of which we are told in the Book of Joshua (vii. 21) made its
way to the city of Jericho, for Babylonia was as celebrated for its
embroidered robes as Canaan was for its purple dye.
We hear something about the trade of Canaan in one of the cuneiform
tablets of Tel el-Amarna. This is a letter from Kallimma-Sin, king of
Babylonia, to the Egyptian Pharaoh urging him to conclude a treaty in
accordance with which the merchants of Babylonia might trade with Egypt
on condition of their paying the customs at the frontier. Gold, silver,
oil, and clothing are among the objects upon which the duty was to be
levied. The frontier was probably fixed at the borders of the Egyptian
province of Canaan rather than at those of Egypt itself.
Babylonia and the civilized lands of the East were not the only
countries with which Canaanitish trade was carried on. Negro slaves were
imported from the Soudan, copper and lead from Cyprus, and horses from
Asia Minor, while the excavations of Mr. Bliss at Lachish have brought
to light beads of Baltic amber mixed with the scarabs of the eighteenth
Egyptian dynasty.
A large part of the trade of Phoenicia was carried on in ships. It was
in this way that the logs of cedar were brought from the forests at the
head of the Gulf of Antioch, and the purple murex from the coasts of the
_Ægean_. Tyre, whose wealth is already celebrated in one of the Tel
el-Amarna tablets, was built upon an island, and, as an Egyptian papyrus
tells us, water had to be conveyed to it in boats. So, too, was Arvad,
whose navy occupies an important place in the Tel el-Amarna
correspondence. The ships of Canaan were, in fact, famous from an early
date. Two classes of vessel known to the Egyptians were called "ships of
Gebal" and "ships of Kaft," or Phoenicia, and Ebed-Tob asserts that "as
long as a ship sails upon the sea, the arm (or oracle) of the Mighty
King shall conquer the forces of Aram-Naharaim (Nahrima) and Babylonia."
Balaam's prophecy--"Ships shall come from Chittim and shall afflict
Asshur and shall afflict Eber," takes us back to the same age.
The Aram-Naharaim of Scripture is the Nahrina of the hieroglyphic texts,
the Mitanni of the native inscriptions. The capital city Mitanni stood
on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, at no great distance from
Carchemish, but the Naharaim, or "Two Rivers," more probably mean the
Euphrates and Orontes, than the Euphrates and Tigris. In one of the Tel
el-Amarna tablets the country is called Nahrima, but its usual name is
Mitanni or Mitanna. It was the first independent kingdom of any size or
power on the frontiers of the Egyptian empire in the age of the
eighteenth dynasty, and the Pharaohs Thothmes IV., Amenophis III., and
Amenophis IV. successively married into its royal family.
The language of Mitanni has been revealed to us by the cuneiform
correspondence from Tel el-Amarna. It was highly agglutinative, and
unlike any other form of speech, ancient or modern, with which we are
acquainted. Perhaps the speakers of it, like the Hittites, had descended
from the north, and occupied territory which had originally belonged to
Aramaic tribes. Perhaps, on the other hand, they represented the older
population of the country which was overpowered and displaced by Semitic
invaders. Which of these views is the more correct we shall probably
never know.
Along with their own language the people of Mitanni had also their own
theology. Tessupas was god of the atmosphere, the Hadad of the Semites,
Sausbe was identified with the Phoenician Ashteroth, and Sekhrus,
Zizanu, and Zannukhu are mentioned among the other deities. But many of
the divinities of Assyria were also borrowed--Sin the Moon-god, whose
temple stood in the city of Harran, Ea the god of the waters, Bel, the
Baal of the Canaanites, and Istar, "the lady of Nineveh." Even Amon the
god of Thebes was adopted into the pantheon in the days of Egyptian
influence.
How far back the interference of Aram-Naharaim in the affairs of Canaan
may have reached it is impossible to say. But the kingdom lay on the
high-road from Babylonia and Assyria to the West, and its rise may
possibly have had something to do with the decline of Babylonian
supremacy in Palestine. The district in which it grew up was called Suru
or Suri by the Sumerian inhabitants of Chaldæa--a name which may be the
origin of the modern "Syria," rather than Assyria, as is usually
supposed, and the Semitic Babylonians gave it the title of Subari or
Subartu. The conquest of Suri was the work of the last campaign of
Sargon of Accad, and laid all northern Mesopotamia at his feet.
We gather from the letters of Tel el-Amarna that the Babylonians were
still intriguing in Canaan in the century before the Exodus, though they
acknowledged that it was an Egyptian province and subject to Egyptian
laws. But the memory of the power they had once exercised there still
survived, and the influence of their culture continued undiminished.
When their rule actually ceased we do not yet know. It cannot have been
very long, however, before the era of Egyptian conquest. In the Tel
el-Amarna tablets they are always called Kassites, a name which could
have been given to them only after the conquest of Babylonia by the
Kassite mountaineers of Elam, and the rise of a Kassite dynasty of
kings. This was about 1730 B.C. For some time subsequently, therefore,
the government of Babylonia must still have been acknowledged in Canaan.
With this agrees a statement of the Egyptian historian Manetho, upon
which the critics, in their wisdom or their ignorance, have poured
unmeasured contempt. He tells us that when the Hyksos were driven out of
Egypt by Ahmes I., the founder of the eighteenth dynasty, they occupied
Jerusalem and fortified it--not, as would naturally be imagined, against
the Egyptian Pharaoh, but against "the Assyrians," as the Babylonians
were called by Manetho's contemporaries. As long as there were no
monuments to confront them the critics had little difficulty in proving
that the statement was preposterous and unhistorical, that Jerusalem did
not as yet exist, and that no Assyrians or Babylonians entered Palestine
until centuries later. But we now know that Manetho was right and his
critics wrong. Jerusalem did exist, and Babylonian armies threatened the
independence of the Canaanite states. In one of his letters, Ebed-Tob,
king of Jerusalem, tells the Pharaoh that he need not be alarmed about
the Babylonians, for the temple at Jerusalem is strong enough to resist
their attack. Rib-Hadad the governor of Gebal bears the same testimony.
"When thou didst sit on the throne of thy father," he says, "the sons of
Ebed-Asherah (the Amorite) attached themselves to the country of the
Babylonians, and took the country of the Pharaoh for themselves; they
(intrigued with) the king of Mitanna, and the king of the Babylonians,
and the king of the Hittites." In another despatch he speaks in a
similar strain: "The king of the Babylonians and the king of Mitanna are
strong, and have taken the country of the Pharaoh for themselves
already, and have seized the cities of thy governor." When George the
Synkellos notes that the Chaldæans made war against the Phoenicians in
B.C. 1556, he is doubtless quoting from some old and trustworthy source.
We must not imagine, however, that there was any permanent occupation of
Canaan on the part of the Babylonians at this period of its history. It
would seem rather that Babylonian authority was directly exercised only
from time to time, and had to be enforced by repeated invasions and
campaigns. It was the influence of Babylonian civilization and culture
that was permanent, not the Babylonian government itself. Sometimes,
indeed, Canaan became a Babylonian province, at other times there were
only certain portions of the country which submitted to the foreign
control, while again at other times the Babylonian rule was merely
nominal. But it is clear that it was not until Canaan had been
thoroughly reduced by Egyptian arms that the old claim of Babylonia to
be its mistress was finally renounced, and even then we see that
intrigues were carried on with the Babylonians against the Egyptian
authority.
It was during this period of Babylonian influence and tutelage that the
traditions and myths of Chaldæa became known to the people of Canaan. It
is again the tablets of Tel el-Amarna which have shown us how this came
to pass. Among them are fragments of Babylonian legends, one of which
endeavoured to account for the creation of man and the introduction of
sin into the world, and these legends were used as exercise-books in the
foreign language by the scribes of Canaan and Egypt who were learning
the Babylonian language and script. If ever we discover the library of
Kirjath-sepher we shall doubtless find among its clay records similar
examples of Chaldæan literature. The resemblances between the
cosmogonies of Phoenicia and Babylonia have often been pointed out, and
since the discovery of the Chaldæan account of the Deluge by George
Smith we have learned that between that account and the one which is
preserved in Genesis there is the closest possible likeness, extending
even to words and phrases. The long-continued literary influence of
Babylonia in Palestine in the Patriarchal Age explains all this, and
shows us how the traditions of Chaldæa made their way to the West. When
Abraham entered Canaan, he entered a country whose educated inhabitants
were already familiar with the books, the history, and the traditions of
that in which he had been born. There were doubtless many to whom the
name and history of "Ur of the Chaldees" were already known. It may even
be that copies of the books in its library already existed in the
libraries of Canaan.
There was one Babylonian hero at all events whose name had become so
well known in the West that it had there passed into a proverb. This was
the name of Nimrod, "the mighty hunter before the Lord." As yet the
cuneiform documents are silent about him, but it is probable that he was
one of the early Kassite kings who established their dominion over the
cities of Babylonia. He is called the son of Cush or Kas, and "the
beginning of his kingdom" was Babylon, which had now for six centuries
been the capital of the country. His name, however, was as familiar to
the Canaanite as it was to the inhabitant of Chaldæa, and the god before
whom his exploits were displayed was Yahveh and not Bel.
It was about 1600 B.C. that the Hyksos were finally expelled from Egypt.
They were originally Asiatic hordes who had overrun the valley of the
Nile, and held it in subjection for several centuries. At first they had
carried desolation with them wherever they went. The temples of the
Egyptian gods were destroyed and their priests massacred. But before
long Egyptian culture proved too strong for the invaders. The rude chief
of a savage horde became transformed into an Egyptian Pharaoh, whose
court resembled that of the ancient line of monarchs, and who surrounded
himself with learned men. The cities and temples were restored and
beautified, and art began to flourish once more. Except in one respect
it became difficult to distinguish the Hyksos prince from his
predecessors on the throne of Egypt. That one respect was religion. The
supreme object of Hyksos worship continued to be Sutekh, the Baal of
Western Asia, whose cult the foreigners had brought with them from their
old homes. But even Sutekh was assimilated to Ra, the Sun-god of On, and
the Hyksos Pharaohs felt no scruple in imitating the native kings and
combining their own names with that of Ra. It was only the Egyptians who
refused to admit the assimilation, and insisted on identifying Sutekh
with Set the enemy of Horus.
At the outset all Egypt was compelled to submit to the Hyksos
domination. Hyksos monuments have been found as far south as Gebelên and
El-Kab, and the first Hyksos dynasty established its seat in Memphis,
the old capital of the country. Gradually, however, the centre of Hyksos
power retreated into the delta. Zoan or Tanis, the modern San, became
the residence of the court: here the Hyksos kings were in close
proximity to their kindred in Asia, and were, moreover, removed from the
unmixed Egyptian population further south. From Zoan, "built"--or rather
rebuilt--"seven years" after Hebron (Num. xiii. 22), they governed the
valley of the Nile. Their rule was assisted by the mutual jealousies and
quarrels of the native feudal princes who shared between them the land
of Egypt. The foreigner kept his hold upon the country by means of the
old feudal aristocracy.
Thebes, however, had never forgotten that it had been the birthplace and
capital of the powerful Pharaohs of the twelfth and thirteenth
dynasties, of the mighty princes who had conquered the Soudan, and ruled
with an iron hand over the feudal lords. The heirs of the Theban
Pharaohs still survived as princes of Thebes, and behind the strong
walls of El-Kab they began to think of independence. Apophis II. in his
court at Zoan perceived the rising storm, and endeavoured to check it at
its beginning. According to the story of a later day, he sent insulting
messages to the prince of Thebes, and ordered him to worship Sutekh the
Hyksos god. The prince defied his suzerain, and the war of independence
began. It lasted for several generations, during which the Theban
princes made themselves masters of Upper Egypt, and established a native
dynasty of Pharaohs which reigned simultaneously with the Hyksos dynasty
in the North.
Step by step the Hyksos stranger was pushed back to the north-eastern
corner of the delta. At length Zoan itself fell into the hands of the
Egyptians, and the Hyksos took refuge in the great fortress of Avaris on
the extreme border of the kingdom. Here they were besieged by the Theban
prince Ahmes, and eventually driven back to the Asia from which they had
come. The eighteenth dynasty was founded, and Ahmes entered on that
career of Asiatic conquest which converted Canaan into an Egyptian
province. At first the war was one of revenge; but it soon became one of
conquest, and the war of independence was followed by the rise of the
Egyptian empire. Thothmes II., the grandson of Ahmes, led his forces as
far as the Euphrates and the land of Aram-Naharaim. The territories thus
overrun in a sort of military reconnaissance were conquered and annexed
by his son Thothmes III., during his long reign of fifty-four years
(March 20, B.C. 1503 to February 14, B.C. 1449). Canaan on both sides of
the Jordan was made into a province, and governed much as India is
to-day. Some of the cities were allowed still to retain their old line
of princes, who were called upon to furnish tribute to the Egyptian
treasury and recruits to the Egyptian army. From time to time they were
visited by an Egyptian "Commissioner," and an Egyptian garrison kept
watch upon their conduct. Sometimes an Egyptian Resident was appointed
by the side of the native king; this was the case, for example, at Sidon
and Hazor. Where, however, the city was of strategical or political
importance it was incorporated into the Egyptian empire, and placed
under the immediate control of an Egyptian governor, as at Megiddo,
Gaza, Gebal, Gezer, and Tyre. Similarly Ziri-Basana, "the field of
Bashan," was under the government of a single _khazan_ or "prefect." The
troops, who also acted as police, were divided into various classes.
There were the _tsabi yidati_ or "auxiliaries," the _tsabi saruti_ or
"militia," the _Khabbati_ or "Beduin plunderers," and the _tsabi
matsarti_ or "Egyptian soldiers of the garrison," as well as the _tsabi
bitati_ or "house-guards," who were summoned in cases of emergency.
Among the auxiliaries were included the Serdani or Sardinians, while the
Sute--the Sati or Sitti of the hieroglyphic texts--formed the larger
portion of the Beduin ("Bashi-bazouks"), and the Egyptian forces were
divided into the cavalry or rather charioteers, and the Misi (called
Mas'u in the hieroglyphics) or infantry.
Fragments of the annals of Thothmes III. have been preserved on the
shattered walls of his temple at Karnak. Here too we may read the lists
of places he conquered in Palestine--the land of the Upper Lotan as it
is termed--as well as in Northern Syria. Like the annals, the
geographical lists have been compiled from memoranda made on the spot by
the scribes who followed the army, and in some instances, at all events,
it can be shown that they have been translated into Egyptian hieroglyphs
from Babylonian cuneiform. The fact is an indication of the conquest
that Asia was already beginning to make over her Egyptian conquerors.
But the annals themselves are a further and still more convincing proof
of Asiatic influence. To cover the walls of a temple with the history of
campaigns in a foreign land, and an account of the tribute brought to
the Pharaoh, was wholly contrary to Egyptian ideas. From the Egyptian
point of view the decoration of the sacred edifice should have been
theological only. The only subjects represented on it, so custom and
belief had ruled, ought to be the gods, and the stereotyped phrases
describing their attributes, their deeds, and their festivals. To
substitute for this the records of secular history was Assyrian and not
Egyptian. Indeed the very conception of annalistic chronicling, in which
the history of a reign was given briefly year by year and campaign by
campaign, belonged to the kingdoms of the Tigris and Euphrates, not to
that of the Nile. It was a new thing in Egypt, and flourished there only
during the short period of Asiatic influence. The Egyptian cared
comparatively little for history, and made use of papyrus when he wished
to record it. Unfortunately for us the annals of Thothmes III. remain
the solitary monument of Egyptian chronicling on stone.
The twenty-second year of his reign (B.C. 1481) was that in which the
Egyptian Pharaoh made his first determined effort to subdue Canaan. Gaza
was occupied without much difficulty, and in the following year, on the
fifth day of the month Pakhons, he set out from it, and eleven days
later encamped at Ihem. There he learned that the confederated
Canaanitish army, under the command of the king of Kadesh on the
Orontes, was awaiting his attack at Megiddo. Not only were the various
nations of Palestine represented in it, but contingents had come from
Naharaim on the banks of the Euphrates, as well as from the Gulf of
Antioch. For a while Thothmes hesitated whether to march against them by
the road which led through 'Aluna to Taanach or by way of Zaft (perhaps
Safed), whence he would have descended southward upon Megiddo. The
arrival of his spies, however, determined him to take the first, and
accordingly, after the officers had sworn that they would not leave
their appointed posts in battle even to defend the person of the king,
he started on his march, and on the nineteenth of the month pitched his
tent at 'Aluna. The way had been rough and impassable for chariots, so
that the king had been forced to march on foot.
'Aluna must have been close to Megiddo, since the rear of the Egyptian
forces was stationed there during the battle that followed, while the
southern wing extended to Taanach and the northern wing to Megiddo. The
advanced guard pushed into the plain below, and the royal tent was set
up on the bank of the brook of Qana, an affluent of the Kishon. The
decisive struggle took place on the twenty-first of the month. Thothmes
rode in a chariot of polished bronze, and posted himself among the
troops on the north-west side of Megiddo. The Canaanites were unable to
resist the Egyptian charge. They fled into the city, leaving behind them
their horses and their chariots plated with gold and silver, those who
arrived after the gates of the town had been shut being drawn up over
the walls by means of ropes. Had the Egyptians not stayed behind in
order to plunder the enemy's camp they would have entered Megiddo along
with the fugitives. As it was, they were compelled to blockade the city,
building a rampart round it of "fresh green trees," and the besieged
were finally starved into a surrender.
In the captured camp had been found the son of the king of Megiddo,
besides a large amount of booty, including chariots of silver and gold
from Asi or Cyprus. Two suits of iron armour were also obtained, one
belonging to the king of Kadesh, the other to the king of Megiddo. The
seven tent-poles of the royal tent, plated with gold, also fell into the
hands of the Egyptians. The catalogue of the spoil was written down on a
leather roll which was deposited in the temple of Amon at Thebes, and in
it were enumerated: 3401 prisoners and 83 hands belonging to the slain,
32 chariots plated with gold, 892 ordinary chariots, 2041 mares, 191
foals, 602 bows, and 200 suits of armour.
Before the campaign was ended the Egyptian army had penetrated far to
the north and captured Inuam, south of Damascus, as well as Anugas or
Nukhasse, and Harankal, to the north of the land of the Amorites. All
these places seem to have belonged to the king of Kadesh, as his
property was carried away out of them. When Thothmes returned to Thebes
the quantity of spoil be brought back with him was immense. "Besides
precious stones," golden bowls, Phoenician cups with double handles and
the like, there were 97 swords, 1784 pounds of gold rings and 966 pounds
of silver rings, which served as money, a statue with a head of gold,
tables, chairs, and staves of cedar and ebony inlaid with gold, ivory
and precious stones, a golden plough, the golden sceptre of the
conquered prince, and richly embroidered stuffs. The fields of the
vanquished province were further measured by the Egyptian surveyors, and
the amount of taxation annually due from them was fixed. More than
208,000 measures of wheat were moreover carried off to Egypt from the
plain of Megiddo. The Canaanitish power was completely broken, and
Thothmes was now free to extend his empire further to the north.
Accordingly in the following year (B.C. 1479) we find him receiving
tribute from the Assyrian king. This consisted of leather bracelets,
various kinds of wood, and chariots. It was probably at this time that
Carchemish on the Euphrates was taken, the city being stormed from the
riverside. Five years later the first part of the annals was engraved on
the wall of the new temple of Amon at Karnak, and it concluded with an
account of the campaign of the year. This had been undertaken in
Northern Syria, and had resulted in the capture of Uarrt and Tunip, now
Tennib, to the north-west of Aleppo. No less than one hundred pounds of
silver and as many of gold were taken from Tunip, as well as
lapis-lazuli from Babylonia, and malachite from the Sinaitic peninsula,
together with vessels of iron and bronze. Some ships also were captured,
laden with slaves, bronze, lead, white gold, and other products of the
Greek seas. On the march home the Egyptian army took possession of
Arvad, and seized its rich stores of wheat and wine. "Then the soldiers
caroused and anointed themselves with oil as they used to do on feast
days in the land of Egypt."
The next year Kadesh on the Orontes, near the Lake of Horns, was
attacked and destroyed, its trees were cut down and its corn carried
away. From Kadesh Thothmes proceeded to the land of Phoenicia, and took
the cities of Zemar (now Sumra) and Arvad. The heirs of four of the
conquered princes were carried as hostages to Egypt, "so that when one
of these kings should die, then the Pharaoh should take his son and put
him in his stead."
In B.C. 1472 the land of the Amorites was reduced, or rather that part
of it which was known as Takhis, the Thahash of Genesis xxii. 24, on the
shores of the Lake of Merna, in which we should probably see the Lake of
Homs. Nearly 500 prisoners were led to Egypt. The Syrian princes now
came to offer their gifts to the conqueror, bringing with them, among
other things, more than 760 pounds of silver, 19 chariots covered with
silver ornaments, and 41 leathern collars covered with bronze scales. At
the same time the whole country was thoroughly organized under the new
Egyptian administration. Military roads were constructed and provided
with posting-houses, at each of which relays of horses were kept in
readiness, as well as "the necessary provision of bread of various
sorts, oil, balsam, wine, honey, and fruits." The quarries of the
Lebanon were further required to furnish the Pharaoh with limestone for
his buildings in Egypt and elsewhere.
Two years later Thothmes was again in Syria. He made his way as far as
the Euphrates, and there on the eastern bank erected a stele by the side
of one which his father Thothmes II. had already set up. The stele was
an imperial boundary-stone marking the frontier of the Egyptian empire.
It was just such another stele that Hadad-ezer of Zobah was intending to
restore in the same place when he was met and defeated by David (2 Sam.
viii. 3).
The Pharaoh now took ship and descended the Euphrates, "conquering the
towns and ploughing up the fields of the king of Naharaim." He then
re-ascended the stream to the city of Ni, where he placed another stele,
in proof that the boundary of Egypt had been extended thus far.
Elephants still existed in the neighbourhood, as they continued to do
four and a half centuries later in the time of the Assyrian king
Tiglath-pileser I. Thothmes amused himself by hunting them, and no less
than 120 were slain.
On his way home the tribute and "yearly tax" of the inhabitants of the
Lebanon was brought to him, and the corvée-work annually required from
them was also fixed. Thothmes indulged his taste for natural history by
receiving as part of the tribute various birds which were peculiar to
Syria, or at all events were unknown in Egypt, and which, we are told,
"were dearer to the king than anything else." He had already established
zoological and botanical gardens in Thebes, and the strange animals and
plants which his campaigns furnished for them were depicted on the walls
of one of the chambers in the temple he built at Karnak.
Before his return to Egypt he received the tribute of "the king of
Sangar," or Shinar, in Mesopotamia, and "of the land of Khata the
greater." The first consisted for the most part of lapis-lazuli, real
and artificial, of which the most prized was "the lapis-lazuli of
Babylon." Among the gifts was "a ram's head of real lapis-lazuli, 15
pounds in weight." The land of the Hittites, "the greater," so called to
distinguish it from the lesser Hittite land in the south of Palestine,
sent 8 rings of silver, 400 pounds in weight, besides "a great piece of
crystal."
The following year Thothmes marched through "the land of Zahi," the "dry
land" of the Phoenician coast, to Northern Syria, where he punished the
king of Anugas or Nukhasse, who had shown symptoms of rebellion. Large
quantities of gold and bronze were carried off, as well as 15 chariots,
plated with gold and silver, 6 iron tent-poles studded with precious
stones, and 70 asses. Lead and various kinds of wood and stone, together
with 608 jars of Lebanon wine, 2080 jars of oil, and 690 jars of balsam,
were also received from Southern Syria, and posting-houses were
established along the roads of the land of Zahi. A fleet of Phoenician
merchant vessels was next sent to Egypt laden with logs of wood from the
forests of Palestine and the Lebanon for the buildings of the king. At
the same time, "the king of Cyprus," which now was an Egyptian
possession, forwarded his tribute to the Pharaoh, consisting of 108
bricks of copper 2040 pounds in weight, 5 bricks of lead nearly 29,000
pounds in weight, 110 pounds of lapis-lazuli, an elephant's tusk, and
other objects of value.
The next year (B.C. 1468) there was a campaign against the king of
Naharaim, who had collected his soldiers and horses "from the extreme
ends of the world." But the Mesopotamian army was utterly defeated. Its
booty fell into the hands of the Egyptians, who, however, took only ten
prisoners, which looks as if, after all, the battle was not on a very
large scale.
In B.C. 1464 Thothmes was again in Northern Syria. Among the booty
acquired during the expedition were "bowls with goats' heads on them,
and one with a lion's head, the work of the land of Zahi." Horses, asses
and oxen, 522 slaves, 156 jars of wine, 1752 jars of butter, 5
elephants' tusks, 2822 pounds of gold besides copper and lead, were
among the spoils of the campaign. The annual tribute was only received
from Cyprus, consisting this time of copper and mares, as well as from
Aripakh, a district in the Taurus.
The next year the Pharaoh led his troops against some country, the name
of which is lost, in "the land of the hostile Shasu" or Beduin. The
plunder which was carried off from it shows that it was somewhere in
Syria, probably in the region of the Lebanon. Gold and silver, a silver
double-handled cup with a bull's head, iron, wine, balsam, oil, butter
and honey, were among the spoils of the war. Tribute arrived also from
"the king of the greater Hittite land," which included a number of negro
slaves.
Revolt, however, now broke out in the north. Tunip rebelled, as did also
the king of Kadesh, who built a "new" fortress to protect his city from
attack. Thothmes at once marched against them by the road along "the
coast," which led him through the country of the Fenkhu or Phoenicians.
First he fell upon the towns of Alkana and utterly destroyed them, and
then poured his troops into the neighbouring land of Tunip. The city of
Tunip was taken and burnt, its crops were trodden under-foot, its trees
cut down, and its inhabitants carried into slavery. Then came the turn
of Kadesh. The "new" fortress fell at the first assault, and the whole
country was compelled to submit.
The king of Assyria again sent presents to the Pharaoh which the
Egyptian court regarded in the light of tribute. They consisted chiefly
of large blocks of "real lapis-lazuli" as well as "lapis-lazuli of
Babylon." More valuable gifts came from the subject princes of Syria.
Foremost among these was "a king's daughter all glorious with [a vesture
of] gold." Then there were four chariots plated with gold and six
chariots of gold, iron armour inlaid with gold, a jug of silver, a
golden helmet inlaid with lapis-lazuli, wine, honey and balsam, ivory
and various kinds of wood, wheat in such quantities that it could not be
measured, and the sixty-five slaves who had to be furnished each year as
part of the annual tax.
The annals of the next two years are in too mutilated a condition to
yield much information. Moreover, the campaigns carried on in them were
mainly in the Soudan. In B.C. 1461 the record closes. It was in that
year that the account of the Pharaoh's victories "which he had gained
from the 23rd until the (4)2nd year" were engraved upon the wall of the
temple. (The inscription has "32nd year," but as the wars extended
beyond the 40th year of the king's reign this must be a sculptor's
error.) And the chronicle concludes with the brief but expressive words,
"Thus hath he done: may he live for ever!"
Thothmes, indeed, did not live for ever, but he survived the completion
of his temple fourteen years. His death was followed by the revolt of
Northern Syria, and the first achievement of his son and successor,
Amenôphis II., was its suppression. Ni and Ugarit, the centres of
disaffection, were captured and punished, and among the prisoners from
Ugarit were 640 "Canaanite" merchants with their slaves. The name of
Canaanite had thus already acquired that secondary meaning of "merchant"
which we find in the Old Testament (Is. xxiii. 8; Ezek. xvii. 4). It is
a significant proof of the commercial activity and trading
establishments of the Canaanite race throughout the civilized world.
Even a cuneiform tablet from Kappadokia, which is probably of the same
age as the tablets of Tel el-Amarna, gives us the name of Kinanim "the
Canaanite" as that of a witness to a deed. It was not always, however,
that the Canaanites were so honourably distinguished. At times the name
was equivalent to that of "slave" rather than of "merchant," as in a
papyrus [Anast. 4, 16, 2.] where mention is made of Kan'amu or
"Canaanite slaves from Khal." So too in another papyrus we hear of a
slave called Saruraz the son of Naqati, whose mother was Kadi from the
land of Arvad. The Egyptian wars in Palestine must necessarily have
resulted in the enslavement of many of its inhabitants, and, as we have
seen, a certain number of young slaves formed part of the annual tax
levied upon Syria.
The successors of Thothmes III. extended the Egyptian empire far to the
south in the Soudan. But its Asiatic limits had already been reached.
Palestine, along with Phoenicia, the land of the Amorites and the
country east of the Jordan, was constituted into an Egyptian province
and kept strictly under Egyptian control. Further north the connection
with the imperial government was looser. There were Egyptian fortresses
and garrisons here and there, and certain important towns like Tunip
near Aleppo and Qatna on the Khabûr were placed under Egyptian prefects.
But elsewhere the conquered populations were allowed to remain under
their native kings. In some instances, as, for example, in Anugas or
Nukhasse, the kings were little more than satraps of the Pharaoh, but in
other instances, like Alasiya, north of Hamath, they resembled the
rulers of the protected states in modern India. In fact, the king of
Alasiya calls the Pharaoh his "brother," and except for the obligation
of paying tribute was practically an independent sovereign.
The Egyptian dominion was acknowledged as far north as Mount Amanus.
Carchemish, soon to become a Hittite stronghold, was in Egyptian hands,
and the Hittites themselves had not yet emerged from the fortresses of
the Taurus. Their territory was still confined to Kataonia and Armenia
Minor between Melitênê and the Saros, and they courted the favour of the
Egyptian monarch by sending him gifts. Thothmes would have refused to
believe that before many years were over they would wrest Northern Syria
from his successors, and contend on equal terms with the Egyptian
Pharaoh.
The Egyptian possessions on the east bank of Euphrates lay along the
course of the Khabûr, towards the oasis of Singar or Shinar. North of
the Belikh came the powerful kingdom of Mitanni, Aram-Naharaim as it is
called in the Old Testament, which was never subdued by the Egyptian
arms, and whose royal family intermarried with the successors of
Thothmes. Mitanni, the capital, stood nearly opposite Carchemish, which
thus protected the Egyptian frontier on the east.
Southward of the Belikh the frontier was formed by the desert. Syria,
Bashan, Ammon, and Moab were all included in the Pharaoh's empire. But
there it came to an end. Mount Seir was never conquered by the
Egyptians. The "city" of Edom appears in one of the Tel el-Amarna
tablets as a foreign state whose inhabitants wage war against the
Egyptian territory. The conquest of the Edomites in their mountain
fastnesses would have been a matter of difficulty, nor would anything
have been gained by it. Edom was rich neither agriculturally nor
commercially; it was, in fact, a land of barren mountains, and the trade
which afterwards passed through the Arabah to Elath and Ezion-geber in
the Gulf of Aqabah was already secured to the Egyptians through their
possession of the Gulf of Suez. The first and last of the Pharaohs, so
far as we know, who ventured on a campaign against the wild tribes of
Mount Seir, was Ramses III. of the twentieth dynasty, and his campaign
was merely a punitive one. No attempt to incorporate the "Red Land" into
his dominions was ever made by an Egyptian king.
The Sinaitic peninsula, the province of Mafkat or "Malachite," as it was
called, had been in the possession of the Egyptians since the time of
Zosir of the third dynasty, and it continued to be regarded as part of
the Egyptian kingdom up to the age of the Ptolemies. The earliest of
Egyptian rock-sculptures is engraved in the peninsula, and represents
Snefru, the founder of the fourth dynasty, slaughtering the Beduin who
inhabited it. Its possession was valued on account of its mines of
copper and malachite. These were worked by the Egyptian kings with the
help of convict labour. Garrisons were established to protect them and
the roads which led to them, colonies of officials grew up at their
side, and temples were built dedicated to the deities of Egypt. Even as
late as the reign of Ramses III. the amount of minerals produced by the
mines was enormous. They existed for the most part on the western side
of the peninsula, opposite the Egyptian coast; but Ramses III. also
opened copper mines in the land of 'Ataka further east, and the name of
the goddess Hathor in hieroglyphics has been found by Dr. Friedmann on
the shores of Midian.