Although the Amarna texts do not name any personage met on the pages of
Scripture, they are of value in helping us to visualize life in the
Palestinian city states during the middle of the second millenium B.C.
Biblical cities mentioned in the correspondence include: Akko, Ashkelon,
Arvad, Aroer, Ashtaroth, Gebal (Byblos), Gezer, Gath, Gaza, Jerusalem,
Joppa, Keilah, Lachish, Megiddo, Sidon, Tyre, Sharon, Shechem, Taanach,
and Zorah. Beth-ninurta is thought to be identical with Biblical
Beth-shemesh.
These cities are, for the most part, independent city states, owing
allegiance to Egypt yet free to form their own alliances and resolve
their own local problems. It was this type of political structure that
Joshua met in Canaan. He waged war against "thirty-one kings" (Josh.
12:24). At times these kings made alliances in order to prevent Israel
from gaining control of the land, just as the Amarna Age rulers aided
one another in resisting Lab'ayu. A leader against Joshua was
Adonizedek, king of Jerusalem, who found allies in Hoham, king of
Hebron; Piram, king of Jarmuth; Japhia, king of Lachish, and Debir, king
of Eglon (Josh. 10:1-3).
The military engagements were strictly limited affairs, judged by the
numbers of troops and horses requested of the Pharaoh. Rib-Addi of
Byblos pleaded:
Let it seem good to the lord, the sun of the lands, to give me twenty
pairs of horses.[64]
In his encounter with Abdi-Ashirta, the Amorite chieftain who was
seeking to control northern Syria in league with the Hittites, Rib-Addi
asked for but three hundred men.[65]
Abi-milki of Tyre indicated that he could get by with but token help
from Egypt. In one letter he asks for but twenty foot soldiers,[66] and
in another he will be satisfied with but ten.[67] Somewhat earlier, in
the Canaan of Abraham's day, the patriarch was able to assemble an army
of three hundred and eighteen men (Gen. 14:14), pursue a confederation
of five kings with their armies, rout and chase the enemy. An entire
garrison might number but fifty men in the armies of Amarna Age
rulers.[68]