rew" from Babylonia had bought in it a burying-place near Hebron; Jacob had purchased a field near Shechem, where he could water his flocks from his own spring.

native Egyptians recovered their independence and had expelled them from their seats in the Delta. Though Moses had assured the Pharaoh that all the Israelites needed was to go a short journey of three da

e armies of Babylonia at a very remote period, and had thus come under the influence of Babylonian culture. As far back as the reigns of Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin (B.C. 3800), three campaigns had laid it at the feet of the Chald?an monarch, and Palestine and Syria became a province of the Babylonian empire. Sargon erected an image o

e art of ancient Egypt. They belonged to the white race, and, like other members of the white race, were tall in stature and impatient of the damp heat of the plains. Their beard and eye-brows are painted red, their hair a light red-brown, while their eyes are blue. The skin is a sunburnt white, the nose straight and regular, the forehead high, and the lips thin. They wore whiskers and a pointed beard, and dressed in long robes furnished with a sort of cape. Their physical characteri

, and the north of Africa. They are also found in Palestine, more especially in that portion of it which was the home of the Amorites. The skulls found in the cairns are for the most part of the do

, the Amorite king Sihon had robbed Moab of its territory and founded his power on the ruins of that of the Egyptian empire. Farther north, in the plateau of Bashan, another Amorite king, Og, had his capital, while Amorite tribes were settled on the western side of the Jordan, in the mountains of southern Canaan, where the

nian sense, as denoting an inhabitant of Canaan, whatever might be the race to which he belonged; we cannot always infer from it the nationality or race of those to whom it is applied. Moreover, individual branches of the Amorite stock had names of their own. In the north they were known as Hivites,

, along with the script, in the schools which were established in imitation of those of Chald?a. Babylonian generals and officials lived in Palestine and administered its affairs, and an active tra

, libraries now grew up in "the land of the Amorites," and the clay tablets with which they were filled ma

), made it a province of Egypt, and the Amorites were governed by Egyptian prefects and commissioners. The cuneiform tablets found at Tel el-Amarna in Upper Egypt give us a vivid picture of its condition at the close of the Eighteenth dynasty. The Egyptian power was falling to pieces, and Palestine was threatened by Hittite invaders from the north. The native governors were fighting with one another or intriguing with the enemies of Egypt, while all the time protesting their loyalty to the Pharaoh. Ebed-Asherah and

quered by Seti I., the father of Ramses. Egyptian authority was re-established even on the eastern side of the Jordan; but it did not continue for long. Ramses was hardly dead before Egypt was invaded by Libyans from the west and robber

. Fleets of ships filled with Philistines and Ach?ans and other northern tribes entered the mouths of the Nile, while a vast army simultaneously attacked it by land. The army, we are told, had encamped in "the land of the Amorites," and they c

the key to the military road which ran along the sea-board of Palestine, fell once more into Egyptian hands; and the Egyptian troops overran the future Judah, occupying the districts of Jerusalem and Hebron, and even crossing the Jordan. But no permanent co

, which had been due in part to the pressure of the first of them in the reign of Meneptah, was separated by only a few years from the capture of Hebron by Caleb, which must have occurred after its evacuation by the Egyptian troops.

e a Hittite parentage as well. The same interlocking of Amorite and Hittite that meets us in the Bible, meets us also on the monuments of Egypt. Here, too, we are told that Kadesh on th

ad and lozenge-shaped eyes, gave them a Mongoloid appearance. They were not handsome to look upon, but the accuracy of their portraiture by the artists of Egypt is confirmed by their own monuments. The heads represented on the Egyptian monuments are repeated, feat

. Such boots, in fact, are snow-shoes, admirably adapted to the inhabitants of the mountain-ranges of Asia Minor, but wholly unsuited for the hot plains of Syria. When, therefore, on the walls of the Ramesseum we find the Theban artists depicting the defenders of Kadesh on the Orontes with them,

with Babylonian culture, which they adopted and modified, and from hence they poured down upon the Aram?an cities of the south. Carche-mish, now Jerabl?s, which commanded the chief ford across the Euphrates, fell into their hands, and for many centuries remained one of their capitals. But it was not until the stormy period which signalised the overthrow of the Eighte

roads connected the Hittite cities of Cappadocia with the rest of Asia Minor, and monuments of Hittite conquest or invasion have been met with as far west as the neighbourhood of Smyrna. These monuments are all alike distinguished by the same peculiar style of art,

ians included them under the name of Hittites. Even the Israelites and Ammonites are called "Hittites" by an Assyrian king. It is possible that traces of this vague and comprehensive use of the name are to be met with in the Old Testament; indeed, it has been suggested

easily have settled on its way at Hebron, which, as we are told, was built seven years before Zoan, the Hyksos capital. At Karnak, moreover, an Egyptian artist has represented the people of Ashkelon with faces of a Hittite type, while Ezekiel bears witness to the presence of a Hittite element in the founders of Jerusalem. But the fact that Tho

which at one time exercised a considerable amount of power, and whose princesses were married to the Pharaohs of the Eighteenth dynasty. This was the kingdom of Aram Naharaim, called Naharina in the Egyptian texts, Mitanni by its own inhabitants. The language of Mitanni was of a very peculiar type, as we learn from the tablets of Tel el-Amarna, one or two of which are written in it. Like the Hittites in Syria, the Mitannia

of "the kings of the Hittites" who ruled over a number of small states. The Semites of Syria had succeeded in rolling back the wave of Hittite conquest,

editerranean. The tradition of Babylonian culture in western Asia was broken; new influences began to work there, and the cuneiform system of writing to be disused. Room was given for the introduction of a new form of script,

s. Canaan is supposed to mean "the lowlands" of the Mediterranean shore; here the Canaanites had built their cities, and ventured in trading ships on the sea. But they

the Israelites or by the patriarchs their forefathers. Between the dialect of the Phoenician inscriptions and that of the Old Testament the

famous throughout the Oriental world; the cities of the Phoenician coast already possessed fleets of ships in the age of the Eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, and their merchants carried on a maritime trade with the islands of the ?gean and the coast of Africa. Before the time of Solomon their vessels had found their way to Tartessus in Spain, perhaps even to Cadiz, and the alliance between Hiram and the Israelitish king enabled the Tyrians to import gold and other precious things from Africa and Arabia

cedar and inlaid with ivory and precious stones, were among the booty. Iron, which was found in the hills, was freely used, and made into armour, weapons, and chariots. It was "the chariots of iron" which prevented the Israelites from capturing and sacking

onal or individual distress his worshippers were called upon to sacrifice to him their firstborn; nothing less costly could turn away from them the anger of their god. By the side of Baal was his colourless wife, a mere reflection of the male divinity, standing in the same state of dependence towards him as the woman stood to the man. It was only the unmarried goddess, Ashêrah as she was called by the Canaanites,

beyond the district in which he was adored and to which he was territorially attached. The Baal of Lebanon was distinct from the Baal of Tyre or Sidon, though in every case the general conception that was formed of him was the same. It was the attributes of particular Baalim which differed; Baal

of Ashtoreth were crowded with religious prostitutes, and the great festivals of Canaan were orgies

l of Tyre was worshipped, had been built on the island-rock twenty-three centuries before the time of Herodotus, or B.C. 2700. Gebal or Byblos, still farther to the north, had been renowned for its sanctity from immemorial times. Here stood the sanctuary of Baalith, the "lady" of Gebal, of whom we hear in the tablets of Tel el-Amarna. Still farther north were other cities, of which

ired. While Tyre and Sidon were centres of manufacture and maritime trade, Megiddo and Hazor remained agricultural. After the Hebrew invasion the difference between them became greater: Phoenicia continued independent; the Canaanites of the interior were extirpated by the Israelites or paid tribute to their conquerors. Little by little the latter amalgamated with the conquered race; towns like Shechem contai

under a foreign leader, but the union was brought about by the pressure of foreign attack, and was never more than temporary. There was no lack of patriotism among them, it is true; but the patriotism was confined to the particular city or state to whic

everance of western Asia from the kingdoms on the Euphrates and Tigris, and the consequent end of the direct influence of Babylonian culture. The Hittites established themselves in Syria "in th

on the Egyptian monuments, are of a Greek or Aryan type. They have the straight nose, high forehead, and thin lips of the European. On their heads they wear a curious kind of pleated cap, fastened round the chin by a strap. They are clad in

, and the road from Egypt to Asia which skirted the sea had long been known as "the way of the Philistines." When Ramses III. overran southern Canaan, Gaza still belonged to Egypt, as it had done for the three preceding centuries; but it is probable that the Philistines were already settled in its neighbourhood. At all events, it was not long befo

ed out of Hebrew, Kenite, and Edomite elements, and its frontier adjoined Philistia. At first there was desultory warfare; the Philistines made raids into Jud?an territory, and the Jews retaliated whenever the opportunity occurred. But the Philistines were a nation of warriors, and their forces were recruited from time to time by fresh arrivals from Krete or o

athen, and the priests of Shiloh, the central sanctuary, were slain. The victors marched unresisted through the country, burning and spo

Shiloh, was allowed to declare the oracles of Yahveh to his countrymen. But the vanquished population was deprived of the means for revolt. The Israelites were forbidden t

army and a nation, and lead them forth against their foes. Saul was elected king, and the choice was soon justified by the results

were used in pursuing David, and David himself took service as a mercenary under Achish, King of Gath. Saul and his sons fell in battle on Mount Gilboa; the relics of the Israelitish a

he organised his forces, and at last ventured into the field. The Philistine forces were defeated in battle after battle; the war was carried into their own territory, and their cities were compelled to surrender. Philistia thus became a part of the Israelitish kingdom, and never again made any serious attempt to recover its independence. At the division of the Israelitish kingdom it fell to Judah, and its vassal princes duly pa

a Mohar, a sarcastic description of a tourist's misadventures in Palestine which was written by an Egyptian author in the reign of Ramses II., and of which a copy on papyrus has been preserved to us. The horses of the hero of the story, we are told, ra

their Hebrew comrades of Judah from their first camping-ground near Jericho to the wilderness south of Arad. Here they lived among the Amalekite Bedawin down to the days of Saul. To

sau, and the fact that the Kenizzites shared with the Israelitish tribes in the conquest of Canaan throws light on the law of Deuteronomy5 which gave the Edomite of "the third generation" all the righ

and not Judah, are still regarded as forming the bulwark of Israel against the Amalekite marauders of the southern wilderness. It was the Philistine wars which first created the Judah of later days. They forced Hebrews, Edomites, and Kenites to unite against the common enemy, and welded t

ft; too idle to work himself, he plunders those who do. A strong government forces him to hide himself in the depth of the wilderness; when the countries that skirt the desert fall into decay he emerges from his retreat like a swarm of flies. The anci

ping again into the desert with his booty before he could be overtaken and punished. The desert between Palestine and Egypt was his chief camping-ground. He had occupied the wadis of Mount Seir before the Edomites had entered them, and a part of the later population of the country traced its descent from a mixture of the Bedawi with the

r wanderings in the wilderness. The attack, however, was never forgotten, and vengeance was exacted for it in the reign of Saul. Then the Amalekites were pursued into their desert domain and mercilessly slaughtered. They had their home, it is said, in the desert which extended from Shur to Havilah. Shur

, an Amalekite tribe again poured into Judah and sacked the Philistine town of Ziklag. The wives and property of David and his followers were carried off into the wilderness. But the marauders were ov

the Midianites in devastating the villages of central Israel in the days of Gideon, and the Amalekite who brought to David the news of Saul's death was one of those who had hovered on the skirts of the contending armies, eager when the fight was over to murder the wounded and strip the slain. In a later age the "Arabs" who, according to

inction is to be drawn between them, it is that the term Perizzite was specially applied to the fellahin of southern Canaan, while the term Hivite was restricted to the inhabitants of the north. In two passages, it is true, "Hivite" seems to be used with an ethnic meaning. Esau is said in one of them to have married the grandd

d, however, before any of them had found their way to it, and this prehistoric population of the country was known to the Hebrews by the name of Rephaim. In the English translation of the Bible the word is usually rendered "giants;" it seems, however, to have been a proper name, which survived in the name of one of the cities of Bashan. Doubtless it often incl

nd in the plains. The Amorite migration went back to an epoch long before that of the first Babylonian conquests in the West; the Canaanitish migration may have been coeval with the latter event. Next came the Hittites, to whom the Jebusites of Jerusalem may have belonged; then the Philistines, who seized the southern coast but a few years previously to the Israelitish invasion. Canaan was a land of many races and many peoples, who h

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