(I.) "To the king my lord [my] Sun-G.o.d, thus [speaks] Ebed-Tob thy servant: at the feet of the king my lord seven times seven I prostrate myself. Behold, the king has established his name at the rising of the sun and the setting of the sun. Slanders have been uttered against me.
Behold, I am not a governor, a va.s.sal of the king my lord. Behold, I am an ally of the king, and I have paid the tribute due to the king, even I. Neither my father nor my mother, but the oracle (or arm) of the Mighty King established [me] in the house of [my] fathers.... There have come to me as a present 13 [women] and 10 slaves. Suta (Seti) the Commissioner of the king has come to me: 21 female slaves and 20 male slaves captured in war have been given into the hands of Suta as a gift for the king my lord, as the king has ordained for his country. The country of the king is being destroyed, all of it. Hostilities are carried on against me as far as the mountains of Seir (Joshua xv. 10) and the city of Gath-Karmel (Joshua xv. 55). All the other governors are at peace, but there is war against myself, since I see the foe, but I do not see the tears of the king my lord because war has been raised against me. While there is a ship in the midst of the sea, the arm (or oracle) of the Mighty King shall conquer the countries of Naharaim (Nakhrima) and Babylonia. But now the Confederates (Khabiri) are capturing the fortresses of the king. Not a single governor remains among them to the king my lord; all have perished. Behold, Turbazu, thy military officer, [has fallen] in the great gate of the city of Zelah (Josh, xviii. 28). Behold, Zimrida of Lachish has been murdered by the servants who have revolted against the king. Jephthah-Hadad, thy military officer, has been slain in the great gate of Zelah.... May the king [my lord] send help [to his country]! May the king turn his face to [his subjects]! May he despatch troops to [his] country! [Behold,] if no troops come this year, all the countries of the king my lord will be utterly destroyed. They do not say before the face of the king my lord that the country of the king my lord is destroyed, and that all the governors are destroyed, if no troops come this year. Let the king send a commissioner, and let him come to me, even to me, with auxiliary troops, and we will die with the king [our] lord.--[To] the secretary of the king my lord [speaks] Ebed-Tob [thy] servant. At [thy] feet [I prostrate myself]. Let a report of [my] words be laid before the king [my] lord. Thy [loyal] servant am I."
(II.) "To the king my lord thus speaks Ebed-Tob thy servant: at the feet of the king my lord seven times seven I prostrate myself. What have I done against the king my lord? They have slandered me, laying wait for me in the presence of the king, the lord, saying: Ebed-Tob has revolted from the king his lord. Behold, neither my father nor my mother has exalted me in this place; the prophecy of the Mighty King has caused me to enter the house of my father. Why should I have committed a sin against the king the lord? With the king my lord is life. I say to the officer of the king [my] lord: Why dost thou love the Confederates and hate the governors? And constantly I am sending to the presence of the king my lord to say that the countries of the king my lord are being destroyed. Constantly I am sending to the king my lord, and let the king my lord consider, since the king my lord has appointed the men of the guard who have taken the fortresses. Let Yikhbil-Khamu [be sent].... Let the king send help to his country. [Let him send troops] to his country which protects the fortresses of the king my lord, all of them, since Elimelech is destroying all the country of the king; and let the king send help to his country. Behold, I have gone down along with the king my lord, and I have not seen the tears of the king my lord; but hostility is strong against me, yet I have not taken anything whatever from the king my lord; and let the king incline towards my face; let him despatch a guard [for me], and let him appoint a commissioner, and I shall not see the tears of the king my lord, since the king [my] lord shall live when the commissioner has departed. Behold, the countries of the king [my lord] are being destroyed, yet thou dost not listen to me.
All the governors are destroyed; no governor remains to the king the lord. Let the king turn his face to his subjects, and let him send auxiliaries, even the troops of the king my lord. No provinces remain unto the king; the confederates have wasted all the provinces of the king. If auxiliaries come this year, the provinces of the king the lord will be preserved; but if no auxiliaries come the provinces of the king my lord are destroyed.--[To] the secretary of the king my lord Ebed-Tob [says:] Give a report of my words to the king my lord: the provinces of the king my lord are being destroyed by the enemy."
(III.) "[To] the king my lord [speaks] Ebed-Tob [thy] servant: [at the feet of the king] my lord seven [times seven I prostrate myself. Behold, let] the king [listen to] the words [of his servant].... Let [the king]
consider all the districts which are leagued in hostility against me, and let the king send help to his country. Behold, the country of the city of Gezer, the country of the city of Ashkelon and the city of La[chish] have given as their peace offerings food and oil and whatsoever the fortress needs. And let the king send help to his troops; let him despatch troops against the men who have rebelled against the king my lord. If troops come this year, there will remain both provinces [and] governors to the king my lord; [but] if no troops arrive, there will remain no provinces or governors to the king [my lord]. Behold, neither my father nor my mother has given this country of the city of Jerusalem unto me: it was an oracle [of the Mighty King] that gave it to me, even to me. Behold, Malchiel and the sons of Labai have given the country of the king to the Confederates. Behold, the king my lord is righteous towards me. As to the Babylonians, let the king ask the commissioner how very strong is the temple-[fortress of Jerusalem.]....
Thou hast delivered (?) the provinces into the hands of the city of Ash[kelon]. Let the king demand of them abundance of food, abundance of oil, and abundance of wine until Pa-ur, the commissioner of the king, comes up to the country of the city of Jerusalem to deliver Adai along with the garrison and the [rest of the people]. Let the king consider the [instructions] of the king; [let him] speak to me; let Adai deliver me--Thou wilt not desert it, even this city, sending to me a garrison [and] sending a royal commissioner. Thy grace [is] to send [them]. To the king [my lord] I have despatched [a number of] prisoners [and a number of] slaves. [I have looked after] the roads of the king in the plain (_kikkar_, Gen. xiii. 10) and in the mountains. Let the king my lord consider the city of Ajalon. I am not able to direct my way to the king my lord according to his instructions. Behold, the king has established his name in the country of Jerusalem for ever, and he cannot forsake the territories of the city of Jerusalem.--To the secretary of the king my lord thus speaks Ebed-Tob thy servant. At thy feet I prostrate myself. Thy servant am I. Lay a report of my words before the king my lord. The va.s.sal of the king am I. Mayest thou live long!--And thou hast performed deeds which I cannot enumerate against the men of the land of Ethiopia.... The men of the country of the Babylonians [shall never enter] into my house...."
(IV.) (The beginning of the letter is lost, and it is not certain that Ebed-Tob was the writer of it.) "And now as to the city of Jerusalem, if this country is still the king"s, why is Gaza made the seat of the king"s government? Behold, the district of the city of Gath-Carmel has fallen away to Tagi and the men of Gath. He is in Bit-Sani (Beth-Sannah), and we have effected that they should give Labai and the country of the Sute to the men of the district of the Confederates.
Malchiel has sent to Tagi and has seized some boy-slaves. He has granted all their requests to the men of Keilah, and we have delivered (or departed from) the city of Jerusalem. The garrison thou hast left in it is under the command of Apis the son of Miya-riya (Meri-Ra). Hadad-el has remained in his house in Gaza...."
(V.) "To the king my lord thus [speaks] Ebed-Tob thy servant: at the feet of my lord [the king] seven times seven [I prostrate myself].
Behold, Malchiel does not separate himself from the sons of Labai and the sons of Arzai to demand the country of the king for themselves. As for the governor who acts thus, why does not the king question him?
Behold, Malchiel and Tagi are they who have acted so, since they have taken the city of Rubute (Rabbah, Josh. xv. 60).... (Many lines are lost here.) There is no royal garrison [in Jerusalem]. May the king live eternally! Let Pa-ur go down to him. He has departed in front of me and is in the city of Gaza; and let the king send to him a guard to defend the country. All the country of the king has revolted! Direct Yikhbil-Khamu [to come], and let him consider the country of the king [my lord].--To the secretary of the king [my lord] thus [speaks]
Ebed-Tob thy servant: [at thy feet I prostrate myself]. Lay [a report]
of my words [before] the king. Mayest thou live long! Thy servant am I."
(VI.) "[To] the king my lord thus speaks Ebed-Tob thy servant: at the feet of the king my lord seven times seven I prostrate myself. [The king knows the deed] which they have done, even Malchiel and Su-ardatum, against the country of the king my lord, commanding the forces of the city of Gezer, the forces of the city of Gath, and the forces of the city of Keilah. They have seized the district of the city of Rabbah. The country of the king has gone over to the Confederates. And now at this moment the city of the mountain of Jerusalem, the city of the temple of the G.o.d Nin-ip, whose name is Salim (?)," (Or, adopting the reading of Dr. Zimmern, "The city whose name is Bit-Nin-ip.") "the city of the king, is gone over to the side of the men of Keilah. Let the king listen to Ebed-Tob thy servant, and let him despatch troops and restore the country of the king to the king. But if no troops arrive, the country of the king is gone over to the men even to the Confederates. This is the deed [of Su-ar]datun and Malchiel...."
The loyalty of Ebed-Tob, however, seems to have been doubted at the Egyptian court, where more confidence was placed in his rival and enemy Su-ardata (or Su-yardata, as the owner of the name himself writes it).
Possibly the claim of the va.s.sal-king of Jerusalem to have been appointed to his royal office by the "Mighty King" rather than by the "great king" of Egypt, and consequently to be an ally of the Pharaoh and not an ordinary governor, may have had something to do with the suspicions that were entertained of him. At all events we learn from a letter of Su-yardata that the occupation of Keilah by Ebed-Tob"s enemies, of which the latter complains so bitterly, was due to the orders of the Egyptian government itself. Su-yardata there says--"The king [my lord] directed me to make war in the city of Keilah: war was made; (and now) a complaint is brought against me. My city against myself has risen upon me. Ebed-Tob sends to the men of the city of Keilah; he sends silver, and they have marched against my rear. And the king knows that Ebed-Tob has taken my city from my hand." The writer adds that "now Labai has taken Ebed-Tob and they have taken our cities."
In his subsequent despatches to the home government Su-yardata complains that he is "alone," and asks that troops should be sent to him, saying that he is forwarding some _almehs_ or maidens as a present along with his "dragoman." At this point the correspondence breaks off.
Malchiel and Tagi also write to the Pharaoh. According to Tagi the roads between Southern Palestine and Egypt were under the supervision and protection of his brother; while Malchiel begs for cavalry to pursue and capture the enemy who had made war upon Su-yardata and himself, had seized "the country of the king," and threatened to slay his servants.
He also complains of the conduct of Yankhamu, the High Commissioner, who had been ordered to inquire into the conduct of the governors in Palestine. Yankhamu, it seems, had seized Malchiel"s property and carried off his wives and children. It was doubtless to this act of injustice that Labai alludes in his letter of exculpation.
The territory of which Jerusalem was the capital extended southward as far as Carmel of Judah, Gath-Carmel as it is called by Ebed-Tob, as well as in the geographical lists of Thothmes III., while on the west it reached to Keilah, Kabbah, and Mount Seir. No mention is made of Hebron either in the Tel el-Amarna letters or in the Egyptian geographical lists, which are earlier than the rise of the nineteenth dynasty. The town must therefore have existed under some other name, or have been in the hands of a power hostile to Egypt.
The name of Hebron has the same origin as that of the Khabiri, who appear in Ebed-Tob"s letters by the side of Labai, Babylonia, and Naharaim as the a.s.sailants of Jerusalem and its territory. The word means "Confederates," and occurs in the a.s.syrian texts; among other pa.s.sages in a hymn published by Dr. Brunnow, where we read, _istu pan khabiri-ya iptarsanni_, "from the face of my a.s.sociates he has cut me off." The word, however, is not a.s.syrian, as in that case it would have had a different form, but must have been borrowed from the Canaanitish language of the West.
Who the Khabiri or "Confederates" were has been disputed. Some scholars see in them Elamite marauders who followed the march of the Babylonian armies to Syria. This opinion is founded on the fact that the Khabiri are once mentioned as an Elamite tribe, and that in a Babylonian doc.u.ment a "Khabirite" (_Khabira_) is referred to along with a "Ka.s.site"
or Babylonian. Another view is that they are to be identified with Heber, the grandson of Asher (Gen. xlvi. 17), since Malchiel is said to be the brother of Heber, just as in the letters of Ebed-Tob Malchiel is a.s.sociated with the Khabiri. But all such identifications are based upon the supposition that "Khabiri" is a proper name rather than a descriptive t.i.tle. Any band of "Confederates" could be called Khabiri whether in Elam or in Palestine, and it does not follow that the two bands were the same. In the "Confederates" of Southern Canaan we have to look for a body of confederated tribes who made themselves formidable to the governor of Jerusalem in the closing days of the Egyptian empire.
It would seem that Elimelech, who of course was a different person from Malchiel, was their leader, and as Elimelech is a Canaanitish name, we may conclude that the majority of his followers were also of Canaanitish descent. The scene of their hostilities was to the south of Jerusalem.
Gath-Carmel, Zelah, and Lachish are the towns mentioned in connection with their attempts to capture and destroy "the fortresses of the king."
"The country of the king" which had "gone over to the Confederates" was the territory over which Ebed-Tob claimed rule, while the district occupied by Labai and his Beduin followers was handed over "to the men of the district of the Confederates." The successes of the latter were gained through the intrigues of Malchiel and the sons of Labai.
All this leads us to the neighbourhood of Hebron, and suggests the question whether "the district of the Confederates" was not that of which Hebron, "the Confederacy," was the central meeting-place and sanctuary. Hebron has preserved its sacred character down to the present day; it long disputed with Jerusalem the claim of being the oldest and most hallowed shrine in Southern Palestine, and it was for many years the capital of Judah, Moreover, we know that "Hebron" was not the only name the city possessed. When Abram was "confederate" with the three Amorite chieftains it was known as Mamre (Gen. xiii. 18), and at a later day under the rule of the three sons of Anak it was called Kirjath-Arba.
According to the Biblical narrative Hebron was at once Amorite, Hitt.i.te, and Canaanite. Here, therefore, there was a confederation of tribes and races who would have met together at a common sanctuary. When Ezekiel says that Jerusalem was both Hitt.i.te and Amorite in its parentage, he may have been referring to its conquest and settlement by such a confederacy as that of Hebron. At all events we learn from Su-yardata"s letter that Ebed-Tob eventually fell into the hands of his enemies; he was captured by Labai, and it is possible that his city became at the same time the prey of the Khabiri.
But all this is speculation, which may or may not prove to be correct.
All we can be sure of is that the Khabiri or "Confederates" had their seat in the southern part of Palestine, and that we need not go outside Canaan to discover who they were. Ebed-Tob, at all events, carefully distinguishes them from either the Babylonians or the people of Naharaim.
In his letters, as everywhere else in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence, the Babylonians are called Ka.s.si or Ka.s.sites. The name is written differently in the cuneiform texts from that of the Ethiopians, the Kash of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Both, however, are alike represented in Hebrew by Cush, and hence we have not only a Cush who is the brother of Mizrairn, but also another Cush who is the father of Nimrod. The name of the latter takes us back to the age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets.
Nahrima, or Naharaim, was the name by which the kingdom of Mitanni was known to its Canaanite and Egyptian neighbours. Mitanni, in fact, was its capital, and it may be that Lutennu (or Lotan), as the Egyptians called Syria and Palestine, was but a misp.r.o.nunciation of it. Along with the Babylonians the people of Naharaim had made themselves formidable to the inhabitants of Canaan, and their name was feared as far south as Jerusalem. Even the governor of the Canaanite town of Musikhuna, not far from the Sea of Galilee, bore the Mitannian name of Sutarna. It was not, indeed, until after the Israelitish conquest that the last invasion of Canaan by a king of Aram-Naharaim took place.
Gaza and Joppa were at one time under the same governor, Yabitiri, who in a letter which has come down to us asks to be relieved of the burden of his office. Ashkelon, however, which lay between the two sea-ports, was in the hands of another prefect, Yidya by name, from whom we have several letters, in one of which mention is made of the Egyptian commissioner Rianap, or Ra-nofer. The jurisdiction of Rianap extended as far north as the plain of Megiddo, since he is also referred to by Pu-Hadad, the governor of Yurza, now Yerzeh, south-eastward of Taanach.
But it was more particularly in the extreme south of Palestine that the duties of this officer lay. Hadad-dan, who was entrusted with the government of Manahath and Tamar, to the west of the Dead Sea, calls him "my Commissioner" in a letter in which he complains of the conduct of a certain Beya, the son of "the woman Gulat." Hadad-dan begins by saying that he had protected the commissioner and cities of the king, and then adds that "the city of Tumur is hostile to me, and I have built a house in the city of Mankhate, so that the household troops of the king my lord may be sent to me; and lo, Baya has taken it from my hand, and has placed his commissioner in it, and I have appealed to Rianap, my commissioner, and he has restored the city unto me, and has sent the household troops of the king my lord to me." After this the writer goes on to state that Beya had also intrigued against the city of Gezer, "the handmaid of the king my lord who created me." The rebel then carried off a quant.i.ty of plunder, and it became necessary to ransom his prisoners for a hundred pieces of silver, while those of his confederate were ransomed for thirty pieces of silver.
The misdeeds of Beya or Baya did not end here. We hear of him again as attacking and capturing a body of soldiers who had been sent to defend the royal palace at Joppa, and as occupying that city itself. He was, however, subsequently expelled from it by the king"s orders. Beya, too, professed to be an Egyptian governor and a faithful servant of the Pharaoh, to whom he despatched a letter to say that Yankhamu, the High Commissioner, was not in his district. Probably this was in answer to a charge brought against him by the Egyptian officer.
The official duties of Yankhamu extended over the whole of Palestine, and all the governors of its cities were accountable to him. We find him exercising his authority not only in the south, but also in the north, at Zemar and Gebal, and even among the Amorites. Amon-apt, to whom the superintendence of Phoenicia was more particularly entrusted, was supplied by him with corn, and frequent references are made to him in the letters of Rib-Hadad. Malchiel complained of his high-handed proceedings, and the complaint seems to have led to some confidential inquiries on the part of the home government, since we find a certain Sibti-Hadad writing in answer to the Pharaoh"s questions that Yankhamu was a faithful servant of the king.
The country east of the Jordan also appears to have been within his jurisdiction. At all events the following letter was addressed to him by the governor Mut-Hadad, "the man of Hadad." "To Yankhamu my lord thus speaks Mut-Hadad thy servant: at the feet of my lord I prostrate myself.
Since Mut-Hadad has declared in thy presence that Ayab has fled, and it is certified (?) that the king of Bethel has fled from before the officers of the king his lord, may the king my lord live, may the king my lord live! I pray thee ask Ben-enima, ask ... tadua, ask Isuya, if Ayab has been in this city of Bethel for [the last] two months. Ever since the arrival of [the image of] the G.o.d Merodach, the city of Astarti (Ashtaroth-Karnaim) has been a.s.sisted, because all the fortresses of the foreign land are hostile, namely, the cities of Udumu (Edom), Aduri (Addar), Araru, Mestu (Mosheh), Magdalim (Migdol), Khinianabi ("En han-nabi), Zarki-tsabtat, Khaini ("En), and Ibi-limma (Abel). Again after thou hadst sent a letter to me I sent to him (i.e.
Ayab), [to wait] until thy arrival from thy journey; and he reached the city of Bethel and [there] they heard the news."
We learn from this letter that Edom was a "foreign country" unsubdued by the Egyptian arms. The "city of Edom," from which the country took its name, is again mentioned in the inscriptions of the a.s.syrian king Esar-haddon, and it was there that the a.s.syrian tax-gatherers collected the tribute of the Edomite nation. It would seem that the land of Edom stretched further to the north in the age of Khu-n-Aten than it did at a subsequent period of history, and that it encroached upon what was afterwards the territory of Moab. The name of the latter country is met with for the first time among the Asiatic conquests of Ramses II.
engraved on the base of one of the colossal figures which stand in front of the northern pylon of the temple of Luxor; when the Tel el-Amarna letters were written Moab was included in the Canaanite province of Egypt.
A curious letter to Khu-n-Aten from Burnaburyas, the Babylonian king, throws a good deal of light on the nature of the Egyptian government in Canaan. Between the predecessors of the two monarchs there had been alliance and friendly intercourse, and nevertheless the Canaanitish subjects of the Pharaoh had committed an outrageous crime against some Babylonian merchants, which if left unpunished would have led to a rupture between the two countries. The merchants in question had entered Palestine under the escort of the Canaanite Ahitub, intending afterwards to visit Egypt. At en-athon, near Acre, however, "in the country of Canaan," Sum-Adda, or Shem-Hadad, the son of Balumme (Balaam), and Sutatna, or Zid-athon, the son of Saratum, [His name is written Zurata in the letter of Biridi, the governor of Megiddo; see above, p. 135.]
who was governor of Acre, set upon them, killing some of them, maltreating others, and carrying away their goods. Burna-buryas therefore sent a special envoy, who was instructed to lay the following complaint before the Pharaoh: "Canaan is thy country and the king [of Acre is thy servant]. In thy country I have been injured; do thou punish [the offenders]. The silver which they carried off was a present [for thee], and the men who are my servants they have slain. Slay them and requite the blood [of my servants]. But if thou dost not put these men to death, [the inhabitants] of the high-road that belongs to me will turn and verily will slay thy amba.s.sadors, and a breach will be made in the agreement to respect the persons of amba.s.sadors, and I shall be estranged from thee. Shem-Hadad, having cut off the feet of one of my men, has detained him with him; and as for another man, Sutatna of Acre made him stand upon his head and then stood upon his face."
There are three letters in the Tel el-Amarna collection from Sutatna, or Zid-atna ("the G.o.d Zid has given") as he writes his name, in one of which he compares Akku or Acre with "the city of Migdol in Egypt."
Doubtless satisfaction was given to the Babylonian king for the wrong that had been done to his subjects, though whether the actual culprits were punished may be questioned. There is another letter from Burna-buryas, in which reference is again made to the Canaanites. He there a.s.serts that in the time of his father, Kurigalzu, they had sent to the Babylonian sovereign, saying: "Go down against Qannisat and let us rebel." Kuri-galzu, however, had refused to listen to them, telling them that if they wanted to break away from the Egyptian king and ally themselves "with another," they must find some one else to a.s.sist them.
Burna-buryas goes on to declare that he was like-minded with his father, and had accordingly despatched an a.s.syrian va.s.sal to a.s.sure the Pharaoh that he would carry on no intrigues with disaffected Canaanites. As the first part of his letter is filled with requests for gold for the adornment of a temple he was building at Babylon, such an a.s.surance was very necessary. The despatches of Rib-Hadad and Ebed-Tob, however, go to show that in spite of his professions of friendship, the Babylonian monarch was ready to afford secret help to the insurgents in Palestine.
The Babylonians were not likely to forget that they had once been masters of the country, or to regard the Egyptian empire in Asia with other than jealous eyes.
The Tel el-Amarna correspondence breaks off suddenly in the midst of a falling empire, with its governors in Canaan fighting and intriguing one against the other, and appealing to the Pharaoh for help that never came. The Egyptian commissioners are vainly endeavouring to restore peace and order, like General Gordon in the Soudan, while Babylonians and Mitannians, Hitt.i.tes and Beduin are a.s.sailing the distracted province. The Asiatic empire of the eighteenth dynasty, however, did not wholly perish with the death of Khu-n-Aten. A picture in the tomb of prince Hui at Thebes shows that under the reign of his successor, Tut-ankh-Amon, the Egyptian supremacy was still acknowledged in some parts of Syria. The chiefs of the Lotan or Syrians are represented in their robes of many colours, some with white and others with brown skins, and coming before the Egyptian monarch with the rich tribute of their country. Golden trays full of precious stones, vases of gold and silver, the covers of which are in the form of the heads of gazelles and other animals, golden rings richly enamelled, horses, lions, and a leopard"s skin--such are the gifts which they offer to the Pharaoh. It was the last emba.s.sy of the kind which was destined to come from Syria for many a day.
With the rise of the nineteenth dynasty and the restoration of a strong government at home, the Egyptians once more began to turn their eyes towards Palestine. Seti I. drove the Beduin before him from the frontiers of Egypt to those of "Canaan," and established a line of fortresses and wells along "the way of the Philistines," which ran by the sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean to Gaza. The road was now open for him to the north along the sea-coast. We hear accordingly of his capture of Acre, Tyre, and Usu or Palaetyros, from whence he marched into the Lebanon and took k.u.midi and Inu"am. One of his campaigns must have led him into the interior of Palestine, since in his list of conquered cities we find the names of Carmel and Beth-anoth, of Beth-el and Pahil or Pella, as well as of Qamham or Chimham (see Jer. xli. 17). Kadesh, "in the land of the Amorites," was captured by a sudden a.s.sault, and Seti claims to have defeated or received the submission of Alasiya and Naharaim, the Hitt.i.tes and the a.s.syrians, Cyprus and Sangar. It would seem, however, that north of Kadesh he really made his way only along the coast as far as the Gulf of Antioch and Cilicia, overrunning towns and districts of which we know little more than the names.
Seti was succeeded by his son Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the Oppression, and the builder of Pithom and Ramses. His long reign of sixty-seven years lasted from 1348 B.C. to 1281 B.C. The first twenty-one years of it were occupied in the re-conquest of Palestine, and sanguinary wars with the Hitt.i.tes. But these mountaineers of the north had established themselves too firmly in the old Egyptian province of Northern Syria to be dislodged. All the Pharaoh could effect was to stop their further progress towards the south, and to save Canaan from their grasp. The war between the two great powers of Western Asia ended at last through the sheer exhaustion of the rival combatants. A treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, was drawn up between Ramses II. and Khata-sil, "the great king of the Hitt.i.tes," and it was cemented by the marriage of the Pharaoh to the daughter of the Hitt.i.te prince. Syria was divided between the Hitt.i.tes and Egyptians, and it was agreed that neither should under any pretext invade the territories of the other. It was also agreed that if either country was attacked by foreign foes or rebellious subjects, the other should come to its help. Political refugees, moreover, were to be delivered up to the sovereign from whom they had escaped, but it was stipulated that in this case they should receive a full pardon for the offences they had committed. The Hitt.i.te copy of the treaty was engraved on a silver plate, and the G.o.ds of Egypt and the Hitt.i.tes were called upon to witness the execution of it.
The legendary exploits of Sesostris, that creation of Greek fancy and ignorance, were fastened upon Ramses II., whose long reign, inordinate vanity, and ceaseless activity as a builder made him one of the most prominent of the old Pharaohs. It was natural, therefore, at the beginning of hieroglyphic decipherment that the Greek accounts should be accepted in full, and that Ramses II. should have been regarded as the greatest of Egyptian conquerors. But further study soon showed that, in this respect at least, his reputation had little to support it. Like his monuments, too many of which are really stolen from his predecessors, or else sacrifice honesty of work to haste and pretentiousness, a large part of the conquests and victories that have been claimed for him was due to the imagination of the scribes. In the reaction which followed on this discovery, the modern historians of ancient Egypt were disposed to dispute his claim to be a conqueror at all. But we now know that such a scepticism was exaggerated, and though Ramses II. was not a conqueror like Thothmes III., he nevertheless maintained and extended the Asiatic empire which his father had recovered, and the lists of vanquished cities which he engraved on the walls of his temples were not mere repet.i.tions of older catalogues, or the empty fictions of flattering chroniclers. Egyptian armies really marched once more into Northern Syria and the confines of Cilicia, and probably made their way to the banks of the Euphrates. We have no reason for denying that a.s.syrian troops may have been defeated by his arms, or that the king of Mitanni may have sent an emba.s.sy to his court. And we now have a good deal more than the indirect evidence of the treaty with the Hitt.i.tes to show that Canaan was again a province of the Egyptian empire. The names of some of its cities which were captured in the early part of the Pharaoh"s reign may still be read on the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes. Among them are Ashkelon, Shalam or Jerusalem, Merom, and Beth-Anath, which were taken by storm in his eighth year. Dapul, "in the land of the Amorites,"
was captured at the same time, proving that the Egyptian forces penetrated as far as the Hitt.i.te frontiers. At Luxor other Canaanite names figure in the catalogue of vanquished states. Thus we have Carmel of Judah, Ir-shemesh and Hadashah (Josh. xv. 37), Gaza, Sela and Jacob-el, Socho, Yurza, and Korkha in Moab. The name of Moab itself appears for the first time among the subject nations, while we gather from a list of mining settlements, that Cyprus as well as the Sinaitic peninsula was under Egyptian authority.
A sarcastic account of the misadventures of a military officer in Palestine, which was written in the time of Ramses, is an evidence of the complete occupation of that country by the Egyptians. All parts of Canaan are alluded to in it, and as Dr. Max Muller has lately pointed out, we find in it for the first time the names of Shechem and Kirjath-Sepher. Similar testimony is borne by a hieroglyphic inscription recently discovered by Dr. Schumacher on the so-called "Stone of Job" in the Hauran. The stone (_Sakhrat "Ayyub_) is a monolith westward of the Sea of Galilee, and not far from Tel "Ashtereh, the ancient Ashtaroth-Karnaim, which was a seat of Egyptian government in the time of Khu-n-Aten. The monolith is adorned with Egyptian sculptures and hieroglyphs. One of the sculptures represents a Pharaoh above whose likeness is the cartouche of Ramses II., while opposite the king, to the left, is the figure of a G.o.d who wears the crown of Osiris, but has a full face. Over the G.o.d is his name in hieroglyphics. The name, however, is not Egyptian, but seems to be intended for the Canaanite Yakin-Zephon or "Yakin of the North." It is plain, therefore, that we have here a monument testifying to the rule of Ramses II., but a monument which was erected by natives of the country to a native divinity. For a while the hieroglyphic writing of Egypt had taken the place formerly occupied by the cuneiform syllabary of Babylonia, and Egyptian culture had succeeded in supplanting that which had come from the East.
The nineteenth dynasty ended even more disastrously than the eighteenth.
It is true that the great confederacy of northern and Libyan tribes which attacked Egypt by sea and land in the reign of Meneptah, the son and successor of Ramses II., was successfully repulsed, but the energy of the Egyptian power seemed to exhaust itself in the effort. The throne fell into the hands of usurpers, and the house of Ramses was swept away by civil war and anarchy. The government was seized by a Syrian, Arisu by name, and for a time Egypt was compelled to submit to a foreign yoke.
The overthrow of the foreigner and the restoration of the native monarchy was due to the valour of Set-nekht, the founder of the twentieth dynasty and the father of Ramses III.
It was under one of the immediate successors of Ramses II. that the exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt must have taken place. Egyptian tradition pointed to Meneptah; modern scholars incline rather to his successors Seti II. and Si-Ptah. With this event the patriarchal history of Canaan ought properly to come to an end. But the Egyptian monuments still cast light upon it, and enable us to carry it on almost to the moment when Joshua and his followers entered the Promised Land.
Palestine still formed part of the kingdom of Meneptah, at all events in the earlier years of his reign. A scribe has left us a record of the officials who pa.s.sed to and from Canaan through the frontier fortress of Zaru during the middle of the month Pakhons in the third year of the king. One of these was Baal- ... the son of Zippor of Gaza, who carried a letter for the Egyptian overseer of the Syrian peasantry (or Perizzites), as well as another for Baal-[sa]lil-ga[b]u, the va.s.sal-prince of Tyre. Another messenger was Sutekh-mes, the son of "Aper-dagar, who also carried a despatch to the overseer of the peasantry, while a third envoy came in the reverse direction, from the city of Meneptah, "in the land of the Amorites."
In the troubles which preceded the accession of the twentieth dynasty the Asiatic possessions of Egypt were naturally lost, and were never again recovered. Ramses III., however, the last of the conquering Pharaohs, made at least one campaign in Palestine and Syria. Like Meneptah, he had to bear the brunt of an attack upon Egypt by the confederated hordes of the north which threatened to extinguish its civilization altogether. The nations of Asia Minor and the aegean Sea had poured into Syria as the northern barbarians in later days poured into the provinces of the Roman Empire. Partly by land, partly by sea, they made their way through Phoenicia and the land of the Hitt.i.tes, destroying everything as they went, and carrying in their train the subjugated princes of Naharaim and Kadesh. For a time they encamped in the "land of the Amorites," and then pursued their southward march.
Ramses III. met them on the north-eastern frontier of his kingdom, and in a fiercely-contested battle utterly overthrew them. The ships of the invaders were captured or sunk, and their forces on land were decimated.
Immense quant.i.ties of booty and prisoners were taken, and the shattered forces of the enemy retreated into Syria. There the Philistines and Zakkal possessed themselves of the sea-coast, and garrisoned the cities of the extreme south. Gaza ceased to be an Egyptian fortress, and became instead an effectual barrier to the Egyptian occupation of Canaan.
When Ramses III. followed the retreating invaders of his country into Syria, it is doubtful whether the Philistines had as yet settled themselves in their future home. At all events Gaza fell into his hands, and he found no difficulty in marching along the Mediterranean coast like the conquering Pharaohs who had preceded him. In his temple palace at Medinet Habu he has left a record of the conquests that he made in Syria. The great cities of the coast were untouched. No attempt was made to besiege or capture Tyre and Sidon, Beyrout and Gebal, and the Egyptian army marched past them, encamping on the way only at such places as "the headland of Carmel," "the source of the Magoras," or river of Beyrout, and the Bor or "Cistern." Otherwise its resting-places were at unknown villages like Inzath and Lui-el. North of Beyrout it struck eastward through the gorge of the Nahr el-Kelb, and took the city of k.u.midi. Then it made its way by Shenir or Hermon to Hamath, which surrendered, and from thence still northward to "the plain" of Aleppo.
In the south of Palestine, in what was afterwards the territory of Judah, Ramses made yet another campaign. Here he claims to have taken Lebanoth and Beth-Anath, Carmel of Judah and Shebtin, Jacob-el and Hebron, Libnah and Aphek, Migdal-gad and Ir-Shemesh, Hadashah and the district of Salem or Jerusalem. From thence the Egyptian forces proceeded to the Lake of Reshpon or the Dead Sea, and then crossing the Jordan seized Korkha in Moab. But the campaign was little more than a raid; it left no permanent results behind it, and all traces of Egyptian authority disappeared with the departure of the Pharaoh"s army. Canaan remained the prey of the first resolute invader who had strength and courage at his back.