New Series, vol. v.] The Hittites were thus seated in a region north of
Palestine proper; but they appear to have had colonies in the country,
and it is these isolated settlements which are classed with the small
nations of Canaan by the Bible writer. When Abraham, at Hebron,
required a parcel of earth in which to bury his wife Sarah, he bought
it of Ephron the Hittite; whence it is clear that there were Hittites
owning land in the south. From the mention of Hebron in association
with Zoan in Numbers xiii. 22, it is even suspected that the Shepherd
Kings who reigned in Zoan were a dynasty of Hittites. At any rate the
Hittites were a powerful people, able to hold their own both against
the Egyptians and against the Assyrians, and did so in the region of
Carchemish for a thousand years.
Thothmes III., “the Egyptian Alexander,” who accomplished thirteen
campaigns in twenty years, and made Egypt the centre of history,
invaded Palestine and gained a victory at Megiddo over the king of
Kadesh and his allies. “They fled, head over heels, to Megiddo, with
terror in their countenances, and left behind their horses and their
gold and silver chariots, and were drawn up, with ropes to their
clothes, into this town, since the people had closed the gates of the
said town on account of the deeds of the king.” “The miserable king
of Kadesh” and the miserable king of Megiddo would not have escaped
in this way, only that the Egyptian warriors relaxed the pursuit and
engaged in plunder. The Pharaoh was beside himself. However, the
warriors captured the tent of the miserable king, in which his son was
found. Then they raised a shout of joy and gave honour to Amon, the
lord of Thebes, who had given to his son Thothmes the victory. After
this the neighbouring kings came together to worship before Pharaoh,
“and to implore breath for their nostrils.” And then came the children
of the kings and presented gifts of silver, gold, blue-stone, and
green-stone; they brought also wheat, and wine in skins, and fruits
for the warriors of the king, since each of the Kitti [Hittites] had
taken care to have such provisions for his return home. Then the king
pardoned the foreign princes.
A catalogue of the booty includes 3401 living prisoners, 83 hands, 2041
mares, 191 foals, 6 bulls, one chariot, covered with plates of gold, of
the king of ..., 892 chariots of his miserable warriors, one beautiful
iron armour of the hostile king, one beautiful iron armour of the king
of Megiddo, 200 accoutrements of his miserable warriors, 602 bows, 7
tent-poles covered with plates of gold from the tent of the hostile
king. Pharaoh’s warriors had also taken as booty ... bulls, ... cows,
2000 kids, and 20,500 white goats.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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