Since it has become evident that the Hittites were a great people, and not a petty local tribe like the Hivites or the Perizzites, scholars have naturally turned again to the Bible references to see what they really imply. On careful examination the Bible passages are seen to be all consistent with the idea that the Hebrew writers were well acquainted with the power and greatness of the Hittites. Their greatness is nowhere denied; on the contrary there are some passages which seem plainly to imply it. When Solomon imported horses and chariots from Egypt, he sold them to the kings of Syria and to “all the kings of the Hittites” (2 Chron. i. 16). Again, when Ben-hadad, king of Syria, was besieging Samaria, and the Syrians were smitten with panic, believing that they heard “a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host,” what nations did they suppose were alone able to send great hosts into the field with horses and chariots? They said one to another, “Lo, the King of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians” (2 Kings vii. 6). Further--to take an instance nearer to the age of Rameses II.--when the future wide inheritance of Israel is promised to Moses and to Joshua, the description runs thus:--“From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun”--words which had been regarded as a pictorial exaggeration, but which may now be looked upon as literally accurate (Deut. xi. 24; Josh. i. 4). Exploration and research are now making us acquainted with Hittite works of art and with inscriptions in the Hittite character and language; while, as already stated, we have Egyptian portraits of their soldiers on the Temple wall at Ibsamboul.