One of the main results, then, of recent discovery in the East has been to teach us the solidarity of ancient Oriental history, and the impossibility of forming a correct judgment in regard to any one part of it without reference to the rest. Hebrew history is unintelligible as long as it stands alone, and the attempt to interpret it apart and by itself has led to little else than false and one-sided conclusions; it is only when read in the light of the history of the great empires which flourished beside it that it can be properly understood. Israel and the nations around it formed a whole, so far as the historian is concerned, which, like the elements of a picture, cannot be torn asunder. If we would know the history of the one, we must know the history of the other also. And each year is adding to our knowledge; new monuments are being excavated, new inscriptions being read, and the revelations of to-day are surpassed by those of to-morrow. We have already learnt much, but it is only a commencement; Egypt is only now beginning to be scientifically explored, a few only of the multitudinous libraries of Babylonia have been brought to light, and the soil of Assyria has been little more than touched. Elsewhere, in Elam, in Mesopotamia, in Asia Minor, in Palestine itself, everything still remains to be done. The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few. We have, however, learnt some needful lessons. The historian has been warned against arguing from the imperfection of his own knowledge, and rejecting an ancient narrative merely because it seems unsupported by other testimony. He has been warned, too, against making his own prepossessions and assumptions the test of historical truth, of laying down that a reported fact could not have happened because it runs counter to what he assumes to have been the state of society in some particular age. Above all, the lesson of modesty has been impressed upon him, modesty in regard to the extent of his own knowledge and the fallibility of his own conclusions. It does not follow that what we imagine ought to have happened has happened in reality; on the contrary, the course of Oriental history has usually been very different from that dreamed of by the European scholar in the quietude of his study. If Oriental archæology has taught us nothing else, it has at least taught us how little we know. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. THE ISRAELITES II. CANAAN III. THE NATIONS OF THE SOUTH-EAST IV. THE NATIONS OF THE NORTH-EAST V. EGYPT VI. BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA VII. CONCLUSION APPENDICES CHAPTER I THE ISRAELITES Israel traced its origin to Babylonia. It was from "Ur of the Chaldees" that Abraham "the Hebrew" had come, the rock out of which it was hewn. Here on the western bank of the Euphrates was the earliest home of the Hebrews, of whom the Israelites claimed to be a part.