The fourteenth chapter of Genesis gives account of the battle of Abraham with these kings of Babylonia for the rescue of Lot, his nephew, in which he put the invaders to flight, establishing peace and security in the land. The names of these kings as given in the scripture narrative are Chedorlaomer, king of Elam; Amraphel, king of Shinar; Arioch, king of Ellasar, or Larsa, and Tidal, king of nations. These kings are now identified by Babylonian records, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, as Kudur-Lagomar, an Elamite king of that date; Arioch, king of Ellasar, with Eri-Aku, then king of Larsa. Amraphel, king of Shinar, is identified as Hammurabi, or Khammuragas, and Tidal, king of nations, as Thorgal, king of Gutium, a region to the north of Elam. The evident correspondence of these kings with Abraham’s contemporaries, furnish continued evidence of the political contacts of Babylonia and Canaan from the earliest times, and in many ways confirm the historical verities of the early scripture records. Another document, reflecting new light from the cuneiform inscriptions, is the last exhortation of Joshua to Israel assembled at Shechem. In the review he then gives of the history of his people, he says: “Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood—the Euphrates—in the old time; even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nahor, and they served other gods. “And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood and led him throughout all the land of Canaan. And I brought you into the land of the Amorites ✴ ✴ and I gave them into your hand; ✴ ✴ now, therefore, fear the Lord ✴ ✴ and serve him in sincerity and truth and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord.” The whole discourse bears internal evidence of a written report, fresh from the voice of the speaker. We now know that the functions of the scribe were as constantly employed as the modern reporter through all Babylonia and Assyria as well as Egypt at these early dates. Moses, who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, evidently had no lack of scribes among the Israelites. The Tel-el-Amarna tablets give evidence of the general practice of the art of writing through all Canaan before the days of Moses and Joshua. We have thus little need to refer to the period of the Babylonian captivity for the appearance of Accadian and Aramean words in early Hebrew history, or for the correspondences of Chaldean legends with scripture records. The origin of the documents which in Ezra’s time were collected and re-written in new form, were historical remnants surviving from the earlier periods to which they are assigned in history and tradition. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: HIEROGLYPHS AND TRANSLATION.] The order both of the columns and the hieroglyphs is from left to right. Verbally translated it reads: