The early history of the HebrewsSayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
History
The early history of the Hebrews
Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
Bible. Old Testament -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.; Jews -- History -- To 953 B.C.
Moab and Ammon were alike intruders in the lands which subsequently bore
their names. The older inhabitants of Moab were known as the Emim, ‘a
people great and many and tall, as the Anakim, which also were accounted
giants.’ Ammon too had been ‘accounted a land of giants: giants dwelt
therein in old time, and the Ammonites call them Zamzummim.’ The word
rendered ‘giants’ in the Authorised Version is Rephaim; and it is very
possible that a trace of it survives in the name On-Repha, ‘On of the
giant,’ the Raphon or Raphana of classical geography, which is coupled
by the Egyptian conqueror Thothmes III. with Astartu or
Ashteroth-Karnaim.[54] When Chedor-laomer made his campaign in Canaan
the Rephaim were still living at Ashteroth-Karnaim, and the ‘Zuzim’ or
Zamzummim in ‘Ham.’ The name of the latter seems to occur in the
inscriptions of the kings of Ur, who reigned some centuries before the
birth of Abraham; they mention hostile expeditions against the land of
Zavzala or the Zuzim; and a Babylonian high-priest who owned allegiance
to one of them brought blocks of limestone for his temples and palace
from the same district, which he tells us was situated ‘in the mountains
of the Amorites.’[55]
Whether or not the Emim and Zamzummim were Amorite tribes, we cannot
tell. The physical characteristics ascribed to them in the Old Testament
would, however, seem to indicate that such was the case. Moreover, the
Amorites had at one time been the dominant population, not only in
Palestine itself, but also in the country east of the Jordan as well as
in the Syrian districts to the north. When the Babylonians first became
acquainted with Western Asia in the fifth or fourth millennium before
the Christian era, the inhabitants of Syria were mainly of the Amorite
race. Syria, accordingly, and more especially that part of it which is
known to us as Palestine, was called in the old agglutinative language
of Chaldæa ‘the land of Martu’ or ‘the Amorite,’ a word which has
survived in the book of Genesis under the form of Moreh.[56] When the
older language of Chaldæa made way for Semitic Babylonian, _Martu_
became _Amurru_, and Hadad, the supreme Baal or sun-god of Canaan,
became known as ‘Amurru,’ ‘the Amorite.’ By the Egyptians the Amorites
were termed Amur; and, as has been already stated,[57] the Egyptian
artists have shown us that they were a fair-skinned people, with blue
eyes and reddish hair; that they were also tall and handsome, and wore
short and pointed beards. In fact, they resembled in features the
Libyans of Northern Africa, whose modern descendants—the Kabyles of
Algeria—offer such a striking likeness to the golden-haired Kelt. The
Amorite type may still be seen in its purity among the Arabs of the
El-Arîsh desert, who inhabit the district between the frontiers of
Palestine and Egypt: many of the latter, as we see them to-day, might
well have sat for the portraits of the Amorites depicted on the walls of
the old Egyptian temples and tombs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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