at Tanis, or Ha-uer, possibly also at Memphis, while the native princes of Thebes paid them tribute. Atlength a quarrel, which led to blows, broke out between Apepi and Sekennen Ra, who preserved the national traditions of the Thebaid; a quarrel partly about religion and partly about the water-courses. The war

which followed is supposed to have been ended by Amosis or Ahmes, the first king of the XVIIIth dynasty, who defeated and expelled the Hyksos.

66

What became of this great body of foreign warriors, 240,000 strong, after their defeat, is still an open question. Mr. Sayce, on the authority of Num. xiii., 29, which says that the Hittites dwell in the mountains, believes that Manetho had traditional authority for the statement that Jerusalem was built by the Hyksos after their expulsion from Egypt," and adds that “much is to be said, on the authority of Mariette and others, that the leaders of the Hyksos were Hittites." [Acad., 23 Oct., 1886.]

From the nature of the case we must not expect a rigid mathematical proof that the Hyksos were identical with the biblical Hittites; yet a few considerations lead us to suspect that they may have belonged to kindred

races.

1. The horse was known to the Egyptians only after the Hyksos invasion. The horse probably came from the Scythian heaths to Irania, thence to the Euphrates and the land of the Hittites.

2. In physiognomy there were so many points in common between Hyksos and Hittite that the presumption in favor of their close relationship is strong. Their high cheek bones, wide faces, flat noses, protruding lips

and retreating chins are an argument for racial kinship not easily refuted.

3. The vindictiveness with which the Pharaohs followed up the expulsion of the Hyksos for more than a century, with military expeditions to Kadesh, Hamath and Carchemish can be most naturally ascribed to revenge for injuries inflicted.

4. Those 240,000 Hyksos went somewhere, and wherever they went must have been a military power to be respected. There were not many distinct nations in Northern Syria, who could defy the power of Egypt on the one hand, and Assyria on the other.

5. Ever since the Hyksos invasion the Egyptian language has been mixed with Canaanitish words as never before. We know too little of the Hittite language, but almost the only proposition that is not questioned, is, that the ancestors of the men who made the tablets of Hamath and of Carchemish must sometime have been in Egypt.

6. Both Hyksos and Hittites worshipped the same God Set or Sutekh. He, and the Canaanite goddesses Baal Astarte and Anat Reshep, were first held in reverence on the Eastern Delta and then all over Egypt.

Max Müller has well said: "To know an ancient people, it is necessary to study their physical appearance, language and religion. A race may lose, to a certain extent its characteristic type, through difference of climate, of food, of habit, or through admixture of foreign blood. It may adopt a new foreign religion; it may forget its original language, but if we can find it preserving a type, a religion and a language which all belong to one original pure stock, we are then able to recognize

the relation of the stock to others of the same human family."

Accepting this dictum of Max Müller, we are authorized, for want of a better name, to call the Hyksos Hittites, yet remembering the Apostle's sage remark: "They are not all Israel that are of Israel," we cannot follow the history of these people across the ages without a break, or relate continuously the story of their political and social life. Our sources of information respecting them are four:

The first is the Bible. It speaks of two classes of Hittites: those of southern Palestine and those of the north, beyond the promised land. When Abraham led his Semitic tribe from Haran to Canaan, "the Hittites filled the land." (Gen. xxiii., 7) Of the few towns there built, a feeble branch of them occupied Hebron, near which was a cave that Abraham bought for a tomb. The lofty sentiment and polished courtesy under the cover of which they secured a large sum of money current with the merchant," for a worthless cave in a worthless field, mark them as a mercantile community in a high state of civilization. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob were all buried among the Hittites. Notwithstanding their consummate politeness, when Abraham needed help to fight Chedorlaomer, he went not to swarthy Hittites but to the white, blue-eyed Amorites.

In the book of Numbers (XIII. 22) it is said that "Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt." When we observe that the Hebrew word Hebron comes from Habar, "a companion," and that seven years after Hebron, a companion city was built in Egypt and called

by the same name, Ha-uer or Habar-from which comes the Greek Avaris, the presumption is strong that both cities were built by the same people, call them Hyksos or Hittites as we may.

The Hittites were said to be the sons of Heth. Heth from halat, in a causative sense (see Job. viii., 14) means “to terrify,” “to play the giant." This corresponds with the appearance of the statues of men and sphinxes, found at Avaris, and we know with what consternation the spies whom Moses sent to the land of Canaan returned saying: “All the men we saw are men of great stature, . . and we were in our sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."

However much the sons of Heth appear to be dreaded, his daughters were not less so. Rebecca said to Isaac: "I am weary of my life, because of the daughters of Heth. If Jacob takes a wife, such as these, of the daughters of the land, what good shall my life do me?" Perhaps her reference was to Judith and Bàshemath, the Hittite wives of Esau, and, therefore, the traditional relationship between young wives and their mother-in-law may have been of Hittite origin. We are indeed told that Solomon loved Hittite women, (1 Kings xi., 1) but this is a doubtful compliment.

There seems to be a special bitterness in Ez. xvi., 3, where, in an eloquent invective, Jerusalem is taunted with having an Amorite father, and, what is the meanest thing that could be said of any one, a Hittite mother. Prof. Sayce suggests that a Jebusite was a cross between an Amorite and a Hittite, but the only thing certain about this passage is that the Hittites had exerted too strong an influence over Jerusalem, perhaps an

hereditary influence, affecting (1) complexion and features, (2) faith and religion.

Another biblical passage (2 Sam. xxiv., 6.) clearly refers to the great body of the Hittites who dwelt in the North. When Joab and his captains went out from the presence of David to number the people, they came to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi. It is certain that this Tahtim Hodshi was to the extreme north of the kingdom of David. The exigencies of the account imply this; and if this be granted, the itinerary is perfectly intelligible, otherwise not.

From the east of the

Gad, to Jazer, to this

Jordan, Joab went to Aroer of Tahtim Hodshi, thence to Dan, to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon and then to Beersheba. This Tahtim Hodshi has been a puzzle to translators and commentators. The latest "revisers" seem to know no more about it than their predecessors, and have simply given us the Hebrew words in English letters. That the text is corrupt is evident from the fact that Tahtim is an adjective in the masculine plural, and cannot qualify Hodshi, a noun in the singular feminine. Leaving out of the account the Hebrew vowels, there is only the difference of one letter, between Tahtim and Hahtim. “Tau" and "he" are often confounded in manuscripts, especially if one happens to be badly formed. Hahittim is the land. of the Hittites. Cardinal Ximenes evidently supposes Hodshi to be a corruption for Kadesh, for he translates, (Complutensian Bible, tome II. f. xii.):

"They came to Gilead, and to the land of the Hittites of Kadesh." The identification of Hamath and Carchemish makes this translation perfectly reasonable.