Descended from Cheth or Heth, second son of Canaan. (See HETH.) A peaceable and commercial people when first brought before us at Kirjath Arba or Hebron (Genesis 23:19; Genesis 25:9). Their courteous dignity of bearing towards Abraham is conspicuous throughout. As he took the Amorites as his allies in warfare, so he sought: from the Hittites a tomb. The Amalekites' advance necessitated their withdrawal to the mountains (Numbers 13:29). In Joshua (Joshua 1:4; Joshua 9:1; Joshua 11:3-4; Joshua 12:8) they appear as the principal power occupying upper Syria, between Israel and the Euphrates. The Egyptian monuments represent them (Sheta) as forming a confederacy of chiefs, Egypt's opponents in the valley of the Orontes, during the 19th and 20th dynasties of Manetho, including Joshua's time. Sethos I took their capital Ketesh near Emesa, 1340 B.C.
        Two or three centuries later the Assyrian inscription of Tiglath Pileser (1125 B.C.) mentions them. As the Philistines appear in Joshua (Joshua 13:3; Judges 3:3) predominant in S. Canaan toward Egypt, so the Hittites in the N. Their military power is represented in Joshua as consisting in chariots (1 Kings 10:29; 2 Kings 7:6). A hieroglyphic inscription of Rameses II mentions Astert (Ashtoreth) as their god. Uriah, the unsuspicious, self-denying patriot, whom David so wronged though of his own bodyguard "the thirty," was a Hittite, and showed the chivalrous bearing which Ephron the Hittite and his people had showed of old.
        The names of Hittites mentioned in Scripture, Adah, Ahimelech, etc., seem akin to Hebrew. (See HEBREW.) G. Smith has just discovered their capital lying about half way between the mighty cities of the Euphrates valley and those of the Nile. Their art forms the connecting link between Egyptian and Assyrian art. The name of their capital is identical with that of the Etruscans. This implies a connection of the Hittites with that people.