hittites Summary and Overview

Israel and Syria appear to have been originally inhabited by three different tribes. (1.) The Semites, living on the east of the isthmus of Suez. They were nomadic and pastoral tribes. (2.) The Phoenicians, who were merchants and traders; and (3.) the Hittites, who were the warlike element of this confederation of tribes. They inhabited the whole region between the Euphrates and Damascus, their chief cities being Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Kadesh, now Tell Neby Mendeh, in the Orontes valley, about six miles south of the Lake of Homs. These Hittites seem to have risen to great power as a nation, as for a long time they were formidable rivals of the Egyptian and Assyrian empires. In the book of Joshua they always appear as the dominant race to the north of Galilee. Somewhere about the twenty-third century B.C. the Syrian confederation, led probably by the Hittites, arched against Lower Egypt, which they took possession of, making Zoan their capital. Their rulers were the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. They were at length finally driven out of Egypt. Rameses II. sought vengeance against the "vile Kheta," as he called them, and encountered and defeated them in the great battle of Kadesh, four centuries after Abraham. (See JOSHUA T0002114.) They are first referred to in Scripture in the history of Abraham, who bought from Ephron the Hittite the field and the cave of Machpelah (Gen. 15:20: 23:3-18). They were then settled at Kirjath-arba. From this tribe Esau took his first two wives (26:34; 36:2). They are afterwards mentioned in the usual way among the inhabitants of the Promised Land (Ex. 23:28). They were closely allied to the Amorites, and are frequently mentioned along with them as inhabiting the mountains of Israel. When the spies entered the land they seem to have occupied with the Amorites the mountain region of Judah (Num. 13:29). They took part with the other Canaanites against the Israelites (Josh. 9:1; 11:3). After this there are few references to them in Scripture. Mention is made of "Ahimelech the Hittite" (1 Sam. 26:6), and of "Uriah the Hittite," one of David's chief officers (2 Sam. 23:39; 1 Chr. 11:41). In the days of Solomon they were a powerful confederation in the north of Syria, and were ruled by "kings." They are met with after the Exile still a distinct people (Ezra 9:1; compare Neh. 13:23-28). The Hebrew merchants exported horses from Egypt not only for the kings of Israel, but also for the Hittites (1 Kings 10:28, 29). From the Egyptian monuments we learn that "the Hittites were a people with yellow skins and 'Mongoloid' features, whose receding foreheads, oblique eyes, and protruding upper jaws are represented as faithfully on their own monuments as they are on those of Egypt, so that we cannot accuse the Egyptian artists of caricaturing their enemies. The Amorites, on the contrary, were a tall and handsome people. They are depicted with white skins, blue eyes, and reddish hair, all the characteristics, in fact, of the white race" (Sayce's The Hittites). The original seat of the Hittite tribes was the mountain ranges of Taurus. They belonged to Asia Minor, and not to Syria.

HIT'TITES , the posterity of Heth, the second son of Canaan. Their settlements were at first in the southern part of Judaea, near Hebron, Gen 23:3, and later, when the spies enter the land, they find them dwelling in the mountains. It was from the Hittites that Abraham purchased Machpelah for a sepulchre. Gen 23:3-13; and in this transaction they are represented as a commercial rather than a warlike people. Esau married two Hittite women. Gen 26:34-35; from all which we gather that they were on terms of intimacy with the family of Abraham. Later in the history of Israel they seem to have lost their national integrity, although the name was not forgotten, Ezr 9:1-2.

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.