HITTITES (hletites), (Heb. *7211, khir tee).
The fact that the 'Hittites were unknown to classic history encouraged a certain class of critics in the assertion that there was no truth in the Biblical statements concerning them.
(1) Early Inscriptions. But as soon as thP key was found to the hieroglyphs of Egypt and the cuneiforms of Assyria another great people began to emerge from the darkness of secular history. They appeared chiefly as a nation of warriors in constant conflict with the kings around them, and the picture thus presented was century before Christ, the Hittites are regarded as a formidable power." (Trans. of Soc. Bib. Arch., vol. vii., part 2, p. 261.) And Mr. Pinches, of the British Museum, has deciphered an inscription which would seem to place the reign of Sargon of Agade or Agane I. about 3800 B. C.
(2) Extent of the Empire. We may estimate the extent of the Hittite Empire from the num ber of local Hittite names mentioned in the Scrip tures and the inscriptions, and also from the vast extent of country over which Hittite inscriptions and sculptures are scattered. In the Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions there have already been dis covered over 3oo geographical Hittite names, only a few of which have as yet been identified. We can better realize how nnich this means when we consider that in the Royal History of England there are only about 133 names of places men tioned in all of England, Scotland and Ireland.
The inscriptions of Egypt and Assyria are com paratively few and fragmentary, and of these few in perfect harmony with that found in the Penta teuch. The inscriptions show the Hittite kings tu have been rivals of the Pharaohs from the twelfth to the twentieth dynasty. The shock of Egyptian invasion exhausted itself on the frontier cities of Kadesh and Carchemish, and there were still fresh armies and abundance of wealth to enable the Hittite empire to withstand the might of Egypt for a thousand years.
In the British Museum there are many in scribed objects belonging to the library of Assur hani-pal, and some of them are known as the Assyrian Astronomical Tablets. These are the
later editions of the clay books which had been prepared for the ancient kings of Babylon. In one of these comparatively modern editions of a much earlier work we find the following state ment : "The king of the Hittites lives and on the throne seizes" (Records of the Past, i :z59). And again we read: "The king of the Hittites plun ders and the throne seizes" (Ibid. p. 160).
It is difficult to assign a date to these and other siinilar documents, but Professor Sayce conjec tures that : "Already in the astrological tables of Sargon of Agade or Agane. in the nineteenth which have come to light many are still unread. They are chiefly concerned with their own na tional achievements and the glory of conquerors, and yet these stone and clay records preserve for us twice as many names of places in the Hittite empire as are to be found of English geo graphical names in a thousand pages of our stand ard geography and history combined.
In the Bible we first meet the Hittites at He bron, where they are recognized as the rightful owners of the place. Four hundred years later the spies found the sons of Anak in Hebron and the Hittites dwelling in the mountains (Num. xiii :29), whither they had doubtless been driven; and in a parenthetical clause it is stated: "Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt" (Num. xiii:22). This isolated and inde pendent clause, which always seemed out of the way, now comes into prominence and helps us to knit together the scattered fragments of long lost history. Zoan or Tanis was the capital of the Hyksos, invaders and conquerors of Egypt.
According to Mariette one of the Hyksos dy nasties was Hittite; and it is proved by an in scription now in the Louvre, which records the destruction of their palaces on the borders of Egypt, that they had once been a settled people in this region.