H.A.MMURABI.
Hammurabi or Khammurabi. This name has long been known to scholars. As early as 1861 Rawlinson published three of the inscrip tions of Hammurabi in Vol. I. of "Cuneiform Inscriptions of Western Asia." Since that time the information in relation to him has been gradually accumulating, until we have a great deal of data concerning his life and reign. The Babylonian form of his name is Khammu rapaltu, or Kimptu-rapaltu, as he is called in the bilingual list. In Genesis he is called Am. raphel, in the lxx. Amarpcl.
This king conquered Kudur-Lagamar, who has been identified as Chedorlaomer of Genesis xiv, and who had raided Northern Babylonia. Eri Aku, or Arioch, of Larsa was also conquered, with Kudur-Mabug, his father, who shared the throne with him. Having made these important conquests, Hammurabi succeeded in bringing about so complete a union between Northern and Southern Babylonia, that, from that time on ward, with very little interruption, the city of Babylon remained for many centuries the politi cal center of Babylonia.
He also drove the Elamites out of the land. and inscriptions have been discovered in which Hammurabi and one of his successors use not only the title "King of Babylon" but add also to their names that of "King of Martu," thus claiming supremacy over the "countries of the west," which included Palestine.
Hammurabi was the most powerful king in early Babylonian history, but he belonged to an Arabian dynasty which had managed to estab lish itself in Northern Babylonia about a hun dred years before Arioch succeeded to the throne of Larsa. This is called the First Dynasty of Northern Babylonia. and it included eleven kings, of whom Hammurabi was the sixth. It is con ceded among scholars that he reigned fifty-five years or thereabouts, but as to the exact period there has been much difference of opinion, on account of the almost insurmountable difficulties pertaining to Babylonian chronology. Between such men as Oppert. Winckler, \laspero, De
litzsch, Hilprecht, Reiser, Niebuhr and Hommel, we find a variation of nearly five hundred years. This variation, however, covers a period of in - vestigation.reaching over many years, and during the last two decades, individual AsSyriologists have changed their own opinions as other evi dence has come to light in the shape of later documents, tablets and monuments. After an exhaustive discussion of all the evidence avail able in the matter, Dr. Fritz Hommel of the University of Munich presents evidence which is apparently incontestable to the effect that Hammurabi reigned from 1947 to 1892 B. C.
The Arabian origin of this dynasty is con clusively proven by an examination of the per sonal names of the period—names which have come down to us in many contract tablets, and especially in the list of witnesses which occurs in the most of them.
The historical deductions from all these rec ords of the time of Hammurabi and Arioch of Larsa are numerous. Among the most impor tant of them is the fact that the Elamites and their kinsmen, the kings of Larsa, had suc ceeded in subjugating the "countries of the west" as the kings of Ur had done before them; and it was at this period that the evidence indi cates that the migration of Abraham took place when he went from Ur of Chaldees, through Haran into Palestine.
By this time the confused elements of poly theism had obtained to a great extent, and of the mythical deities of the period, Sin, the moon god, was the most prominent. His most ancient temple was at Haran, and afterward he had an important shrine at Ur, where he was worshiped under the name of Nannar, or Uruki. His cult spread rapidly, and ere long he was the most popular deity in Babylonia.
It was out of these corrupt surroundings that Abraham, the friend of God, went forth. Per haps it was largely by his migration from Chal dea that his own higher and purer creed was saved from absorption into Babylonian polythe ism.