Professor Sayce says : "There were therefore Hebrews, or at least a Hebrew-speaking popu lation, living in Babylonia at the period to which the Old Testament assigns the lifetime of Abra ham. But this is not all. As I pointed but five years ago, the name of Khammurabi him self, like those of the rest of the dynasty of which he was a member, is not Babylonian, but South Arabian. The words with which they are compounded and the divine names which they contain, do not belong to the Assyrian and Babylonian language, and there is a cuneiform tablet in which they are given with their Assy rian translations. The dynasty must have had close relations with South Arabia. This, how ever, is not the most interesting part of the matter. The names (Khammurabi, Ammi-za duga, etc.) are not only South Arabian, but they are Hebrew as well. . . . When Abra ham, therefore, was born in Ur of Chaldees, a dynasty was ruling there which was not of Babylonian origin, but belonged to a race which was at once Hebrew and South Arabian. The contract tablets prove that a population with similar characteristics was living under them in the country.
"Could there be a more remarkable confirma tion of the statements which we find in the tenth chapter of Genesis? There we read that unto Eber were born two sons ; the name of the one was Peleg, the ancestor of the Hebrews, while the name of the other was Joktan, the ancestor of the tribes of South Arabia. The parallelism between the Biblical account and the latest discovery of archaeology is thus complete and makes it impossible to believe that the Bib lical narrative could have been compiled in Palestine at the late date to which some of our modern 'critics' assign it. All recollection of the facts embodied in it would then have long since passed away." (Sayce, Patriarchal Palestine, Pref.) In comparison with the indescribable atrocities which were wrought by later kings, Hammurabi appears to have been a humane ruler. He came of good stock. His race was descended from Eber, and the inscriptions and the names of South Arabia indicate that although this people were polytheistic, nevertheless there must have been a time in their very early history when there was much of faith in the true God, and in spite of the growing heathenism of their surroundings it must have persisted in many families, for the names, even during the general prevalence of polytheistic worship, were usually compounded with i/u, God.
Hommel says: "If we consider how fre quently primitive ideas continue to persist in the personal names of any race, this would seem to indicate that there must have been a time in the history of Arabia when these gods (a number of whom . . . recently discovered
by Glaser, were certainly imported from outside) did not receive worship, and when some higher form of devotion of a type which involuntarily reminds one of what we are told about Mel chisedek in the Old Testament, must have pre vailed. . . . The fact that the worship of a number of deities is prominently mentioned even hi the earliest South Arabian inscriptions, merely serves to throw into still stronger relief the persistent monotheism of the personal names, which even the lapse of a thousand years or so had been powerless to efface.
"How deeply this monotheistic principle must have rooted itself in the hearts of this people from the earliest ages is proved by its having been able, in the face of growing encroachments of polytheism, to retain for so long an undis puted position in their appellations. . . .
"We are fully warranted in assuming that what has been said of South Arabian names applies with equal force to the Arabian personal names of the Khammurabi epoch; these names indicate that their owners possessed a far purer religion than that of the Babylonians, a religion, in short, of an essentially monotheistic character." (Hor mel, An. Heb. Trad., pp. 82, 88, 117.) The latest sources of information concerning the reign of Hammurabi are found in "Letters and Inscriptions of Haninnerabi," published' by L. W. King, in three volumes. Luzac, London, 1898-19oo.
These letters and inscriptions teach that the king was a very strenuous ruler, who kept the most important of the government business un der his own personal care. Most of the letters are addressed to Sin-idinnam, who may have been either a vassal king of Larsa, or only the governor of that city. At all events, minute orders were issued to this man, who also ex ercised more or less authority over Erech and Ur.
In these letters we also find the king giving directions concerning the construction of canals and other public works. He orders the dwellers on the banks of a waterway to clean it out. It appears that one canal was in such a condition that ships could not come to Erech, and the king orders the clearing of it to be done "in three days !" His letters indicate that he was ac cessible to his subjects. He punished bribery promptly and enforced a merchant's claim for debt against a government official; nevertheless he appears to have been severe upon money loaners. He was careful in the collection of revenues, the auditing of public accounts, the regulation of food supplies, and the care of the herds of cattle belonging to the crown. (Sec 'Letters.") E. A. R.