Plate 21
{hieroglyphs}
divinity king country plurality supremacy e, i. u, o. dimes, di tu, to kus ku khat, khattu si es tar sis sar tarku, tarkus kue, mesi seal, inscription “to speak” sun-god: “behold”
From such funerary papyri much valuable information regarding Egyptian beliefs and customs is derived
Incidentally, the walls of Karnak yielded from the records of other kings the historic evidence of an actual Hittite empire. Tuthmosis the Third immortalized the Hittites on the walls of Karnak when he gave a list of towns in the land of the Hittites over which he was victorious. Unquestionably this list contains the first and oldest authentic account of ancient cities, which are frequently afterwards mentioned in the Assyrian records as well. This record is found in the splendid temple which is called the “Hall of Pillars” and which was erected by this notable pharaoh. It has been said that in this work the art of Egypt reached its highest point. Certainly the walls and pillars are literally covered with the beautifully engraved pictures and names of the races and cities which the pharaoh had conquered.
When the Department of Antiquities was working upon the wall of a lower section, a catalog of one hundred nineteen conquered places came to light. This record showed that, more than three hundred years before the Israelites entered the land of Canaan, the Hittites were established in a powerful dominion over that lovely land. There are seven separate records of the contacts of this pharaoh with the people who were the Hittites.
Ramses the First has also left a record of the treaty of peace that he made with the Hittite king Seplal at the end of the war that he unsuccessfully fought to throw off the yoke of this people. On the north wall of the temple at Karnak, he gives the route of his march and tells of the victories that he won. He did not, however, delineate his final capitulation. This conflict resulted in a treaty of peace which is recorded in this account.
The successor of Ramses the First was Seti the First, and in his day the treaty was broken. According to Seti, it was the Hittites who offended against the covenant, and he also engraved on the walls at Karnak an account of the consequent battle with its result. To bring just a short line from his voluminous record, he acknowledges his own greatness in such an inscription as the following:
“Seti has struck down the Asiatics; he has thrown to the ground the Kheta. He has slain their princes.”
Telling them how he concluded a treaty with the Hittites, to the enhancement of his own glory, Seti’s record concludes with these words:
“He returns home in triumph. He has annihilated the people. He has struck to the ground the Kheta. He has made an end of his adversaries. The enmity of all people is turned into friendship.”
With just this brief reference to the voluminous records to be found in Egyptian archeology, we would be able to establish the triumph of the Bible in the realm of historical accuracy, had we no other sources. The fact of the matter, however, is that the Assyrian and Babylonian accounts of the Hittites are at least as numerous as are the Egyptian.
It may be noted in passing that, although filled with consternation at these marvelous discoveries in Egyptology, the critics were by no means silenced. It would have been better for their later reputation had they graciously accepted their defeat and acknowledged that they were in error. Instead, they rushed into vociferous refutation of the newly discovered Egyptian records. Unfortunately, their denunciations and renewed claims were given wide publicity by being included in the then current edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. It is to be regretted that this great encyclopedia has often been a tremendous aid to criticism in spreading its errors and fallacies. This in large measure is due to the fact that there is a common reverence for this great work in the mind of the average human. There is a certain class of readers who hold this notable reference work in such great reverence that its authority to them is greater than that of the Word of God. It must be remembered, however, that the encyclopedia of each generation represents only the current thought of that brief period of human experience. Anything that is written by man is subject to later revision or repudiation, as human knowledge increases. So in this great compendium of human wisdom it is unfortunate that much space was given to the famed critic, the Rev. T. K. Cheyne.
This eminent authority was a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. In the above cited article, he treated the statements of the Bible as unhistorical and classified them as pure folklore. Concerning the Biblical references to the Hittites, he used these exact words, “They cannot be taken as of equal authority with the Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions!” In dealing with Abraham’s purchase of the burial plot for Sarah, he had a great deal to say in refutation of the possibility of any accuracy in the record. At the conclusion of his criticism he stated, “How meager the tradition respecting the Hittites was in the time of the great Elohistic narrator, is shown by the picture of Hittite life in this reference.”
Dr. Cheyne fell into the great error of claiming that the Hittites were only warriors. Because they are thus shown on the walls of Karnak, he concluded that they were mercenary troops who never entered into business transactions. In his article on the Canaanites in this above cited encyclopedia, he goes so far as to say, “The Hittites seem to have been included among the Canaanites by mistake. Historical evidence proves convincingly that they dwelt beyond the borders of Canaan.” These conclusions were also advocated by his great colleague and collaborator, Prof. W. H. Newman.
Dr. Newman was also a Fellow of Balliol College at Oxford and is the author of the once famous “History of the Hebrew Monarchy.” In all of this work he maintained that the Hittite references in the Old Testament were unqualifiedly unhistorical. They prove beyond question, according to the author, that the writers of the Old Testament were totally unacquainted with the times of which they wrote. His conclusion was that the Old Testament was written many centuries after the events which it purports to depict. He stated with finality, along with Dr. Cheyne, that the Hittite people were limited to Syria and had no place in Palestine. Thus the story of Abraham buying territory from them at Hebron is unquestionably mythological.
These ardent advocates of a collapsing theory should have waited! It was not long after these utterances were printed that Prof. Sayce deciphered certain of the Assyrian records of Tiglath-pileser. These showed that in the reign of this monarch, as late as 1130 B. C., the Hittites were still in command of all the territory from the Euphrates to Lebanon!
Again the Word of God was vindicated, when the monuments, as they were deciphered, yielded the interesting information that the Hittites were notable colonizers. They also covered all the ancient world as merchants, and their caravans and trade-routes were the earliest to be established. They are in Assyrian annals depicted as artisans and artists. Although all of them could fight when war was inevitable, they had a standing army for the casual and necessary protection of the realm. Dr. Newman was unfortunate also in choosing the time in which he charged the Bible with error. At a most unfortunate period for criticism in the history of archeology he questioned the details of Hittite prowess in the incidental references of the Scripture. As though the scientists of that day were in league with the Lord, they laid bare in site after site a refutation of all the critics maintained!
It will be remembered that in connection with the siege of Samaria, as the story is given in II Kings, the seventh chapter, there is a peculiar but important reference to the Hittites and their known power. The people of Israel who were commanded by Jehoram were distressed by the siege of their capital when Benhadad of Damascus had pressed them to the limit of their resistance. Famine and disease had swept Samaria, so that the remnant faced the choice of surrendering or perishing. Elisha had prophesied a deliverance, and in verses six and seven in the seventh chapter of II Kings, the fulfillment of God’s promise is given in this way:
“For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.
“Wherefore, they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life.”
Professor Newman found a great deal of grounds for hilarity in what he called this “childish narrative.” He says, “The unhistorical tone is too manifest to allow of our easy belief in it.” He admits that there may have been some unusual deliverance of Samaria, because of collateral records of dangerous night panics among various hordes of antiquity. He adds, however, in reference to the Bible account, “The particular ground of alarm attributed to them does not exhibit the writer’s acquaintance with the times in a very favorable light. No Hittite kings can have compared in power with the king of Judah, the real and near ally, who is not named at all. Nor is there a single mark of acquaintance with the facts of contemporaneous history.”
Two sources of information, however, have since been derived that flatly refute the learned Professor and vindicate the accuracy of the record of God’s Word. The Assyrian sources show conclusively, upon the examination of their records, that the Hittites at that time were the greatest power with which the monarchs of Chaldea had to deal. In the records of Assur-Nasir-pal a long and powerful tribute is paid to the military might of the Hittites. So in that day they were still a strong and warlike people. They were especially dreaded by the armies of antiquity because of the unique distinction of their chariots. It is to this fact that the writer of II Kings refers when he speaks of “the noise of chariots.”
The walls of Karnak give us a clear and illuminating description of these ancient weapons of battle. Each chariot was drawn by two horses, armored and shod with spikes. Three warriors rode in each chariot. One of these handled the reins, while the other two plied arrow, javelin, sword, and dart, working untold havoc in the closely packed ranks of ancient infantry. (See [Plate 20].)