Patriarchal Palestine

by A. H. Sayce

(VI.) "[To] the king my lord thus speaks Ebed-Tob thy servant: at the feet of the king my lord seven times seven I prostrate myself. [The king knows the deed] which they have done, even Malchiel and Su-ardatum, against the country of the king my lord, commanding the forces of the city of Gezer, the forces of the city of Gath, and the forces of the city of Keilah. They have seized the district of the city of Rabbah. The country of the king has gone over to the Confederates. And now at this moment the city of the mountain of Jerusalem, the city of the temple of the god Nin-ip, whose name is Salim (?)," (Or, adopting the reading of Dr. Zimmern, "The city whose name is Bit-Nin-ip.") "the city of the king, is gone over to the side of the men of Keilah. Let the king listen to Ebed-Tob thy servant, and let him despatch troops and restore the country of the king to the king. But if no troops arrive, the country of the king is gone over to the men even to the Confederates. This is the deed [of Su-ar]datun and Malchiel...."

The loyalty of Ebed-Tob, however, seems to have been doubted at the Egyptian court, where more confidence was placed in his rival and enemy Su-ardata (or Su-yardata, as the owner of the name himself writes it). Possibly the claim of the vassal-king of Jerusalem to have been appointed to his royal office by the "Mighty King" rather than by the "great king" of Egypt, and consequently to be an ally of the Pharaoh and not an ordinary governor, may have had something to do with the suspicions that were entertained of him. At all events we learn from a letter of Su-yardata that the occupation of Keilah by Ebed-Tob's enemies, of which the latter complains so bitterly, was due to the orders of the Egyptian government itself. Su-yardata there says—"The king [my lord] directed me to make war in the city of Keilah: war was made; (and now) a complaint is brought against me. My city against myself has risen upon me. Ebed-Tob sends to the men of the city of Keilah; he sends silver, and they have marched against my rear. And the king knows that Ebed-Tob has taken my city from my hand." The writer adds that "now Labai has taken Ebed-Tob and they have taken our cities." In his subsequent despatches to the home government Su-yardata complains that he is "alone," and asks that troops should be sent to him, saying that he is forwarding some almehs or maidens as a present along with his "dragoman." At this point the correspondence breaks off.

Malchiel and Tagi also write to the Pharaoh. According to Tagi the roads between Southern Palestine and Egypt were under the supervision and protection of his brother; while Malchiel begs for cavalry to pursue and capture the enemy who had made war upon Su-yardata and himself, had seized "the country of the king," and threatened to slay his servants. He also complains of the conduct of Yankhamu, the High Commissioner, who had been ordered to inquire into the conduct of the governors in Palestine. Yankhamu, it seems, had seized Malchiel's property and carried off his wives and children. It was doubtless to this act of injustice that Labai alludes in his letter of exculpation.

The territory of which Jerusalem was the capital extended southward as far as Carmel of Judah, Gath-Carmel as it is called by Ebed-Tob, as well as in the geographical lists of Thothmes III., while on the west it reached to Keilah, Kabbah, and Mount Seir. No mention is made of Hebron either in the Tel el-Amarna letters or in the Egyptian geographical lists, which are earlier than the rise of the nineteenth dynasty. The town must therefore have existed under some other name, or have been in the hands of a power hostile to Egypt.

The name of Hebron has the same origin as that of the Khabiri, who appear in Ebed-Tob's letters by the side of Labai, Babylonia, and Naharaim as the assailants of Jerusalem and its territory. The word means "Confederates," and occurs in the Assyrian texts; among other passages in a hymn published by Dr. Brünnow, where we read, istu pan khabiri-ya iptarsanni, "from the face of my associates he has cut me off." The word, however, is not Assyrian, as in that case it would have had a different form, but must have been borrowed from the Canaanitish language of the West.

Who the Khabiri or "Confederates" were has been disputed. Some scholars see in them Elamite marauders who followed the march of the Babylonian armies to Syria. This opinion is founded on the fact that the Khabiri are once mentioned as an Elamite tribe, and that in a Babylonian document a "Khabirite" (Khabirâ) is referred to along with a "Kassite" or Babylonian. Another view is that they are to be identified with Heber, the grandson of Asher (Gen. xlvi. 17), since Malchiel is said to be the brother of Heber, just as in the letters of Ebed-Tob Malchiel is associated with the Khabiri. But all such identifications are based upon the supposition that "Khabiri" is a proper name rather than a descriptive title. Any band of "Confederates" could be called Khabiri whether in Elam or in Palestine, and it does not follow that the two bands were the same. In the "Confederates" of Southern Canaan we have to look for a body of confederated tribes who made themselves formidable to the governor of Jerusalem in the closing days of the Egyptian empire.

It would seem that Elimelech, who of course was a different person from Malchiel, was their leader, and as Elimelech is a Canaanitish name, we may conclude that the majority of his followers were also of Canaanitish descent. The scene of their hostilities was to the south of Jerusalem. Gath-Carmel, Zelah, and Lachish are the towns mentioned in connection with their attempts to capture and destroy "the fortresses of the king." "The country of the king" which had "gone over to the Confederates" was the territory over which Ebed-Tob claimed rule, while the district occupied by Labai and his Beduin followers was handed over "to the men of the district of the Confederates." The successes of the latter were gained through the intrigues of Malchiel and the sons of Labai.

All this leads us to the neighbourhood of Hebron, and suggests the question whether "the district of the Confederates" was not that of which Hebron, "the Confederacy," was the central meeting-place and sanctuary. Hebron has preserved its sacred character down to the present day; it long disputed with Jerusalem the claim of being the oldest and most hallowed shrine in Southern Palestine, and it was for many years the capital of Judah, Moreover, we know that "Hebron" was not the only name the city possessed. When Abram was "confederate" with the three Amorite chieftains it was known as Mamre (Gen. xiii. 18), and at a later day under the rule of the three sons of Anak it was called Kirjath-Arba.