The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

Between the time of Abraham and that of Joshua’s conquest we hear nothing about the city for six hundred years. After this we have remarkable evidence of its existence as a royal city in the extant tablets of the Tell Amarna collection, written to the Pharaoh by the Amorite king of Uru-salimu. Amenophis III. of Egypt was the contemporary of Rimmon-nirari of Assyria, who reigned about 1500 B. C., and Amenophis IV. was the contemporary of Burnaburias of Babylon, who acceded about 1440 B. C.[60] Palestine, having been conquered by Thothmes III. about 1580 B. C., was peacefully ruled by Egypt when Amenophis III. acceded to the throne. The population appears at this time to have been entirely Semitic, no letters in any but the Babylonian language occurring among those of its rulers, while the names of all the cities mentioned, even in the sixteenth century B. C., are also Semitic. The Philistines, like the rest of the Canaanites, used the Babylonian language and script, and they worshipped the Babylonian sea-god Dagon, whom ’Ammurabi had adored. Their names are also Semitic, not only in the Bible but in the Tell Amarna tablets, and in the later inscriptions of Sennacherib.[61] If any Hittites still remained in the south, they were no longer a ruling tribe, though in North Syria and Cappadocia they were then powerful and independent. The Philistines were loyal to Egypt, but they do not appear to have had any power in the mountains till four centuries later, and the loyalty of the Amorite kings of Jerusalem and Gezer was much suspected by the Pharaohs.

THE AMORITES

About the middle of the reign of Amenophis III. a rebellion broke out in Syria.[62] Hittites and Amorites invaded Phœnicia, attacked Damascus, and spread in Bashan, shortly before the time when Israel appeared in Moab according to the Bible chronology. Amenophis was, however, allied with the Kassite ruler of Babylon, and with the Armenian and Cappadocian monarchs of the same Mongoloid race. He sent soldiers to Gebal, and the Cappadocians subdued the Amorites. Some twenty years later, Amenophis IV. (son of Amenophis III.) having begun his unfortunate reign, another more formidable revolt occurred. The friendly Armenian king Dusratta had died, and Aziru the Amorite had deserted his obedience, allying himself with the Hittite suzerain of Cappadocia. The Amorites conquered Phœnicia, and Egypt was powerless to aid its Syrian subjects. The hatred of the memory of Amenophis IV., shown in later times, was perhaps due to his loss of the empire rather than to his worship of Asiatic gods, who had been adored in Egypt in the time of his father also; for,[63] like his father, he is addressed by the Asiatic kings as a worshipper of the Egyptian god Amen, and texts from the Egyptian ritual occur on his coffin.

THE ABIRI

The six letters written to Egypt by the King of Jerusalem do not mention the name of the Pharaoh addressed, but, judging from those of other personages concerned, they seem to belong to an early period in this story of rebellion, though Canaan remained in a disturbed condition even as late as 1440 A. D., when Burnaburias of Babylon and Assur-uballid of Assyria—writing to Amenophis IV.—speak of interrupted communications and the robbery of caravans. The name of Jerusalem (Uru-sa-limu or U-ru-sa-limu) has been read with certainty by Dr. Winckler, but the name of the Amorite king is variously rendered. It seems, however, to have probably belonged to the same class with that of Melchizedek, and of Adonizedek, the king killed by Joshua.[64] Jerusalem was being attacked by a people called ’Abiri or Ḥabiri, who destroyed all the Canaanite rulers at Ai, Ajalon, Lachish, and other places; and, since the period is that of the Hebrew Conquest under Joshua, according to the Bible, it is natural to identify these ’Abiri with the Hebrews, as proposed by Dr. Zimmern in Germany. It is true that scholars who follow the views of Lepsius[65] and of Brugsch, formed before any notice of Israel had been discovered in Egyptian monumental texts, have denied this identification. Lepsius argued that the city of Rameses, built by the Hebrews, could not have been so named before the time of Rameses II.; but as it is noticed even as early as the time of Jacob,[66] he was obliged to regard this allusion as an anachronism, which might equally apply to the passage on which he relied. Clearly, however, the allusion can only serve to date the age in which the story of Joseph, as we now have it, was written down together with the narrative of the Exodus. The conclusions of Lepsius—who preferred the libels of Tacitus, and those with which Josephus charges Manetho, to the chronological statements of the Bible—are quite destructive to Old Testament dates. Rameses, however, was the later name of Zoan, the city where the Hebrews dwelt in Egypt, while the site of Pithom—the other “store city” which they built for the Pharaoh—is still doubtful, though supposed by Dr. Naville to be the same as that of Succoth. Lepsius called Rameses II. the Pharaoh of the Oppression, and Mineptah, his son, the Pharaoh of the Exodus, though he ruled two centuries later than the time of Joshua. As, however, we now have a text by Mineptah, in which he notices Israel as being already in Palestine in the fifth year of his reign, it is impossible that the Exodus and the forty years in the desert could have coincided with this period of incipient Egyptian decay. We are left free to accept the new monumental evidence, which illustrates in so remarkable a manner the historic statements of the Book of Joshua.

Jerusalem was not taken by Joshua, though its Amorite king Adonizedek was slain at Makkedah, with Japhia, king of Lachish, and three others.[67] It is remarkable that the Amarna correspondence gives us the name Japhia (yap’aa) as that of the contemporary king of Gezer, for Gezer came to the aid of Lachish, according to the Bible account. Joshua is not named in these tablets, which refer only to a certain Elimelech (a Hebrew name[68]) as one of the invaders, but the letters speak of incidents identical with those narrated in the story of the Hebrew Conquest. The more important passages bearing on the history of Jerusalem may be thus rendered:

JERUSALEM LETTERS

“To the King my Lord thus says ’Abd-ṣadaḳ thy servant, at the feet of my Lord the King seven times and seven times I bow. What have I done to the King my Lord? They urge on thee that an enemy, a sinner, should be seized, that ’Abd-ṣadaḳ has rebelled before the King his Lord. Lo! as for me, no man is my father and none is my friend supporting me. They rebel in this place, great King, striving with me for my father’s house. Why should I sin against the King of Kings? Behold the complaint, O King my Lord. I say to the governor of the King my Lord, ‘Why are ye afraid of the Hebrews?’ and they are afraid to go out, so they send to the presence of the King my Lord.[69] Lo! I say there is ruin of the lands of the King my Lord, as they have sent to the King my Lord; and let the King my Lord know.... The lands of the suzerain[70] have revolted, all that Elimelech has wasted, all the King’s land; and let the King beware as to his land, which I say pleading, and let the King my Lord behold the tears, and the warfare that is mighty against me; and I receive nothing from the King my Lord, and no order ordered in the presence of the King ... as to whether he will order men for a garrison. And let the King my Lord learn, and regard the tears; and now arise, O King my Lord. Now they have expelled the [Egyptian] governor. I say there is ruin of the lands of the King. Will you not hear me?... They have destroyed all the rulers: there is not a ruler [left] for the suzerain.[70] Let the King give countenance to the people: let him order soldiers[71] of the King my Lord. There is not one in the lands of the King. The Hebrew has wasted all the King’s lands, since the King’s soldiers[71] were sent away this year: they were sent away from the lands of the suzerain.[70] Since there was not a soldier [left], there was ruin to the lands of the King my Lord. O Scribe of the King my Lord, this is ’Abd-ṣadaḳ’s plea for soldiers. The lands of the King my Lord are ruined.”

This appeal was repeated more than once, but seems to have met with no reply, except perhaps a demand for hostages to be sent to Egypt (as in the case of the king of Gezer also), though this may refer to a previous period. Meanwhile, the petty kings allied to Jerusalem gathered forces in aid of the city.[72] The Hebrews, it may be noted, are not mentioned in any of the Amarna letters except those from Jerusalem.

“[Behold] what Milkilu [of Gezer] and Suardatu [of Keilah] have done for me as to the land of the King my Lord. They have hired soldiers of Gezer, soldiers of Gimzo: they have taken Rabbah. The King’s land has rebelled to the Hebrews; and now as regards the city Jerusalem, the city called Beth Baalah[73] has revolted [sending?] to the city of Keilah. Let the King listen to ’Abd-ṣadaḳ thy servant, and order soldiers, and recover the King’s land for the King: as there were no soldiers the King’s land has revolted to the Hebrews, who have confounded me and Suardatu and Milkilu.”