Tell el Amarna and the Bible

by Charles F. Pfeiffer

Parallels between the Hymn to the Aton and Psalm 104 suggest that the poetic expressions of the hymn became a part of the literary heritage of the Near East. Although Atonism as a religion died a short time after the death of its chief apostle, Akhenaton, poetic utterances used in praise to Aton could readily be incorporated into other Egyptian devotional literature and, eventually, find an echo in the literature of other lands. While many of the similarities between Psalm 104 and Akhenaton’s Hymn could arise from independent contemplation of the movements of the sun on the part of people with no contact whatever, the numerous contacts between Israel and Egypt at least suggest that devotional language as well as proverbs (cf. I Kings 4:30) were common knowledge among the two peoples.

The two compositions are basically different, however, in that the Biblical psalmist acknowledges Yahweh, the God of creation and providence, as a spiritual being associated with natural phenomena only as their creator, whereas Aton, Akhenaton’s “sole god” is identified with the disk of the sun. While Akhenaton seems to have spiritualized the Egyptian sun worship, he never divorced himself completely from it. Biblical monotheism asserts that the One God made “lights in the firmament of heaven to give light upon the earth” (Gen. 1:15). The Hymn of the Aton reaches a high point in the devotional literature of Egypt, but its monotheism was radically different from that presented on the pages of Scripture.

VI
THE AFFAIRS OF EMPIRE

The Amarna tablets enable us to see evidences of the decline of Egyptian power and prestige during the latter years of the reign of Amenhotep III and throughout the reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton). About forty of them record correspondence between the rulers of Egypt and the rulers of the major powers of the Amarna Age. We find letters from the Kassite kings Kadashman-Enlil I and Bumaburiash II of Babylon, from Ashuruballit I of Assyria, from Tushratta of Mitanni, from the Hittite king Suppiluliumas, and from an unnamed king of Alashia (Cyprus).

The Kings of Mitanni

In upper Mesopotamia, Egypt had an ally in Mitanni, a kingdom comprised largely of Hurrians (Biblical Horites), with an Indo-Aryan ruling class. The Mitannian kingdom was established about 1500 B.C. and at the height of its power reached from Nuzi and Arrapkha in Assyria to Alalakh in Syria. Its capital, Wassukkanni, was on the upper Habur River. A major threat both to Mitanni and, ultimately, to Egypt, came from the rising Hittite Empire with its capital at Hatusa (modern Bogazkoy) on the great bend of the Halys River in Asia Minor. Babylon had suffered an eclipse since the empire of Hammurabi and during the Amarna age it was ruled by a mountain people known as Kassites. Assyria, north of Babylon, had been subject to Mitanni until the Hittite conquest of Mitanni gave the Assyrians an opportunity to free themselves and develop an independent state.

The kings of Mitanni sent daughters to grace the harems of the Pharaohs of Egypt, and desired gold in exchange. The Amarna tablets include seven letters from Tushratta of Mitanni to Amenhotep III, one to his widow Queen Tiy, and three to Amenhotep IV (Akhenaton). In a typical communication he writes to Amenhotep III:

Let my brother send gold in very great quantity, without measure—that is what my brother should send me—and let my brother send more gold than (he sent) to my father, for in my brother’s land gold is as plentiful as dust. May the gods so direct that, although now gold is so plentiful in my brother’s land, he may have gold ten times more plentiful than now. Let not the gold which I desire trouble the heart of my brother, and let not my brother grieve my heart. So let my brother send me gold, without measure, in very great quantity.[28]

Although Tushratta’s lust for gold may not have been appreciated in Thebes, Egypt valued her Mitannian allies who served as a check on the ambitious Hittites, thereby helping Egypt maintain control over Syria and Palestine. Not only were princesses from Mitanni welcome in Egypt, but the Mitannian gods might be of help to the Egyptians. During the illness of Amenhotep III, Tushratta sent a statue of the goddess Ishtar from Nineveh to bless the ailing Pharaoh:

Thus saith Ishtar, mistress of all the lands, “To Egypt, to the land which I love I will go; I will return.” Verily I have now sent her, and she is gone. Indeed in the time of my father the mistress (Ishtar) went to that land, and inasmuch as she was revered when she formerly resided there, so now may my brother tenfold more than formerly honor her. May my brother honor her and joyfully send her back, and may she return. May Ishtar, mistress of heaven, protect my brother and me one hundred thousand years, and may our lady give to us both great joy.[29]