Disastrous Effects of Egyptian Rule. The Egyptian rule of Palestine put a stop for a time to the wars between the petty city states and brought them all into close contact with the life and culture of Egypt. But the fertile Nile valley, with its warm climate and luxurious atmosphere, was not a land to produce a great colonizing or organizing power. Egypt, because of its shut in position, was always selfish and provincial. None of the Egyptian rulers of Palestine sought to develop the interests and resources of the native peoples or to unite them under a common government. Their sole interest in Palestine was to protect themselves from the danger of invasion from that quarter and to extract the largest possible tribute from its inhabitants. Egypt willingly left the native chiefs of Palestine in control as long as they paid tribute and did not rebel, for the sharp contrast between the soft, equable climate of the Nile valley and the winter cold of the eastern Mediterranean coast lands made residence there exceedingly distasteful to the Egyptians. The few resident Egyptians were officials, whose chief duties were to collect the tribute and to report conditions to their king. Apparently the Pharaohs never attempted to establish a standing army in Palestine or Syria; but to maintain their rule they depended upon the rivalry of the local princes and upon intimidating the natives by campaigns characterized by the greatest severity and cruelty in the treatment of rebels. Thus Egypt took the wealth and life blood of Palestine and gave almost nothing in return.
Lack of Union in Palestine. On the other hand, the topography of Palestine was such that it furnished no basis for a broad patriotism that would unite all the petty kingdoms and races in its narrow bounds. This inability successfully to combine against the common foe, and the broad valleys that opened into central and northern Palestine from the south and west, made its conquest by an Egyptian army very easy.
Exposure to Invasions From the Desert. Another marked characteristic of Palestine is the key to the understanding of the next stage in its history. As has been noted before, "it lay broadside on to the desert." As surely as air rushes into a vacuum, so the tribes from the desert steppes irresistibly surged into Palestine through its eastern gateways the moment its internal strength was relaxed. The selfish, intermittent, destructive rule of Egypt not only repeatedly decimated the population of Palestine but weakened its outposts. In time they even goaded on the native princes to call in the Bedouin tribes to aid them in throwing off the conqueror's heavy yoke.
Advance of the Habiri. The Tell el Amarna letters and those discovered in Palestine reveal precisely this state of affairs. It was under the rule of Amenhotep IV, who was more intent upon religious reforms than on the ruling of his distant provinces, that Egyptian control of Palestine was first relaxed. A stream of letters poured in upon the king from the governors of the cities of Palestine, telling of each other's treachery and of the advance of bands of the Habiri, who at this time, about 1360 B.C., poured into Palestine from the desert. These new invaders possess a unique interest for the student of biblical history, for among them in all probability were Aramean as well as Arabian tribes, the ancestors of the later Hebrews. They seem to have been independent tribes under the leadership of their chiefs. They succeeded in capturing many of the weaker outlying cities. Often they were employed as mercenaries by the rival princes of Canaan, and they readily allied themselves with the native peoples in an endeavor to throw off the yoke of Egypt. The governors of such important cities as Megiddo, Askalon, and Gezer wrote beseeching the Pharaoh to send troops to aid them against these strong invaders. In the ruins of Taanach is found an interesting letter, sent to the governor of the town by an officer at Megiddo. It reads: "To Istar-washur from Aman-hashir. May Adad preserve thy life! Send thy brothers with their chariots, and send a horse, thy tribute, and presents, and all prisoners who are with thee; send them to Megiddo by to-morrow." In the ruins of Lachish was found a similar letter, written in Babylonian by its governor Zimrida, and stating that unless an Egyptian army was sent quickly the city must submit to the invaders. Jerusalem, under its governor, Abdhiba, was one of the last cities to resist the advance of the Habiri. At last, however, these people from the desert prevailed. An Egyptian officer, writing of the native peoples, states: "They have been destroyed, their towns laid waste.... Their countries are starving, they live like goats of the mountain."
Rise of the Hittite Power. This chapter in the history of early Palestine throws much light upon later Hebrew history. The invaders evidently soon coalesced with the older Canaanite inhabitants, infusing new blood and energy into the people; but they quickly adopted the older civilization. The conditions of Palestine remained practically the same as in the days before the Egyptian invasions. The geographical characteristics of the land reasserted themselves. The old rivalries and wars between the little states of Palestine quickly sprang up again, so that, when the energetic kings of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty appeared, the land was once more ripe for conquest. Meantime, however, the Hittites, profiting by the more favorable physical conditions in northern Syria, had come down from Cappadocia and the mountains of eastern Asia Minor and had built up a strong kingdom, having for its southern capital Kadesh on the Orontes. From this centre they had extended their influence not only over Syria, but also over Palestine. When Ramses II, the great ruler of the Nineteenth Dynasty, set out in 1288 B.C. to conquer the eastern Mediterranean coast lands, he found himself, like Thotmose III, two hundred years before, confronted by a powerful foe, strongly intrenched in the broad valleys between the Lebanons. After an undecisive battle and many campaigns Ramses was glad to establish with this rival power a treaty which left the Hittites in possession of northern Syria and the Egyptians masters of Palestine.
Palestine Between 1270 and 1170 B.C. The period of half a century which immediately followed was one of peace and prosperity for Palestine. Ramses II and his son, Merneptah, kept the great empire intact by their indomitable energy and efficient organization. With the passing of the Nineteenth Dynasty there came a period of anarchy in which the Egyptian rule of Palestine was for a time relaxed. Ramses III, the great ruler of the Twentieth Dynasty, set about restoring the former bounds of the empire. For over a quarter of a century (1198-1167 B.C.) he succeeded in holding Palestine and in inflicting severe blows upon the Hittite power in the north; but his reign marked the end of Egypt's greatness. The Valley of the Nile was never fitted by nature to be the centre of a great world power. Its foreign conquests had been largely the result of the energy and personal ability of four or five great Pharaohs. Syria and Palestine, because of their central position, felt the effect of all the great world movements, not only in the south and east, but also in the west. During the beginning of the twelfth century B.C. there was a great upheaval among the Aryan peoples living along the northern coast lands of the Mediterranean. As a result, they were obliged to seek homes elsewhere and so came streaming down the coast of Syria in thousands both by land and by sea. They overran Syria and broke forever the power of the Hittites along the eastern Mediterranean. Hordes of them pressed into the Nile Delta, and were turned back only by the strong armies and activity of Ramses III. One branch, the Peleset, of the Egyptian inscriptions, overthrew the old Canaanite population and settled at this time on the coast plains south of Joppa. They were known in Hebrew history as the Philistines.
The Epoch-Making Twelfth Century. It was also during this transitional twelfth century that the cumbersome Babylonian language and system of writing ceased to be used in Palestine. Instead, a consonantal alphabet, derived by the Phœnicians from the Egyptians and also possibly in part from the Babylonians, came into use. The same alphabet, transmitted through the Ionian Greeks, became the basis of the one now in vogue throughout Europe and the western world. This same Phœnician alphabet was used by the later Hebrew priests, prophets, and sages in conveying their immortal messages to the world. Thus the twelfth century B.C. inaugurated a new and significant era in the intellectual as well as the political history of mankind.