In the path of the alphabet / an historical account of the ancient beginnings and evolution of the modern alphabet

by Frances Delavan Page Jermain

Here in Canaan, deep beneath the remains of many cities, and there upon the banks of the Nile, these two fragments of a correspondence have lain through many centuries, waiting the time when this long forgotten story might be read and explained.

The Lachish letter was claimed at once by the Turkish government, and those who have attempted its translation have been obliged to do this from squeezes or impressions of the original document, which in some cases are imperfect, as some of the characters are partly obliterated or on the edges of the tablet. Quite enough, however, is apparent to identify the date and significance of the documents.

The Tel-el-Amarna documents also indicate in a way the date of the Exodus. They at least prove, of the periods sometimes assigned, when this could not have happened, and to point to the probabilities when it did.

In the letters from southern Canaan we have a distinct view of Palestine before its occupation by the Children of Israel. They had not taken possession of Lachish, nor had they entered Jerusalem. At this time Palestine and all Syria were under Egyptian domination.

The governors of many of the cities were often times native Egyptians, and Egyptian garrisons were stationed at all important points for their protection.

From the time of Thotmes III, of the eighteenth dynasty, to the close of the reign of Amenophis IV, this state of affairs had continued and during this period no Egyptian king corresponds to the Pharaoh of the Oppression.

At the time of the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites and their occupation of its cities, the domination of Egypt had ceased. This did not occur until the close of the eighteenth dynasty.

When the nineteenth dynasty came in, with Rameses I, a new order of things arose. The reaction against the heresies of Amenophis extended to all Asiatic influences, and the Semitic people throughout the realm found in Rameses and his immediate successors the Pharaohs who “knew not Joseph.”

Again, in certain of these letters from southern Palestine, there are references to the “Khabiri” who were threatening these cities, and in the Khabiri some scholars read the word Hebrews and their approaching invasion of Palestine.

This would place these letters at the close of the “Wandering in the Wilderness,” instead of earlier. Against this view is urged that the political conditions of Canaan at the time of this correspondence do not agree with those of the Israelitish invasion of Canaan.