A comparison of these inscriptions, which are types of hundreds of others known to Assyriologists, with the transaction between Abraham and the Hittite Ephron, shows noteworthy differences. The boundaries are usually stated in the Babylonian documents with sufficiently great precision; but, on the other hand, the nature of the land is generally not stated except if it be actually under cultivation, and any trees growing on it are apparently mentioned only on account of their commercial value—when, for instance, they are fruit-bearing trees, as in the reference to the date-palms in the second document here translated. In Babylonia, as in Palestine, contracts and transactions of a legal nature often took place in the open space by the gate of the city in or near which the contracting parties lived, and where witnesses to the transaction could easily be found among those who passed in and out, or who had business in the neighbourhood. In the record contained in the 23rd chapter of Genesis, the names of the witnesses are naturally not given, but it is expressly stated that the contract was made “in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.”
Salem.
One of the most interesting points revealed by the Tel-el-Amarna tablets, is the fact that the name of Jerusalem occurs, and is not called simply Salem (as in Gen. xiv. 18), but Uru-salim, the Aramaic (Syriac) Uri-shalem, a form which confirms the translation given to it, namely, “city of peace,” though the writing of the word in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets suggests the suppression of the particle “of,” making “the city Peace” simply, which would, perhaps, be to a certain extent a counterpart to or an explanation of the form Salem, “Peace,” in Genesis.
There is no doubt that the name is an exceedingly interesting one. Prof. Sayce has suggested that there was a god named Salem, or “Peace,” and that the city was so called as being the abode of that deity. This, of course, is by no means improbable, but in no place where the name occurs—neither in the Tel-el-Amarna tablets nor in the historical inscriptions of Sennacherib—has the element salim (in Sennacherib's texts salimmu) the divine prefix before it. That the divine prefix should be omitted in the inscriptions of Sennacherib is easily understood, as the name in question would be a foreign one to the Assyrian scribes of his time. To the writers of the letters from Jerusalem, however, it was a native name, and one would certainly expect the name of the city, in such documents, to be given fully at least once.
Nevertheless, that there was a god of peace among the Semites, is proved by the name of the Assyrian god Šulmanu or Shalman, a component part of the name Shalmaneser, the Assyrian Šulmanu-ašarid. It is noteworthy that there were no less than four Assyrian kings of this name, and that it means “the god Shalman is chief.” Šulmanu or Šalmanu nunu, “Shalman the fish,” also occurs, as the name of one [pg 240] of the gods of the city Tedi, or, as Prof. Sayce reads it, Dimmen-Silim (better Temmena-silima), but this latter reading would only be the correct one if the characters Tedi are to be read as an Akkadian group.
It is therefore very doubtful whether the element salim in the name of Jerusalem be the name of a god, notwithstanding the love that the peoples of the Semitic East naturally had for the blessings which the word implies. It formed part, as in Arabic at the present day, of many a greeting, and is one of the most noteworthy points of the Semitic languages. A poetic composition, apparently of the time of the dynasty of Babylon—probably contemporaneous with Abraham—seems to read as follows—
| Mazzazam išu, | It has the resting-place, |
| Padanam išu— | It has the roadway, |
| Bab êkalli šalim; | The gate of the palace is sound— |
| Šulmu parku šakin. | Perfect (?) soundness exists; |
| Martum šalmât | The gall is sound, |
| Ubanum šalmât | The peak is sound, |
| Ḫašû (?) u libbu (?) šalmu | Entrails and heart are sound— |
| Sinšerit tiranu. | 12 (are) the coverings (?). |
| Tertum immer izzim | (If) the viscera (?) of a healthy sheep (?) |
| Šalmât | Be sound, |
| Mimma la tanakkud. | Naught shalt thou fear. |
The above probably represents the signs which the extispices or “entrails-inspectors” looked for when working out their forecasts. A better translation than “peace” for salim would therefore probably be “safe and sound,” “intact,” or something similar (see the 13th edition of Gesenius's Lexicon, edited by Prof. F. Buhl, with the collaboration of Socin and Zimmern, also Fried. Delitzsch, Assyrisches Handwörterbuch), but the old and more poetic expression “peace,” “to be at peace,” may be held to sufficiently express the meaning.