HiVITK.
From several of the above notices we learn that the original seat ofthe Hittites, the city of Hebron, was found- ed by one Arba ofthe Anakim, whence its earlier name, and had inhabitants of that giant race as late as Joshua's time. It is also connected with Zoan in Egypt, and is said to have been built seven years before tliat city (Numb, xiii, 22). Zoan or Avaris was built or rebuilt, and no doubt received its Hebrew or Shemitic name, Zoan, the translation of its Egyptian name iia-awak, in the time 1 of the tirst Shejiherd-king of Egypt, who was of Phoeni-
cian or kindred race. It is also to be noted that, in Abraham's time, the Amorites, connected with the giant race in the case of the Rcphaim whom Chedorlaomer smote in Ashteroth Karnaim (Gen. xiv, 5), where the Rephaite Og afterwards ruled, d\vclt close to Hebron (ver. 13). The Hittites and Amorites, we shall see, were later settled together in the Oiontes valley. Thus at this period there was a settlement of the two nations in the south of Palestine, and the Hittites were mixed with the Rephaite Anakim. See Hkdrox.
2. Throughout the period of the settlement in Pal- estine, the name of the Hittites occurs only in the usual formula for the occupants of the Promised Land. Changes occur in the mode of stating this formula, but the Hittites are never omitted (see Exod. xxiii, 28). In the enumeration of the six or seven nations of Ca- naan, the first names, in four phrases, are the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites; in two, which make no mention of the Canaanites, the Hittites and Amorites ; and in three, the former three names, with the addition of an- other nation. In but two phrases are these three nations further separated. It is also to be remarked that the Hittites and Amorites are mentioned together in a bare majority of the forms of the enumeration, but in a great majority of passages. The importance thus given to the Hittites is perhaps equally evident in the place of Hcth in the list of the descendants of Noah, in the place of the tribe in the list in the promise to Abraham, where it is tirst of the known descendants of Canaan (xv, 20), and certainly in the term " all the land of the Hittites," as a designation of the Promised Land in its full extent, from liluphrates to the Mediterranean, and from Leba- non to the desert (Josh, i, 4). The close relation of the Hittites and Amorites seems to be indicated bj^ the prophet Ezekiel, where he speaks of Jerusalem as daugh- ter of an Amorite father and a Hittite mother (xvi, 3, 45). Indeed the Hittites and Amorites seem, in these last-cited passages, to be named for the Canaanites in general.
AMien the spies examined Canaan they found " the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites" dwelling " in the mountains" (Numb, xiii, 29), that is, in the high tracts that aftenvards formed the refuges and rallying-
points ofthe Israelites during the troubled period ofthe judges. There is, however, no distinct statement as to the exact position of the Hittites in Palestine. We may draw an inference from their connection with Je- rusalem and the Amorites, and their inhabiting the mountains, and suppose that they were probably seated chiefly in the high region of the tribe of Judah. Of their territory beyond Palestine there are some indica- tions in Scripture. The most important of these is the designation of the Promised Land in its full extent as "all the land of the Hittites" already mentioned, with which the notices of Hittite kings out of Canaan must be compared. Whatever temporary circumstances may have originally attracted them so far to the south as Beersheba, a people having the quiet commercial tastes of Ephron the Hittite and liis companions can have had no call for the roving, skirmishing life of the country bordering on the desert; and thus, during the sojourn of Israel in Egypt, they had withdrawn themselves from those districts, retiring before Amalck (Numb, xiii, 29) to the more secure mountain country in the centre of the land. Perhaps the words of Ezekiel (xvi, 3, 45) may implj' that they helped to found the city of Jcbus.
From this time, however, their quiet habits vanish, and they take their part against the invader, in equal alliance with the other Canaanitish tribes (Josh, ix, 1 ; xi, 3, etc.).
3. Hencefonvard the notices of the Hittites are veiy few and faint. We meet M-ith two individuals, both attached to the person of David. (1.) "Ahimelech the Hittite," who was Avith him in the hill of Hachilah, and with Abishai accompanied him by night to the tent of Saul (1 Sam. xxvi, G). He is nowhere else mentioned, and was possibly killed in one of David's expeditions, before the list in 2 Sam. xxiii was drawn uji. (2.) "Uriah the Hittite," one of "the thirty" of David's body-guard (2 Sam. xxiii, 39 ; 1 Chron. xi, 41), the deep tragedy of whose wrongs forms the one blot in the life of liis master. In both' these persons, though warriors by profession, we can perhaps detect traces of those qual- ities which we have noticed as characteristics of the tribe. In the case of the first, it was Abishai, the prac- tical, unscrupulous " son of Zeruiah," who pressed David to allow him to kill the sleeping king: Ahimelech is clear from that stain. In the case of Uriah, the absence from suspicion and the generous self-denial which he displayed are too well known to need more than a refer- ence (2 Sam. xi, 11, 12). He -was doubtless a prose- lyte, and probably descended from several generations of proselytes ; but the fact shows that Canaanitish blood was in itself no bar to advancement in the court and army of David.