Hittites in the Bible

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HITTITES

And Uriah the Hittite died also

The Hittites were one of the ancient world's great powers for about five centuries. They were the main geopolitical rivals of ancient Egypt during New Kingdom period of King Tutankhamun and Ramses II. "In pre-modern times, with none of our infrastructure and technology, the Hittites controlled and ruled a huge region for centuries despite myriad challenges of space, threats from neighbors and entities incorporated into their empire, and despite being centered in a semi-arid region," Cornell University professor of arts and sciences in classics Sturt Manning said in a study published in the journal Nature.

The Hittite Empire dominated Asia Minor and parts of the Middle East from 1750 B.C. to 1200 B.C. Once regarded as a magical people, the Hittites were known for their military skill. They developed an advanced chariot and were one of the first cultures to smelt iron and forge it I to weapons and tools. They fought with spears from chariots and did not possess the more advanced composite bow.

The Hittites were an Indo-European people that served as a conduit and bridge for the cultures of Asia, the Middle East and Europe. They created a society with a government and laws, similar to those in Sumer in Mesopotamia . The Hittites fought against Kings of Babylonians and the Pharaohs of Egypt for possession what is now Israel, Lebanon and Syria. In the 12th century their empire fell to the Assyrians.

In the Bible, the Hittites were a source of land and wives for Old Testament patriarchs, including David, who ordered the beautiful Basheba into his bed and then arranged the death of Uriah, her inconvenient Hittite husband. Uriah was a Hittite captain, was in David’s army.

Websites on Mesopotamia: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; International Association for Assyriology iaassyriology.com ; Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, University of Chicago isac.uchicago.edu ; University of Chicago Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations nelc.uchicago.edu ; University of Pennsylvania Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations (NELC) nelc.sas.upenn.edu; Penn Museum Near East Section penn.museum; Ancient History Encyclopedia ancient.eu.com/Mesopotamia ; British Museum britishmuseum.org ; Louvre louvre.fr/en/explore ; Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org/toah ; Ancient Near Eastern Art Metropolitan Museum of Art metmuseum.org; Iraq Museum theiraqmuseum ABZU etana.org/abzubib; Archaeology Websites Archaeology News Report archaeologynewsreport.blogspot.com ; Anthropology.net anthropology.net : archaeologica.org archaeologica.org ; Archaeology in Europe archeurope.com ; Archaeology magazine archaeology.org ; HeritageDaily heritagedaily.com; Live Science livescience.com/

Books: "Kingdom of the Hittites" by Trevor Bruce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). "Life and Society in the Hittite World by Trevor Bruce (Oxford University Press, 20020.

Hittite Empire

The Hittites established an empire that stretched across Anatolia and the Levant and southward to Kadesh (on the border of present-day Lebanon and Syria) from about 1700 to 1200 B.C. The Babylon empire came to an end when the Hittites sacked Babylon in 1595 B.C. See Mesopotamia

Hittite monarchs ruled as viceroys of the storm god of the mountainous homeland. The Hittite empire had many vassals states, possibly including Troy. When the Hittite empire collapsed many great cities in Asia Minor were sacked. The two headed eagle was the a Hittite religious symbol. It is said to have inspired the Austrian eagle which first appeared in the Crusades.

The Hittites controlled vast trade routes that extended east into Asia, south into Egypt and Syria and north towards the Black Sea. As the moved towards the Mediterranean Sea they clashed with the Greece-based Mycenaeans who fought Troy in the Trojan Wars. For a time Troy was a major Hittite trading center. See Mycenaeans

Bogazkale (120 miles northeast of Ankara on the road to Samsun) was the capital of the Hittites, the first people to use iron. The empire they ruled, starting in 1,700 B.C., was as large and powerful and ancient Egypt. Located on a craggy hill and also known as Hattuşas, Bogazkale is ringed by the remains of a six-mile-long double wall. Most of the ruins are piles of stones and foundations with the exception of the stone lions at the Lion Gate, the 200 foot-long underground tunnel, and the 70 room "Big Temple." In nearby Yazilikaya you can see a natural open-air temple with base-reliefs carved into the rock faces. Twenty miles away in Alaca Höyük is a Hittite sphinx gate and the remans of a 6000-year-old pre-Hittite civilization.

The Hittites were mentioned numerous times in the Bible. The Near East at the time of the first Jews was a time of chaos. The Bronze Age was ending and the Iron Age was emerging and the Near East was a patchwork of rival kingdoms that included the Israelites, Jebusites, Amorites, Ammonsites, Hittites, Horvites and Philistines. The Assyrians and Phoenicians were rising, Egypt was in a temporary state of decline, and the Mycenaeans were fighting the Trojans in the Trojan War.

The Canaanites are believed to have been the first people to possess an alphabet. A 13th century B.C. tablet with column of Canaanite words was found at Ashkelon. Believed to have used to teach scribes languages, the tablet appears to have contained other columns with other languages, perhaps the Semitic cuneiform language of Akkadian and another unrelated tongue, possibly Hurrian or Hittite.

After Abraham returned from Jerusalem, he settled in Beersheba. Sarah died in Qiryat Arba, near Hebron, at the age of 127. Abraham buried her in Hebron in the cave of Machpelah, which he bought for 400 shekels from a Hittite who took advantage of his grievous state and overcharged him. Abraham never owned a piece of land in his entire life until he bought the cave. As a nomad he never needed a place to live but according to one scholar "the dead require a permanent resting place."

David seduced Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite, who was then killed after being sent to the front line of battle by David. The Prophet Nathan predicted that tragedies would occur in David’s family for this evil deed. Bathsheba later gave birth to Solomon.

The Old Testament is full of contradictory messages as are the New Testament and the Koran and other religious text. In Deuteronomy worshippers of Yahweh are told: “You shall annihilate them — the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebsuites — just as the Lord your God has commanded.” While in the book of Judges, an Israelite military leader proposes more tolerance towards the Ammonites: “Should you not possess what your god Chemosh gives you to possess? And should we not be the ones who possess everything that our god Yahweh has conquered for our benefit.”

Biblical Hittites

According to Crystal Links: “References to a people whose name is transcribed into English as "Hittites" (or sometimes "Hettites") are found throughout the Hebrew Bible. These Biblical references to the Hittites are summarized below. It should be noted that the corpus of the Hebrew Bible was probably compiled in its near-final form between the 7th and 5th centuries B.C., during or after the Babylonian exile, as related in the Book of Ezra, with a further revision in the Masoretic text occurring some time between ca. 200 B.C. and 100 AD, as inferred from textual analysis of the Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls, and other sources. [Source: Crystal Links +/]

“The Traditional View: Given the casual tone in which the Hittites are mentioned in most of these references, Biblical scholars before the age of archaeology traditionally regarded them as a smaller tribe, living in the hills of Canaan during the era of the Patriarchs. This picture was completely changed by the archaeological finds that placed the center of the Hatti/Hattusas civilization far to the north, in modern-day Turkey. Because of this perceived discrepancy and other reasons, some Biblical scholars reject Sayce's identification of the two people, and believe that the similarity in names is only a coincidence. In order to stress this distinction, E. A. Speiser called the Biblical Hittites Hethites in his translation of the Book of Genesis for the Anchor Bible Series. +/

“The Mainstream View: On the other hand, the view that the Biblical Hittites are related to the Anatolian Hittites remains popular. Apart from the coincidence in names, the latter were a powerful political entity in the region before the collapse of their empire in the 14th-12th centuries B.C., so one would expect them to be mentioned in the Bible, just in the way that the HTY post-Exodus are. A stone lion relief found a Beth Shan, near the Sea of Galilee, dated to about 1700 B.C., has been interpreted as confirming this identification, since lions are often pictured in Hittite art. Moreover, in the account of the conquest of Canaan, the Hittites are said to dwell "in the mountains" and "towards the north" of Canaan - a description that matches the general direction and geography of the Anatolian Hittite empire, if not the distance. +/

“Modern linguistic academics therefore propose, based on much onomastic and archaeological evidence, that Anatolian populations moved south into Canaan as part of the waves of Sea Peoples who were migrating along the Mediterranean coastline at the time in question. Many kings of local city-states are shown to have had Hittite and Luwian names in the Late Bronze - Early Iron transition period. Indeed, even the name of Mount Zion may be Hittite in origin. +/

“Other Views: Some people have conjectured that the Biblical Hittites could actually be Hurrian tribes living in Palestine, and that the Hebrew word for the Hurrians (HRY in consonant-only script) became the name of the Hittites (HTY) due to a scribal error. Others have proposed that the Biblical Hittites were a group of Kurushtameans. These hypotheses are not widely accepted, however. It is also possible that the Biblical HTY refers to two distinct people at different times; e.g. a local tribe before Exodus, and the Anatolian empire after Exodus.

Biblical References to the Hittites

david handing a letter to Uriah, the Hittite

The Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times in the Hebrew Bible under the names "children of Heth" and "native of Heth") as living in or near Canaan since the time of Abraham (estimated to be between 2000 BC and 1500 BC) to the time of Ezra after the return from the Babylonian exile (around 450 BC). Their ancestor Heth is said in Genesis to be a son of Canaan, son of Ham, son of Noah. [Source: Wikipedia, King James Bible, University of Virginia search service]

Biblical References to the Hittites: Genesis 10:1, Genesis 23:2, Genesis 15:18 on Abraham’s covenant (expressed similarly in Nehemiah 9:8) In Genesis 23:2, towards the end of Abraham's life, he was staying in Hebron, on lands belonging to the "children of Heth", and from them he obtained a plot of land with a cave to bury his wife Sarah. One of them (Ephron) is labeled "the Hittite", several times. This deal is mentioned three more times (with almost the same words), upon the deaths of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.Decades later, in Genesis 26:34, Abraham's grandson Esau is said to have taken two Hittite wives, and a Hivite one. This claim is repeated, with somewhat different names, in Genesis 36:2. In Genesis 27:46, Rebekah is worried that Jacob will do the same; Genesis 25:8 Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people. 9 And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre; 10 The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.

Esau and Jacob: Genesis 26:34; Genesis 27:46'; Genesis 36:2; Genesis 49:29. Joseph: Genesis 50:13; Joshua 24.32.Exodus and the conquest of Canaan: This period is conjectured to start sometime after 1800 BC and end sometime before 1000 BC. In this period the Hittites are mentioned about a dozen times as part of an almost fixed formula that lists the "seven nations greater and mightier than [the Hebrews]" whose lands will be eventually conquered. Among the five references to the Hittites that cannot be classified as a variant of that formula, two (Numbers 13:29 and Joshua 11:3) declare that the Hittites "dwell in the mountains", together with the Jebusites, Amorites, and Perizzites, whereas the Canaanites live "on the east and on the west", on the coast of Jordan, and the Amalekites live "in the south". In Joshua 1:4 the land of the Hittites is said to extend "from the wilderness and this Lebanon", from "the Euphrates unto the great sea". In Judges 1:18, the traitor from Bethel who led the Hebrews into the city is said to have gone to live among the Hittites where he built a city called Luz. Finally in Judges 3:5 it is said that the Hebrew lived and intermarried with the Hittites as well as with the other five "major nations".

Medallion Death of Uriah by Michelangelo

Moses: Deuteronomy 20:17; Deuteronomy 7:1; Numbers 13:29. Joshua: Exodus 3:8; Exodus 13:5; Exodus 23:23; Exodus 33:2; Exodus 34:11; Joshua 1:4; Joshua 11:3;. Joshua 12:8; Joshua 24:11; Joshua 3:10; Joshua 9:1 Judges: Judges 1:18; Judges 3:1;

Kingdoms period: In this period the Hittites are mentioned as the ethnic label of two soldiers under king David (around 1000 BC), Ahimelech and Uriah;[7] the latter is murdered by David for the sake of his wife Bathsheba. In Solomon's reign (around 950 BC), the Hittites are listed as people whom the Hebrews had not been able "utterly to destroy" in their conquest of Canaan and who paid tribute to Israel. In the time of the prophet Elisha (around 850 BC) there is a passage in 2Kings 7:6 where the Syrians flee in the night after hearing a terrible noise of horses and chariots, believing that Israel had hired "the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians".

Saul: 1 Samuel 26:5. David: 2 Samuel 23:8; 1 Chronicles 11:10; 2 Samuel 11:3; 2 Samuel 12:9; 1 Kings 15:5; Solomon: 1 Kings 9:20; 2 Chronicles 8:7; 1 Kings 10:28; 2 Chronicles 1:16; 1 Kings 11:1; Elisha: 2 Kings 7:6. Babylonian exile and return: Ezekiel 16:1; Ezekiel 16:1. Ezra: 1 Esdras 8:3 (Apocrypha); Ezra 9:1

Uriah the Hittite

Uriah the Hittite was a soldier in King David’s army mentioned in the biblical Second Book of Samuel. He was the husband of Bathsheba and was sent to the front lines of battle by order of King David. Uriah's wife had become pregnant by King David in Uriah's absence. Although the king had ordered him to return home and see his wife, Uriah repeatedly refused to leave his post or leave the King's presence to see her. Contact between the couple would have hidden the source of her pregnancy. Eventually, David had Uriah killed. As a result of this murder, David was rebuked by the prophet Nathan; furthermore, later turmoil in David's household and throughout the kingdom of Israel, including the death of Bathsheba's baby and the insurrection of prince Absalom, was believed to be the result of David's sins of adultery and murder. [Source: Wikipedia +]

Hittite Seated Deity 13th Century BC
Based on the Biblical account, Uriah was probably of the ethnic Hittite minority resident in Israel that had lived in and around the region, "the Land of Canaan", since before the time of Abraham. The Hebrews, upon their entry into Canaan, had been commanded (Deuteronomy 20:16–17) to kill "anything that breathes ... in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance," with the explanation that "otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God" (Deuteronomy 20:18). Even so, some of the earlier inhabitants were spared, in some cases for cooperating with the Hebrews (Joshua 2:12–14, 6:23, Judges 1:24–25) in other cases from failure to carry out the extermination order (Joshua 15:63, 16:10, Judges 1:19, 21, 27–36). +

According to Second Samuel, King David was tempted upon seeing Bathsheba bathe in her courtyard from the roof of his palace. He had her brought to his chambers and had sex with her, resulting in a pregnancy. Informed that her husband was Uriah, David summoned Uriah from battle to meet him, suggesting that he go home and "wash his feet," meaning to spend time at home and attend to his wife. Uriah refused, claiming a code of honor with his fellow warriors while they were in battle. It was common for warriors in preparation for battle to abstain from sex, as a practice of discipline. After Uriah repeatedly refused to see his wife Bathsheba, David sent him to his commanding officer Joab with a letter that ordered Joab to put Uriah on the front lines of the battle and have the other soldiers move away from him so that he would be killed by enemy soldiers. +

Historical Context of the Hittites In The Bible

According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica: The Anatolian Hittites of the second pre-Christian millennium seem to have left no traces in the Hebrew Bible. Those books of the Bible that mention Hittites in connection with events of the monarchy clearly refer to the "late Hittites" of that same period: "Uriah the Hittite" under David I Chron. 11:41); Solomon's Hittite wives (i Kings 11:1) and the horses sent by him to "all the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Arameans" (i Kings 10:29; II Chron. 1:17; cf. also II Kings 7:6). [Source: Hans Guterbock; S. Sperling; Ignace Gelb, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2000s, Encyclopedia.com]

In contrast to these passages are those that mention Hittites as part of the pre-Israelite population of Palestine (Gen. 15:20; 23; 26:34, et al., Ex. 3:8, et al.; Deut. 7:1; Josh. 3:10; 9:1; et I Kings 9:20 = II Chron. 8:7; Ezra 9:1; Neh. 9:8), especially of its mountainous part (Num. 13:29; Josh. 11:3). The Hittite empire of the second millennium never included Palestine. To explain these passages some scholars have adduced the so-called Khirbet Kerak ware, a kind of pottery similar to wares found in Anatolia and further east. If this pottery really attests Anatolians in Palestine, they would be Hattians at best, and the time lapse from the Early Bronze Age to the conquest would be more than a millennium, a very long time for a name to be remembered.

Others have adduced a Hittite source according to which, some time before Suppiluliuma i, some Hittites migrated from Anatolia "into Egypt." If this means Egypt proper it has no bearing on the question (despite the convenient parallel it furnishes to the Children of Israel). Only if it is assumed that "Egypt" refers to Egyptian-held territory which happened to be Palestine can the phrase serve as an explanation for the mention of those early Hittites. Neither of these theories is convincing.

It is rather that the writers of the Bible used the designations "Hittite" and "Canaanite," mostly pejoratively, for the aboriginal inhabitants of the country. Esau's Hittite wives (Gen. 26:34) are called Canaanites in Gen. 27:46. "The "Hittites" of David's time, Uriah (II Sam. 11:3, 17, 21) and Ahimelech (i Sam. 26:6), may have traced their descent to old pre-Israelite families. By the eighth century, māt atti, "Hittite land" in Neo-Assyrian sources, had acquired the sense of everything west of the Euphrates up to the Mediterranean. The phrase ere ha- ittim, "the land of the Hittites" (Josh. 1:4) is a Hebrew reflex of this usage and is absent from the Septuagint to this verse.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, The Louvre, The British Museum, Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara

Text Sources: Internet Ancient History Sourcebook: Mesopotamia sourcebooks.fordham.edu , National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, especially Merle Severy, National Geographic, May 1991 and Marion Steinmann, Smithsonian, December 1988, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Discover magazine, Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, BBC, Encyclopædia Britannica, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Time, Newsweek, Wikipedia, Reuters, Associated Press, The Guardian, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated June 2024