8 REV. A. H. SAYCE, M.A., LL.D. 



pied the fortress of ... ninu, and when Lab-api, along with 

 Ebed-dhabba and [his companions] occupied the fortress of 

 . . . ninu, the king [sent] to his servant." 



Lab-api is mentioned again in the other tablet to which I 

 have referred. What remains of it runs thus : " And, again, 

 the city of Pir(qar), the fortress which is in front of this 

 country, belonging to the king, I made faithful. At that 

 time the city of Gaza (Khazati), belonging to the king, which 

 is on the shore of the sea, westward of the country of the 

 cities of Gath and Carmel (?), * fell away to Urgi and the 

 men of Grath. I rode in my chariot (?) for the second time, 

 and we marched up (out of Egypt). Lab-api and the country 

 which thou possessest [went over] for the second time to the 

 men of Hebron, the Confederates (Jchdbiri) of Milki-ar'il, 

 and he took (their) sons as hostages (?). At the same time 

 he uttered their requests to the men of the district of Kirjath 

 (Qarti), and we defended the city of Ururusi. The men of 

 the garrison whom thou hadst left in it were collected by 

 Khapi (Apis), my messenger. Addasi-rakan in his house in 

 the city of Gaza [sent messengers] to the land of Egypt." 



The use of the word khabiri, which occurs here and in the 

 first text I have translated, seems to show that we must 

 render it by " Hebronites " rather than as the common noun 

 " confederates." The word may throw light on the origin of 

 the city of Hebron, which grew up out of a confederacy of 

 tribes worshipping at a common sanctuary, and may explain 

 why the name is not met with on the Egyptian monuments. 

 Kirjath is, perhaps, Kirjath- Sepher, though it may also denote 

 Kirjath-Arba, the old name of Hebron. As for Milki-ar'il, 

 it is formed like Melchizedek or Malchiel, and must be inter- 

 preted " Moloch is Ar'il." Ar'il, the Ariel of Isai. xxix. 1, 

 and the " lion-like men " of the A. V. in 2 Sam. xxiii. 20, has 

 been shown by a passage in an Egyptian papyrus to mean 

 " hero," so that when King Mesha declares on the Moabite 

 Stone that he carried away the oiSix of nin and mn, we 

 must understand that he carried away the consecrated 

 " heroes " who protected the Israelitish shrines of Yahveh 

 and Dodah. 



Dodah is the same name as that which we find in the 

 varying forms of Dodo, Dod, and David, and up to now it 

 has not been found outside the pages of the Old Testament, 

 though the feminine Dido proves that it was known to the 

 Phoenicians; and the Assyrian Dadu, corresponding to the 

 Syrian Hadad, comes from the same root. But one of the 



* It is doubtful whether we are to read Irmila or Kirmila. 



