60 THE REV. WILLIAM WRIGHT, D.D. 
Hittites were dependent on Hgypt for many of their supplies, 
and it is a matter of history that all strong nations push out 
their surplus and enterprising population along the highways 
of their commerce. It was thus that Phoenicia planted her 
colonies and stations wherever the current of commerce 
carried her merchants ; and it is thus Hngland, France, 
Germany, and other peoples plant their colonial stations and 
outposts at the present day. There is no difficulty in believing 
that the powerful, aggressive, and warlike Hittites should have 
swarmed over their southern as over their south-eastern 
border, and that they should have planted stations in Southern 
Palestine. Nor are we left to supposition on this point. It 
was the encroachment of the northern barbarians on the 
borders of Egypt that roused Thothmes the First to drive 
back the invaders, and, in doing so, he began his first war 
against the Hittites and their allies; and that war was carried 
on for nearly 500 years. At that time the Hittites and their 
king were in Palestine; and Brugsch tells us that there are 
records, dating from the time of the First Pharaoh of the 
Twelfth Dynasty, ré erring to the destruction of Hittite towns 
and palaces on the border of Egypt. Mariette goes even 
further, and declares that one of the early Heyptian dynasties 
was Hittite. 
The peaceful character of the transaction between Abraham 
and the Hittites at Hebron has been seriously urged against 
the genuineness of the story. This objection does not rest 
on a profound view of things; it assumes that a warlike 
people are incapable of engaging with courtesy in a peaceful 
transaction. I am inclined to think that the very objection 
is a proof of incapacity to look at a Bible statement with 
ordinary reasonableness. As a matter of fact, however, the 
Hgyptian inscriptions give us glimpses of the Hittites en- 
gaged in peaceful social and domestic transactions; and it 
may be safely assume’ that the Hittites could not have with- 
stood, for a thousand years, the shocks of war from Babylon, 
Egypt, and Assyria, if they had not been industrious and 
enterprising in times of peace. 
The point, however, which has been most strongly urged 
is the difference between the Hittite names on the inscriptions 
and those mentioned in Genesis. The Hittite names in the 
Bible are all either Semitic or Semiticised, while five-sixths 
of the Hittite names of the North preserved in the inscrip- 
tions are supposed to be non-Semitic. The stumbling-block 
is the Semitic form of the names of the Southern Hittites. 
In reply to this objection, I remark—first: It would be 
rash to assume for certain that the Hittites were non-Semitic. 
