ON THE EMPIRE OF THE HITTITES. 61 
The weight of evidence seems to point in that direction; but, 
when we remember that Renan declared the proper names 
on the Assyrian inscriptions to be clearly non-Semitic as late 
as 1855,* we should abstain from dogmatising where we do not 
know. The most probable explanation is that the Hittites, 
like modern missionaries and merchants, learned the 
language of the people among whom they lived. And, if a 
missionary can learn the Arabic language in two or three 
years, so as to think and speak fluently in that language, 
observing the niceties of inflection and forms of courtesy, 1 
fail to see any reason for believing that the Hittites would 
not make the Canaanitish language their own in as many 
hundred years. Afghans and Armenians pick up the language 
of Syria in a few months after their arrival in that land, and 
their children in the first generation, in name, in language, 
and in looks, are, to all intents, Syrians. Besides all these 
considerations, we must remember that the Hittite names in 
the Bible come to us in a Hebrew dress, and were first 
written for the use of Hebrews. With these considerations 
before us, I think we can have no hesita .on in accepting as 
authentic the story of the Hittites in the Book of Genesis. 
The Khatti of the Assyrian inscriptions, the Kheta of the 
Egyptians, and the ovnn of the Bible are thus one and the 
same people, known to the Authorised Version as Hittites. 
The claim, therefore, of the Hittite empire to recognition 
rests on threefold history. 
Admitting the concurrent testimony of the Bible, and the 
inscriptions to be true regarding the Hittites, would it not 
seem strange that they should disappear, and leave behind 
them no trace of their existence? The Hittites were 
surrounded by such literary peoples as the Assyrians, the 
Egyptians, and the Phoenicians. Their relations with 
Assyria must have been extensive, and they could not have 
been ignorant of the Assyrian libraries a* 1 public monuments. 
Hittites who visited Egypt, either as captives or merchants, 
would see on the Egyptian temples great pictures representing 
their countrymen as vanquished, and long, boastful records of 
the Egyptian victories over them. It is hardly conceivable 
that a brave and patriotic people like the Hittites would, 
century after century, continue to hold the Egyptians and 
Assyrians at bay, without having some records or monuments 
of their own to match those of their enemies. Nothing less 
* Lang. Semit., 1885, p. 56. 
