46 THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES, LL.D., M.R.A.S., ON THE 
that, eight or nine centuries earlier, Elishah (or Alasiyah) 
exported copper and bronze to Egypt. 
As regards the ’Abiri* and their invasion of Canaan recounted 
in the Tell-Amarna letiers from Jerusalem and probably in some 
from other southern towns also, [ am convinced that they were 
really the Hebrews. They are, as Conder points out, called a - 
“tribe”? and a “race” (Tell-Amarna Tab., pp. 144 and 147), and so 
could not have been merely confederates, as was at first thought. 
They are stated to have completely overrun the southern hill 
country and among other captures to have taken and destroyed the 
Ajalon of Joshua x (pp. 145 and 149). Addressing the King of 
Egypt as suzerain of Southern Canaan, the King of Jerusalem 
laments, “The land of the king my lord has been ruined, and all 
the rulers have been slain within this same year” (p. 147); and again, 
“The lands of the city of Jerusalem are deserted,” aud ‘‘no man is 
my subject”? (pp. 149 and 147). And finally he writes, “ We are 
leaving the city of Jerusalem—the chiefs of the garrison have left, 
without an order—through the wastings of this fellow whom I 
fear” (p. 151). Moreover, as this letter is written ona different kind 
of clay from the rest, it was almost certainly written during the 
flight, and perhaps in that last refuge which the divine record 
tells of—the cave of Makkedah (p. 150; and Josh. x, 16). 
This king also writes that the city Beth Baalatn had rebelled to 
the chief of the ’Abiri (p. 148); and we know that Baalah or 
Baale, otherwise called Kirjath-Jearim, was one of the four cities 
of the Gibeonites, the only ones that voluntarily submitted to 
Joshua (cf. Josh. ix, 17, and xv, 60; 1 Sam. vii, 1; 2 Sam. vi, 2; 
and 1 Chron. xiii, 5,6). The only general of the ’Abiri clearly 
mentioned on the tablets bears a Hebrew name—lIlimelec. He 
was doubtless one of Joshua’s captains in charge of a special raid ; 
for the great Hebrew leader did not always command in person 
(see Josh. x, 15-18). And, lastly, a contemporary letter from 
Suardata, of Keilah, states that his enemy has put to shame thirty 
temples of the gods (p. 155), a deed which superstition would have 
prevented all but the worshippers of Jehovah from performing. 
* The name, says Conder, always begins, not with A, but with the 
guttural ain (p. 141). 
