The Empire of the Hittites (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1884 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VII. HITTITE NATIONALITY. Who were the Hittites? To what race or people did they belong? Outside the Bible our two sources of information on this subject are Hittite names and Hittite sculptures. It is now pretty generally conceded that the language of the Hittites was not Semitic--that is, it was not of the same family as the language spoken in varying dialects by the Jews and other Semitic people.1 The Egyptian inscriptions preserve for us a great many names of Hittite towns, kings, princes and princesses, generals, scribes, &c. Some of these names are Semitic. The gods and goddesses which were derived from Chaldea, their sacred shrines dedicated to the Kodeshoth, or sacred women, and certain terms of rank, are clearly Semitic. Nor is it to be wondered at that the Hittites adopted names from their Semitic neighbours with whom they were in close intercourse for a thousand years. Mr. Reginald S. Poole, referring to the names of the 1 Mr. George Grove says, in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," the Hittites were a Hamitic race, neither of the country nor kindred of Abraham. Hittites found in the Bible, remarks that " the language of the Hittites was nearer to the Hebrew than to the Chaldee."1 A Hittite, however, who had thrown in his fortune with King David might be called Ahimelech, "brother," or friend of the king, without being of Semitic origin; and a Hittite residing among the Canaanites might be called Beeri, or "Fontanus," from some special circumstances connected with a well or fountain. And this view is confirmed by the fact that Beeri and his daughter are mentioned by their original names in another passage in the Bible. In Gen. xxvi. 35, it is recorded that Esau "took to wife Judith, the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath, the da...