THE EGYPTIAN GOVERNANCE OF CANAAN AT THE TIME OF

THE EXODUS AND CONQUEST,

AND THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE ‘APIRU
IN THE AMARNA LETTERS

By Clyde E. Billington, Ph.D.

INTRODUCTION
Many critical Biblical archaeologists and scholars today assume that Egypt’s great
conquering Pharaoh Thutmosis III, after winning the Battle of Megiddo in ca. 1482 BC and after
making Canaan into an Egyptian colony, imposed a powerful, military, governance system upon
the Canaanites. The assumption is also frequently made that this powerful, military,
governance system over the new Egyptian colony of Canaan lasted until near the end of the
reign of Pharaoh Ramses II in ca. 1212 BC.
However, a literal interpretation of the Old Testament’s chronology (see I Kings
6:1) places the exodus in 1446 BC and the beginning of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and
the Israelites in 1406 BC in the midst of the period of time during which Canaan was supposed
to have been under the rigid military control of Egypt. Many critical archaeologists and
Egyptologists have thus assumed that the Israelites could not have invaded into Egyptian-
governed Canaan in ca. 1406 BC as the Bible indicates because Egyptian military control was far
too strong for the Israelites to have overcome.
One Bible verse and one unquestioned, ancient inscription found in an Egyptian
Temple at Soleb in what-is-today Sudan proves the early date of 1446 BC for the exodus, and
thus also proves that 1406 BC was the beginning date of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua.
The Bible verse is Exodus 6:3 where God says to Moses: “I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai (God Almighty), but by my name of Yahweh, I did not make
myself known to them.” In other words, God’s name of Yahweh was first revealed to Moses.
The Soleb Inscription is written on the bound body of an enemy Semite which is
carved into a stone column, and it reads in Egyptian hieroglyphic: “The Land of the Shasu of
Yahweh.” This is the oldest known ancient reference to Yahweh outside of the Bible. The Soleb
Inscription dates to the reign of Amenhotep III in ca. 1385 BC, and therefore, Moses, the
exodus, and the conquest under Joshua had to have taken place before ca. 1385 BC. In other
words, the exodus could not have taken place in ca. 1265-1270 BC during the reign of Pharaoh
Ramses II as is often assumed by many critical and some conservative Bible scholars.
“Shasu” was a term used by the ancient Egyptians for all semi-nomadic, Semitic
shepherds/ herders, and the Shasu mentioned in the Soleb inscription were almost certainly
Israelite Hebrews. As will be seen, the ancient Egyptians considered the Hebrew Israelites to be
a Shasu people, and this was also true for the ancient Edomites.
The commonly-held, critical view that the Israelite invasion into Egyptian-
dominated Canaan in 1406 BC could not have happened when the Bible says it happened is
mainly based upon two books: primarily on Egyptologist Donald B. Redford’s Egypt, Canaan,
and Israel in Ancient Times and to a lesser extent on Assyriologist William L. Moran’s
“Introduction” to his translation The Amarna Letters.
 In his book, Redford argues for the critical scholarly view that Egyptian control over
its colony of Canaan was far too great for the Hebrew Israelites to have overcome in the 15th
and 14th Centuries BC during which the Old Testament places their conquest of Canaan. For
example, in explaining why Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1391-1354 BC) never ever campaigned with
his army in Canaan, Redford writes:

A Pax Aegyptiaca had been forcibly imposed on Canaan (by Thutmosis III), and
Amenophis III had no need to go on campaign. Taxes and benevolences poured in at
Pharaoh’s behest, caravans from and to Egypt passed peacefully along the routes
through Palestine, and merchant shipping around the eastern Mediterranean increased
greatly (Redford 1993: 169).

As can easily be seen in the Amarna Letters, there was no “Pax Aegyptiaca”
(“Egyptian Peace”) in Canaan during the reign of Amenhotep III, and there certainly was none
during the reign of his son Akhenaten, when most of the Amarna Letters were written. As will
also be seen in the Amarna Letters, Amenhotep III definitely needed to campaign with his army
in Canaan, but strangely did not. The same is also true for his successors Akhenaten,
Smenkhare, and Tutankhamen, who were the rulers of Egypt during the entire Amarna Period
in the 14th Century BC.
Redford’s statement above, that “caravans passed peacefully along routes through
Palestine” during Redford’s theoretical “Pax Aegyptiaca” in the 14th Century BC, is absolutely
false. There are a number of Amarna Letters which mention feared attacks and actual attacks
on caravans passing through Palestine. For example, the Babylonian King Buriyash writes to
Pharaoh Akhenaten in Amarna Letter EA 8 complaining that, at the Canaanite city of Hinnatuna
(Bible: Hannathon), his caravan merchants had been killed and their money had been stolen by
two men: “Sum-Adda the son of Balumme, and Sutatna, the son of Saratum.”
Saratum was the city-king of Akka (Acco), and it appears that Balumme was the city king
of Hinnatuna. In other words, the sons of two Canaanite city-kings had robbed and killed
members of a Babylonian caravan. Amarna Letter EA 8 also states that these two royal sons
“sent their men” to do the robbing and killing, which strongly suggests that their fathers also
knew and condoned their brutal lawlessness. King Buriyash writes to Pharaoh Akhenaten:

Canaan is your country, and its (city) kings are your servants. In your country I have been
despoiled. Bring them to account and make compensation for the money that they took
away. Put to death the men who put my servants to death and so avenge their blood.
And if you do not put these men to death, they are going to kill again, be it a caravan of
mine or your own messengers (Moran 1992: 16).

For a few other examples, city-king ‘Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem in Amarna Letter EA

287 states that “caravans” which were being sent to Pharaoh Amenhotep III, “have been taken
in the countryside” (Moran 1992: 328). ‘Abdi-Heba also writes in EA 287 that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru
“have taken the countryside,” and “I am unable to send a caravan to the king, my lord.” City-
king Tagi (Hurrian name) of Gintikirmil mentions in EA 264 that his brother was attacked and
nearly killed while trying to “assemble a caravan” (Moran 1992: 313). Amarna Letter EA 255,
which dates to the reign of Amenhotep III, states that caravans to Mitanni and Babylonia had to
be sent under heavy guard (Moran 1992: 308).
Amarna Letter AE 313 mentions that there were “merchants from Egypt” who were
“struck down in the attack of the ‘Apiru” (Moran 1992: 346). Amarna Letter EA 200 indicates
that Babylonian caravans were being attacked by the “Ahlameans” (Arameans), who
undoubtedly were from Tubu/ Tob east of the Sea of Galilee and theoretically a part of the
Egyptian colony of greater Canaan (Moran 1992: 277). Based upon the Amarna Letters, it is
simply not true that “caravans from and to Egypt passed peacefully along the routes through
Palestine.” As will be seen later in this paper, even after the Amarna Period, the 19th Dynasty
Pharaoh Seti I (1294-1279 BC) had problems with caravan routes in Canaan being blocked by
the ‘Apiru/ Habiru.
Redford argues in his Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times that not only the
conquest of Canaan but also the Israelite exodus from Egypt could not have taken place at the
time when the Bible indicates in the mid-15h Century BC. He states in this same book that the
Old Testament is filled with historical errors which he suggests were placed in the Pentetuch
and the Books of Joshua and Judges by much-later, pious but dishonest, Biblical authors. For
example, he thinks that modern Biblical scholars are foolish to assume that the Old Testament
story of the exodus is historically accurate. He writes:

Scholars expended substantial effort on questions that they had failed to prove were
valid questions at all. Who was the Pharaoh of the Oppression? Of the Exodus? Can we
identify the princess who drew Moses out of the river? Where did the Israelites make
their exit from Egypt: via the Wady Tumilat or by a more northernly point? One can
appreciate the pointlessness of these questions if one poses similar questions of the
Arthurian stories, without first submitting the text to a critical evaluation [Redford 1993:
260].

In other words, Redford assumes that the Old Testament story of the exodus is false and filled
with non-historical legends much like the Medieval Period stories about King Arthur and his
Knights of the Round Table. Incidentally, the Biblical and archaeological evidence strongly
suggests that Thutmosis III was the Pharaoh of the oppression, and his son Amenhotep II was
the Pharaoh of the exodus!
Redford also argues that if the Israelite exodus did take place, which he rejected in
its Biblical form, it must have happened in ca. 1255 BC during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II
who was greatly weakened by his loss to the Kingdom of the Hittites at the Battle of Kadesh in
ca. 1275 BC (Redford, 1993: 259). Even though Ramses II claims to have won this battle,
Redford convincingly argues that he lost it and barely escaped with his life. There is no doubt
that the Kingdom of the Indo-European Hittites of Asia Minor retained possession of the areas
in Lebanon, Syria, and Amurru over which this battle was fought, and which had formerly
belonged to Egypt. The short-lived existence of the region/ Kingdom of Amurru will be
discussed later in this paper.
As will be seen below in this paper, William Moran suggests, in his “Introduction”
to his translation The Amarna Letters, that the Egyptian colony of Canaan was controlled by
officers and troops from the Egyptian army and that its control was comprehensive, well-
organized, and nearly total. However, as will also be seen, his own translation of the Amarna
Letters contradicts him and clearly indicates that Canaan was something of a chaotic mess
during the entire period of the Amarna Letters in the 14th Century BC.
Unfortunately, many critical Biblical scholars and archaeologists today-- without
looking at the Amarna Letters themselves and also without looking at passages in Redford’s
own books which contradict-- buy into the theory that Egypt exercised near-total military
control over Canaan in the period from ca. 1482-1212 BC, and hence the conquest of Canaan
under Joshua could not have begun in 1406 BC, which is the date which matches the Biblical
chronology.
However, the Amarna Letters of the 14th Century BC frequently mention a people
called the ‘Apiru/ Habiru who were killing city-kings and seizing land in Canaan, which closely
matches the Old Testament’s version of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua and the Israelites.
Nevertheless, Redford--and many other critical scholars--flatly rejects the idea that the ‘Apiru/
Habiru mentioned in the Amarna Letters were the Hebrew Israelites [Redford, 1993: 172].
This paper will first review the historical setting in Egypt at the time of Canaan’s
conquest by the Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmosis III. Next it will study the governance system
imposed on Canaan by the Egyptians beginning with Pharaoh Thutmosis III (ruled 1504-1450
BC) and supposedly ending just before the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah (1212-1202 BC). It was
Thutmosis III who first captured Canaan and made it into an Egyptian colony after winning the
Battle of Megiddo in ca. 1482 BC. While a variety of other ancient historical sources will be
used, including the Old Testament, the primary source dealing with the Egyptian governance
system in Canaan in the 14th Century BC is the Amarna Letters.
This paper will argue that Egyptian control over Canaan before, during, and after
the Amarna Period (ca. 1391-1328 BC) was exploitive, inconsistent, poorly-organized, chaotic,
corrupt, filled with violence, and at times extremely weak. Donald Redford has himself stated
that the Egyptian, governmental system, which Thutmosis III imposed on Canaan, was “ad hoc”
and nothing like the well-organized, Egyptian, colonial system imposed earlier during the
Middle Kingdom Period on the Kushites/ Nubians south of Egypt (Redford 1993: 201).
Incidentally, the Kushites south of Egypt in the Middle Kingdom Period did not have
heavily fortified cities with thick stone walls like those which existed in Canaan in the New
Kingdom Period when Thutmosis III conquered it. The presence of these “large and fortified”
cities in Canaan is even mentioned in the Old Testament in Numbers 13:28. As will be seen
below, the presence of strongly-fortified, walled cities in Canaan played a key role in the
development of what Redford himself has called the “ad hoc,” Egyptian, governance-system in
Canaan.
After studying the Egyptian governmental system imposed on Canaan by Thutmosis
III and how well it functioned during the periods of Joshua and Judges in the 14th and 13th
Centuries BC, this paper will study the “Habiru/ ‘Apiru” who are frequently mentioned in the
Amarna Letters, and it will argue that they were unquestionably the Hebrew Israelites. This
paper will also study the highly disruptive role that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru/ Hebrews played in
Canaan as related to the Egyptian governance system there.

CANAAN AT THE TIME OF THUTMOSIS III’S CONQUEST

 Canaan was conquered by Pharaoh Thutmosis III (Thutmose III in Redford’s books)
in the first half of the 15th Century BC. His victory over a coalition of Mitanni and Canaanite
city-kings--led by the Mitanni city of Kadesh in Syria--at the Battle of Megiddo in 1482 BC began
Egyptian control over Canaan. Before this key victory, Egypt never ruled Canaan as Donald
Redford states in his book The Wars in Syria and Palestine of Thutmose III:

Those who assume that, prior to the first campaign (of Thutmosis III), some sort of
subservient status of legal force had been already imposed by Egypt on the Canaanite
headmen, have adopted the mind-set which ancient Egyptian public relations assumes is
universally valid: viz. that all peoples on earth are bound by ties of loyalty to the Son of
the Sun and the Heir of (the earth goddess) Geb. Apart from this claim, arising solely
out of Pharaonic ideology, there is no evidence for a legal status of subservience before
Thutmose’s Megiddo campaign (Redford 2003: 194).

In other words, archaeologists, Bible scholars, and ancient historians should not
assume—unfortunately some do-- that claims made by earlier Egyptian Pharaohs about their
control over Canaan before Thutmosis III are true. There were New Kingdom Pharaohs such as
Ahmose and Thutmosis I who campaigned in southern Canaan against the escaping Hyksos, but
they made no attempt to convert Canaan into an Egyptian colony as was done earlier in the
Middle Kingdom Period with the area of Nubia/ Kush to the south of Egypt. As Redford notes,
Canaan did not fall under Egyptian control until the reign of Thutmosis III, and it was he who
organized Canaan as an Egyptian colony.
To understand the development and organization of Egyptian control over Canaan
which began with Pharaoh Thutmosis III, it is first necessary to understand the historical setting
in which it arose. The Delta area of Egypt was invaded and ruled from ca. 1660-1550 BC by
foreigners whom the Egyptians called the “Hyksos.” The name Hyksos translates as “rulers of
foreign lands.”
The Hyksos invaded into the Delta area of Egypt from Canaan, and, even though
there were Hurrians/ Horites and apparently some native Canaanites in the Hyksos army, its
military leaders--and apparently all of its chariot soldiers--were ethnically identical to the Indo-
European Ras/Rosh people who were called “Reshet,” “Reshu,”and “Teresh” by the ancient
Egyptians. In the Hebrew Old Testament, the Reshet are called Rosh/ Ras, and their Egyptian
name Teresh appears as Tiras. It was also the militarily powerful Ras/ Rosh/ Reshet, who, along
with the Hurrians, formed the powerful Kingdom of Mitanni in northern and central
Mesopotamia in ca. 1550 BC.
The name Rosh in the Hebrew Old Testament is generally spelled with three
Hebrew letters res-alpha-sin/shin. In the original un-pointed Hebrew, the final letter sin/shin
could be transliterated as either an “s” sound or as an “sh” sound. I prefer the transliteration
“Ras,” which is also the exact same way that the Etruscans—descendants of the Ras/ Rosh—
spelled their name. However, these same people were also called by other ethnic groups:
“Tiras/ Teresh/ Tyrsenoi, Taruish/ Etruscans.” As will be seen below in this paper, the Ras/
Rosh/ Teresh were famous chariot soldiers. Incidentally, it was the Etruscans of northwest Italy
who introduced chariot racing to the ancient Romans.
 It is very likely that Tiras/Teresh was the original Indo-European version of their
name which they called themselves. It is certain that Ras/ Rosh was the Hurrian version of this
same name. When the Tiras people in the Kingdom of Mitanni adopted the Hurrian language,
they also adopted the Hurrian version of their name, Ras. However, it appears that those Tiras
people, who were not a part of the Kingdom of Mitanni and who did not speak Hurrian,
continued to call themselves Tiras/ Teresh; the ancient Thracians north of Greece probably fit
into this category.
Bands of the Tiras/Teresh people are said in Egyptian inscriptions to have been
partners in the Sea Peoples Coalition, which was led by the Philistines, in attacks on Egypt in ca.
1190 BC. As will be seen in this paper, the Kingdom of Mitanni was earlier defeated by the
Kingdom of the Hittites in ca. 1350 BC, who forced many of the surviving members of the
Kingdom of Mitanni back into “Hanigalbat, the original homeland of the Hurrians where they
had earlier merged with the Ras/ Rosh/ Tiras.”
The Hittites also deported and scattered many of the remaining Mitanni/ Teresh/
Ras people to other parts of their empire, especially to western and southern Asia Minor,
where they came in contact with and joined with the Philistines/ Pelasgians and other tribal
groups to form the Sea People Coalition. At some time before ca. 1000 BC, one band of the
Ras/ Teresh migrated by sea to northwest Italy where they were known to the Romans as
“Etruscans,” but they called themselves the “Ras.” Incidentally, the Ras/ Rosh of the ancient
Near East are known to have originally worshipped gods who were worshipped by the ancient
Hindus of India.
Hanigalbat, the small remnant of the Kingdom of Mitanni which was left by the
victorious Kingdom of the Hittites, was crushed and eliminated by the Assyrian King
Shalmaneser I in ca. 1260 BC. Shalmaneser I brags in one of his inscriptions of having blinded
14,400 Hanigalbat/ Mitanni troops who had surrendered to him (Bryce 1999: 304). It is likely
that he only blinded one of their eyes, probably their right (see I Samuel 11:2).
It appears that some of the Teresh/ Tiras/ Ras people who were deported by the
Hittites, and also possibly survivors from the destruction of Hanigalbat by the Assyrians, jointed
the Sea Peoples Coalition which was led by the Philistines. The Egyptian records of Pharaoh
Ramses III clearly state that there were Teresh people who were allied with the Philistines in
attacking Egypt.
The Kingdom of Mitanni began to come into existence in ca. 1650 BC when Indo-
European Tiras/ Ras/ Rosh people from the north merged with the small Hurrian state of
Hanigalbat in northeastern Mesopotamia and began to expand into all of northern
Mesopotamia. By 1550 BC the Kingdom of Mitanni had become a dominant force in
Mesopotamia and the Middle East, and it remained a dominating force until ca. 1350 BC when
it was defeated by the Kingdom of the Hittites of north central Asia Minor.
Jacques Freu in his Histoire Du Mitanni dates the formative period of the Kingdom
of Mitanni to ca. 1560-1500 BC and the powerful period of the Mitanni Empire to ca. 1500-1450
BC (Freu 2003: 221), but these dates are clearly wrong. Freu also unfortunately adopts the low
Egyptian chronology for the 18th Dynasty. The period of dominance for the Kingdom of Mitanni
ran from ca. 1550-1350 BC with only a period of weakness during the reign of Thutmosis III. As
will be seen, nearly all of the campaigns of Thutmosis III were directed against the Kingdom of
Mitanni and its allied cities in Syria, Lebanon, and northern Canaan.
 Thutmosis III’s first campaign in Canaan in ca. 1482 BC was directed against the city
of Megiddo which was being used by the Mitanni-controlled city of Kadesh in southern Syria as
a forward attack-base, from which Thutmosis III thought—and he was probably correct-- that
they planned to invade into Egypt. Before continuing, it is necessary to do a quick study of the
Kingdom of Mitanni which was formed by the union of two peoples: the Ras/ Rosh/ Reshet and
the Hurrians/ Horites.
The Indo-European Tiras/Ras/ Rosh people, who originally came from north of the
Caucasus Mountains, are known to have expanded into and/or to have merged into Hurrian
areas in northern Mesopotamia some time before ca. 1650 BC. However, this expansion into
Hurrian areas was almost certainly not accomplished militarily. As will be seen below, the Ras/
Rosh and the Hurrians/ Horites had been on friendly terms long before 1650 BC. The merger of
these two peoples in northern Mesopotamia was more-than-likely encouraged by the Hurrians
who may have wanted protection from the growing power of the Kingdom of the Hittites in
central and eastern Asia Minor. The Hittite kings Hattushili I and Mutsili I are known to have
invaded/raided into northern Mesopotamia in the 17th century BC (Gurney 1966: 191) at about
the same time as when the Ras and the Hurrians joined together and began to form the
Kingdom of Mitanni.
There is no doubt that the Ras/ Rosh were a strong military people who had horses
and chariots, and at first, they were more than a match for the Kingdom of the Indo-European
Hittites. It was the Ras/ Rosh who developed the true war chariot and introduced it into the
Middle East sometime before ca. 1800 BC. It is even possible that the Hurrians, who were
skilled metal-workers, traders, merchants, and craftsmen, hired their neighbors, the militarily-
minded Ras/ Rosh, as mercenaries for protection. In other words, it appears that bands of Ras/
Rosh and Hurrians merged in a mutually-advantageous, working relationship. In most English
translations of the Bible today, the Hurrians (Hebrew: Horim) are generally called “Horites.”
Once the Ras/ Rosh and the Hurrians/ Horites merged, they conquered the rest of
northern and central Mesopotamia by ca. 1550 BC, and formed the powerful Kingdom of
Mitanni. However, as will be seen below, bands of Hurrian/ Horite and Ras/ Rosh peoples had
even earlier invaded deep into Canaan long before 1650 BC. It is nearly certain that it was
these early Ras and Hurrian invaders into Canaan who formed the Hyksos who invaded into
Egypt in ca. 1660 BC during the period of Egyptian weakness known as the Second Intermediate
Period.
The Kingdom of Mitanni in northern Mesopotamia began to arise in ca. 1650 at
about the same time as when the Hyksos invasion into Egypt took place. By ca. 1550 BC, the
Ras/ Rosh and Hurrians in the Kingdom of Mitanni had conquered the nearby Arameans and
Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia, and as a result, it became one of the great empires in the
ancient Middle East. Incidentally, it appears that the ancient Assyrians only became very
militaristic—for which they later became infamous--after their contact with and domination by
the Kingdom of Mitanni.
It was primarily by merging with the Hurrians that the militaristic Ras/Rosh/ Reshet
were able to form the Kingdom of Mitanni. The fully-formed Kingdom of Mitanni only lasted for
about 200 years from ca. 1550-1350 BC, but it played a major role in Egyptian history and also
in the history of ancient Canaan. Meanwhile in Egypt, the new 18th Dynasty under Pharaoh
Ahmose had driven the Hyksos out of Egypt and back into Canaan in ca. 1550 BC, which was at
about the same time as when the Kingdom of Mitanni became fully formed.
The multi-ethnic Kingdom of Mitanni, which was also called “Naharin/ Naharaim”
by the ancient Egyptians and Israelites, was the main enemy against whom Pharaoh Thutmosis
III fought nearly all of his seventeen campaigns in the first half of the 15th Century BC. As will be
seen, early in the 15th Century BC, the Kingdom of Mitanni not only controlled most of the areas
of modern-day Syria, northern Iraq, parts of eastern Turkey, northern Galilee, and most of
Lebanon, but it was also trying to expand its rule into southern Canaan where it came into
conflict with Egypt. Thutmosis III in his 17 military campaigns took much of the areas in
northern Canaan, southern Syria, and Lebanon away from the Kingdom of Mitanni. However,
the Kingdom of Mitanni would recover much of this area after the death of Thutmosis III.
The ancient Egyptians were very leery of a repeat of the Hyksos invasion which had
earlier attacked into their nation out of Canaan. It was primarily to thwart another invasion
into Egypt from Canaan by Ras/ Rosh and Hurrian peoples that Thutmosis III undertook his first
military campaign into Canaan (Redford 1993: 149). As was noted above, the main enemy,
which Thutmosis III feared was planning to invade into Egypt, was the powerful Kingdom of
Mitanni and its allied city-states in what-is-today Lebanon, northern Iraq, Syria, southeastern
Turkey, and northern Canaan.
The Syrian city of Kadesh served as the primary base for the Kingdom of Mitanni’s
expansion south into Canaan, and the city of Megiddo in particular in Canaan was being used by
the Mitanni as a staging area for an apparent planned attack into Egypt, or at least Thutmosis III
thought Megiddo was to being used for a planned attack into Egypt.
Thutmosis III clearly connected the Kingdom of Mitanni, the city of Kadesh, the city
of Megiddo, and their allied city-states in Syria and Canaan with the earlier Hyksos invaders into
Egypt. In a “Day Book” entry dating to year 23 of his reign, Thutmosis III refers to the enemy
coalition of Mitanni and Mitanni-allied city-kings in Canaan and Syria, which fought against him
in the Battle of Megiddo, as being composed of “the chiefs of all foreign lands” (Redford 2003:
14); a phrase which is nearly identical to the term Hyksos, “rulers of foreign lands.”
As was noted above, there were two main ethnic groups which formed the
Kingdom of Mitanni, the Hurrians/ Horites and the Indo-European Ras/ Rosh/ Rish/ Reshet
people. The Hurrians had a written language using cuneiform—which the Ras/ Rosh at first did
not have-- and the Hurrians were also great craftsmen, metal-workers, merchants, and traders.
On the other hand, the militaristic Indo-European Ras/ Rosh/ Reshet people were great
horsemen and bowmen, and, as was noted above, it was they who introduced true chariot
warfare into the Middle East. The Hyksos, who ruled the Delta of Egypt for about a century
from ca. 1660-1550 BC, were primarily an early mixture of these same Indo-European Ras/ Rosh
peoples and the Hurrians, and it was from them that the Egyptians learned the use of chariots
in warfare, which is clearly illustrated in the exodus story in the Bible.
As was noted above, together the Hurrians and the Ras/ Rosh formed the Kingdom
of Mitanni in central and northern Mesopotamia. It was a near perfect marriage. The Ras/Rosh
provided the military muscle and governance while the Hurrians handled trade, metal-working,
finances, record-keeping, and administration. Incidentally, while this paper deals very critically
with Donald Redford’s anti-Bible theories on the Israelite exodus and conquest, he actually
provides good reviews on the history of the Kingdom of Mitanni in two of his books: The Wars
in Syria and Palestine of Thutmosis III and Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times.
As was noted above, even though, the Kingdom of Mitanni did not begin to be
formed until ca. 1650 BC, the archaeological and Biblical evidence clearly shows that the
Hurrians and the Ras/ Rosh were already allies and major players in Canaan long before
Thutmosis III won the Battle of Megiddo in 1482 BC and made greater Canaan into an Egyptian
colony. Redford writes of their earlier conquests in Canaan:

We know, thanks to the names in the Amarna letters, that by the close of the fifteenth
century (BC) that a surprising number of the ruling families in the towns of Palestine and
central Syria display Indo-Aryan (Ras/ Rosh) names despite the fact that their bearers
spoke “Canaanite.” Two generations earlier, lists of personal names from (the Canaanite
city of) Tanaach suggest that the combined Hurrian (Horites) and Indo-Aryan (Ras/ Rosh)
population of Palestine in ca. 1450 BC amounted to as much as 37.5 percent. The
invasion must have taken place earlier still, since the term Kharu (H’rw), derived from
Hurru(land) is applied to Palestine by Amenophis II (Amenhotep II), and undoubtedly
had enjoyed currency under Thutmose III (Redford 1993: 137).

Redford is here saying that more than a third of the city-kings in Canaanite cities--
before and after Canaan became an Egyptian colony--were Hurrians and “Indo-Aryan” (Ras/
Rosh) peoples. Wayne Horowitz and Takayoshi Oshima in their book Cuneiform in Canaan drew
the same conclusion on the early presence of large numbers of these same two peoples in
Canaan (Horowitz 2006: 15).
As was noted above, the Ras/ Rosh and the Hurrian/ Horite peoples, who ruled
large portions of Canaan during this period of time, were unquestionably related to the Hyksos
who had earlier been the mortal enemies of the Egyptians. However, as will be seen,
Thutmosis III, after the Battle of Megiddo, unexpectedly left these ruling Ras/Rosh and Hurrians
in place as city-kings in his newly-formed, Egyptian colony of greater Canaan.
Genesis 14:6 indicates that there were Hurrians/Horites already living in what-
became the nation of Edom as early as the life of Abraham. They were almost certainly
migrants into that area in order to exploit the copper ore that was available there, because
their homeland was in northern Mesopotamia. The ancient Hurrians/ Horites appear to have
been experts in metal working.
The Ras/ Ros people who invaded into Canaan are called Hivim/ Hivites in the Bible,
and it is nearly certain that they were a sub-tribe of the Tiras/ Ras/ Rosh. The Ras/Rosh/ Hivite
peoples who became the allies of the Hurrians/ Horites in Canaan apparently came a little later
than the Hurrians and probably invaded into Canaan in large numbers during the life of Jacob in
ca. 1900 BC. They are not mentioned in the Old Testament as being in Canaan earlier during the
lifetime of Abraham as can be seen in Genesis14:6 and 15:19. However, the Hurrians/ Horites
were already in what-became Edom during the lifetime of Abraham.
Genesis 14:6 states that the Elamite King Kedorlaomer and his allied kings from
southern Mesopotamia, besides attacking Sodom and Gomorrah, attacked the “Horites in the
hill country of Seir.” It is very likely that the Hurrians/ Horites, in the area that later came to be
called Edom, subsequently brought the Ras/ Hivites--who were also from the far north in
Mesopotamia--into Edom as their protectors. As was noted earlier in this paper, the Ras/ Rosh/
Hivites were a tough military people. While Hurrians and Indo-European Ras/ Hivites are found
at various sites in Canaan, they appear to have been concentrated, at least at first, in the area
of Edom. As was suggested earlier, it is nearly certain that the Hurrians and their allies the
Hivite/ Ras/ Rosh first moved into the area of southern Edom in order to exploit the copper ore
that was found there.
As was noted above, the Indo-European—Redford and Albright use the term “Indo-
Aryan”--Ras/Rosh people in Canaan are called Hivim/ Hivites in the Old Testament, and, as was
also true in northern Mesopotamia, they merged with the Horites/ Hurrians in Canaan. The
Hivites/ Ras are not mentioned in Genesis 15:19 as a people group living in Canaan in the early
days of Abraham, but, as was noted above, the Hivites appear to have invaded in large numbers
into Canaan during the life of Jacob, possibly during the 21 years that he spent in Aram
Naharaim with Laban which are mentioned in Genesis 24.
It is nearly certain that the Hivim/ Hivites were a branch or a tribe of the Tiras/ Ras/
Rosh people. This merger of the Hurrians and the Ras/ Hivites can even be seen in Genesis 36
where these two peoples are clearly linked together. For example, the Book of Genesis states
that Oholibamah, one of the wives of Esau, the brother of Jacob, had a father who was a
Hurrian/ Horite, but she had a grandfather who was a Hivite (Genesis 36:2, 20).
Adah, another wife of Esau, was a Canaanite. In addition, Esau’s son Eliphaz had a
concubine named Timna who was a Hurrian/ Horite (Genesis 36:12, 22). In other words,
Genesis 36 documents the merging of the Hivite/ Ras peoples with the Hurrian/ Horite peoples
and also the mixing of both of them with the Edomites and local Canaanite peoples in Canaan.
The merger of the Hivites/Ras and Hurrians in Canaan, which is mentioned in the Old
Testament, has also been proven by history and archaeology. For the sake of this study, it is
necessary to take a quick look at the Hivites/ Ras mentioned in the Old Testament, and
especially at the Hivites living in Shechem.
According to Genesis 34:2, Hamor, the “founder” and ruler of Shechem, whose son
raped Jacob’s daughter Dinah, was a Hivite who was ruling over local Canaanites--almost
certainly Perizzites--during the life of Jacob in the early 19th Century BC. Judges 3:3 also
mentions that there were Hivites living in Lebanon and southern Syria at this same time. Thus,
according to the Old Testament, there were Hivites living in Edom, Canaan, Lebanon, and
southern Syria. Incidentally, the scattered nature of the Hivites was undoubtedly the reason
why later the Hivites of the city of Gibeon were able to fool Joshua and the Israelites into
making a peace treaty as is seen in Joshua 9.
The scattered nature of the Hivite/ Ras invaders in the Middle East as seen in the
Old Testament matches very well with Thutmosis III’s “Day-Book Excerpts” which mention Indo-
European “maryannu” troops living in various city-states in Lebanon, Canaan and Syria at the
time of the Battle of Megiddo in ca. 1482 BC. The Indo-European word “maryannu” was
unquestionably only used originally for Ras/ Rosh charioteers.
As was noted above, the invading Ras/ Hivites and their allies the Hurrians
conquered large areas in Canaan and intermarried with the majority Canaanite peoples whom
they ruled. The rape of Jacob’s daughter Dinah seems to fit this pattern. The Hivites in
Shechem planned to intermarry with the Israelites as can be seen in the fact that all of their
males agreed to be circumcised. In other words, the Hivites of the Old Testament were a Ras/
Rosh people who mixed with the Hurrians/ Horites, and both of them intermarried with the
local Canaanites whom they had conquered.
The Perizzites, who are mentioned in the Old Testament as living in or around
Shechem at the time of Dinah’s rape, were almost certainly a native Canaanite tribe (see
Genesis 15:20) whom the Hivites in the city of Shechem had conquered—apparently during the
lifetime of Jacob-- and with whom they had apparently begun to intermarry. In Genesis 34:34,
Jacob even expresses concern that the local “Perizzites,” might retaliate for his sons’ killing of
the Hivite men in the city of Shechem in revenge for the rape of Dinah, but they never did.
By the time of Moses, it appears that the invading, minority Hivites, who were
ruling over a much larger group of native Perizzite Canaanites, had become a very mixed-blood,
ethnic group, and who, because of intermarriage—much like the later Philistines--had more
Canaanite blood in them than Ras/ Rosh blood. The Hivites, also again like the later Philistines,
in time came to speak the Canaanite/ Amorite language, even though many of their names
continued to come from both the language of the Hurrians and also from their own original,
Indo-European, Ras/ Tiras language which was closely related to the ancient Sanskrit language
of India (Redford 1993: 134). Incidentally, the ancient Canaanite/ Amorite language was
Semitic and very closely related to Hebrew, but it was not at all related to Hurrian (an “isolate”)
or to the original Indo-European language of the Tiras/ Ras/Rosh.
It is almost certainly because of their intermarriage with Canaanites and their
adoption of the Canaanite (Amorite) language that the Hivites from the city of Gibeon are later
called “Amorites” in II Samuel 21:2. This matches well with the Amarna Letters where all of the
inhabitants of Canaan, except for the ‘Apiru, Kasha, and Sutu, are also called “Amorites.” The
Sutu mentioned in the Akkadian language of the Amarna Letters are identical to the Shasu
mentioned in Egyptian hieroglyphic texts (Albright 1966:15). The Kasha were Kushite conscripts
in the Egyptian army, and, as will be seen below, the ‘Apiru/ Habiru were unquestionably the
Hebrew Israelites.
The fact that Hivite blood at the time of Moses was predominately Canaanite is
also almost certainly the reason why the Hivites are listed as Canaanites by Moses in Genesis
10:15, even though the original, pure-blooded Hivites were almost certainly the descendants of
Tiras, the son of Japheth in Genesis 10:2. The Perizzites are conspicuously missing in Genesis
10:15 as a Canaanite tribe, and it appears that the Hivites had so intermarried with them by the
time of Moses that the name Hivite became in time a substitute for the name Perizzite.
In northern Mesopotamia, the homeland of the Hurrian people, where the
Kingdom of Mitanni was formed by the merger of Hurrian and Ras/ Rosh peoples, the majority
of the people spoke Hurrian which then became the official language of the Kingdom of
Mitanni. The Hurrian language is an isolate; it is only related to the nearby Urartian/ Ararat
language and to the later Etruscan language, both of which were clearly derived from it. The
Indo-European-speaking Ras/ Ros people in the Kingdom of Mitanni adopted the Hurrian
language of their more populous—and literate--allies the Hurrians. As has been noted, the
original language of the Tiras/ Ras/ Rosh was closely related to the ancient Sanskrit language of
India. However, in Canaan both the Ras/ Rosh/ Hivites and the Hurrians adopted the
Canaanite/ Amorite language.
In many ways, the Ras/ Rosh/ Hivite people were much like the later medieval
Vikings who originally spoke Scandinavian dialects, but when some of them invaded into
France, they began to speak French, in Russia they spoke Russian, in Ireland they spoke Gaelic,
and in England they spoke English. In all of these areas, the Vikings first conquered, ruled, and
then intermarried and merged with the local people, and especially with the local nobility. It
was this same basic pattern which was followed centuries earlier by the Ras/ Rosh/ Hivites in
Canaan. Incidentally, the Vikings in medieval Western Europe were frequently called “Norse”
and “Normans,” and at times by the tribal name of “Danes.” Today, an area of modern France,
is named “Normandy” after them, and in the Middle Ages the area where the Vikings settled in
Britain was called “Dane Law.” This same pattern was also true centuries earlier of the ancient
Tiras/ Ras/ Hivite peoples.
It must at this point be noted that the Bible has been proven to be historically and
archaeologically correct when dealing with the political situation in Canaan at the time of its
conquest by Thutmosis III in the 15th Century BC. As the Bible indicates, the Indo-European
Ras/ Hivite people and their allies the Hurrians/ Horites from northern Mesopotamia had
invaded into Canaan and ruled large parts of it just as the Amarna Letters and the inscriptions
of Thutmosis III clearly prove. Amenhotep II in his inscriptions at times even refers to all of
Canaan as “Hurru,” in other words as “the land of the Hurrians.”
Thutmosis III also states in his inscriptions that there were “maryannu” charioteers
in various cities in Canaan who were allied with the Mitanni-controlled city of Kadesh against
the Egyptians in the Battle of Megiddo (Redford 2003: 37). As was noted above, “maryannu”
was an Indo-European (Ras/ Rosh) word which originally was used just for charioteers, but in
time it was extended to their entire families. Hence, “maryannu” came in time to be used as a
term equivalent to “nobles.”
The process of converting these maryannu and their families into a noble class is
much like that which took place later in medieval Europe where heavily-armed, mounted
knights and their families became the nobility. Incidentally in the same “Day-Book” entry, in
which he mentions these maryannu charioteers, Thutmosis III relates that he captured a “large
mixing cauldron of Hurrian workmanship” which he took as booty after the Battle of Megiddo
(Redford 2003: 37); this Hurrian bronze cauldron clearly shows the connection of the Hurrians
to the Indo-European, maryannu people called the Rosh/ Ras/ Tiras.
It is highly likely that one of several reasons why Thutmosis III left city-kings, who
had Ras and Hurrian names, in place in Canaan was because they had so intermarried and
mixed with local Canaanites that it was not practical to attempt to remove them. It is also
highly likely that the only way he could have removed them was by besieging and conquering
each city-state in Canaan, which would have been extremely difficult.
For an illustrative and similar example of this phenomenon of ethnic mixing, the
original inhabitants of England were the Keltic Britons, but they were conquered by the Romans
in the 1st Century AD, then by the Anglo-Saxons (Germans) in the 5th Century AD, and later by
the Vikings/ Danes in the 10th Century AD. Today it would be impossible to again separate
them into their original tribes, and all of them are today collectively called “English” and
“British.”
Thutmosis III apparently decided not to attempt to eliminate the various city-kings
in Canaan, but rather to control them. The problem was that many of these Ras/ Hivite and
Hurrian city-kings appear to have disliked Egyptian control, and they had relatives in the
Kingdom of Mitanni and in the Mitanni-allied city-states in Syria who were more than willing to
stir the pot of rebellion in Canaan.

THE AMARNA LETTERS

Before looking in detail at the Egyptian governmental system in Canaan, which is
primarily revealed in the Amarna Letters, it is necessary first to briefly look at what the Amarna
Letters were. The Amarna Letters were found at the ancient city-site of Tell El-Amarna which is
located about 190 miles south of Cairo on the east bank of the Nile River (Moran 1992: xiii). In
the mid-14th Century BC, “the Heretic Pharaoh” Akhenaten built a new Egyptian capital city at
Tell El-Amarna which he named “Akhetaten.”
At the site of the ancient city of Akhetaten, modern antiquities thieves and later
archaeologists found a royal archive of over 380 cuneiform texts on clay tablets, the vast
majority of which were letters written in Akkadian and sent by city-kings in Canaan to Pharaoh
Akhenaten (ca. 1354-1340 BC), but some were sent to his father Amenhotep III (ca. 1391-1354
BC) and also a few were sent to his son (or grandson?) Tutankhamen (ca. 1337-1328 BC). These
letters mainly dealt with the Egyptian administrative system in Canaan and also with various,
chaotic historical events which were taking place in Canaan at that time.
In the Amarna Letters, the city-kings of Canaan almost never address the Pharaoh
by name, only as “king” (the title Pharaoh is not used in the Amarna Letters), and in the very
rare instances when he is named, only his praenomen (throne) name is used (Moran 1992:
xxix). Other “great” kings such as those of Babylon, Mitanni, and Hatti (Indo-European Hittites)
were allowed to address the pharaoh by name in their letters, but again only by his praenomen,
and never by his personal name which he received at birth. The names Thutmosis, Amenhotep,
etc. are personal, birth names.
The personal names of Pharaohs are never mentioned in any Amarna Letter, and
during the entire New Kingdom Period, their personal names were almost certainly not known
by the common Egyptian people, who appear to have only known of their rulers as the
“Pharaoh.” This is almost certainly the reason why the personal names of the Pharaohs of the
Israelite bondage and exodus are not given in the Old Testament. Incidentally, it is highly likely
that the ancient Israelites and the vast majority of Egyptians would not have known who
Thutmosis III and Amenhotep II were, even if Moses had mentioned them by their birth names.
As was noted above, all of the Amarna Letters were written in cuneiform on clay
tablets, and the vast majority were written in the Akkadian language. About four or five were
in cuneiform Hurrian or Hittite, but none were in the Egyptian language. Moran, in the
Introduction to his translation The Amarna Letters, states that the Akkadian cuneiform written
on these clay tablets was heavily influenced by the “West Semitic and Hurrian” languages
(Moran 1992: xix).
The Hurrian influence seen in the Amarna Letters strongly suggests that it was the
Hurrians/ Horites who first introduced Akkadian cuneiform into Canaan. The ancient Akkadians
did not have an alphabet and wrote their language with syllable-signs which they borrowed
from the earlier Sumerians of Shinar/ Sumer/ Babylonia. The Hurrians are known to have
adopted Sumerian cuneiform signs from the Akkadians to write their own Hurrian language in
their homeland in northern Mesopotamia at least as early as ca. 2000 BC, long before the
Amarna Period. Incidentally, by “West Semitic,” Moran means the Canaanite/ Amorite
language.
Akkadian was the “lingua Franca” of that period, and it was the diplomatic
language which was used in all international correspondence in the entire Middle East in the
Second Millennium. It must be stressed that Egypt’s colonial subjects in greater Canaan were
writing to the Pharaoh, their colonial master, in Akkadian cuneiform and not in Egyptian
hieroglyphic/ hieratic!
By the reign of Akhenaten (1354-1340 BC) when most of the Amarna Letters were
written, Canaan had been under the supposed powerful and extensive control of Egypt for
more than a century, and yet the city-kings in Canaan had not adopted—and never did adopt--
Egyptian hieroglyphic/ hieratic when corresponding with the Pharaoh. This fact alone makes
the theory of Egypt’s near total governmental control over Canaan highly questionable.
Incidentally, in their earlier colony of Kush, the Egyptians used hieroglyphic in their
administrative system, and the Kushites/ Nubians eventually came to use an abbreviated set of
Egyptian hieroglyphs to write their own language, but they never developed a true alphabet.

THE GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM IMPOSED BY THUTMOSIS III ON CANAAN

The Amarna Letters and the “Day-Book Excerpts” of Thutmosis III (which are
provided by Redford in his book The Wars in Syria and Palestine of Thutmose III) indicate that
Thutmosis III incorporated all or nearly all of the city-kings in greater Canaan into his colonial,
governmental system, including, as was noted above, those with Hurrian and Ras/ Rosh names.
Without exception, he did not replace any Canaanite city-kings with Egyptian governors.
However, Thutmosis III and the Pharaohs who followed him did place a few
Egyptian “commissioners” (a term used by William F. Albright in his article in the Cambridge
Ancient History and borrowed by Moran in his translation The Amarna Letters) as supervisors
over these Canaanite city-kings. These commissioners will be studied in detail below, but first a
brief study of the role of the city-kings in Canaan in the Egyptian, colonial, administrative
system.
Thutmosis III’s policy of retaining city-kings in Canaan, even those with Hurrian and
Ras/ Rosh/ Hivite names, was almost certainly caused by the fact that the ancient Egyptians,
unlike the later Assyrians, were not good at storming walled cities. The Egyptian chariot army
of Thutmosis III was a great field army, but, as was noted above, it was lacking in the skills and
technology needed for attacking walled cities. Redford writes in his book Egypt, Canaan, and
Israel in Ancient Times:

The Egyptians of Ahmose’s time (ca. 1570-1548 BC) were notoriously inept when it
came to laying siege to, or assaulting, a fortified city: Avaris defied their attempts for
more than one generation, and Sharuhen for three years. Even sixty years later under
Thutmose (ca. 1504-1450 BC), the medium-sized fortress of Megiddo held out for seven
months (Redford 1992: 118-119).

Redford in this same book derides modern scholars who assume that Thutmosis III
quickly stormed and captured a number of other fortified cities in Canaan before he won the
Battle of Megiddo. Redford writes: “If this were the case,” Thutmose III would have “displayed a
skill in the rapid reduction of fortified enclosures that deserted him completely at Megiddo”
(Redford 2003:44). Thutmosis III himself makes no claims in any of his many inscriptions of
having conquered any cities in Canaan before the Battle of Megiddo.
Thutmosis III caught his Mitanni enemies by surprise at the Battle of Megiddo in ca.
1482 BC and drove them into the walled city of Megiddo. He then took Megiddo with a
prolonged siege; he encircled it with a ditch and a low wall, and after seven months starved it
into submission. It might have taken him even longer if he had not timed his siege of Megiddo
just before its citizens could harvest their grain crops in the spring (Redford 2003: 43).
It would have been very difficult, if not impossible, for Thutmosis III to have used
this same siege approach on all of the city-states of Canaan. Incidentally, an ancient army
scattered around a walled city, which it was besieging, was extremely vulnerable to a surprise
attack by an outside army, for example see Joshua 10: 9-10 where the Israelites catch by
surprise and defeat five Amorite kings who were besieging the city of Gibeon.
Several critical scholars have in the past suggested that the archaeologically-proven
destruction of the city of Jericho in the Late Bronze Age was the result of an attack by
Thutmosis III during one of his many campaigns in Canaan, and not the result of Joshua’s attack
in ca. 1406 BC. However, the fact that the Egyptian army was not good at storming walled-
cities makes it extremely unlikely that Thutmosis III was responsible for the destruction of the
well-fortified city of Jericho. The destroyed city of Jericho was clearly not starved into
submission since many large jars filled with grain were found there by archaeologists, so it does
not match at all the siege tactics used by Thumosis III at Megiddo.
It is also very clear that Thutmosis III was more interested in the exploitation of the
city-states in Canaan rather than in their destruction, and Jericho was totally destroyed. It
should be noted that he did not destroy the city of Megiddo. In addition, if Thutmosis III had
captured and destroyed Jericho, he would have almost certainly mentioned this fact in his many
braggadocio inscriptions, and he doesn’t. Incidentally, archaeologist Bryant Wood has proven
from the archaeological evidence—pottery, fallen walls, and burned city-- found at Jericho that
it was unquestionably destroyed by Joshua and the Israelites in ca. 1406 BC.
Thutmosis III appears to have realized that the fear of a possible Egyptian attack
and siege was his greatest weapon in controlling the city-states in Canaan. He did not need to
conquer each one of them individually with a siege. The possibility of an Egyptian army
attacking just before the grain crops could be harvested was a real threat to these city-states.
In addition, the sheep, goats, cattle, and horses of the city-states in Canaan were extremely
vulnerable and could not be protected from being taken as booty by the Egyptian army.
For example, Thutmosis III provides a list of herd animals taken as booty from
enemy city-states in Canaan after the Battle of Megiddo, and he states that he captured 2,238
horses, 1,929 cattle, 2,000 goats, and 20,500 sheep. He also reports harvesting vast amounts of
grain from the fields near Megiddo. However, it should be noted that Thutmosis III only reports
having killed 83 enemy soldiers and having captured 387 prisoners of war in the pivotal Battle
of Megiddo (Redford 2003:34-35). As was noted above, most of the Mitanni and allied troops
fled into Megiddo when Thutmosis III attacked and were subsequently starved into submission.
It does not appear that Thutmosis III cut down any fruit or olive trees before,
during, or after the Battle of Megiddo in 1482 BC, but he did use this tactic later in ca. 1463 BC
when he campaigned against the Kingdom of Mitanni’s city of Kadesh. Thutmosis III states that
he destroyed both their crops and also their fruit trees (Redford 1993: 162). The mere threat
that Thutmosis III might cut down fruit and olive trees must have also been another important
reason why Canaanite city-states rather quickly surrendered to him after the Battle of Megiddo.
To save their herd animals, grain crops, and fruit trees, the Canaanites had to
submit to Thutmosis III because they could not defeat his excellent chariot army in a “set-piece”
battle in the field. Hence, the threat that Thutmosis III’s army posed to their food supply made
it expedient for the city-states in Canaan to accept Egyptian suzerainty.
As was noted above, Thutmosis III left all of the city-kings in place in Canaan who
surrendered to him after the Battle of Megiddo. Even though Thutmosis III states that he
“appointed chiefs to every town,” (Redford 2003: 34), it is abundantly clear that he chose to
appoint (i.e. left in place) local city-kings, and he certainly did not replace any of them with
Egyptian governors.
Thutmosis III benefited by leaving local city-kings in place because he was thus able
to control Canaan and collect taxes without putting his army at risk in a series of long risky
sieges. As was noted above, his intent clearly was to exploit Canaan and not to destroy it. In
addition, this arrangement meant that he did not have to station large numbers of Egyptian
soldiers in Canaanite cities in order to control them and to collect tribute taxes.
It appears that Thutmosis III intended for the city-kings in Canaan to fight a
delaying action from their fortified cities against any future invasion by the Kingdom of Mitanni
until he could respond by attacking into Canaan with his excellent chariot army. As will be
seen, the Pharaohs who followed him to the throne in the 14th and 13th Centuries BC
unquestionably did not station large groups of Egyptian troops in their colony of Canaan.
Without exception, Thutmosis III delegated the defense and governance of the city-
states in Canaan to their local city-kings. He allowed them to have their own soldiers and
chariots. Thutmosis III also made the city-kings in Canaan collect the various taxes and fulfill
the other commodity and labor extractions which he imposed on their subjects. It was this
colonial arrangement in Canaan which Redford correctly brands as “ad hoc,” because it clearly
was not well-organized. Redford writes:

The mechanics of the Egyptian empire had been fashioned ad hoc, and its demands on
members of the empire were irregular and quixotic. Year by year tax demands might
change and were communicated either by letter or tax assessor. The vassal (city-king)
was not required to come to Egypt on a regular basis but might have to appear on a
moment’s notice should the Pharaoh demand it. The legal bond to the Egyptian crown
was solely the oath not to rebel, taken orally, and we have no indication that it was
transcribed in writing (Redford 1992: 174).

As Redford states in the above quotation, the taxing of the Canaanite city-states in
the Egyptian colony of Canaan was “irregular,” “quixotic,” and “ad hoc,” and it appears that no
attempt was made to consider the impact that this exploitive tax system had on the Canaanite
people. For one example of Egyptian exploitation, city-king Subandu of an unnamed city in
Canaan writes in Amarna Letter EA 301 that he was sending to the Pharaoh the required “500
oxen and 20 girls” (Moran 1992: 342).
 Erratic exploitation was not the only problem with the way that Egypt’s colony of
Canaan was organized by Thutmosis III. City-kings could basically interact with one another as
they wished, including making war with one another, without the Pharaoh doing anything
about it. William F. Albright in his article in The Cambridge Ancient History writes about the
negative impact that this “ad hoc” organization of the Egyptian colony of Canaan had on the
people of Canaan: “The Amarna letters exhibit very frequently the unhappy results of this
organization.” He continues: “The princes (city-kings in Canaan) were continually at war with
one another” (Albright 1966: 8).
Egyptian Pharaohs appear to have not only allowed but maybe to have even
encouraged conflicts between city-kings in Canaan as a way to keep them from uniting against
Egyptian exploitation. Albright also states that the Amarna Letters show: “the extent to which
Canaanite morale had deteriorated after nearly two centuries of Egyptian domination.”
Keith Schoville, in his book Biblical Archaeology in Focus, agrees with Albright’s
analysis and provides an excellent review of the Egyptians’ ad hoc governance policies in their
new colony of Canaan. He writes:

Egypt’s main interests in the area were essentially twofold: to reap the economic
benefits available in the form of timber, minerals, agricultural products, and tribute, and
to establish a buffer against the threats of the growing Hittite power in Anatolia and the
strong Kingdom of Mitanni on the Middle Euphrates. Accordingly, the pharaohs
pursued a policy of benign neglect, permitting minor alliances between the city-states.
Egypt even allowed internecine conflicts in this period as long as the flow of tribute
remained uninterrupted and no threat of international proportions developed (Schoville
1978: 43).

In the above quotation, Schoville is obviously not describing a well-organized,

efficient, Egyptian colonial system. Schoville, like Albright, also points out that the Egyptian
colonial policy of the exploitation of Canaan led to a decline in the quality of life of the native
peoples in Canaan. He writes: “The constant drain on the resources of the area due to Egyptian
exploitation and the petty rivalries among the Canaanite rulers combined to bring about a
steady decline in the quality of the material culture throughout the Late Bronze Age” (Schoville
1978: 43).
Schoville’s observations are absolutely correct; Egyptian colonial policy as seen in
the Amarna Letters basically combined “exploitation” with “benign neglect.” Since the Egyptian
colonial policy in Canaan was impoverishing the native people, it should come as no surprise
that many Canaanite cities appear to have been in an almost constant state of near-revolt, in
spite of the exaggerated rhetoric of praise and obeisance found in their city-kings’ Amarna
Letters to the Pharaoh. As will be seen below, Canaanite peasants welcomed the invading
‘Apiru/ Habiru whose policy was to kill city-kings. As will also be seen, many Canaanite
peasants came to see most of their city-kings as agents of their exploitation by the Egyptians
and therefore joined the ‘Apiru/ Habiru/ Hebrews in killing their own city-kings.
As was noted above, Redford described the Egyptian governmental organization
in Canaan as “ad hoc,” in other words as “poorly organized and only organized as the situation
at any one point in time demanded.” The ad hoc nature of the Egyptian governmental
organization can even be seen in the non-standardized names used in the Amarna Letters for
the city-kings in Canaan. Moran writes in the Introduction to his translation The Amarna Letters
that the local rulers of the city-states in Canaan: “…are usually referred to as “mayors”
(hazannu) but are also called “rulers” (awilu, lit. “men”), or “kings” (sarru) or by the Egyptian
term, “princes” (wr, lit. “great one”)” (Moran 1992: xxvii).
In the Old Testament, these local city rulers in Canaan are always referred to as
“kings” (Hebrew: melek), and in the Amarna Letters these city-kings themselves sometimes
slip—for the most part, the Pharaoh did not like for them to be called kings--and call
themselves “kings.” King is actually a more accurate term than the English term “mayor” since
these city-kings had armies, waged wars, jointed coalitions, engaged in international trade, and
sometimes conducted their own foreign diplomacy. It is also unquestionably true that the
citizens of the city-states in Canaan called their rulers “kings.”
William Moran, in his Introduction to his translation The Amarna Letters, lists the
obligations of the two or three provinces into which the Egyptian colony of greater Canaan was
divided. It was, of course, the Canaanite city-kings in these Egyptian provinces who, as vassals
of Pharaoh, actually had to meet these provincial obligations. Moran writes:

Among their obligations, which may not have been the same in each province, were the
payment of tribute, meeting other exactions of goods and personnel, furnishing corvee
labor on crown-lands, supplying Egyptian troops in transit and reinforcing them, and
protecting caravans (Moran 1992: xxvii).

What Moran has to say, about the obligations placed by the Pharaoh on the 2 or 3 “provinces”
in Canaan not being the same, was also true for the individual city-states in these provinces. As
was noted above, it was actually the city-kings in the city-states in Canaan, who were
responsible for meeting these “exactions” and forcing their subjects to pay tribute taxes to the
Egyptians.
A quick look in the Amarna Letters at the actual tribute and other requirements
placed by the Pharaoh on city-kings in Canaan clearly indicates that there was no uniformity at
all in what they were expected to provide to Egypt in services, commodities, slaves, young
women, or tribute-taxes. The services and taxes placed by the Egyptian Pharaohs on the city-
states in Canaan were clearly “ad hoc;” in other words, they were different for each city-state
and frequently varied even for the same city-state at various points in time.
However, it is also very clear from the Amarna Letters that some city-kings in
Canaan withheld services and taxes whenever they thought the Pharaoh was weak and could
not enforce his demands. In order to enforce his demands on recalcitrant city-kings, the
Pharaoh needed to campaign-- or at least credibly threaten to campaign--with his army in
Canaan. Thutmosis III frequently did campaign in and through Canaan, and his son Amenhotep
II undertook two campaigns into Canaan early in his reign. However, the next five Pharaohs
after him apparently never did campaign in Canaan, and they certainly did not attack the
‘Apiru/ Habiru people who were killing city-kings and appropriating land in the Egyptian colony
of Canaan.
As was noted above, Egyptian control over Canaan was clearly exploitive. It is clear
from the Amarna Letters that some city-kings in Canaan wanted to be free of Egyptian
exploitation, which was almost certainly true for nearly all of the peasants in Canaan. As will be
seen, there are even Amarna Letters which suggest that Canaanite peasants were more than
willing to join the invading ‘Apiru/ Habiru, apparently as a means of resisting Egyptian
exploitation. It is highly likely that this was one very important reason why the Hebrew
Israelites, who were unquestionably the ‘Apiru/ Habiru mentioned in the Amarna Letters, did
not drive-out welcoming Canaanite peasants in Canaan as they had been told by God to do.
As was noted above, the Egyptian governance system in Canaan was primarily
based on the fear of the Egyptian army attacking the food supply. Basically, the Pharaoh ran a
colonial version of an “extortion racket,” and he used his army as a threat against the food
supply of the various city-states in Canaan as a way to impose his will. Under Pharaoh
Thutmosis III, this was a valid fear. However, as will be seen below, whenever Egypt and its
army were perceived as being weak, there were some city-kings in greater Canaan who were
more than willing to revolt against Egyptian control and taxes. In addition, the Kingdom of
Mitanni—and later the Kingdom of the Hittites-- was also more than ready to expand south into
Egypt’s colony of greater Canaan whenever it thought that Egypt was weak.
For example, when Thutmosis III died, the Kingdom of Mitanni believed that Egypt
was weak, and hence it stirred up a revolt by many city-kings in Canaan against his son
Amenhotep II. In his first of only two military campaigns into Canaan, Amenhotep II (ca. 1453-
1415 BC) thus had to deal with a revolt of Canaanite city-states which was caused and
supported by the un-named king of the Kingdom of Mitanni. It should be noted that the
governance system set up by his father Thutmosis III in the Egyptian colony of Canaan was
already proving to have serious flaws. It should also be noted that there were not large
garrisons of Egyptian troops stationed by Thutmosis III in Canaan which could have kept these
city-kings from revolting in the days of his son Amenhotep II.
Amenhotep II writes of this revolt in Canaan on his Karnak Stela (ca. 1448 BC),
where he refers to the Kingdom of Mitanni as “Naharin.” As was noted above, Naharin/
Naharaim was an alternate name used in ancient Egypt—and in the Book of Judges-- for the
Kingdom of Mitanni. On his Karnak Stela, Amenhotep II relates that, while he was campaigning
in the Plain of Sharon in Canaan against revolting city-states, he captured an envoy of an
unnamed king of “Naharin.”

Now his Majesty went southwards in the plain of Sharon. He found a messenger of the
chief of Naharin (who was) carrying a letter of clay about his neck. He brought him back
as a prisoner at the side of his chariot (Der Manuelian 1987: 229).

It should be noted that Amenhotep II is here referring to the Mitanni ruler as only a “chief”
rather than as a king, which was apparently intended as an insult. Peter Der Manuelian in his
Studies in the Reign of Amenophis II writes of this incident:

At this point Amenophis captured an envoy of the chief of Naharin with correspondence
tied around his neck. Was the envoy en-route to various Palestinian chiefs who were
conspiring with the Mitannian king to eliminate the Egyptian presence in Retenu
(Canaan)? If so, this capture would significantly indicate how far south the anti-Egyptian
“alliance” or “conspiracy” had penetrated. The Plain of Sharon, the coastal area of
 Palestine between Joppa and Caesarea, was far removed from the Mitanni kingdom in
the north (Der Manuelian 1987: 67-68).

The supposedly powerful governance system which Thutmosis III imposed upon the
Canaanites was already revealing its weaknesses during the reign of his son Amenhotep II. Its
“ad hoc” nature, which left local city-kings in place, made it vulnerable to revolts whenever
Egypt and the Egyptian army were perceived as weak.
At this point it should be noted that the Old Testament again matches very well with the
political situation in the Middle East in the 15th and 14th Centuries BC. Judges 3:7-11 relates
that the Israelite Judge Othniel (early 14th Century BC) defeated in Canaan a Mitanni ruler
named “Cushan of the Rishathaim,” who is called “king of Aram Naharaim.” The ethnic name
Rish-atha-im is made up of three parts. The Ris/ Rish is the Indo-European ethnic name Ras, the
-ath/-eth is the Hurrian plural, and the -im is the Hebrew plural.
The original, un-pointed Hebrew version of the name Rishathaim in Judges 3:7-11 can
be transliterated from the Hebrew as “Rishat-im.” The “t or th in Rish-at is the single Hebrew
letter tau, which was used to form the Hurrian plural “-at/ ath.” “Rishat” is very close to one of
the Egyptian names of the Ras/ Rosh people which was “Reshet.” Cushan—probably a title and
not a name-- had successfully conquered Canaan and had consequently ruled over the Israelites
for eight years. Incidentally, it appears that the Ras/ Rosh were a relatively-small but powerful,
military minority which ruled over much larger groups of native peoples whom they conquered.
As was noted above, Naharin/ Naharaim was an early, alternate name used in Egypt
for the Kingdom of Mitanni. The “Aram” in the Biblical phrase “Aram Naharaim” refers to the
north-central area of Mesopotamia where the Aramean people originated. The Kingdom of
Mitanni had captured this area and had subjected the Arameans there to their rule, and they
may have also built a regional capital there. Incidentally, the Book of Genesis relates that the
Aramean relatives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had earlier lived at Haran in the area of Aram
Naharaim, and it appears that the author of the Book of Judges wanted his Hebrew readers to
know that this area, to which they had ethnic connections, was conquered by the Mitanni, and
thus he added “Aram” to Naharaim.
As was noted earlier, the Arameans—not to be confused with the later Armenians--
were one of the ethnic groups which were conquered and temporarily incorporated into the
Kingdom of Mitanni by the Ras/Rosh and their Hurrian allies; as were also the Assyrians.
Incidentally, there are recent reports by German and Kurdish archaeologists excavating in
northern Iraq that they have found more than 100 cuneiform tablets in the Bronze-Age,
Mitanni city of Zahkihu, which is located not far from the site of the ancient city of Nineveh, in
what-later-became the heart of the Assyrian Empire (Universitat Tubingen 2022: May 30).
These tablets will almost certainly prove to be highly significant for Biblical archaeology.
Many English translations of the Old Testament render “Aram Naharaim” as
“Mesopotamia.” However, Aram Naharaim only referred to northern Mesopotamia and not to
southern Mesopotamia which was called Sumer/ Shinar/ Babylonia. It should be noted that the
term Naharaim is correctly used in Judges 3:7-11 to refer to the Kingdom of Mitanni. Those
critical scholars who believe that the Old Testament was written in the period from ca. 750-160
BC need to explain how the Old Testament’s Jewish authors in this much-later period knew that
“Naharaim” was once used as a name for the Kingdom of Mitanni, since it was eliminated as a
great power by the Hittites in about 1350 BC, and its remnants completely destroyed in ca.
1260 BC by the Assyrians, more than 500 years earlier!
Othniel’s defeat of Cushan took place in ca. 1375 BC based upon the Biblical
chronology. As was seen above, there was an earlier un-named Mitanni king, who tried to
expand into Canaan during the reign of Amenhotep II in ca. 1450 BC, and he had much in
common with the slightly-later, Mitanni King Cushan of Naharaim who temporarily conquered
Canaan and ruled the Israelites for 8 years from ca. 1383-1375 BC during the reign of
Amenhotep III (1391-1354 BC).
Incidentally, there is a strange 8-year gap in the normally-abundant historical records
of Amenhotep III (Kozloff 2015: 28), and this 8-year gap would have been at about the same
time that Cushan ruled Canaan for 8 years. The question thus arises: Did Cushan capture
Canaan during this missing 8-year period? Egyptologist Arielle Kozloff attributes the absence of
Egyptian records from this 8-year period to a possible outbreak of the bubonic plague.
There is even textual support in the Amarna Letters for a Mitanni invasion into
Canaan at about the same time that Judges 3:7-11 states that King Cushan conquered and ruled
the Israelites for 8 years. Amarna Letter EA 58 has a local, Canaanite, city-king named Tehu-
Tessup (Hurrian name) warning an unknown Pharaoh (almost certainly Amenhotep III who
ruled ca. 1391-1354 BC) and saying: “Moreover, be informed that the king of Mittani (sic.) came
forth together with chariots and together with an expeditionary force” (Moran 1992: 129).
Unfortunately, only the top half of this clay tablet has been found, but it must date before ca.
1370 BC, and it is highly likely that the un-named “king of Mittani” mentioned in Amarna Letter
EA 58 was Cushan. In ca. 1370 BC, Pharaoh Amenhotep III signed a peace treaty with the
Kingdom of Mitanni, which was sealed by his royal marriage to a Mitanni princess, and
hostilities between Egypt and the Kingdom of Mitanni ceased.
It is even possible that the defeat of Cushan by Othniel in ca. 1375 BC so weakened
the military-minority Ras/ Rosh rulers of the Kingdom of Mitanni that it was made vulnerable to
Hittite attacks. The Indo-European Hittites were the mortal enemies of the Kingdom of Mitanni,
and by ca. 1350 BC they were able to destroy it as a great power in the Middle East.
Incidentally, Redford used a high Egyptian chronology and provides the wrong date of 1377 BC
for the defeat of the Mitanni by the Hittites (Redford 1993: 174). However, Redford does
correctly place their defeat during the reign of Akhenaten, who ruled ca. 1354-1340 BC.
The defeat of the Kingdom of Mitanni by the Hittites is even reflected in Amarna
Letter EA 75, which was written by King Rib-Hadda of Byblos almost certainly to Pharaoh
Akhenaten. It states that: “the king of Hatti (Hittites) has seized all the countries that were
vassals of the king of Mittanni (sic.)” (Moran 1992:145).
As was noted above, Pharaoh Thutmosis III left all or nearly all of the city-kings in
Canaan in place. However, the Amarna Letters do indicate that Thutmosis III did personally
appoint some—but apparently only a few—locals as city-kings in Canaan. Amarna Letter EA 51
has city-king Addu-nirari of Nuhasse (an area with a Hurrian name located south of Aleppo in
Syria) writing to an unknown Egyptian Pharaoh (probably Amenhotep III) and stating: “When
Manahpiya (Thutmosis III’s throne name) the king of Egypt, your ancestor, made Taku (Hurrian
name), my ancestor, a king in Nuhasse, he put oil on his head” (Moran 1992: 122).
It also appears that Egyptian Pharaohs took the sons--or at least the sons of some
city-kings-- as hostages so that they could be trained in Egypt and then sent as replacements
when their fathers died. Amarna Letter EA 59 indicates that an un-named Pharaoh, who is said
to be a descendant of Thutmosis III, had held a son of a city-king named Aki-Tessup (Hurrian
name) as a hostage for 20 years. It appears that Aki-Tessup had died much earlier, and the city
of Tunip was asking that his son be sent as a replacement city-king. The “Citizens of Tunip”
wrote to Pharaoh: “And now for 20 years, we have gone on writing to the king, our lord, but our
messengers have stayed on with the king, our lord. “And now you our lord we ask for the son
of Aki-Tessup from the king, our lord. “May our lord give him” (Moran 1992: 130).
It appears that Egyptian Pharaohs brought the sons of at least some city-kings to Egypt
as hostages and also for training as future replacements when their fathers died. It is likely that
this was a fairly common practice which probably began with Thutmosis III. But based on the
available evidence, it is not possible to say how extensive this policy was or how long it lasted.
The policy of taking the sons of city-kings as hostages apparently was not all that
effective since many Canaanite city-kings seem to have regularly disobeyed and/or revolted
against the Pharaoh whenever they had the chance, and, as was noted above, the Egyptian
language was never adopted as the official language of the Egyptian colony of Canaan. It does
not appear that these hostage sons were taught to read and write Egyptian hieroglyphic/
hieratic. Strangely, none of the Pharaohs of the Amarna Period ever attempted to Egyptianize
the general population of Canaan. It appears that they were content to let them remain as
cultural Canaanites and to exploit them.

THE AREA OF GREATER CANAAN IN THE AMARNA LETTERS

The Amarna Letters indicate that the area of colonial Canaan for the ancient Egyptians
included all of what-is-today Israel, Lebanon, much of Syria, and portions of southeastern
Turkey; it appears to have basically been the area where the ancient Canaanite/ Amorite
language was then spoken. The size of the original Egyptian colony of greater Canaan as
indicated in the Amarna Letters was basically the same as that found in the Old Testament,
where it is clear that not only “Palestine,” but also Lebanon and most of Syria were considered
to be a part of greater Canaan
For example, in the Amarna Letters, Nuhasse and Tunip were considered as a part of the
Egyptian colony of greater Canaan, but they both were located in what-is-today Syria. They
were also ruled by kings who were apparently of mixed Ras, Hurrian, and Canaanite blood. The
fact that this area was originally peopled by Canaanites, who mixed with invading Hurrians and
Ras, can be seen in the name of city-king Addu-nirari of Nuhasse, who had a father with a
Hurrian name but was named after the Canaanite god Addu/ Hadad, the Baal of the Old
Testament.
The Transjordan areas of the Ammonites, Moabites, and the Edomites, as well as the
later northern Transjordan areas of the two and a half tribes of Israelites do not appear in the
Amarna Letters as parts of the Egyptian colony of greater Canaan; however, the area of Geshur/
Tob, northern Galilee, and the city of Damascus were included in the Egyptian colony of greater
Canaan. Thutmosis III had earlier subjugated the northern Transjordan area, but the city-states
in that area do not appear in the Amarna Letters to have been the subjects of the Egyptians,
with the possible exception of the city of Ashtaroth/ Astartu. The absence of references to the
northern Transjordan area in the Amarna Letters suggests that this area had been lost earlier to
Moses and the Hebrew Israelites in ca. 1406 BC
 As can be seen in the Amarna Letters, after the Kingdom of the Hittites ended the
Kingdom of Mitanni in ca. 1350 BC, it too, like the Kingdom of Mitanni before it, expanded into
the former northern parts of Egypt’s colony of greater Canaan which were located in what-is-
today Syria and Lebanon. For example, Nuhasse and Tunip fell under Indo-European Hittite
control. It was Hittite penetration into areas in Syria, which had been conquered earlier by
Thutmosis III, which led to Pharaoh Ramses II’s campaign in Syria where he fought and lost the
great Battle of Kadesh in 1275 BC.
Incidentally, the Hittites mentioned in the Pentateuch and in the Books of Joshua and
Judges were the Canaanite Hittites, and not the Indo-European Hittites of Asia Minor who
formed the Kingdom of the Hittites. It is the Indo-European Hittites of the Kingdom of the
Hittites who are mentioned in the Amarna Letters. It should be recalled that earlier Abraham
purchased the Cave of Machpelah near Hebron from “Ephron the Hittite,” who was clearly a
Canaanite (Genesis 23). There were actually three groups of peoples called Hittites in the
ancient world, and all three spoke different languages, but this is beyond the scope of this
paper.
In addition to Egypt’s former holdings in Syria, which were included in its colony of
greater Canaan, a number of ancient coastal cities—for examples: Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, Arvad,
and Ugarit-- in what are today Lebanon and Syria--appear as Canaanite cities both in the
Amarna Letters and also in the Old Testament. Over all of the city-kings in greater Canaan, the
Pharaohs placed a few Egyptian “commissioners.”

THE EGYPTIAN COMMISSIONERS OVER CANAAN

Beginning with Thutmosis III, the Pharaohs appointed Egyptian “commissioners” over
the two or three provinces into which greater Canaan was divided in order to collect taxes and
to control (very-loosely) the local city-kings which Thutmosis III had left in place. Moran, in the
Introduction to his translation of the Amarna Letters, writes:

At the time of the Amarna Letters, the area (of the Egyptian colony of Canaan) was
divided into two or three provinces, each under an official, who is, in the Amarna
Letters, without specific title. Probably always a member of the military, he resided in a
garrison city, one of a network, and from there he looked after Egyptian interests in the
city-states and crown-lands within his territory. One was stationed at Gaza, and his
province took in most of Palestine, the Phoenician coast, and if there were only two
provinces, also Amurru. If there was a third province, its administrative center was
Sumur and its principal territory was Amurru. Another official was in Kumidu, and he
administered an area from Qades in southern Syria down to Hazor in northern Palestine,
over to the Damascene and down into northern Transjordan (Moran 1992: xxvi-xxvii).

As Moran notes, these “commissioners” were “without specific title,” and they
apparently did not have a standardized title during the entire time of their existence. The “ad
hoc” (“unplanned and only organized as each situation demanded”) nature of the Egyptian
administrative system in Canaan is clearly seen by the fact that these “commissioners” not only
did not have a standardized title, but the areas under these “commissioners” were also not
well-defined or standardized. Even the areas included in these provinces appear to have
changed based on the political situation and/ or the whims of the Pharaoh; note that there
were “two or three provinces.”
In the above quotation, Moran states that an Egyptian commissioner was “probably
always a member of the military.” However, in his The Amarna Letters, Moran states that he
only translated two Akkadian cuneiform words as commissioners: “rabisu” and “ma-lik.MES”
(Moran 1992: 122, n. 6). The Akkadian word rabisum (singular) translates as “a judicial official”
or “a royal official” (Black 2000: 294). In other words, these rabisu (plural) were associated in
some way with the royal palace, and were almost certainly high-ranking officials of the
Pharaoh’s administrative bureaucracy. The Akkadian word ma-lik.MES translates as “advisors”
or “counsellors” (Black 1992: 193). The MES on the end of ma-lik.MES is the Sumerian logogram
indicating a plural which was also used at times in Akkadian cuneiform.
Neither of these Akkadian words indicates that the Egyptian commissioners sent to
“rule” Canaan came from a military background, as Moran has suggested. The Akkadian words
for soldiers or military leaders are never used for these commissioners in the Amarna Letters.
There were three words which were used in Akkadian for soldiers: awilutum (“a soldier” or “a
worker”), ba’erum (“a class of soldier” or a “fisherman”), and redum (“a foot soldier”)
(Huehnergard 2011: 489, 490, 558). For a “high military officer” the Akkadian phrase wakil
Amurrum was used (Huehnergard 2011: 487).
The Akkadian word Amurrum in the phrase wakil Amurrum was spelled with the same
Sumerian logogram MAR.TU which is used in the Amarna Letters for the Amorites. None of the
three Akkadian words for soldiers or the phrase wakil Amurru used for high military officers are
ever used for the Egyptian commissioners who are mentioned in the Amarna Letters. It is
therefore highly unlikely that they came from a military background. As will be seen below, it
appears that these “commissioners” were former officials in the Egyptian bureaucracy.
There is nothing in the Amarna Letters which indicates how long each commissioner’s
term of service was, and they do not appear to have had any standardized period of service. It
appears that each commissioner only served for as long as the Pharaoh wanted him to serve. In
addition, it appears that not all “commissioners” were placed over a province in Canaan. There
were also special commissioners who were sent to Canaan in order to deal with special issues
and probably also to impose taxes, but they did not actually collect taxes from Canaanite
peasants; that was the job of city-kings.
In Amarna Letter EA 71, “Haya” who is said to be the “Vizier” of Egypt, was sent to
Canaan by the Pharaoh to deal with problems there. Haya was a special commissioner with
special powers to deal with problems in Canaan. He was probably only sent—almost certainly
with a small army--for a relatively short period of time since the Vizier was the “Prime Minister”
of Egypt, and he was needed to run the daily affairs of the government.
The Vizier Haya may have solved some of the problems in Canaan, but he clearly did not
solve the biggest problem in Canaan, that of the ‘Apiru/ Habiru invasion. He is not mentioned
in the Amarna Letters as having engaged them in battle or even as having confronted or
threatened them. There is not one single Amarna Letter which states that a commissioner of
any sort, regular or special, ever led an army—large or small-- to attack the ‘Apiru/ Habiru! The
same is also true for the Pharaoh’s themselves in the Amarna Period in the 14 th Century BC.
There is a feature in the above quotation from Moran which is reflected in the Old
Testament. Moran states that each of these commissioners: “resided in a garrison city, one of a
“network,” and from there “he looked after Egyptian interests in the city-states and crown-
lands within his territory.” In other words, there was a special “network” of cities with a special
role in the Egyptian governance of Canaan; very likely cities at strategic locations along trade
and invasion routes. This matches very well with what the Book of Joshua has to say.
Joshua 11:12 states that: “Joshua took all of these royal cities and their kings and put
them to the sword” (NIV). Joshua 10:2 also states that “Gibeon was an important city, like one
of the royal cities” (NIV). These royal cities were almost certainly a part of the “network” of
royal “garrison” cities of the Pharaoh, which are mentioned by Moran in his Introduction.
However, as will be seen below, it should not be assumed that large contingents of Egyptian
troops were stationed in “royal cities.”
The word “royal” in Joshua 10:2 and 11:12 is a version of the Hebrew word “melek”
(king), and it can only be referring to the Egyptian king, in other words to the Pharaoh. It is
clear that the author of the Book of Judges knew that there were certain important cities in
Canaan which were a part of some sort of a “royal” Egyptian “network” of cities. The existence
of these “royal cities” is also confirmed by Amarna Letter EA 139 which mentions that the
Amorite rebel Aziru had killed a “royal mayor,” who appears to have been the city-king of
Sumur, which was located in what-is-today Syria (Moran 1992: 225).
It is also clear that there were city-states in Canaan—almost certainly the vast majority--
which were not a part of this network of royal cities. Joshua 9:7 states that the Gibeonites were
“Hivites,” and Joshua 10:2 adds that they were “good fighters.” But, while Gibeon is said to
have been “like a royal city,” it was not a royal city.
The divergent roles which these commissioners played in the Egyptian administrative
structure in Canaan are clearly seen in the Amarna Letters. While they were theoretically
supervisors over local city-kings in Canaan, for the most part, these Egyptian commissioners did
not involve themselves in local affairs, as Schoville’s phrase “benign neglect” in his above
quotation clearly indicates. Their primary functions appear to have been collecting taxes in
silver and commodities from city-kings and enforcing the various labor requirements which
were imposed by the Pharaohs on the city-states in Canaan. Local policing and military affairs
were left to the city-kings who theoretically reported to the two or three commissioners in
Canaan.
Egyptian commissioners were apparently called on at times to settle problems between
city-kings in Canaan. In Amarna Letter EA 113, a city-king (name is missing, but it was likely Rib-
Hadda of Byblos) complains that the city-king of Beirut, Yapah-Hadda, has “plundered two of
my ships and my sheep and goats,” and he requests that a special commissioner be sent to put
right this situation (Moran 1992: 187). However, there is no indication that a commissioner was
actually sent.
In Amarna Letter EA 117, city-king Rib-Hadda of Byblos again complains that he has
“litigation with (city-kings) Yapah-Hadda and Hatip,” and asks that a commissioner be sent to
decide his case, but in Letter EA 118, he has to ask again that a commissioner be sent to hear
his case (Moran 1992:194-195). It appears that the Pharaoh, probably Akhenaten, ignored Rib-
Hadda’s requests for a commissioner to be sent to provide justice.
Incidentally, Yapah-Hadda’s name translates as “Baal Hadad Appeared,” and Rib-
Hadda’s name translates as “Plea of Hadad.” It thus appears that both men were native
Canaanites. The Canaanite god Hadad was the Baal of the Old Testament, and as the Bible
states, many Israelites came to worship Baal because of their contacts with the Canaanites.
As was noted above, the primary job of a commissioner appears to have been to collect
tribute and commodity taxes from city-kings in Canaan. In Amarna Letter EA 313, an un-named
city-king writes to Pharaoh: “I have given 400 shekels of silver plus 1000 to the commissioner of
the king who is over me” (Moran 1992:347). In Amarna Letter EA 254, Lab’ayu, city-king of
“Sakmu” (Shechem of the Old Testament), complains to Pharaoh:

I am not a rebel, and I am not delinquent in duty. I have not held back my payments of
tribute. I have not held back anything requested by my commissioner. He denounces
me unjustly, but the king (Pharaoh), my lord, does not examine my (alleged) act of
rebellion (Moran 1992: 307).

Even though the Pharaoh to whom Lab’ayu wrote his letter is not named, it almost certainly
was Amenhotep III (1391-1354 BC).
Since Lab’ayu claims that he had paid his tribute taxes and his commissioner had told
Pharaoh that he hadn’t, it is very possible that this commissioner was corrupt and was stealing
the Pharaoh’s tax money. Incidentally, as will be seen below, Lab’ayu eventually did become a
rebel, as several other Amarna Letters indicate. For example, in Amarna Letter EA 280, city-king
Suwardata of Qiltu reports the death of Lab’ayu, but notes that he “used to take our towns”
(Moran 1992: 321).
There are several significant features to be found in Amarna Letter EA 254 above. First,
it was city-king Lab’ayu who was responsible for collecting tribute taxes and paying them to his
Egyptian commissioner. Second, his commissioner did not have the power to force Lab’ayu to
pay the tribute taxes which he claimed was owed. Third, this lack of enforcement power
strongly suggests that Lab’ayu’s un-named commissioner did not have enough soldiers under
his command to force the payment of tribute taxes. And fourth, Lab’ayu apparently had the
right--or assumed the right--to appeal directly to Pharaoh “over the head” of his commissioner
by whom he claims he was being unjustly “denounced.”
Lab’ayu’s un-named commissioner was not the only one who was having problems with
city-kings not obeying orders. In Amarna Letters EA 317 and EA 318, a city-king named
Dagantakala (name: “Dagan is reliable”) twice writes a response to Pharaoh in which he says:
“The Great King, my lord, has said to me, ‘Obey your commissioner’” (Moran 1992:349).
Dagantakala twice responds that he does obey his commissioner. However, the fact that
Pharaoh rebuked him twice for not obeying suggests that he was not obeying or perhaps he
was not obeying fully his commissioner’s orders. The exact location of the city which
Dagantakala ruled is unknown, but it was probably located somewhere in Syria.
In Amarna Letters EA 322 and EA 323, Yidya, the city king of Ashkelon in southern
Canaan, writes to Pharaoh insisting that he also obeys his commissioner. Even though Yidya
responds that he does obey, the fact that Pharaoh also had to rebuke him twice for not obeying
strongly suggests that he too was not obeying, in spite of his protests of compliance.
Incidentally, Yidya of Ashkelon was clearly not a Philistine; the Philistines had not yet invaded
into coastal Canaan and taken over Ashkelon. It appears that the pre-Philistine city of Ashkelon
freed itself of Egyptian control sometime in the 13th Century BC as can be seen in the Berlin
Pedestal (ca. 1250 BC), which depicts Ashkelon as an enemy city in Canaan, but in ca. 1200 BC,
Ashkelon fell to the Philistines.
It is very apparent that commissioners who had rebellious city-kings under them did not
have the power to force obedience and had to rely on the Pharaoh to force compliance. It is
also obvious that the Pharaoh himself had problems getting some city-kings in greater Canaan
to obey. Since Egyptian commissioners clearly did not have enough troops under their
command to force recalcitrant city-kings in Canaan to obey, the question thus arises: How many
Egyptian soldiers were under the command of a commissioner in a “garrison city”?

EGYPTIAN COMMISSIONERS AND THEIR MILITARY AUTHORITY IN CANAAN

In his Introduction to his book The Amarna Letters, Moran writes that an Egyptian
commissioner was: “Probably always a member of the military, he resided in a garrison city one
of a network, and from there he looked after Egyptian interests in the city-states and crown-
lands within his territory” (Moran 1992: xxvii). Moran’s quotation suggests that commissioners
were Egyptian military officers over large bands of Egyptian soldiers who were stationed in
important “garrison” cities in Canaan in order to control the local inhabitants and protect
Egyptian interests.
However, as was noted above, there is not one single Amarna Letter which states or
even suggests that commissioners were chosen from the Egyptian army. There is also no
evidence in the Amarna Letters that provincial commissioners ever commanded large bands of
Egyptian troops in “garrison cities.” As will be seen below, the few Egyptian military units in
“garrison cities” were apparently quite small, and it also appears that the vast majority of city-
states in Canaan did not have Egyptian garrison troops stationed in them.
It is nearly certain that these Egyptian commissioners had to be literate in Egyptian
hieroglyphic/ hieratic, and also had to know the workings of the Egyptian bureaucracy in order
to fulfill their assigned administrative and financial duties, which appear to have centered on
the economic exploitation and taxing of the Canaanites. It is unlikely that there were many
Egyptian military officers who were literate in hieroglyphic and who also knew the workings of
the Egyptian bureaucracy. In addition, commissioners probably also had to be able to speak the
Canaanite/ Amorite language, and maybe even had to be literate in Akkadian cuneiform,
although translators and scribes may have served these functions for them.
As was seen above, contrary to Moran, it is nearly certain that commissioners were
chosen out of the Egyptian bureaucracy and not out of the military. For example, the special
“commissioner” Haya, who is mentioned above, was the Vizier and was clearly a part of the
Egyptian bureaucracy. Vizier was the highest-ranking official in the Egyptian bureaucracy.
For another example of a likely, non-military commissioner, city-king Rib-Hadda of
Byblos writes in Amarna Letter EA 106 to the Pharaoh asking for help because he is being
attacked by Amorites and ‘Apiru/ Habiru. He requests that the Pharaoh send: “Yanhamu, the
parasol-bearer of the king, my lord,” as a replacement for an un-named Egyptian commissioner
who was killed by rebelling Amorites at the city of Sumur (Moran 1992: 170). It should be
noted that he does not ask for an active military officer. It is unlikely that “parasol-bearer”
Yanhamu, who is also called a “wiseman,” came from a military background.
There are several Amarna Letters which mention a “garrison” or a contingent of
“archers” who were under the command of a commissioner. However, there is no indication
that an Egyptian commissioner in Canaan normally had a large body of Egyptian troops under
his direct command. Based on the Amarna Letters, it appears that, for the most part, only
about 50 Egyptian soldiers or less formed a “garrison.”
There are only two Amarna Letters which refer to larger bodies of Egyptian troops, and
both are requests made by city-kings for less than 500 soldiers. In the first example, a total of
about 460 troops (“300 Egyptians, 100 Kushites, and 30 chariots”) is the largest number of
Egyptian troops requested in all of the Amarna letters for a possible garrison in a Canaanite
city-state (Moran 1992: 212). Even though these ca. 460 Egyptian troops were requested in EA
131, there is no evidence that they were actually sent to Canaan.
The second example of a request for a moderate-sized band of soldiers is found in
Amarna Letter EA 76, where city-king Rib-Hadda asks that a garrison of 400 Egyptian archers be
sent to Byblos to protect it from the Amorite leader ‘Abdi-Asirta and his ‘Apiru/ Habiru allies
(Moran 1992: 146). As is clear from several other Amarna Letters, the Pharaoh did not send a
“garrison” of 400 Egyptian archers to Byblos. But even a garrison of 400 soldiers was still not an
army, and at best they could have only served on the walls of Byblos as defensive troops. It is
also not clear from EA 76 who would have commanded these 400 archers. There was no
Egyptian commissioner who was regularly stationed at Byblos.
Therefore, the two largest bands of Egyptian troops (460 and 400) mentioned in all of
the available Amarna Letters each only amounted to about half the size of a modern army
battalion. There is no evidence in the Amarna Letters or in any other ancient document that
either of these requested bands of soldiers were ever posted or even sent to Canaan. Almost
all of the other requests made by city-kings in Canaan for a “garrison” of Egyptian troops to be
posted in their cities was for 50 troops or less.
There is also no evidence in the Amarna Letters that large numbers of Egyptian troops
were ever stationed in any “garrison city” in Canaan. Incidentally, some of the Egyptian troops
who were stationed in Canaan were “Kasha” (“Kushite”) conscripts from Nubia, some of whom
are said in Amarna Letter EA 287 to have become “looters” (Moran 1992: 328).
As has been noted, military affairs and policing in Canaan were almost exclusively under
the control of local city-kings. There are a number of Amarna Letters which indicate that city-
kings had their own local chariots and troops which were under their direct command.
Whenever the Pharaoh-- only Thutmosis III and Amenhotep II--undertook a military campaign
in Canaan or Syria, it was city-kings—not commissioners--who were expected to provide
supplies and also if needed, to reinforce the Egyptian army with local chariots and troops. As
was also noted above, there is nothing in the Amarna Letters which suggests that the Pharaoh
ever placed a large army—or even a very large contingent of soldiers--under the command of a
regular commissioner; the special commissioner, the Vizier Haya, being a rare possible
exception.
It even appears that loyal city-kings had to, at least at times, protect Egyptian
commissioners from other rebellious city-kings in Canaan and also from the invading
‘Apiru/Habiru. Amarna Letter EA 371 has a city-king, whose name and city are missing from this
broken cuneiform tablet, saying: “I am guarding the commissioners” (Moran 1992: 367). It is
obvious that these “commissioners” did not have a large body of troops under their command
with which they could protect themselves.
 There are several Amarna Letters which mention that Egyptian commissioners were
even being killed by rebels in Canaan. In Amarna Letter EA 129, Rib-Addi, the city-king of
Byblos, writes about the sons of the Amorite rebel ‘Abdi-Ashirta (name: “servant of Canaanite
goddess Ashirta/ Ashtart”):

They have piled up property of the lands of the king (Pharaoh). Now, what they took had
been in the charge of the commissioners of the king, my lord, and the (last)
commissioner of the king was a wise man who was highly respected, but they have
killed him (Moran 1992: 209).

In Amarna Letter EA 139, Ili-Rapih, the new city-king of Byblos, writes to Pharaoh
(Akhenaten) about the crimes committed by the rebel Aziru, a son of Abdi-Ashirta: “He killed
the king of Ammiya, and the king of Eldata, and the king of Irqata, and the commissioner of the
king, my lord (Moran 1992: 225).” It thus appears that two Egyptian commissioners were killed,
and yet there is no indication in the Amarna Letters that the Pharaoh did anything about it.
In this same Amarna Letter EA 139, Ili-Rapih also mentions that Aziru had killed “a royal
mayor” of the Pharaoh and had seized his property; “a royal mayor” almost certainly ruled over
one of the “royal city-states” which were discussed above. Ili-Rapih concludes Amarna Letter
EA 139 by asking Akhenaten that a “garrison” of “30 or 50 men” be sent to Byblos to help
protect it from the rebel Aziru.
However, in spite of the fact that three city-kings, two Egyptian commissioners, and a
“royal mayor” had been killed by rebels, Akhenaten did not personally lead or even send a large
army into Canaan to punish those responsible for these murders. It also appears that he did
not even bother to send the “30 or 50 men” which Ili-Rapih requested! Clearly, the Egyptian
governance system in Canaan during the reign of Akhenaten (1354-1340 BC) was chaotic and
far from being strong and effective.
In Amarna Letter EA 114, Rib-Hadda, the city-king of Byblos, writes to Pharaoh
Akhenaten and states that the city of Sumur--a commissioner’s garrison city in Syria--was
captured by the Amorite rebel Aziru, who is said to be an ally of the ‘Apiru/ Habiru. Rib-Hadda,
who was earlier ordered by Pharaoh to go to Sumur, states: “I did go (to Sumur), and I strongly
urged the troops to guard it, but now they have abandoned it, and the garrison has deserted”
(Moran 1992: 188-189). It is very clear that there was not a large number of Egyptian troops in
the royal “garrison” city of Sumur, where one of only three Egyptian commissioners was
stationed.
Therefore, it is very clear from the Amarna Letters that Egyptian commissioners in
Canaan were not military officers, and they did not have large numbers of Egyptian troops
under their direct command. They apparently did not even have enough troops under their
command to protect themselves from Amorite rebels such as Aziru and Abdi-Asirta. Hence,
translator Moran’s statement that an Egyptian commissioner was: “Probably always a member
of the military, he resided in a garrison city one of a network, and from there he looked after
Egyptian interests in the city-states and crown-lands within his territory” is at best very
misleading.
To summarize, the Amarna Letters indicate that commissioners were Egyptian
bureaucrats who generally had only a few Egyptian troops at their disposal. They mainly were
in charge of ensuring that city-kings collected taxes and fulfilled the commodity and labor
quotas demanded by the Pharaoh. The apparent poor performance of these Egyptian
commissioners in fighting against the Amorite rebels Abdi-Asirta and his son Aziru at the city of
Sumur in the region of Amurru suggests not only a shortage of Egyptian troops in that area, but
also a likely lack of military experience on the part of these Egyptian commissioners. Aziru
eventually conquered the former Egyptian province of Amurru, split it off from Egypt, and made
it into a semi-independent nation. The area/ Kingdom of Amurru will be discussed in detail
below in this paper.
Therefore, the assumption of many critical scholars, that in 1406 BC Canaan was too
strongly fortified by Egyptian troops in garrison cities for Joshua to have undertaken the
Israelite conquest, is not at all supported by the Amarna Letters, quite to the contrary. It is very
clear in the Amarna Letters that Egyptian troops in Canaan were not strong enough to even
protect Egyptian commissioners from Amorite rebels and their allies the ‘Apiru/ Habiru.
The evidence in the Amarna Letters indicates that the original plan of Pharaoh
Thutmosis III, which was still being followed in the Amarna Period, was to leave city-kings in
place in Canaan with local troops and chariots, and to have them defend their cities against
invaders (the Mitanni and Hittites) until the Pharaoh himself could show up with his powerful
chariot army.
There is no historical evidence that Thutmosis III ever posted large numbers of soldiers
in Canaanite cities and neither did any of his successors. The success of the colonial system
established by Thutmosis III depended upon the effectiveness of the Egyptian chariot army,
which was very strong under Thutmosis III. However, the Old Testament states that during the
reign of his son Amenhotep II, the elite chariot forces in the Egyptian army were dealt a
devastating blow at the Red Sea/ Sea of Reeds during the Israelite exodus.
Most Biblical critics dismiss the Red Sea episode in the Bible as pure fiction, but it does
explain the ineffectiveness of the Egyptian army in controlling the ‘Apiru/ Habiru invaders in
Canaan. Incidentally, as was mentioned above, there is not one single Amarna Letter which
ever mentions a commissioner—or even the Pharaoh himself-- leading an Egyptian army in an
attack on the “Apiru/ Habiru in spite of the fact that these invading people were killing city-
kings and seizing land in Canaan.
In the Books of Joshua and Judges, the Israelites are never said to have fought Egyptian
troops in their invasion into Canaan. As has been seen, the same thing is true of the ‘Apiru/
Habiru in the Amarna Letters; they too are never said to have fought against—with the possible
exception at Sumur as allies of the Amorites-- or to have ever been attacked by Egyptian troops.
In part, it is likely that this was true because large groups of Egyptian troops were never
stationed in “garrison cities” in Canaan.
The fact that the Amarna Letters never state or even indicate that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru
were attacked by the Egyptian army in Canaan and the corresponding fact that the Old
Testament never states that the Hebrew Israelites ever fought against Egyptian troops in
Canaan in the 14th and 13th Centuries BC, strongly suggests that the Hebrew Israelites of the
Books of Joshua and Judges were the ‘Apiru/ Habiru of the Amarna Letters.

THE ‘APIRU/ HEBREWS IN THE AMARNA LETTERS

 The Amarna Letters are filled with references to a powerful people in Canaan in the 14th
Century BC called the ‘Apiru/ Habiru who were clearly enemies of the Egyptians and who were
never under the control of the Egyptian government. There is no indication in any of the
Amarna Letters that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru ever paid tribute-taxes to Pharaoh or in any way
submitted to his authority. The ‘Apiru/ Habiru, unquestionably a large, distinct, ethnic group,
are often said in the Amarna Letters to be killing kings in the Egyptian colony of Canaan and
seizing land and property.
William Moran transliterates their name from Akkadian cuneiform in his The Amarna
Letters as “‘Apiru” and in one instance as “Hapiru.” Hugo Winkler in his earlier translation and
transliteration of the Amarna Letters transliterated this name not as ‘Apiru but rather as
“Habiru” (Winkler 1896: 283-333). William W. Hallo in his translation of “A Letter to Zalaia”
also transliterates this name from Akkadian cuneiform as “Habiru.” (Hallo 2003: 243). This
same cuneiform “Letter to Zalaia,” which was sent from an un-named Pharaoh to city-king
Zalaia in the city of Kumidi in what-is-today Lebanon, mentions “the Habiru of Amurru.” The
area/ Kingdom of Amurru, which is also mentioned in the Book of Joshua, will be discussed later
in this paper.
For the most part in the Amarna Letters, the name “‘Apiru/ Habiru” is designated in
cuneiform by the Sumerian logogram SA.GAS; for one example among many, see Winkler 1896:
284. A Sumerian logogram is a single cuneiform character/sign—originally a picture--which
stood for an entire word. However, in Winkler’s transliteration of the Amarna Letter to which
he assigned the number 179, this name is for once not written with the Sumerian logogram
SA.GAS, but is fully spelled out in Akkadian cuneiform syllables as “Habiru” (Winker 1896: 302).
In the vowelless, Hebrew Old Testament, the name Hebrew is spelled only with
consonants as ‘ayin-bet-res-yod (‘bry), which would have been pronounced “hebru.” In the
Greek Septuagint Old Testament, it is rendered with vowels as ‘Ebraios. There is no true letter
H in the Greek alphabet, however the ‘ before E on ‘Ebraios is the Greek “rough breathing
mark,” and therefore this name would have thus been pronounced as “Hebraios.” In Jerome’s
Latin Vulgate Bible, this name is rendered as “Hebraeos,” from which the English “Hebrew” is
directly derived. The name ‘Apiru/ Habiru in the Amarna Letters is unquestionably the same
name which is rendered into English as “Hebrew.”
While nearly all critical scholars—for example the Egyptologist Donald Redford-- today
deny that the “Apiru/ Habiru in the Amarna Letters were the Hebrew Israelites of the Books of
Joshua and Judges, they unquestionably were. Not only are the names Hebrew and ‘Apiru/
Habiru nearly identical, but also the information provided in the Amarna Letters about the
‘Apiru/ Habiru matches almost perfectly with what the Old Testament has to say about the
Israelite conquest of Canaan during the period of Joshua and the Judges.
Before continuing, it must be stressed that there were “Hebrews” who were not
Israelites, but, as was stated above, the ‘Apiru/ Habiru mentioned in the Amarna Letters were
unquestionably Israelites, contrary to Donald Redford who denies this identification (Redford,
1992: 172). As for the first known appearance of the name ‘Apiru/ Habiru in Egyptian records,
Redford believes that Thutmosis III in one of his military campaigns: “encountered a band of
‘Apiru at Ullaza,” which was located in northern Galilee: “in the same region they later occupy
in force in the Amarna Age” (Redford 2003: 218).
 However, this possible reference to the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in the later area of Amurru in
northern Canaan appears in a mostly-obliterated inscription of Thutmosis III, and whether or
not it does mention the ‘Apiru depends upon whether or not Redford’s “restoration of the
traces is correct” (Redford 2003: 218). This possible—but not certain-- reference to the ‘Apiru
by Thutmosis III dates to his 30th year of reign, in other words to ca. 1474 BC. However, it is
very clear--even if Redford’s restoration is correct--that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru did not exist in
Canaan in the large numbers which are found there only about 50-60 years after Thutmosis III’s
death in ca. 1450 BC. Thutmosis III never claims to have fought against ‘Apiru/ Habiru
anywhere in greater Canaan, which included Syria and Lebanon.
The first, known-for-certain, appearance of the name ‘Apiru/ Habiru/ Hebrew in
Egyptian texts is found on the Memphis Stele of Amenhotep II on which he states that during
his second and last military campaign in 1446 BC, he captured 3,600 ‘Apiru in southern Canaan
and took them back to Egypt as slaves (Petrovich 2021:161). It is highly likely that the ‘Apiru/
Habiru mentioned by Pharaoh Amenhotep II were Edomites, who were the descendants of
Jacob’s brother Esau. This is the only known-for-certain reference to the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in
Egyptian texts before the time of the Amarna Letters.
These ‘Apiru/ Habiru in Edom were located far away from where Redford’s restored text
of Thutmosis III which placed them at Ullaza in north-central Canaan, and Redford only calls
those at Ullaza “a band of ‘Apiru.” Neither Thutmosis III nor Amenhotep II mentions finding
large numbers of ‘Apiru in Canaan, and yet large numbers of them appear in the Amarna
Letters only about 25 years after the end of the rule of Amenhotep II in 1415 BC. The question
thus arises: Where did this large number of militarily-strong ‘Apiru/ Habiru come from?
When writing about the newly-developing, semi-independent, short-lived region/
Kingdom of Amurru in northern Canaan, which the ‘Apiru/ Habiru helped Amorites rebels to
create in the 14th Century BC, Redford provides his theory on the origin of the ‘Apiru in his book
Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. He writes:

From the last quarter of the fifteen century B.C., the local population of the coast and
central Syria began to call this tract Amurru, the “West,” after an old term used in the
Middle Bronze Age by the Akkadians for the entire Levantine littoral. Beginning in the
reign of Amenophis III, Amurru became a favorite haunt for those “cossacklike” bands of
outlaws known as ‘Apiru, as well as for seminomadic West Semitic speaking clans
(Redford 1992:170).

In other words, Redford saw the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in Canaan not as the invading Hebrew
Israelites but rather as local natives who, “beginning in the reign of Amenhotep III,” suddenly
sprang-up as “cossacklike bands of outlaws” and who were joined by “seminomadic West
Semitic speaking clans.” By “seminomadic” Redford means the ethnic group which the
Egyptians called “Shasu,” and as will be seen, the Egyptians clearly classified both the ‘Apiru/
Habiru and the Israelites as Shasu peoples. By “Semitic-speaking,” Redford means speaking the
Canaanite/ Amorite language.
Redford thus saw the ‘Apiru/ Habiru only as local, native, Canaanite bandits who arose
in the newly-developing Kingdom of Amurru, which was located in the north central area of
Egypt’s colony of greater Canaan. As will be seen, the ‘Apiru/Habiru and their allies the
Amurru/ Amorites were killing city-kings and seizing land in the Egyptian colony of Canaan.
Incidentally, the U ending on Amurru is the Akkadian masculine plural (sing. Amurrum),
and Amurru should more correctly be translated as “region of the Amorites” or simply as
“Amorites,” and not as “West” as Redford suggests in the above quotation. Redford also
assumes that the plural Akkadian word Amurru initially meant the compass direction “West”
which in time came to be applied to the Amorite people who lived West of Mesopotamia.
However, this assumption may not be true.
The Amorites were a very old people, and it was the ancient Sumerians—not the later
Akkadians as Redford seems to have assumed-- who wrote the oldest-known version of their
name with the logogram MAR-TU (Black 2000: 16), from which the Akkadian name Amurrum/
Amorite was derived. It is even possible that the name Amurru was first applied to the Amorite
people, and then since they lived west of Mesopotamia, their logogram picture-name came to
be applied to the compass direction West. However, another possible explanation is that
“Amorite” and “West” were simply homophones in Akkadian or Sumerian, and were not
connected in any way except in the way they were pronounced.
However, after assuming that the name Amurru was derived from the Akkadian name
for the direction West, Redford does not then explain why the region of the Amurru/ Amorites
in north-central Canaan, northern Galilee, central Lebanon, and southern Syria was strangely
called “the West” by people living along the Lebanese coast. It is very clear in the Amarna
Letters that the Amurru region was located east of these Mediterranean coastal cities, including
the port city of Byblos, which the Amorites—with ‘Apiru/ Habiru help-- were in the process of
attempting to conquer. Why would coastal Canaanites have called the area of Amurru “the
West” when it was clearly located east of them?
One thing is very clear, the name Amurru/ Amorites was used for this large, militarily-
strong, group of Semitic peoples no matter where they eventually ended up living. The newly-
developing and short-lived region—and eventual Kingdom-- called Amurru in the 14th and 13th
Centuries BC was almost certainly called Amurru because of the many Amorite-speaking people
who lived in this area and not because it was the “West” as Redford has suggested.
Redford also does not adequately explain where the “cossacklike” ‘Apiru/ Habiru people
in the region of Amurru came from; he assumes that they just suddenly popped up in north-
central Canaan out of the local population. There is very little historical or archaeological
evidence to support his theory. The first thing to note again about the people who are called
the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in the Amarna Letters is that they apparently did not exist in Canaan in any
significant numbers until about 50-60 years after the end of the reign of Pharaoh Thutmosis III
(1504-1450 BC).
Thutmosis III, during his 17 military campaigns-- the vast majority of which were in
Canaan and Syria—never mentions having fought against ‘Apiru/ Habiru in greater Canaan, and
depending on whether or not Redford’s restoration of the inscription of Thutmosis III, which
was discussed above, is correct, he may have never even encountered them in Canaan. But if
Thutmosis III did encounter ‘Apiru, he only encountered a small “band” of them, and only once
during his many campaigns in and through Canaan.
The first known-for-certain reference to the Habiru/ ‘Apiru in Egyptian texts is found on
the Memphis Stele of Amenhotep II which dates to ca. 1446 BC, in other words about seven
months after the Israelite exodus in that same year. Amenhotep II claims to have captured and
enslaved 3,600 ‘Apiru during his second and final campaign into southern Canaan (Petrovich
2021: 211).
Even though our friend, Egyptologist Douglas Petrovich believes that these 3,600 ‘Apiru
were Hebrew Israelites who wandered away from the exodus Israelites and were captured by
Amenhotep II, it appears far more likely that they were Edomites because Amenhotep II clearly
campaigned in Edom. It should be recalled that the grandfather of both the Israelites and the
Edomites was “Abraham the Hebrew.” Incidentally, there is an ancient Egyptian document
dating to the reign of Merneptah (ca, 1212-1202), the son of Ramses II, which mentions the
“Shasu of Edom,” and as will be seen, the Hebrew Israelites were also considered to be a Shasu
people.
Nevertheless, Egyptian historical records indicate that the large number of Habiru/
‘Apiru, who are mentioned in the Amarna Letters, did not appear in Canaan until sometime
after the death of Amenhotep II in ca. 1415 BC. As was noted above, Redford himself places
the sudden appearance of this large number of ‘Apiru/ Habiru in Canaan during the early reign
of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (ca. 1391-1354 BC).
As has been noted above, the Old Testament places the appearance of the Hebrew
Israelites in Canaan in 1406 BC which would be slightly earlier during the reign of Amenhotep
III’s father Thutmosis IV (1415-1391 BC). Nevertheless, the dates for the appearance of the
‘Apiru/ Habiru in Canaan as is seen in Egyptian records and the Amarna Letters, and the date for
the appearance of the Hebrews in Canaan as found in the Old Testament are nearly a perfect
match.
As was noted above, it is very clear in the Amarna Letters that there were large numbers
of Habiru/ ‘Apiru living in Canaan during the early reign of Amenhotep III (1391-1354 BC), but
they were clearly not there earlier during the reign of his grandfather Thutmosis III (1504-1450
BC). It is just not possible that this large group of ‘Apiru/ Habiru just suddenly popped-up out of
the local population in Canaan as a numerous, distinct, militarily-powerful, ethnic group in just
50 or 60 years as Redford’s theory demands. The ‘Apiru/ Habiru had to have come into Canaan
as migrating invaders! The question now arises: from where did the ‘Apiru/ Habiru migrate into
Canaan?
The many military campaigns of Thutmosis III in Canaan and Syria clearly prove that the
Habiru/ ‘Apiru did not enter Canaan from the north. Thutmosis III frequently campaigned in
Canaan and Syria and even crossed the Euphrates River, and yet he never mentions
encountering the Habiru/ ‘Apiru as a large people group—only as a possible “band”--anywhere
in that area. Thus, this large group of Habiru/ ‘Apiru had to have entered Canaan either from
the south or the east. The Old Testament states that the Israelites wandered for 40 years in the
Sinai Peninsula and finally entered into the Transjordan area from the south and then attacked
from there into Canaan from the east in ca. 1406 BC.
Therefore, Thutmosis III’s and Amenhotep II’s military-campaign records and the
Amarna Letters contradict Redford’s theory that the Habiru/ ‘Apiru were “cossacklike” native
Canaanite tribes who suddenly sprang up in the region of Amurru in north-central Canaan and
who then quickly evolved into a large, militant, people group which became in some way
distinct from the local “Amorite” Canaanites from whom they supposedly sprang and with
whom they then intermarried and became sometime allies!
 To summarize, Redford’s theory has major problems; it clearly does not match with
Egyptian historical records including the Amarna Letters. His theory—when seen in the light of
Egyptian texts—demands that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru developed into a new, major, native but
distinct, militaristic, ethnic group in just 50-60 years, and that this new ethnic group was then
capable of conquering large portions of Canaan from the Egyptians and their local Canaanite
city-kings. In addition, the Amarna Letters clearly considered the ‘Apiru/Habiru as distinct from
the local Amorites from which, according to Redford’s theory, they suddenly sprang up! It is far
more logical to believe that the Habiru/ ‘Apiru were the Hebrew Israelites who migrated from
Egypt and began to conquer in Canaan in 1406 BC.

THE ISRAELITES ARE THE HABIRU IN THE AMARNA LETTERS

The best word to describe Canaan during the Amarna Period is “chaotic,” and the major
cause of that chaos was the ‘Apiru/ Habiru. They were clearly the enemies of the Egyptians, and
they were never a part of the Egyptian administrative system in Canaan. As was noted earlier,
there is no indication that they ever paid any tribute taxes to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians
were never able to bring them under their control, and strangely never tried. As was also noted
above, there is no historical evidence which indicates that the Egyptian Pharaohs Amenhotep
III, Akhenaten, Smenkhare, and Tutankhamun ever led—or even sent--a large field army to
attack the ‘Apiru/ Habiru, who were killing Canaanite city-kings and seizing land in the Egyptian
colony of Canaan. The ancient Egyptians appear to have greatly feared the ‘Apiru/ Habiru.
It is also very clear in the Amarna Letters and later Egyptian texts that the ‘Apiru/Habiru
played a major role in the destruction of Egyptian control over Canaan. However, the Kingdom
of Mitanni and later the Kingdom of the Hittites--and also the “region” of the Amorites, where
the short-lived Kingdom of Amurru came into existence-- appear to have also taken advantage
of the chaos caused by the ‘Apiru/ Habiru invasion and to have gained temporary control over
large portions of northern Canaan and Syria, which had originally been made a part of the
Egyptian colony of greater Canaan which was established by Thutmosis III.
Since this paper argues that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in the Amarna Letters were the Hebrew
Israelites of the periods of Joshua’s conquest and the Judges, it is necessary to look at what the
Old Testament has to say about the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites and also about their
behavior during the period of Joshua and the Judges. Then a comparison will be made between
what the Old Testament says about the Israelite conquest of Canaan and what the Amarna
Letters say about the invasion of the ‘Apiru/ Habiru into Canaan.
The Books of Joshua and Judges, which provide the history of the conquest of Canaan by
the Israelites, can be summarized as having four primary themes: waging war, killing city-kings,
seizing land, and intermarrying with local, polytheistic Amorites/ Canaanites. In their wars in
Canaan, the Israelites are always said to have killed the city-kings who fought against them.
Joshua 12 provides a list of 33 city-kings who were killed by the Israelites, 2 by Moses east of
the Jordan and 31 by Joshua west of the Jordan River.
There is one striking instance of the killing of a city-king which is found in Joshua chapter
12 which provides a close match with the killing of a city-king mentioned in the Amarna Letters.
Joshua 10:3 and 12:11 state that the Hebrew Israelites killed a city-king of Lachish named
Japhia. In Amarna Letter EA 288, city-king ‘Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem writes to Pharaoh
Amenhotep III:
 The strong arm of the king (Pharaoh) took the land of Nahrima (Mitanni in the north)
and the land of Kashi (Kush in the south), but now the ‘Apiru have taken the very cities
of the king (Pharaoh). Not a single mayor (city-king) remains to the king (Pharaoh), my
lord; all are lost. Behold (city-king) Turbazu was slain in the city gate of Silu. The king
(Pharaoh) did nothing. Behold, servants who were joined to the ‘Apiru smote Zimredda
of Lakisu (Lachish), and Yaprih-Hadda was slain in the city gate of Silu. The king
(Pharaoh) did nothing. Why has he not called them to account? May the king (Pharaoh)
provide for his land. If there are no archers this year, all the lands of the king (Pharaoh),
my lord, are lost. (Moran 1992: 331).

The city-king of Lachish, who is said in EA 288 to have been killed by his servants, was
named Zimredda, and not Japhia. But Zimredda’s Canaanite servants who killed him are said to
have joined the ‘Apiru/Habiru, and these servants were clearly following the regular practice of
the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in the killing of city-kings. This was, of course, also the regular practice of the
Israelite Hebrews in their conquest of Canaan.
In the case of Lachish, it appears that two city-kings were killed, one by Joshua and the
Israelites and another, later, city-king by his Canaanite servants who had joined the ‘Apiru/
Habiru. This striking similarity cannot be explained as a simple coincidence. As will be seen
below, there is considerable evidence found in both the Old Testament and in the Amarna
Letters that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in Canaan and the Israelites were one and the same people.
The city of Silu, which is mentioned in the EA 288 quote given above, was almost
certainly the city of Shiloh mentioned in the Old Testament where Joshua placed the
Tabernacle. However, in his translation The Amarna Letters, Moran writes in his “lndex of
Proper Names” under the listing “Silu: A town, perhaps Egy., at the border of the Delta” (1992:
391). There is nothing at all in the Amarna Letters which suggests that there were any Habiru/
‘Apiru who were active anywhere near an Egyptian border fortress-city in the Delta area of
Egypt.
Letter EA 288 has ‘Abdi-Heba, the city-king of Jerusalem stating, that the people of Silu
had killed two of their city-kings, who almost certainly ruled somewhere near him. Why would
‘Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem have been concerned that Egyptian peasants in the Nile Delta, who
had supposedly joined the ‘Apiru/ Habiru and had killed two of their city-kings? Also, why
would the king of Jerusalem even have to tell the Pharaoh that Egyptian peasants in own
country had joined the ‘Apiru/ Habiru and killed two of his mayors/ city-kings?
The references to Silu in EA 288 are found in discussions of the ‘Apiru/ Habiru and also
along with a report of the killing of a city-king in Lachish. As was noted above, there is
absolutely no indication in any other of the Amarna Letters that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru were ever
active in the border area of the Nile Delta in the 14th Century BC! To be blunt. Moran’s
identification of Silu as an Egyptian town “at the border of the Delta” borders on the ridiculous.
It is apparent from EA 288 at Silu had to be located somewhere near Jerusalem. Silu was almost
certainly the city of Shiloh mentioned in the Books of Joshua and Judges.
Silu/ Shiloh is located about 25 miles north of Jerusalem along an ancient road that ran
from Shechem to Jerusalem, and Lachish was located about 35 miles south of Jerusalem along
another ancient road that ran from Jerusalem to the Via Maris coastal road. In other words,
city-king ‘Abdi-Heba of Jerusalem was well placed to hear about the killing of city-kings in
Lachish and Silu/ Shiloh by Canaanite “servants” who had joined the Habiru/ ‘Apiru.
There is no indication in the Book of Joshua that the Israelites captured Silu/ Shiloh by
force and killed its city-king, even though Joshua clearly placed the Tabernacle in Shiloh. The
Amarna Letters also do not mention the Habiru/ ‘Apiru as having attacked Silu or as having
killed its city-king. It appears that the people of Shiloh/ Silu of their own accord killed two of
their city-kings and then welcomed the Hebrew Israelites. As will be seen below, the city of
Shechem, which is located about 12 miles north of Shiloh, welcomed the Hebrew Israelites, and
this also appears to have been the case with the peasants in the nearby city of Silu/ Shiloh.
For the city of Silu, which is mentioned in EA 288, to have been Biblical Shiloh, it had to
have existed as a city in ca. 1400 BC, and it also had to have had walls with at least one city
gate. The site of ancient Shiloh matches Silu in the Amarna Letters. Archaeologist Scott
Stripling, who is excavating Shiloh, writes:

Shiloh was founded ca. 1750 B.C. (Stratum 8). Inhabitants constructed the fortification
system ca. 100 years later (Stratum 7). The system consisted of a 5.3 m wide wall that
encircled an area of ca. 5 acres plus the gate on the north. There may have been a
second gate on the south, but later builders destroyed the evidence. (Stripling, Jan. 29,
2023)

It should be noted from Stripling’s quote above that there was a gate at Shiloh, in which
the two kings of Silu mentioned above could have been killed. It should also be noted that this
gate and the wall to which it was joined were built about 250 years before the Israelite invasion
into Canaan in ca. 1406 BC. Therefore, the archaeological evidence found at Shiloh matches the
city of Silu which is mentioned in Amarna Letter EA 288.
Incidentally, it is highly likely that migrants from Shechem, which is located only about
12 miles north, founded the city of Silu/ Shiloh. This probably explains why Shiloh joined the
Hebrew Israelites since, as will be seen below, the people of Shechem welcomed the Hebrew
Israelites as fellow monotheists. The relationship of the ‘Apiru/ Habiru with the citizens of
Shechem will be dealt with in detail below.
The Amarna Letters clearly state that; besides the citizens of Silu and Lachish, many
other local Canaanite peasants were joining the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in the killing of their city-kings.
For another example, in Amarna Letter EA 271, Milkilu, the city-king of Gaza writes to the
Pharaoh:

May the king (Pharaoh) know that the war against me and against Suwardata is sever.
So may the king, my lord, save his land from the power of the ‘Apiru. Otherwise, may
the king (Pharaoh) send chariots to fetch us lest our servants kill us (Moran 1992: 317).

The Book of Joshua indicates that Gaza was targeted by the Israelites, but does not state that its
king was killed by Joshua. Amarna Letter EA 271 indicates that Gaza had not yet been taken by
the ‘Apiru/ Habiru, but its city-king Milkilu clearly feared their expected attack, and he also
feared that his own citizens would join the ‘Apiru/ Habiru and kill him.
 The desertion of Canaanite peasants to the ‘Apiru/ Habiru can also be seen in the
partially-broken Amarna Letter EA 272 which has an unnamed city-king from an unknown city
writing to Pharaoh and saying: “May the king (Pharaoh), my lord, know that the mayors (city-
kings) that were in the major cities of my lord are gone and the entire land of the king, my lord,
has deserted to the ‘Apiru” (Moran 1992: 317).
It thus appears that local Canaanite/ Amorite peasants saw the invasion of the ‘Apiru/
Habiru/ Hebrews as an opportunity to revolt against Egyptian exploitation and to kill their city-
kings, a practice which the Hebrew Israelites unquestionably introduced in their invasion into
Canaan. It thus appears that the exploited Canaanite peasants were welcoming the invasion of
the ‘Apiru/Habiru/ Hebrews.
The Books of Joshua and Judges have the Hebrew Israelites appropriating land in
Canaan, and the ‘Apiru/ Habiru are also frequently said in the Amarna Letters to have been
seizing land in Canaan. In Amarna Letter EA 285, ‘Abdi-Heba, the city-king of Jerusalem, again
writes to Pharaoh (probably Amenhotep III):

Whenever the commissioners have come out, I would say to them, “Lost are the lands
of the king (Pharaoh),” but they did not listen to me. Lost are the mayors (city-kings);
there is not a mayor (city-king) remaining to the king (Pharaoh), my lord. May the king
(Pharaoh) turn his attention to the archers so that the archers of the king (Pharaoh), my
lord, come forth. The king (Pharaoh) has no lands. ‘Apiru has plundered all the lands of
the king (Moran 1992:326-327).

Amarna Letters EA 288 and EA 285 match perfectly with the Israelite Hebrews, who are said in
the Books of Joshua and Judges to have killed city-kings and seized land, some of which was
around the city of Jerusalem, where ‘Abdi-Heba was the city-king. Incidentally, it is very
apparent from EA 285 that the Egyptian “commissioners,” who were sent to ‘Abdi-Heba, did
not have a large body of “archers” with them when they came to Jerusalem.
It is very likely that ‘Abdi-Heba, the city-king of Jerusalem, was himself a replacement
city-king for the earlier city-king of Jerusalem who is said in Joshua 12:10 to have been killed by
the Israelites under Joshua. In Amarna Letter EA 285, ‘Abdi-Heba writes: “I am not a mayor
(city-king); I am a soldier for the king (Pharaoh), my lord” (Moran 1992: 325). In EA 286, ‘Abdi-
Heba adds that he did not inherit the position of city-king from his “father or his mother,” but
he was given his position by “the strong arm of the king (Pharaoh)” (Moran 1992: 326).
It is very likely that ‘Abdi-Heba was a soldier from Jerusalem who escaped from the
slaughter of the five Amorite kings, including the killing of the city-king Adoni-Zedek of
Jerusalem, which is mentioned in Joshua 10. After his escape, it appears that ‘Abdi-Heba was
made the new city-king of Jerusalem by the Pharaoh, and it was very likely that his appointment
was made by one of the Pharaoh’s “commissioners” who is mentioned in EA 285.
There are several other Amarna Letters which indicate that the Pharaoh was appointing
replacement city-kings for those who were killed by the ‘Apiru/ Habiru/ Hebrew Israelites and
their Canaanite/ Amorite allies. This fact unquestionably explains the later presence of the
replacement city-kings in Canaan who appear later in Book of Judges, for example Jabin, king of
Hazor. Therefore, it is very clear in the Amarna Letters that Canaanite peasants welcomed the
invading ‘Apiru/ Habiru, who were almost certainly the Hebrew Israelites.
 However, while the Israelites did kill many city-kings in Canaan, the Old Testament
states that they did not destroy or drive out all of the native Canaanite peasants as they had
been told by God to do. Judges 3:5-7a states:

The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and
Jebusites. They married their daughters and gave their own daughters in marriage to
their sons. They also worshipped their gods. The Israelites did evil in the eyes of
Yahweh. They abandoned Yahweh their God and worshipped the Baals and Asherahs
(NIV).

As will be seen below, the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in the Amarna Letters also did not drive out
the Canaanite/ Amorite peasants, and at times they even became the military allies of the
Amorites in Canaan. It thus very clear that Canaanite peasants welcomed the ‘Apiru/ Habiru,
and were more than willing to join them in killing Canaanite city-kings, almost all of whom were
certainly seen as the agents of the oppressive Egyptians.
The cooperation between the ‘Apriru/ Habiru and Canaanite peasants matches very well
with the above quotation from Judges 3:5-7a which states that the Israelites intermarried with
the Amorites. But first, a brief look at the original Amorites who were very early invaders into
Canaan and who had themselves much earlier intermarried with the aboriginal, native
Canaanites long before the exodus and conquest took place.
All of the various peoples, who are mentioned in Judges 3:5-7 as living in Canaan, had
earlier adopted the Amorite language. The Amorite language—sometimes called “West
Semitic” by modern scholars—came in time to be called “Canaanite,” even though the original
Canaanites almost certainly spoke a different language. It is apparently because they adopted
the Amorite language that in the Amarna Letters nearly all of the various peoples in Canaan are
called without distinction “Amorites.” This is even true at times in the Old Testament; for
example, the Jebusites of Jerusalem are also called “Amorites” in Joshua 10:5
The Amorite language had replaced the original native Canaanite language at some time
before ca. 2000 BC. The Semitic Amorites themselves were not natives of Canaan, but rather
they came as early invaders from central Syria. One group of invading Amorites went east into
Mesopotamia, and another group went southwest into Canaan. The famous King Hammurabi of
Ur (ruled in ca. 1800 BC) was from a group of Amorites who went east. It should be noted that
Genesis 14:13 states that “Abraham the Hebrew” was allied with three brothers who are said to
have been “Amorites,” and who had unquestionably migrated west into Canaan.
As was noted above, the Israelites in their conquest of Canaan had a policy of killing city-
kings, which was also true for the ‘Apiru/ Habiru. However, as was noted above, Judges 3:5-7
clearly states that the Israelites spared the common people and intermarried with native
Canaanites, Amorites, Hivites, etc. This matches perfectly with the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in the
Amarna Letters who are never mentioned as having killed Amorite/ Canaanite peasants. And as
was noted above, there are even strong indications in the Amarna Letters that Canaanite
peasants were willingly joining the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in attacking some of their own city-king, who
were oppressively taxing them for the Egyptian Pharaoh.
 Besides the killing of city-kings and the seizing of land in Canaan, there are two other
major features—and as will be seen a number of important minor features-- which clearly
connect the Israelite Hebrews to the ‘Apiru/ Habiru mentioned in the Amarna Letters.
The first major feature is the highly significant Israelite connection to the city of
Shechem. Nowhere does the Old Testament state that the Israelites of Joshua’s conquest
fought against and conquered the city of Shechem. The Israelite Hebrews apparently accepted
and were accepted by the people of Shechem as a kindred people without a fight. Incidentally,
Joshua built his famous altar on Mount Ebal near Shechem, as is recorded in Joshua 8:30. And,
in addition, Shiloh, which was where the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant were first
permanently based in Israel, was also apparently friendly, and it was located only about 12
miles away from the city of Shechem. As was noted above, it is highly likely that Shiloh/ Silu
was founded by migrants from the city of Shechem.
According to Joshua 8:30-37, Joshua read the blessings and curses of the Law of Moses
to all of the Israelites who were divided with half on Mount Gerizim and half on Mount Ebal.
This would not have been possible if the nearby Shechemites were undefeated and hostile. In
addition, Joshua 8:33 not only states that Joshua read the law of Moses standing between
Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, but also that he read it to: “All Israel, aliens and citizens alike”
(NIV).
The Hebrew word which is translated in the NIV as “alien” is ger, and in the KJV it is
translated as “stranger.” The Hebrew word ger was used, at least at times, for converts to
Jewish monotheism. In the context of Joshua 8, ger can only be the local Shechemites. But
what was the connection between the Israelites and the people of Shechem which led to the
friendly relations between these two ethnic groups?
Genesis 34:1-31 reports the rape of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, by Shechem, the son
of Hamor, a Hivite, who was the ruler and apparent “founder” of the Hivite city of Shechem.
This same passage of Scripture also notes that the men of the city of Shechem agreed to be
circumcised and at least superficially converted to Jacob’s monotheism.
However, Genesis 34:27 states that Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi, in revenge for the
rape of their sister, killed all the adult men in the city of Shechem, and Genesis 34:29 states that
the sons of Jacob, “carried off all of their women and children.” While the Old Testament does
not specifically so state, it appears that when Jacob and his family moved to Egypt, they left
these Shechemites—now monotheists--behind in Canaan, and apparently on good terms.
There were descendants of Hamor still living in Shechem at the time of Joshua’s conquest as
can be seen in the later Book of Judges.
In Judges 9:28b, the native-Shechemite rebel “Gaal son of Ebed,” who had revolted
against the rule of Abimelek, the son of the Israelite Judge Gideon, says to the people of
Shechem: “serve the descendants of Hamor, Shechem’s founding father!” The rebel Gaal
continues: “Why should we serve Abimelek?” Gaal was in effect saying that Abimelek was not a
real Shechemite because his father was the Israelite Judge Gideon, and his mother was only a
concubine from the city of Shechem. Abimelek eventually defeated and killed Gaal, and he also
destroyed the city of Shechem, which was later rebuilt.
It is very clear from the Old Testament that Shechem and Shiloh were in the days of
Joshua allies of the Hebrew Israelites, and it is also very clear that neither Shechem nor Shiloh
was taken in a military conquest by Joshua. The alliance of the Shechemites with the Israelites
matches perfectly with the ‘Apiru/ Habiru in the Amarna Letters who are also said to have been
the willing allies of the Shechemites.
Jerusalem’s city-king ‘Abdi-Heba writes to the Pharaoh in Amarna Letter EA 289
warning about the threat of the attacking ‘Apiru/ Habiru, and he asks: “Are we to act like
Lab’ayu when he was giving the land of Sakmu (Shechem) to the Hapiru” (Moran 192: 332)?
Amarna Letter EA 289 clearly states that Lab’ayu, the city-king of Shechem, had surrendered to
and was friendly with the ‘Apiru/ Habiru. Thus, Amarna Letter EA 289 matches perfectly with
the friendly relationship which the Hebrew Israelites had with the Hivites/ Amorites of the city
of Shechem during the days of Joshua.
Incidentally, the name Lab’ayu is almost certainly a Yahwistic name. William Moran, in
his “Index of Proper Names” at the back of his The Amarna Letters, has after the listing
“Lab’ayu” the translation: “[DN] a lion” (Moran 1992: 382). DN stands for “Divine Name,” but
Moran does not suggest what divine name was signified. Labu is the Akkadian word for lion,
which is cognate with the Hebrew/ Canaanite word for a “great lion” which is labi. The –’ayu
on the name Lab’ayu is almost certainly an Akkadian cuneiform version of yhw, a shortened
Hebrew version of the name Yahweh.
For example, see the name Elijah, which in Old Testament Hebrew without vowel
points, is spelled Aleph-Lamed-Yod-He-Waw (ALYHW). the Al/El is the Hebrew name for God
and the yhw/-jah is a shortened version of the name Yahweh. Elijah’s name translates as “My
God (is) Yahweh.” It is highly likely that the name Lab’ayu in its original Hebrew/ Amorite
version would have been translated as something like “Yahweh (is) a Lion” or “My Yahweh (is) a
lion.” If the name Lab’ayu is a Yahwistic name, which is almost certainly the case, then the
‘Apiru/ Habiru in the Amarna Letters and the Hebrew Israelites in the Books of Joshua and
Judges are unquestionably the same identical people! Incidentally, it appears that Lab’ayu was
a native Shechemite city-king who adopted a Yahwistic name.
The last known mention of the ‘Apiru/ Habiru by name in Egyptian texts is connected to
the city of Shechem and dates to the reign of Pharaoh Sety I (1294-1279 BC), who was the
father of Ramses II. Redford states that Sety I identified the ‘Apiru/ Habiru at Shechem as a
“Shasu” people. As was noted earlier, the Shasu are generally defined as Semites who were
semi-nomadic herders/shepherds. Redford writes about Sety I and the challenges that he faced
in Canaan from the Shasu:

In the northern hill country, the presence of similar elements (of Shasu) around
Shechem posed a threat to Beth Shean, and the (caravan) route between the coastal
road and the Jordan (River) was already in jeopardy at the outset of Sety’s reign (ca.
1294 BC). While he was again able to quell the disturbances, his records betray the
presence of a strong dissident group, whom he terms ‘Apiru, in the hill country where
three generations earlier, Lab’ayu had run amok. (Redford 1993: 274).

Sety I’s identification of the ‘Apiru/ Habiru at Shechem as a “Shasu” people is highly
significant. As was noted earlier, in the Soleb Temple Inscription, which dates to the reign of
Amenhotep III, there is a reference to the “Land of the Shasu of Yahweh.” In other words, the
‘Apiru/ Habiru were a Shasu people, and the Soleb Inscription ties at least some Shasu people
to the Israelite-Hebrew God Yahweh. The inscriptions of Sety I also connect these Shasu, who
are ‘Apiru, to the city of Shechem, which plays a very central role in the Book of Joshua and also
in the Amarna Letters. The ‘Apiru/ Habiru at Shechem in the Amarna Letters were
unquestionably the Hebrew Israelites of the Books of Joshua and Judges.
The second major feature connecting the Israelites to the ‘Apiru/ Habiru of the Amarna
Letters is found in Joshua 13:4 which mentions “the region of the Amorites.” The Hebrew
word, which is translated as “region,” is “gebul,” and it means an “area” or a “region.” The
Amarna Letters also mention the region of “Amurru,” which a little later for a short period of
time became a minor kingdom. Joshua 13:5 indicates that this “region of the Amorites” was
located east of the “land of the Gebalites.” The ancient city of Gebal is better known today by
its ancient Greek name of Byblos.
Rib-Hadda, the city-king of “Gubala” (Gebal/ Byblos) wrote about 50 of the Amarna
Letters to Pharaoh, and in almost all of them he asks in vain for Egyptian troops to help defend
Byblos against the Amorites and their allies the ‘Apiru/ Habiru who were attacking Byblos from
the east out of the region of “Amurru.” It should again be recalled that Judges 3:5-7 states that
the Israelites intermarried with the Amorites. The leader of the Amorite attacks on neighboring
Gebal/Byblos was named ‘Abdi-Asirta who, along with his son Aziru, was in the process of
forming the new, semi-independent, short-lived, Kingdom of Amurru in northern Canaan,
Lebanon, and southern Syria.
In Amarna Letter EA 81, Rib-Hadda, city-king of Byblos, writes to Pharaoh that the
Amorite rebel ‘Abdi-Asirta has been telling the citizens of Byblos: “Kill your lord and be joined to
the ‘Apiru” (Moran 1992:150). In this same Amarna Letter, Rib-Hadda reports that an
assassination attack was made on his life, and he was wounded nine times with a knife, but he
managed to kill his attacker.
It should be noted that Joshua 13:4 knows about the existence of the “region of the
Amorites,” and it also knows of its location east of the “land of the Gebalites.” Both of these
areas are said in Joshua 13:1 to be scheduled for conquest, but not yet conquered. There is no
mention in Joshua 13:1 that Amurru had a king, and this is also true for the Amarna Letters.
Thus, the information in the Book of Joshua on both the existence of the early, kingless region
of Amurru and also its location east of Byblos is a perfect match with the Amarna Letters. As
was noted above, the region of Amurru—which was once an Egyptian province under a
commissioner-- eventually became a short-lived kingdom.
The newly-formed Kingdom of Amurru did not last long, only about a century. It
became a semi-independent kingdom by becoming an ally of the Hittites against the Egyptians
in ca. 1300 BC, but apparently chaffed under Hittite control. King Benteshima of Amurru thus
switched his allegiance to the Egyptians, which helped to cause the Battle of Kadesh in 1275 BC
between Pharaoh Ramses II and the Hittite King Muwatalli II (Redford 1993: 183). King
Benteshima of Amurru (ca. 1280-1235 BC) was captured and removed as a king by the Hittites
after the Battle of Kadesh, and Amurru fell under direct Hittite control. However, Benteshima
was eventually able to convince the Hittites to restore him to the throne of Amurru (Bryce
1999: 344-346).
About eight years later in ca. 1267 BC, Ramses II began an unsuccessful attempt to
recoup his earlier territorial losses at the Battle of Kadesh by campaigning against Hittite areas
in northern Canaan, Amurru, and southern Syria. Eventually, the new Hittite King Hattusilis III
(ca. 1267-1237 BC), being threatened by a dynastic dispute and the growing power of Assyria,
proposed a new peace treaty to Ramses II (Redford 1993: 189-190). Redford writes of the
results of this treaty of ca. 1260 BC (Redford dates this treaty to 1284 BC):

The war was over. Two centuries of fighting for a northern empire had come to an end.
But was Ramesses aware of the cost? For when the border was drawn again, all the
gains of the Ramesside kings went for naught. Ugarit and its southern coastal neighbor
Siyanny remained Hittite; Amurru returned to the Hittite fold, its king Benteshina was
reinstated, and was granted control over Arvad. Kadesh too became Hittite once again,
with close ties to Ugarit (Redford 1993: 190).

While Ramses II claims a number of victories in his series of campaigns to the north
against the Hittites, the treaty which he signed with Hattusilis III in ca. 1260 BC makes his
claimed victories highly questionable. Redford himself appears to have been surprised at the
terms in this peace treaty; he states that Ramses II clearly “lost the peace.”
However, before and after the signing of this favorable treaty with Egypt, the Kingdom
of the Hittites was hit with a series of four devastating blows in a period of about a century
from ca. 1300-1200 BC. The first blow was the bubonic plague which first struck in ca. 1300 BC
during the reign of King Mursili II (ca. 1321-1295 BC). Trevor Bryce in his book The Kingdom of
the Hittites quotes a prayer of King Mursili II to the gods in which he states that: “The Land of
Hatti, all of it is dying, so that no one prepares sacrificial loaves and libations for you. “The
ploughmen who used to work the fields of the god are dead” (Bryce 1999: 224).
The bubonic plague appears to have repeated several times in Hatti during the 13th
Century BC. The pattern of the bubonic plague later in medieval Europe, which first broke out
in 1346 AD, was that it repeated about every 20-25 years with each new generation; the last,
far-less-lethal outbreak was in ca. 1660 AD. However, the tens of millions of deaths in the
initial outbreak of the Black Death in 1346 AD in Europe caused a massive shortage of
manpower to work the fields and manors in Europe. It appears that this was also true in the
Kingdom of the Hittites in the 1200’s BC.
As the above prayer of Mursili II indicates, the bubonic plague which first broke out in
ca. 1300 BC caused a farm worker shortage which in turn appears to have caused the second
blow, a famine. Famines and plagues appear to have been an on-going problem in the Kingdom
of the Hittites during the 1200’s BC. The Hittites were even forced to buy grain from their
former enemies the Egyptians. Evidence of this on-going, plague-famine problem in Hatti can
be seen in the fact that Pharaoh Merneptah reports sending grain in ships in ca. 1210 BC to
keep the starving Hittites alive (Manassa 2003: 34).
The third blow was a dynastic dispute between Muwatalli’s son Urhi-Tesub (ruled ca.
1272-1267 and Hattusili III (ruled ca. 1267-1237 BC), who was the younger brother of King
Muwatalli II. Hattusili III had played a key role in the reign of his older brother and also in his
victory at Kadesh in 1275 BC over Pharaoh Ramses II. However, Hattusili III suffered from some
sort of a long-term illness, which does not seem to have hindered his performance for his
brother. However, maybe because of his younger brother’s illness, Muwatalli II, who did not
have a son by his primary wife, named his son Urhi-Tesub as his heir, but he was born of a
concubine, which placed his claim to the throne in question (Bryce 1999: 275).
 Problems developed between uncle and nephew and a short civil war broke out which
Hattusili III won. Later other dynastic disputes arose, and they continued to be a problem down
to the extinguishing of the Kingdom of the Hittites by invading foreign armies. Several client
states in Asia Minor and Syria used these dynastic disputes to assert their independence from
the deteriorating Kingdom of the Hittites in the 1200’s BC.
In ca. 1200 BC the fourth blow struck when the weakened Kingdom of the Hittites was
attacked by invading armies from three directions, from the southeast by the Sea Peoples
Coalition, which was led by the Philistines, from northern Asia Minor by the Kaska/ Phrygians,
and from the northeast Caucasus area by Meshech and Tubal peoples. The Kingdom of the
Indo-European Hittites thus disappeared forever in ca. 1200 BC.
At about this same time, the Kingdom of Amurru, which was then a semi-independent,
client state of the Kingdom of the Hittites, suffered the same fate at the hands of the
Philistines. In his inscriptions at Medinet Habu, Pharaoh Ramses III writes that the Sea Peoples
set up a camp in Amurru and: “They desolated its people, and its land was like that which has
never come into being” (Bryce 1999: 367). The nearby, Hittite-allied city of Ugarit was also
destroyed at about this same time by the Philistines in ca. 1192 BC.
Therefore, Joshua 13 knew that the region of Amurru, which is frequently mentioned in
the Amarna Letters, existed and that it was located east of Byblos. Joshua 13 and the Amarna
Letters also both indicate that the region of Amurru did not yet have a king in ca. 1350 BC.
Incidentally, if the Book of Joshua was written in ca. 700 BC, as some critical scholars have
suggested, how did its author know—more than 500 years later--of the short-lived existence of
the “region/ Kingdom of the Amorites” and also that it did not yet have a king in ca. 1350 BC?
As was noted above, the Amarna Letters indicate that some of the ‘Apiru/ Habiru had
joined with the Amorites in the conquest of the region of Amurru and in attacking the city of
Byblos. This too connects, as has been noted, directly with the Old Testament which states that
the Israelites intermarried with the Amorites, and it is thus not surprising that they, the ‘Apiru/
Habiru/ Hebrews, joined with the Amorites in attacking Gebal/ Byblos. Once again, the Old
Testament matches very well with the Amarna Letters.
Besides the two major features discussed above connecting the Israelite Hebrews with
the ‘Apiru/ Habiru, there are also a number of additional features found in the Books of Joshua
and Judges, which match perfectly with the information about the ‘Apiru/ Habiru and their
presence in Canaan as found in the Amarna Letters.
First, at least a dozen of the Amarna Letters state that there were city-kings in Canaan
who not only had armies but who also had chariots, which were their own and which did not
belong to the Egyptians. For example, in Amarna Letter EA 243, Biridiya, the city king of
Megiddo, writes to Pharaoh Akhenaten:

By day I guard it (Megiddo) from the fields with chariots, and by night on the walls of the
king (Pharaoh), my lord. And, as the warring of the ‘Apiru in the land is severe, may the
king, my lord, take cognizance of his land (Moran 1992: 297).

Amarna Letter EA 243 is significant because Megiddo is listed as a city-state in Canaan

which was attacked by Joshua, and Joshua 12:21 reports that the Israelites had killed an earlier
king of Megiddo. It again appears that the Pharaoh had named a replacement city-king in
Megiddo. The Canaanites in Megiddo had apparently recovered from the earlier attack of the
Israelites under Joshua in ca. 1400 BC and were using chariots to protect their lands in ca. 1350
BC from the ‘Apiru/ Habiru, who were almost certainly the Israelites.
Amarna Letters EA 56, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, etc. all report that there were city-kings
in the Egyptian colony of Canaan who had their own chariot forces. The presence of chariot
forces in Canaanite city-states fits perfectly with Judges 1:19 which states: “They (men of Judah)
took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains
because they had iron chariots.”
These “iron chariots” were obviously not made of solid iron. The use of the word “iron”
in Judges 1:19 may only be used metaphorically to mean “very strong.” Pharaoh Thutmosis III
(1504-1450 BC) in one of his inscriptions refers to himself as: “A good fortress for his army, a
wall of iron” (Redford, 2003: 108). Obviously, there was no such thing as a “wall of iron.”
Hence “chariots of iron” may only have been used metaphorically to mean “very strong.”
However, the use of the word “iron” in Judges 1:19 does seem to suggest that some sort
of a new technological improvement had been made to chariots, maybe iron axels and/ or iron
rims around wooden chariot wheels or maybe just a sturdier construction with more protection
for bowmen and teamsters. The chariots used by Thutmosis III—as seen in the later examples
from the Tomb of King Tut—were very light and rather flimsy.
Some critical scholars in the past have argued that this early reference to iron chariots--
and several other references in the Torah and the Books of Joshua and Judges where iron is
mentioned-- is “anachronistic,” hence proving the Bible unhistorical. While it is beyond the
primary scope of this paper, the Amarna Letters clearly indicate that the Mitanni, who were
excellent charioteers, were also early leaders in the use of iron, and they were unquestionably
producing some iron objects at least as early as ca. 1400 BC.
In Amarna Letter EA 22, the Mitanni King Tusratta provides a list of the wedding gifts
which he had sent to his future “son-in-law,” Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who was marrying his
daughter Tadu-Heba in ca. 1370 BC in order to seal a peace treaty between them. While there
are many gifts mentioned which are said to have been made of bronze, silver, and gold, this list
of gifts also included: two daggers of iron, an iron mace, an iron bracelet, an iron “hand”
bracelet, and “10 javelins with iron tips” (Moran 1992: 51-53). Incidentally, the later Philistines
are also known to have used iron tips on spears and javelins, see II Samuel 17:7.
Generally, the introduction of iron into the Middle East is attributed to the Philistines in
ca. 1200 BC, but it is clear that the Mitanni had iron much earlier, at least as early as ca. 1400
BC. Incidentally, surviving bands of “Ras/ Teresh” Mitanni troops later joined the Philistines in
the Sea People Coalition, and this probably explains the Philistines’ use of iron to dominate the
Israelites during the period of the Judges and the early reign of King Saul.
The famous, iron-bladed dagger (ca. 1335 BC) found in the tomb of King Tut—the
grandson or great grandson of Amenhotep III-- has been explained as an outlier, a rare blade
made out of iron from a meteorite. However, all of the iron mentioned in Amarna Letter EA 22
cannot have come from meteorites! Incidentally, the huge number of bronze gifts, which are
also mentioned in EA 22, clearly indicate that the Mitanni had access to a major source of
copper (and tin), and these many bronze gifts—along with gifts of gold and silver--also suggest
that the Mitanni were experts both in forging metals and in metal-working.
 Second, the Amarna Letters, which were sent to Pharaoh by ‘Abdi-Heba, the city-king of
Jerusalem, clearly indicate that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru had already conquered the area of the
Judean mountains, with only the city of Jerusalem as a hold-out. This again matches well with
Judges 1:19 which, in addition to the reference to iron chariots, also contains another bit of
information which matches the Amarna Letters.
As was seen above, Judges 1:19 states: “They (men of Judah) took possession of the hill
country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains because they had iron
chariots.” Besides its reference to Canaanite chariots, this verse has a second match with the
‘Apiru/ Habiru because the Israelites were clearly attacking from the Judean mountains into the
plains. This matches perfectly with the Amarna Letters which state that the ‘Apiru/Habiru were
attacking out of the Judean mountains down into the coastal plain. For example, the king of
Gezer in ca. 1350 BC writes to Pharaoh Akhenaten in Amarna Letter EA 335 stating that war is
being waged “against me from the mountains” (Moran 1992: 335). This is a perfect match with
Judges 1:19.
Third, there is one very significant city in Canaan which is never mentioned in the
Amarna Letters, Jericho. The names of about 50 villages and cities in Canaan are given in the
Amarna Letters. For example, in the Amarna Letters, the area of Geshur is mentioned, see EA
256 (Moran 1992: 309). Geshur, which is also mentioned several times in the Old Testament,
was located northeast of the Sea of Galilee. By way of contrast, the city of Bosora, which was
located in Edom southeast of the Dead Sea, is mentioned in EA 197 in the Amarna Letters
(Moran 1992: 275).
However, the city of Jericho, which was located midway between Geshur and Bosora is
never mentioned in any of the Amarna Letters, even though it was located along an important
caravan route. As was noted above, about 50 large and small Canaanite cities are mentioned in
the Amarna Letters, but not Jericho! It clearly did not exist as an inhabited city during the
Amarna Period, and this too matches the Old Testament which states that Joshua destroyed
and burned Jericho in ca. 1406 BC.
Incidentally, according to critical scholars today, the Book of Joshua was written in ca.
700 BC. How did the supposed authors of the Book of Joshua in ca. 700 BC know that Jericho
had been destroyed before the Amarna Letters were written in the 14 th Century BC? The
archaeological knowledge that Jericho had been destroyed before the Amarna Letters were
written in the 14th Century BC did not become known until archaeologists began excavating at
Jericho in the early 20th Century AD.
Fourth, there is a statement in the Amarna Letters which matches what the Book of
Joshua says about the city of Hazor. The city of Hazor is said in the Book of Joshua to have been
destroyed by Joshua and the Israelites in ca. 1400 BC. There is no specific mention made in the
Amarna Letters of its having been destroyed. However, this is almost certainly because nearly
all of the Amarna Letters date several decades after ca. 1400 BC when the Book of Joshua
indicates Hazor was captured by Joshua and destroyed. Nevertheless, the Amarna Letters do
strongly indicate that Hazor had been taken earlier and destroyed by the ‘Apiru/ Habiru.
Amarna Letter EA 148 states: “the king of Hasura (Hazor) has abandoned his house
(palace) and has aligned himself with the ‘Apiru” (Moran 1992: 235). Why would the
replacement king of Hazor—the earlier king was killed by Joshua--have abandoned his house
(palace) unless something drastic had taken place? Had it been burned? Why also would he
have joined the invading ‘Apiru/ Habiru unless they had earlier defeated his city of Hazor?
Amarna Letter EA 148 provides strong proof that the city of Hazor had started to revive and was
rebuilt after Joshua burned it.
There is, in addition, evidence in the Amarna Letters of the military recovery of the city
of Hazor after its destruction by Joshua. Amarna Letter EA 364 has city-king Ayyab of Astartu
complaining to the Pharaoh: “Moreover, note that it is the ruler of Hasura (Hazor) who has
taken 3 cities from me” (Moran 1992: 362. Ayyub also goes on to say that Hazor has been
“waging war” against him. Hazor had clearly revived after its destruction by Joshua. This
explains why the city of Hazor appears again as a military power in the story of Deborah and
Barak in Judges 4-5.
Incidentally, it is nearly certain that King Jabin of Hazor’s army of “900 chariots of iron”
in the story of Deborah and Barak primarily consisted of mercenary, Indo-European Ras/ Rosh,
“maryannu” charioteers. The “commander” of this massive number of chariots was named
“Sisera.” There has been a great deal of scholarly speculation on the meaning and/or the
derivation of the name Sisera. However, it almost certainly was not a Canaanite, Hebrew,
Egyptian, or Akkadian name. This leaves only Hurrian or Ras/ Sanskrit as its origin.
There may be some sort of a connection of the name Sisera with an ancient city on the
Little Zab River--an area that was once a part of the Kingdom of Mitanni--which was named
“Sussara” (Astour 1987: 330). By any means, it is highly likely that Sisera was a maryannu Ras/
Rosh, chariot warrior. His connection to the Ras/ Rosh is confirmed in Judges 3:8, where the
camp of Sisera’s chariot army is called “Harosheth Haggoyim.”
The name “Ha-rosh-eth” consists of three parts: “ha” is the Hebrew definite article
(“the”), “rosh” is the name of the Ras people, and the “eth” is the Hurrian plural. Removing the
definite article “ha,” this name in Judges 4:2 could be transliterated from Hebrew as rosh-eth,
which is basically the same ethnic name as the Rish-atha-im mentioned in Judges 3:8. There are
no true vowels in ancient Hebrew, and “Rish-ath” and Rosh-eth in un-pointed Hebrew are
spelled much the same way.
Incidentally, the -th at the end of these names is in Hebrew the single letter tau (t),
which can also be read as a -th sound. In other words, Rish-ath could be transliterated as Rish-
at, and Rosh-eth could be transliterated as Rosh-et. It should be recalled that the ancient
Egyptians sometimes called these same Ras people “Reshet.” It should again be noted that
there are no true vowels in Biblical Hebrew, and vowels points were not added to the Biblical
text until the Masoretes in ca. 900 AD. Thus, any differences in spelling based on vowels are
inconsequential.
“Haggoyim” translates as “of the gentiles,” which again seems to indicate that these
Ras/ Rosh/ Rosh-eth/ Reshet charioteers were foreigners and probably uncircumcised. As was
noted above, it is very likely that these Roshet/ Reshet charioteers under Sisera were Indo-
European, Ras/ Rosh, “maryannu” charioteers who had hired out to Jabin of Hazor as
mercenaries to fight the Israelites. It is also very likely that Sisera and his charioteers were
survivors of the Hittite defeat of the Kingdom of Mitanni in ca. 1350 BC. After their victory, the
Hittites scattered many of the Ras throughout their empire, mainly to southern Asia Minor.
Incidentally, it appears that the Assyrians learned the practice of the deportation of defeated
enemies from the Indo-European Hittites.
 Fifth, the following ancient cities in Canaan are mentioned in the Books of Joshua and
Judges as having been attacked by or threatened by the Israelites and/or to have cooperated
with or to have surrendered to the Israelites. These same cities are also said in the Amarna
Letters to have been attacked or threatened by the ‘Apiru/ Habiru and/or to have cooperated
with or to have surrendered to them: Ashtaroth, Shechem, Jerusalem, Hazor, Shiloh, Taanach,
Gaza, Gezer, Lachish, Megiddo, Ashkelon, Sidon, and Aijalon. There are just too many cities
which match for the ‘Apiru/ Habiru not to have been the Israelite Hebrews.
Sixth, in addition to the 13 cities listed above, there are many additional ancient cities
and villages mentioned in the Books of Joshua and Judges which existed at the same time as the
Amarna Letters indicate that they existed; for examples: Acco, Achshaph, Arvad, Byblos, Bosora,
Gath-Rimmon, Hannathon, Keilah, Shunem, Sidon, Tob, and Tyre. There are also several other
cities and villages—Damascus for example--which are mentioned in the Amarna Letters and
which appear in other books of the Old Testament, especially in the Torah, but the two lists of
cities provided above clearly indicate that the Books of Joshua and Judges match the very time
frame in which they indicate that they were written, in other words in the 14th and 13th
Centuries BC.
Seventh, as was noted above, the Edomite city of Bosora is mentioned several times in
the Old Testament and also in the Amarna Letters. In Amarna Letter EA 197, Bosora (Moran
1992: 275) is said to have had a city-king, and this matches Numbers 20:14 which states that
there was a king in Edom at the time of the beginning of the Hebrew Israelite attack on Canaan
in 1406 BC.
And eighth, the Old Testament is very clear that the Hebrew Israelites did not have a
king at the time of their conquest of Canaan in the 14th Century BC. This also matches perfectly
with the 380+ Amarna Letters in which the ‘Apiru/ Habiru are mentioned more than 100 times
directly or indirectly, and yet not one Amarna Letter states or even suggests that they had a
king.

CONCLUSION
Donald B. Redford, in the “Epilogue” of his book The Wars in Syria and Palestine of
Thutmose III, writes the following about the Egyptian colony of Canaan which was founded by
Pharaoh Thutmosis III:

Although during the four centuries following Thutmose III’s death (in 1450 BC), the
territory he had conquered in Palestine and along the Phoenician coast rarely if ever
were (sic.) lost to Egyptian control, his bequest to future generations lay mainly in the
tradition of conquest and chevauchee (raiding with horses) and in the image of the war
Pharaoh (Redford, 2003: 258).

Redford’s statement that Egypt maintained control over the areas of “Palestine” and
“the Phoenicia coast” for 400 years is pure nonsense! There is absolutely no historical or
archaeological evidence that Egypt controlled either of these areas of ancient Canaan during
the entire period from ca. 1450 BC to 1050 BC! It should be noted that Redford carefully omits
from his statement the Amurru area in Egypt’s original colony of greater Canaan which was
located in northern Galilee, eastern Lebanon, and southern Syria. And, he also omits the lands
in the area of greater Canaan in Syria and Lebanon which were taken first by the Mitanni and
later by the Hittites.
As for “Palestine” in Canaan being under Egyptian control, the Berlin Pedestal, which
dates only about 80 years after the period of the Amarna Letters to the reign of Ramses II in ca.
1250 BC, proves that “Palestine” was not under the control of Egypt in the 13th Century BC. The
Berlin Pedestal unquestionably mentions the Israelites by name, and identifies them—along
with the Canaanites and the city of Ashkelon-- not only as inhabitants of “Palestine,” but also as
independent enemies of Egypt. (Van der Veen 2010: 15-25).
Pictures of bound enemy captives with the names “Israel,” “Canaan,” and “Ashkelon”
written on them appear on the Berlin Pedestal. They were all obviously living in “Palestine” in
the 13th Century BC, and they were all clearly independent enemies of Egypt. The Berlin
Pedestal alone puts the lie to Redford’s statement about Egypt’s 400 years of control over
“Palestine.” The Berlin Pedestal also shows that Ramses II knew of the Israelites by the name
Israel.
Incidentally, not only did Ramses II know the Israelites by name, as the Berlin Pedestal
indicates, but he also unquestionably knew of the Moabites. In his “Moabite Inscription” in his
Luxor Temple, he refers to the Moabites by name and calls them “bad” and without any “good
deeds” (Manassa 2003: 30). It is very clear that the Moabites also were not under Egyptian
control during his reign. Not only the Berlin Pedestal (ca. 1250 BC), but also the Israel Stele of
Pharaoh Merneptah (ca. 1210 BC), the son of Ramses II, clearly indicates that “Palestine” was
by then no longer a part of the former Egyptian colony of Canaan. Both of these inscriptions
indicate that “Palestine” had become enemy territory for the Egyptians.
Pharaoh Merneptah on his “Israel Stele” even claims to have campaigned with his army
in Canaan and to have attacked and totally destroyed the Israelites who were living there
(Hoffmeier 2003: 41). Incidentally, it was not unusual for Pharaohs to exaggerate and to even
lie about their military conquests. It is very clear that at least by the end of the reign of Ramses
II, Canaan was no longer an Egyptian colony.
Redford’s statement above about “Palestine” being under Egyptian control for 400 years
also overlooks the Philistines, who during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses III had not only
conquered the southern coastal areas of “Palestine” by ca. 1190 BC, but also had attempted to
capture Egypt itself, as is depicted in Ramses III’s mortuary temple at Medinet Habu.
Incidentally, as the Bible clearly states and as later Assyrian and Babylonian documents prove,
the Philistines lived in “Palestine” for centuries after ca. 1190 BC. The Egyptian Pharaohs clearly
did not control “Palestine” during the entire period from 1450-1050 BC.
In addition, Redford’s statement about Egyptian control over coastal Phoenicia/
Lebanon in the period from 1450-1050 BC is also highly questionable. The coastal city of Ugarit
after the Battle of Kadesh in 1275 BC was unquestionably returned to Hittite control, and the
Canaanite port-city of Arvad was given to the Kingdom of Amurru, which again became subject
to the Hittites.
In the ancient Egyptian document, The Journey of Wen-Amon to Phoenicia, Zakar-Baal,
the “Prince of Byblos,” says to the Egyptian priest Wen-Amon, who was trying to order him
around: “I am not your servant! I am not the servant of him who sent you either!” (Pritchard
1958: 20). Zakar-Baal also tells Wen-Amon that neither his father nor his grandfather was a
“servant” of Egypt. The Journey of Wen-Amon to Phoenicia dates to ca. 1100 BC, and it is very
clear that Phoenicia was not under Egyptian control at that time and apparently had not been
under Egyptian control for some period of time before then.
Even earlier, the Amarna Letters themselves call into question how much control
Egyptian Pharaohs after Thutmosis III had over its colony of Canaan. The area of the original
Egyptian colony of Canaan was clearly a chaotic mess during the reigns of Amenhotep III,
Akhenaten, Smenkhare, and Tutankhamun in the 14th Century BC.
As has been seen above, provincial commissioners and many city-kings in Canaan were
killed by the ‘Apiru/ Habiru and their Amorite allies in the 14th Century BC. The ‘Apiru/ Habiru
were also seizing cities, villages, and land in “Palestine,” and especially in the mountains of
Israel where the Old Testament places the early Israelites. Surviving city-kings in Canaan
constantly and frequently complain in the Amarna Letters that the Pharaoh did nothing to stop
these attacks!
Even excluding the ‘Apiru/ Habiru, Canaan was chaotic mess in the 14th Century BC. As
was noted above, the Kingdom of Mitanni and later the Kingdom of the Hittites--and then the
Kingdom of Amurru-- took large portions of northern Canaan away from Egypt’s Pharaoh. In
addition, city-kings in Canaan made war against one another, and trade caravans were robbed.
And yet, numerous Amarna Letters indicate or explicitly state that the Pharaoh did nothing! In
the introduction to this paper, Donald Redford was quoted as saying that Pharaoh Thutmosis III
had imposed a “Pax Aegyptiaca” on his newly-formed colony of Canaan. The Amarna Letters
indicate that it was more like a “Pox Aegyptiaca.”
In spite of the chaos in Canaan, there is absolutely no indication in the Amarna Letters
that Pharaohs Amenhotep III, Akhenaten, Smenkhare, and Tutankhamen--who were the four
Pharaohs who ruled Egypt during the period of the Amarna Letters--ever led or even sent an
army to attack the ‘Apiru/ Habiru! And yet, city-king after city-king in Canaan appealed to these
Pharaohs for military help, but to no avail; no large force was ever sent. Pharaohs did appoint
replacement city-kings in Canaan for those who were killed by the ‘Apiru/ Habiru/ Hebrews, but
they never did send or lead an army into Canaan to fight against the ‘Apiru/ Habiru/ Hebrews.
It appears that the Egyptians were terrified of the ‘Apiru/ Hebrews.
The growing weakness of Egyptian control over Canaan even in the early 14th Century BC
can easily be seen in one fact, the ‘Apiru/ Habiru are never said in the Amarna Letters or in any
other ancient Egyptian document to have ever paid any tribute taxes to Pharaoh. The same is
also true for the Israelites in the Books of Joshua and Judges. This was also apparently true for
the Israelites who are mentioned on the Berlin Pedestal and also on the Israel Stele of
Merneptah as enemies of Egypt. Clearly there were Israelites who were dwelling in “Palestine”
and who were not paying tribute taxes during the reigns of Ramses II and Merneptah because
they were unquestionably the enemies of Egypt.
One final point, if the ‘Apiru/ Habiru of the Amarna Letters were not the Hebrew
Israelites, as Redford and other critical scholars have argued, what happened to them? As was
seen earlier in this paper, Redford argued that the ‘Apiru/ Habiru were a “cossacklike” people
who suddenly popped up as a large, distinct, military group out of the local population in
northern Canaan in the early 14th Century BC, but Egyptian historical texts appear to indicate
that they disappeared by the mid-13th Century BC.
The true Cossacks in Russia can be traced down through Russian history for centuries.
However, this is not true for the “cossacklike” ‘Apiru/ Habiru. Assuming that Redford is correct,
the “cossacklike ‘Apiru” suddenly appeared in Canaan in the early 14th Century BC as a large,
distinct, people group, killed city-kings, confiscated land, and then suddenly disappeared in
Canaan in the mid-13th Century BC! As was noted above, Pharaoh Merneptah does not
mention finding any ‘Apiru/ Habiru in Canaan in his campaign in ca. 1210 BC, but he did find
Israelites.
The ‘Apiru/ Habiru in Canaan are apparently last mentioned by name in Egyptian
inscriptions by Pharaoh Sety I (1294-1279 BC) in which they are identified as a Shasu people.
They are not mentioned in any known inscriptions dating to the reign of his son Pharaoh
Ramses II (ca. 1279-1212 BC). Therefore, based on Egyptian records, the ‘Apiru/ Habiru
disappeared sometime before the reign of Ramses II.
However, Shasu people are mentioned in Canaan during the reign of Ramses II, which
again indicates that the earlier ‘Apiru/ Habiru in Canaan were considered to be a “Shasu”
people by the ancient Egyptians. Incidentally, as was noted earlier in this paper, the ancient
Egyptians considered the Edomites, the near relatives of the Israelites, to be a Shasu people,
and also apparently classified them as ‘Apiru/ Habiru. The “Shasu tribes of Edom” are
mentioned in “Papyrus Anastasi VI” in the British Museum (Allen 2003: vol. III, 19). “Papyrus
Anastasi VI” dates to the reign of Merneptah, the son of Ramses II.
There is also an inscription of Ramses II found in his temple at Amarah-West which, like
the earlier inscription of Amenhotep III in the Soleb Temple, mentions “the land of Shasu of the
Yahweh.” As was noted above, the Israelites, who were certainly seen as a Shasu people by the
ancient Egyptians, are portrayed as living in Canaan on the Berlin Pedestal, which also dates to
the reign of Ramses II. It is almost certain that the “Land of the Shasu of Yahweh” in the
Amara-West inscription of Pharaoh Ramses II refers to Israelite-held land in Canaan.
Thus, to summarize, the ‘Apiru/ Habiru are depicted as a large, distinct, ethnic group in
the Amarna Letters who suddenly appear in Canaan very early in the 14th Century BC, kill city-
kings and seize land. Sety I mentions the ‘Apiru/ Habiru by name as powerful enemies in
Canaan in ca. 1290 BC, but his son Ramses II does not. However, the Berlin Pedestal, which
dates to the reign of Ramses II, does mention enemy Israelites in Canaan. Ramses II
campaigned in the area of Amurru, northern Canaan, and southern Syria after his loss in the
Battle of Kadesh in 1275 BC, but he never mentions the ‘Apiru/ Habiru who clearly were in
Amurru earlier in ca. 1350 BC. There currently is no known reference to the ‘Apiru/Habiru
found in any of the known inscriptions of Ramses II. But as was noted above, Ramses II does
mention “the land of the Shasu of Yahweh” in an inscription of his at Amarah-West, which was
almost certainly a reference to the Israelites in the land of Canaan.
Ramses II’s son Pharaoh Merneptah in his military campaign in Canaan in ca. 1210 BC
never mentions finding ‘Apiru/ Habiru, but he does mention finding and fighting there against
the Israelites! Where did the ‘Apiru/ Habiru go? Redford and other critical scholars do not have
a good answer to the question: What happened to the ‘Apiru/ Habiru? If the ‘Apiru/ Habiru
were the Hebrew Israelites, which they almost certainly were, then there is no problem with
their apparent disappearance. The ‘Apiru/ Habiru did not disappear! All along they were the
Hebrew Israelites!
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