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Hittites


Hit´tits

In the Bible, a pervasive tribe among the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Canaan (Gen 10:15; Gen 15:20; Exod 23:28). By contrast, historians identify Hittites primarily with an Indo-European people who established a strong kingdom in east-central Anatolia in the second millennium BCE. There is no evidence, however, that the Hittites associated with this Anatolian empire ever penetrated as far south as Palestine. Biblical references to the land of the Hittites (Judg 1:26) and the kings of the Hittites (1Kgs 10:29; 2Kgs 7:6) probably refer specifically to the Neo-Hittite states of Hamath and northern Syria.

  • Powell, Mark Allan, ed. HarperCollins Bible Dictionary. Abridged Edition. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009.