Welcome to Bible Fiber. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
One thing that makes reading the Hebrew scriptures difficult is that while the Bible is telling the story of one people, the Israelites, other ancient people groups enter and exit the scene. The Israelites did not live in a bubble, and they still do not. They were constantly interacting with their neighbors and subjugated by the rotating door of ancient empires. In our effort to be more informed Bible readers, we are doing a miniseries on the Peoples of the Bible. Today’s history lesson is on the Hittites.
Although the Hittites were one of the great civilizations of the ancient Near East, most Bible readers are only familiar with the term Hittite from the famous story of David and Bathsheba. The book of 2 Samuel records that Bathsheba, the bathing woman that David seduced, was the wife of Uriah the Hittite. When Bathsheba became pregnant, David failed in his effort to cover it up because Uriah was a loyal soldier who refused to sleep with his wife when his comrades were at war. Instead of dealing with the consequences of his sin, David had Uriah killed in battle. In David’s confrontation with the prophet Nathan, Nathan compared David to a rich man who slaughtered the beloved sheep of a poor man, Uriah. The whole biblical episode is surprising and disturbing. First, the Bible presented the Hittite as the good guy in the story and the most beloved Israelite king as the bad guy. Second, it seems worth knowing why a Hittite was fighting in Israel’s army.
To answer those questions, we must go back to the Bronze Age.
Region
From 1700 to 1200 BCE, the Hittites were Israel’s neighbor to the north. Although scholars debate their place of origin, their language suggests they have Indo-European roots. Most likely, they were part of a large migration from the west in the Middle Bronze Age. They settled Anatolia, or Asia Minor, which is equivalent to today’s modern Turkey. One of the earliest Hittite kings stationed their capital at Hattusa, where it remained for over three centuries.
A mountainous region in Anatolia’s central highlands, Hattusa had the great advantage of natural barriers, like deep gorges and ridges, making it easier to defend against potential invaders. But the Hittites still did not take any chances. They also heavily fortified Hattusa with massive walls and multiple gates. From their strategic perch, the Hittites controlled key trade routes and maintained their influence over neighboring regions.
During the peak of the Hittite empire (1344–1272 BCE), they extended Hittite influence into various regions, including parts of northern Syria and upper Mesopotamia. Because the Hittite Empire and ancient Israel shared common borders, they had various interactions.
Something to keep in mind while you are reading your Bible, the biblical authors broadly used the term Hittite to refer to people who lived in the region even after the historical Hittite Empire no longer existed. In the years after the empire’s decline, smaller Hittite city states formed with their own local regents. Modern historians call them Neo-Hittite or Hittite-Luwian states. The Israelites’ interaction with Hittites mostly occurred after the Hittite empire fell, but the biblical authors kept referring to people from the region as Hittites. They were not as concerned as modern scholars with clear-cut ethnographic classifications. A modern-day equivalent is that people might still refer to the Czech Republic as Czechoslovakia, forgetting that the name is no longer correct after 19
Welcome to Bible Fiber. I am Shelley Neese, president of The Jerusalem Connection, a Christian organization devoted to sharing the story of the people of Israel, both ancient and modern.
One thing that makes reading the Hebrew scriptures difficult is that while the Bible is telling the story of one people, the Israelites, other ancient people groups enter and exit the scene. The Israelites did not live in a bubble, and they still do not. They were constantly interacting with their neighbors and subjugated by the rotating door of ancient empires. In our effort to be more informed Bible readers, we are doing a miniseries on the Peoples of the Bible. Today’s history lesson is on the Hittites.
Although the Hittites were one of the great civilizations of the ancient Near East, most Bible readers are only familiar with the term Hittite from the famous story of David and Bathsheba. The book of 2 Samuel records that Bathsheba, the bathing woman that David seduced, was the wife of Uriah the Hittite. When Bathsheba became pregnant, David failed in his effort to cover it up because Uriah was a loyal soldier who refused to sleep with his wife when his comrades were at war. Instead of dealing with the consequences of his sin, David had Uriah killed in battle. In David’s confrontation with the prophet Nathan, Nathan compared David to a rich man who slaughtered the beloved sheep of a poor man, Uriah. The whole biblical episode is surprising and disturbing. First, the Bible presented the Hittite as the good guy in the story and the most beloved Israelite king as the bad guy. Second, it seems worth knowing why a Hittite was fighting in Israel’s army.
To answer those questions, we must go back to the Bronze Age.
Region
From 1700 to 1200 BCE, the Hittites were Israel’s neighbor to the north. Although scholars debate their place of origin, their language suggests they have Indo-European roots. Most likely, they were part of a large migration from the west in the Middle Bronze Age. They settled Anatolia, or Asia Minor, which is equivalent to today’s modern Turkey. One of the earliest Hittite kings stationed their capital at Hattusa, where it remained for over three centuries.
A mountainous region in Anatolia’s central highlands, Hattusa had the great advantage of natural barriers, like deep gorges and ridges, making it easier to defend against potential invaders. But the Hittites still did not take any chances. They also heavily fortified Hattusa with massive walls and multiple gates. From their strategic perch, the Hittites controlled key trade routes and maintained their influence over neighboring regions.
During the peak of the Hittite empire (1344–1272 BCE), they extended Hittite influence into various regions, including parts of northern Syria and upper Mesopotamia. Because the Hittite Empire and ancient Israel shared common borders, they had various interactions.
Something to keep in mind while you are reading your Bible, the biblical authors broadly used the term Hittite to refer to people who lived in the region even after the historical Hittite Empire no longer existed. In the years after the empire’s decline, smaller Hittite city states formed with their own local regents. Modern historians call them Neo-Hittite or Hittite-Luwian states. The Israelites’ interaction with Hittites mostly occurred after the Hittite empire fell, but the biblical authors kept referring to people from the region as Hittites. They were not as concerned as modern scholars with clear-cut ethnographic classifications. A modern-day equivalent is that people might still refer to the Czech Republic as Czechoslovakia, forgetting that the name is no longer correct after 19