by Ciprian IVAS
The sons of Het about the Holy Scripture talks are the direct descendants of the “younger” son of Noah, named Ham. On the same genealogical line there are the canaanites who are the “fathers” of the hittits. This makes them being apart of the same “hamite” tribe with the egyptians and the southern neighbors of these, the kushites, the first flourishing kingdom known in history on the present territories of Ethiopia and Sudan.
These “sons of Het” founded the Hittite Empire, which divided later in history in a few smaller kingdoms. One of the interesting aspects is that it was a “federative” type of empire, on it’s territory being spoken not less than eight languages together with an official hittite language and an amazing original culture.
What does the Pentateuh say about them? First that they were obedient to egyptians. But the archeological evidence shows that this is true just after the splittering in later kingdom city-states. This idea of obedience appears also referring to jews, seen like the occupants of the huge territory between Nile and Euphrate. This would be the fulfilling of the course of Noah, for the descendants of Ham being the servants of the offsprings of other two.
Reading the Scripture, one could draw a coherent image of the existence of the hittites in the area of actual Israel in the Middle East. In the Book of Joshua (3, 10) the hittites are counted by the after-comer of Moses as the leader of the jewish people among the folks represented in the region of the Holy Land. Patriarch Abraham buys from the hittites a place near Macpela, place that will shelter in a cave the grave of his wife Sara (Genesis 23, 3-20). We know even the name of the seller, the hittite Efron, son of Trocar. An interesting detail of this aspect is that Abraham name the hittites as “the people of this country” (Genesis 23, 4). The nephew of Abraham, Isav had two hittite wives. There is an assumption as per the settlement which preceeded Jerusalem on it’s present location was a hittite city.
Overcoming the framing of the Pentateuh, we observe the constant presence of the hittites. The head of the army of King David, the brave and faithful Uriah the Hittite was obviously a hittite and his wife Batsheba becomes queen and gives birth to King Solomon. Therefore the great King Solomon is half hittite ! There were also hittite women among the 1000 wives and concubines he had. The same King Solomon provides horses for the hittite army, horses bought from egyptians (2 Paralipomena 1, 17). The hittite army was so powerful and dreaded that in the 4th Book of Kings (7, 6-7) we find out that an arameic army started to run chaotically hearing the noise of the forwarding hittite army.
The military and the economic force of the Hittite Empire and it’s important role in the region have been emphasised with the decyphering of egyptian hieroglyphics and the cuneiform texts found on the territory of Messopotamia, especially on the former babylonian territory.
Old Testament Trek 