HABIRU. The name of a special category of people in western Asia in the second millennium B.C.E., although the exact meaning of Habiru is unknown. When the name of the Habiru first turned up, it was in connection with the discovery of the Amarna letters in Egypt dating back to the Late Bronze Age. In the letters from Jerusalem, they were mentioned by name; however, it soon became clear that most of the Amarna letters following the tradition of Mesopotamian scribes used a Sumerian name for the Habiru, SA.GAZ (probably a transcription into Sumerian of the Akkadian word Shaggashu, “murderer”). These SA.GAZ people had been known for long and now it became possible because of the equation between Habiru and SA.GAZ to trace their history in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. The oldest source that definitely refers to the Habiru belongs to the 19th century B.C.E. and has its origin among the Assyrian trade colonies in Asia Minor in the period of the First Assyrian Empire. The last mention of the Habiru comes from Egypt in the 12th century B.C.E. Evidence is found of the Habiru all over the ancient Near East from Asia Minor in the north and Egypt in the south and from the coast of the Mediterranean in the west to Iran in the east.
Habiru is not an ethnic term. It is a social designation meaning “refugee.” The sources normally characterize a Habiru as a person uprooted from his home and living in a foreign country. They were generally employed as an unskilled labor force, either in public service as private soldiers, stonecutters or the like, or hired by private people. The documents from Nuzi in northeastern Mesopotamia in the 15th century B.C.E. especially provide extensive information about the conditions of their private employment. Sometimes the sources mention Habiru making a life as highwaymen and outlaws outside the control of the centralized states of the Bronze Age. In this capacity they made up for a feared and notorious proletariat and a source of discontent that might at the end have endangered the existence of many a petty state of Syria or Palestine. A special application of the term is found in the Amarna letters where Habiru is sometimes used, not as a social designation but as a nickname for the enemies of the Pharaoh, including princes and governors who are slandered as rebels against the rule of Egypt. The presence of the Habiru in seemingly great numbers must be understood as one of the more important indications of the kind of social problems in western Asia in the Bronze Age that contributed to the fall of this civilization and the rise of a less differentiated society in the Early Iron Age.
The Habiru have often been identified with the Hebrews of the Old Testament. This identification is no more considered correct because of spatial as well as chronological problems. However, the Habiru share some of the social characteristics of the Hebrews of the Old Testament, when the Israelites living in exile in Egypt before the exodus are repeatedly called Hebrews.
HADAD. A prince of Edom who in the time of David escaped to Egypt. With the help of the Pharaoh, he succeeded in regaining his kingdom in Solomon’s days (1 Kgs 11:14-22). Hadad—probably a hypocoristicon of a more elaborate name like Ben-Hadad, Hadad being the name of a leading deity of the West Semitic pantheon—may have been a traditional royal name in Edom. The list of kings “who ruled over Edom before there were kings in Israel” conventionally includes a Hadad (Gen 36:35; 1 Chron 1:46).
HADADEZER. 1. Hadadezer of the Old Testament, the king of Aram-Zobah, who is supposed to have fought against David on at least two occasions. In the first battle, Hadadezer was defeated by David and lost a great part of his army that was taken into captivity. When he was assisted by Damascus, David also destroyed their forces and made the Aramaeans tributary to his royal rule (2 Sam 8:3-8). The second time, Hadadezer assisted the Ammonites in their resistance against David but again David’s army led by Joab came out victorious after having killed Hadadezer’s general Shobach in the battle (2 Sam 10:6-19). The stories about these victories are a bit confusing, making all kinds of speculations about the sequence of the Aramaean kings possible. Thus it is not known whether the two battles were as a matter of fact one and the same, or two separate occasions, and also in the last case it is impossible to say which one was first. Hadadezer also appears in a note concerning Rezon, the new king of Damascus in Solomon’s days, and the son of one of Hadadezer’s retainers who had deserted his master (1 Kgs 11:23-25).
2. Hadadezer of Damascus not mentioned by the Old Testament (where his name might have been conventionally changed to Ben-Hadad) but allied with Ahab in 853 B.C.E. at the battle at Qarqar against Assyria. Hadadezer is mentioned in the Assyrian report of the battle, as well as in Assyrian texts relating to battles against Aram in the years following Qarqar.
HAGAR. Abraham’s Egyptian secondary wife who on the request of Sarah gives birth to Abraham’s oldest son Ishmael. Because of Sarah’s treatment, Hagar chose to leave Abraham, but in the first instance she returned (Gen 16), only at a later date to be sent away from Abraham when her son threatened the position of Abraham’s second son Isaac (Gen 21). The nature of the legends and tales about Abraham makes it unlikely that Hagar was a historical person.
HAMAN. An important officer in the service of King Ahasuerus (see also Xerxes) of Persia who was scheming against the Jews but whose plans were thwarted by Queen Esther. As a consequence of his failure, Haman was hanged.
HAMATH. A major Syrian city, modern Hama on the upper course of the Orontes River. Its southern border is sometimes considered the ideal northern border of Israel (1 Kgs 8:65; 1 Chron 13:5). It was excavated between 1931 and 1938. The earliest settlements at Hamath go back to the Stone Age. In the Bronze Age, a fortified city developed but only obtained political importance in the Iron Age, when it became the center of an Aramaean state of the name of Hamath. According to the Old Testament, cordial relations were established between the king of Hamath and David (2 Sam 8:9-12). It participated together with Israel and Damascus in the anti-Assyrian coalition at Qarqar in 853 B.C.E. but was reduced to vassalage by Tiglath-pileser III in 738 B.C.E., and totally lost its independence to Assur in 720 B.C.E. Part of its population was deported and settled in Samaria. An important Aramaic inscription relating to Hamath was found at Afis in Syria. It was commissioned by King Zakur of Hamath and records wars with Bar-Hadad (see also Ben-Hadad), the successor of Hazael.
HAMATH-ZOBAH. A place in Syria fortified by Solomon (2 Chron 8:3). The note about Hamath-Zobah may be late and reflecting a time when Zobah was part of the Persian province of Hamath.
HAMOR. Meaning “he-ass,” the head of the city of Shechem in the days of the patriarch Jacob. Jacob bought a piece of land from the sons of Hamor, that is, the family of Hamor (Gen 33:19), but Hamor’s son Shechem raped Jacob’s daughter Dinah. As a result Jacob’s two sons Simeon and Levi killed the male population of Shechem (Gen 34). The sons of Hamor were in the Period of the Judges the ruling class of Shechem (Judg 9:28).
HARAN, HARRAN. A city in northern Mesopotamia about 45 kilometers south of modern Urfa. Haran was the home of the patriarchs’ Mesopotamian relatives, and a station on Abraham’s migrations between Ur of the Chaldaeans (see also Chaldaea, Chaldaeans) and Canaan (Gen 12). The name means “road” or “caravan-station” and relates to its importance as a trading center with a history that became important in the early part of the second millennium B.C.E. Later it was dominated by the Hurrians (see Horites, Hurrians) in the time of the Kingdom of Mitanni (Late Bronze Age). In the ninth century B.C.E., it was conquered by the Assyrians and remained in Assyrian possession. After the fall of Nineveh in 612 B.C.E., Haran became the last capital of Assyria (612-609 B.C.E.).
HAROSHET-HAGOIM. The home of the Canaanite general Sisera, who led a coalition of Canaanite cities against the Israelites under Deborah and Barak (Judg 4-5). Its present location is unknown. It has been proposed that the name of Haroshet-Hagoim does not indicate a city but perhaps a region, especially if the element of the name Hagoim is a corrupted form of Galilee as sometimes assumed.
HAZAEL. King of Damascus c. 842-800 B.C.E. According to the Old Testament, Hazael, although “the son of nobody,” as told by a contemporary Assyrian (see Assyria and Babylonia) inscription, that is, a usurper to the throne, murdered his predecessor, Hadadezer—not Ben-Hadad as the Old Testament maintains (2 Kgs 8:7-15)—inspired by the prophet Elisha. In the first part of his reign, Hazael had to defend his kingdom against the onslaught from the Assyrians that reached as far as the gates of Damascus. After 836 B.C.E. Hazael diverted his interest to conditions in Syria and especially Palestine and Transjordan and he succeeded de facto in subduing most of these countries. In a series of campaigns he destroyed the considerable military power of the Kingdom of Israel and annexed its provinces in Transjordan; the Philistine states on the Palestinian coast, and in the end also the Kingdom of Judah had to submit to Damascus and accept its leadership. After the reduction of Palestine into a number of vassal states, Hazael may have turned his armies to central and northern Syria, although nothing is known about such campaigns. He kept Assyria in check for the rest of his reign, but shortly after his death, when he was followed by his son Ben-Hadad, Damascus was hard pressed by Assyrian armies to the east, and in the west by the growing power of the renewed Israelite kingdom under Jehoash.
HAZOR. A major city in northern Galilee c. 12 kilometers north of the Sea of Galilee, by far the biggest pre-Hellenistic city in Palestine. Under its king Jabin Hazor led a coalition of Canaanite cities that fought against Joshua at the waters of Merom. Joshua crushed the Canaanite opposition and went on to burn Hazor down to the ground (Josh 11:1-11). In the Period of the Judges (see Judges, Period of), Jabin of Hazor is also said to have been the agent who brought about the coalition of Canaanite cities that fought against Deborah and Barak, although in the event the Canaanite general was Sisera from Haroshet-hagoim (Judg 4-5). It was together with Gezer and Megiddo fortified by Solomon (1 Kgs 9:15), but destroyed again by Tiglath-pileser III in 732 B.C.E.
Major excavations between 1955 and 1969 and again in the 1990s have uncovered for the standards of that time an enormous city probably housing more than 25,000 people. The layout of the city distinguishes between an upper city or acropolis, the home of the official buildings, and a lower city that was not rebuilt after the end of the Late Bronze Age. Traces of settlements go back to the Early Bronze Age, but the city reached its maximum extension during the Middle Bronze Age. After its destruction, probably c. 1200 B.C.E., only the acropolis was resettled. Here remains of the Iron Age fortified city have been found, dated by archaeologists to the 10th century B.C.E., the time of Solomon, or to the ninth century, the time of Omri and Ahab.
HEBREW BIBLE. The Hebrew text of the Old Testament that provides the foundation of all modern translations of the Old Testament. Although it includes the most important sources for the history of ancient Israel, it is based on rather late manuscripts, dating from the 10th and 11th centuries C.E. Now, the discovery of the Dead Sea manuscripts have changed our knowledge of the history of biblical books because all the books of the Old Testament apart from the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah and Esther have shown up among the scrolls found after 1947 at Qumran close to the Dead Sea. These manuscripts and fragments of manuscripts allow scholars to reconstruct at least in part the prehistory of the present Hebrew Bible going back to the beginning of the Common Era.
HEBREW KINGDOM. The traditional name in Anglo-Saxon literature of the Israelite monarchy. There is no equivalent to the term “Hebrew Kingdom” in the Hebrew Old Testament. See also ISRAEL, KINGDOM.
HEBREWS. (In Hebrew ‘ibrîm), the descendants of Eber (Gen 10:21-26). Hebrew is sporadically used in the Old Testament as a name of the people of Israel or of Israelite individuals. Hebrew is mainly used in three limited parts of the Old Testament, in the Joseph novella (see Joseph [Person], and the Joseph Novella) (Gen 37-50), in the stories about Israel in Egypt (Exod 1-15), and in connection with the Philistine wars before the introduction of the monarchy (1 Sam 4; 13; 14, and 29). In Genesis, Abraham is one time called a Hebrew (Gen 14:13). The prophet Jonah described himself in confrontation with Philistine sailors as a Hebrew (Jon 1:9). Finally, the so-called “Book of the Covenant” (Exod 21-23) opens with a couple of laws about Hebrew slaves, repeated in the legislation about the Sabbatical Year (Deut 15) and in the narrative about the planned manumission of slaves in the days of Zedekiah of Judah (Jer 34:8-22).
The etymology of the word Hebrew has not been solved. The Hebrews are often related to the social designation Habiru, known from ancient Near Eastern documents—not least the Palestinian Amarna letters—meaning “refugee” or “outlaw.” If this linguistic identification is correct, the origin of the term Hebrew in the Old Testament may be traced back to Habiru-elements in the Late Bronze Age and this group’s involvement in the social turmoil that contributed to the downfall of the civilization of the Late Bronze Age and the emergence of Iron Age society in Palestine. Because Habiru is a social and not an ethnic term, it is premature to see the Hebrews of the Old Testament as direct descendants of Habiru, but the use of the term indicates that the ancient Israelites originated in the melting pot of ethnic and social elements that existed at the end of the Bronze Age.
In the Old Testament, Hebrew is primarily an ethnic designation meaning an Israelite. This means that the content of the word Habiru must have changed from a social designation into a national one. However, it is important that Hebrew is only used in a few places in the Old Testament and not as the usual term for Israelites and always in such a way that traces of the social background of the term have been preserved. In the Joseph novella and in the story of Israel in Egypt, the Israelites are in exile in Egypt, either as refugees from Palestine or as their descendants. In 1 Samuel, Hebrew is used only by the Philistines as a kind of derogatory term about the Israelites who have revolted against their master. Finally, when Jonah presents himself as a Hebrew, he has fled his land and is running away from Yahweh. When Abraham is called a Hebrew, the meaning is less clear. Maybe the term is used to describe Abraham as a newcomer to Canaan (the Greek Bible translated the term as “wandering”). In the slave law in the Book of Exodus, a Hebrew must serve his master for seven years before he can call himself a free person. In this way, whenever Hebrew is used in the Old Testament, it carries a national as well as a social meaning that can be compared to the status of the Habiru in the Late Bronze Age. Furthermore, when the Philistines call the Israelites Hebrews, they use the word in a derogatory manner not far from the one also found in the Amarna letters when it is used about the enemies of the Pharaoh in a general sense.
In recent scholarship, this identification of the Hebrews with the Habiru has been severely questioned, mostly because all texts that mention the presence of Hebrews are very late, or so it is maintained.
HEBRON. An important city in the Judean hill land, located almost halfway between Jerusalem and Beersheba. Abraham bought his family grave cave here from the Hittites (Gen 23), and settled at Mamre close to Hebron. Later Hebron belonged to the inheritance of Caleb (Josh 14:13-14). While king of Judah, David chose Hebron as his capital and resided there for seven-and-a-half years (2 Sam 2; 5:5). Hebron was also the base of Absalom’s rebellion against David (2 Sam 15:7-12). Hebron was also called Kiriath-Arba (Josh 14:15). Historical Hebron traces its roots back to the Early Bronze Age and it became a fortified city in the Middle Bronze Age. No Late Bronze Age city seems to have been located at Hebron but it was rebuilt again in the Iron Age. The ancient city is located on a tell within the city limits of the modern city of Hebron.
HESHBON. The capital of King Sihon of the Amorites, conquered by the Israelites (Num 21:21-31). Later it was successively reckoned a part of the territory of Gad, as belonging to Moab, or to Ammon. It is located at Tell Hesban c. 20 kilometers southwest of Amman, where excavations between 1968 and 1976 uncovered remains of a city reaching back to the beginning of the Iron Age (c. 1200 B.C.E.).
HEZEKIAH. (Meaning “Yahweh is my strength”), King of Judah c. 726-697 B.C.E. In the Old Testament Hezekiah stands out as a king who did “what was right in the eyes of the Lord” (2 Kgs 18:3). Hezekiah is described as a pious king who trusted God and fought successfully against the Assyrians, who unsuccessfully besieged Jerusalem but had to leave with empty hands, beaten by the Lord. The Assyrian annals of Sennacherib have a different story to tell. Hezekiah was the mastermind behind a major rebellion against the Assyrians in the southern Levant. Sennacherib reacted swiftly. The Assyrian army destroyed most of Judah, including Lachish, and bottled up Hezekiah in his royal city of Jerusalem “like a bird in its cage.” After having extracted a heavy tribute from Hezekiah, including his daughters, the Assyrian army spared Jerusalem and Hezekiah, now reduced to an insignificant vassal in southern Palestine ruling a territory of a few hundred square kilometers. In the Old Testament Hezekiah is praised as the king who did construction work in Jerusalem, including the water shaft (see also Siloam inscription) and entertained diplomatic relations with Merodak-Baladan, the Babylonian adversary of Sennacherib. In Chronicles Hezekiah is also said to be the great reformer of the temple of Jerusalem.
HIEL. A man from Bethel who rebuilt Jericho but because of Joshua’s curse on Jericho (Josh 6:26) it cost him the lives of his two sons (1 Kgs 16:34).
HIGH PRIEST. In the post-exilic period, the high priest of Jerusalem may have been the most important person in Judea, the leader of religious as well as political affairs. This position was new in comparison to the role played by the high priest during the time of the monarchy, when the king not only headed the political affairs of the state of Judah but most likely also the religious establishment in Jerusalem. The temple of Jerusalem built by Solomon was a minor affair in comparison to the palace complex and was located within the palace compound. Occasionally, a high priest could rise to political importance, like Jehoiada, who played a decisive role in the overturning of Athaliah’s rule and the election of Joash as king of Judah (2 Kgs 11). Hilkiah, another high priest, played a decisive role during Josiah’s reform.
HILKIAH. The high priest of the temple of Jerusalem in Josiah’s time (1 Kgs 22:4). Hilkiah played an important role in Josiah’s reform of the religious establishment in his kingdom and the centralization of the cult in Jerusalem. It is Hilkiah who found the ancient law book in the temple that triggers the reformation.
HIRAM. King of Tyre (c. 969-936 B.C.E.), a contemporary of David and Solomon. According to the Old Testament, he entertained good relations with David (2 Sam 5:11), and assisted Solomon in building his palace and the temple of Jerusalem (1 Kgs 5:15-26), however, for a heavy price that left him in control of northwestern Palestine (1 Kgs 9:10-14). He also assisted Solomon in establishing a commercial fleet running from Ezion-Geber to Ophir (1 Kgs 9:26-28). Josephus provides more information about the reign of Hiram, probably based on the annals of Tyre.
HISTORICAL-CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP. For almost two centuries the dominant school of biblical studies. It developed since the time of the Enlightenment and reached its largest number of followers in the 20th century when it was the universal methodology of almost every student of the Bible. It is one of the school’s basic assumptions that although most narratives in the Old Testament were only written down after a certain period—sometimes centuries later than the events which they covered—it is still possible by applying a critical analysis to distinguish between original information and later notes of redaction. In the study of the Pentateuch, it developed a theory according to which the Pentateuch is a complex composition based on four originally independent strands or sources, dating the oldest one, the Yahwist to the time of David and especially Solomon, and the most recent, the Priestly Source, to the Persian period. Recent studies of early Israelite history may have made this kind of historical analysis obsolete by demonstrating that many narratives of the Old Testament are without any historical foundation at all. Thus the description of the Israelite settlement in Canaan (see Settlement of Israel) in the Old Testament is totally without historical merits; it is a construction belonging to a period perhaps more than 800 years later than the events of the Book of Joshua. Historical-critical scholarship in its late form still lives on in the present controversy between maximalism and minimalism.
HITTITES. One of Canaan’s pre-Israelite nations (Gen 15:20). Apart from being included in the lists of Canaan’s early inhabitants, they appear in the story of Abraham’s acquisition of a grave cave at Hebron (Gen 23).
Historically, the Hittites founded one of the great nations of the past. Being an Indo-European-speaking people, the Hittites between c. 1700 and 1180 B.C.E. established a major empire with its capital at Hattushash (modern Bogazkale), some 200 kilometers east of Ankara in Turkey. From Hattushash, the Hittite armies penetrated as far as Babylon, which they sacked (end of 17th century B.C.E.). In the fourth century B.C.E. they challenged the Egyptian Empire in western Asia pushing the Egyptians back toward southern Syria and Palestine. In the beginning of the 13th century B.C.E., after the advance of the Hittites had been checked by Ramesses II at Kadesh in Syria, the Hittites entered into a peaceful relationship with the Egyptians and the two great powers of that time simply divided Syria between them. Palestine remained an Egyptian possession. However, a century later the Hittite Empire ceased to exist when Hattushash fell, most likely to roaming mountain tribes of Asia Minor.
The tradition of the Hittites lived on in northern Syria where several small states boasted of dynasties of Hittite origin. Although Hittite emissaries may have occasionally passed through Palestine on their way to Egypt, they never settled here. When the Old Testament includes the Hittites among the nations of Canaan, it is not in accordance with historical realities. The use of the term “Hittite” in the Old Testament may reflect traditional Assyrian and Babylonian terminology of the first millennium B.C.E. according to which the territories to the west of the Euphrates were inhabited by Amorites and Hittites. Thus, when Nebuchadnezzar prepared for the campaign that led to the conquest of Jerusalem in 597 B.C.E., he, according to the Babylonian Chronicle, went to “the land of the Hittites.”
HIVITES. One of Palestine’s pre-Israelite nations (e.g., Josh 9:1). They are related to the people of southern Lebanon (Judg 3:3), to the inhabitants of Shechem (Gen 34), or Gibeon (Josh 9). According to the table of nations in Genesis 10, they were the descendants of Ham. No references to the Hivites are found outside the Old Testament. Their name has sometimes been considered a corrupted form of the name of the Horites, or simply a pseudoethnicon, that is, the name of a people that has never existed in history.
HORITES, HURRIANS. The tradition of the Old Testament places the Horites southeast of Palestine. From this place they were expelled by the Edomites (Deut 5:2.12-22). Their equation with the Hurrians—a non-Semitic-speaking population element of Syria in the second millennium B.C.E.—is likely although not indisputable. Thus one of the names used by the Egyptians about Palestine and Syria was “Haru land,” the land of the Horites. In the middle of the second millennium B.C.E., they established a major state of the name of Mitanni in Upper Mesopotamia.
HORMA. A city of the Negeb mentioned in connection with the abortive Israelite invasion of Canaan from the south (Num 14:45). Its present location is unknown.
HOSHEA (PROPHET). The first among the twelve minor prophets of the Old Testament, who prophesied in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, although nothing in his book seems to indicate a date later than c. 730 B.C.E. His prophecies concentrate on the pending doom of his people because of their apostasy. He is considered a firsthand witness of the religious conditions in the Kingdom of Israel in the decades preceding the fall of Samaria. He probably did not live to see the end of the Northern Kingdom.
HOSHEA (KING). The last king of the Kingdom of Israel (732-722 B.C.E.). He murdered his predecessor Pekah and with the help of the Assyrians he rose to the throne of Israel. The Assyrians saw him as their vassal, and Assyrian inscriptions refer to him in this quality. After the death of Tiglath-pileser III, he probably joined a coalition with Egypt and rebelled against the Assyrians, his masters, who reacted instantly and started a three-year-long siege of his capital, Samaria. Shortly before the fall of Samaria, the Assyrians captured Hoshea and put him in jail.
“HOUSE-OF-DAVID INSCRIPTION.” See DAN INSCRIPTION.
HULDA. A prophet, who may have been attached to the royal court of Jerusalem and active during Josiah’s reformation (2 Kgs 22:14-20). She is said to have prophesied about the happy fate of the king and about the evil outcome of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Although the last part is clearly deuteronomistic, many scholars consider the first part to be genuine and going back to the prophet. Josiah’s ultimate fate was not to be a happy one as he was killed by the Egyptians at Megiddo.
HUSHAI. Of the Archite clan from Benjamin who, being “the king’s friend,” acts as David’s spy among Absalom’s retainers. When David fled to Mahanaim, Hushai was instructed to stay behind and oppose the advice of Ahitophel, Absalom’s vice counselor. This he did so well that Absalom’s rebellion was doomed and ended in disaster, while Ahitophel committed suicide (2 Sam 15:32-37; 16:15-19; 17:1-17).
HYKSOS. The Greek rendering of an Egyptian name for the Semitic immigrants in Egypt linked to the 15th Dynasty (c. 1650-1550 B.C.E.). They were officially expulsed from Egypt by Pharaoh Ahmose I (c. 1552-1527 B.C.E.). Since antiquity, their expulsion has often been linked to the exodus of the Israelites, ignoring the point of the narrative that the exodus constituted liberation and not a forced deportation from Egypt.