Unveiling the Hittites: The Lost History of a Mighty Empire

Spanning across three seas, Turkey's vast lands are bordered by the Black Sea to the north, the Aegean Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. But what's the history of this region? Who lived here during the time of our ancestors, when we know so much about the great Babylon or the Egyptian Empire? Was it really a deserted wasteland?

For 2,700 years, history remained silent. Even when historical books were written and archaeological digs took place in the 19th century, only one book in the world mentioned the culture that once flourished here: the Bible. The "Kings of the Hittites" in the Book of Joshua and the sons of Heth mentioned in the Torah were part of a mighty Hittite empire, as powerful as the Babylonian or Egyptian ones. The difference was that the Hittites had been forgotten, and thus they were unknown. Even Homer, the first Greek poet who lived near Anatolia, knew nothing about the Hittites. The historian Herodotus mistook a Hittite relief for Egyptian.

Tourists knew about the remarkable temple ruins in Boğazköy, Turkey, but mistakenly thought they were remnants of the Roman city of Petra. Copies of inscriptions from the city circulated globally, and in a famous lecture in England before the Royal Society, Henry Sayce declared the discovery of a forgotten civilization, revealing an ancient empire. It was only at the dawn of the 20th century that the cities of the Hittite culture were excavated. They held treasures, archives containing tens of thousands of documents nearly 4,000 years old, from the time of Abraham. The documents detail history, wars, laws, and rituals.

Suddenly, biblical descriptions that researchers couldn't explain came to life. It turns out the Hittites expanded their empire to Syria and Israel, and the Hebron settlement followed Hittite laws and customs. Knowing this, and understanding their legal code, makes the strange details of purchasing the Cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite clear. Their laws stated each tree must be marked when selling land; the way Ephron sets his price, the weighing of coins, the asset description, and the manner of witnesses, including the precise terms "full money," "accepted currency," and "with the consent of the land"; and the local leaders' agreement with the sale all align with Hittite law. Dr. Menashe Lehmann writes: "Genesis 23 is deeply informed by intricate and complex knowledge of Hittite laws and customs, fitting Abraham's era."

Researchers learned much from Hittite writings. One intriguing aspect: discrepancies appeared between the account of Sennacherib's exile in the Prophets and his own inscriptions. Sennacherib documented the exile of the Kingdom of Israel, claiming he exiled about 30,000 people, while the prophet speaks of many more, as eventually all ten tribes were exiled. Could Sennacherib downplay his own actions?

This question lingered in academic circles for a long time. The Hittite historical accounts reveal a repeating pattern regarding captive numbers. For example, King Hattusili III described his campaigns: "I besieged Carchemish for seven days, attacked on the eighth, conquered it in a great battle, took the lower city's inhabitants, gold, and silver to Hattusa. I brought 3,330 exiles to the palace, while my army commanders took captives innumerable." Hattusili boasts of taking 3,330 — a symbolic number, likely representing the dignitaries he chose to lead personally, perhaps like the "captivity of craftsmen and smiths" during Jehoiachin's time, while other commanders took the rest without counting. Similarly, with Sennacherib, this might clarify the discrepancy: he boasts about the important figures he personally escorted, while subsequent commanders took countless others.

Thus, through surprising and unexpected discoveries, we can gain a deeper understanding of biblical verses, informed by knowledge from the time of these events and the local culture.