In the El-Amarna Tablets

In the El-Amarna Tablets.

The earliest historical notices respecting Jerusalem come from the El-Amarna tablets. Before the fifteenth century B.C. Babylonian influences must have been present. There was a city called "Bit-Ninib" (Temple of the God Ninib) in the "district of Jerusalem "(Letter 180, 25). In the fifteenth century Amenophis III. had extended Egyptian rule so as to include Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Assyria. This empire, however, became disrupted through its own weight. The individual districts in Palestine and Syria had been first under native princes ("amelu") with an Egyptian resident ("rabiz"), and then under a "Hazzanu," who was in reality a viceroy of the Pharaoh. Jerusalem was the chief seat of one of the districts, in consequence of which it may at one time have changed its name ("the king has placed his name upon Jerusalem," Letter 180, 60). The four El-Amarna letters from Jerusalem were written by itsHazzanu, one Abdi Heba. The whole district was sorely pressed by the Habiri. The chief conspirators against him were Milki-il, his father-in-law Tagi, Shuardatu, the Banu Lapaya, the Banu Arzawa, and Adaya, a military chief; they prevented him from personally reporting to his sovereign, upon whom he impressed the fact that if reenforcements were not sent, the whole "land of the King" would be lost. He protested his loyalty, and mentioned the presents he had sent to the king by the latter's officer Shuta. How long the conspiracy had lasted is not known. Before that, an Egyptian special officer (rabiz) had been sent to Jerusalem.
(see image) One of the El-Amarna Tablets Mentioning Abdi Heba of Jerusalem.(From Ball, "Light from the East.")

The Kash (?) had also entered Abdi Heba's dominions; and one city had gone over to the Kilti. From another of the El-Amarna letters (182, 5) it appears that Jerusalem itself was in the hands of rebels, and that Egyptian troops which had been sent under Haya had been detained in Gaza. It was evidently a period of general anarchy, due to the break-up of the Egyptian power.

Jerusalem