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So, in this video segment, we're going to

examine Egypt's imperial
presence in the late second millennium,
focusing on the New Kingdom Period.
That is from roughly 1550 to 1077 B.C. now
one of the most important
figures from this epoch, at least for our
purposes, is this handsome fellow.
This is Thutmose lll, perhaps the greatest
military leader in Egyptian history.
In the late 15 century, fifteenth century,
he conducted tours
of Syria, and witnessed great victories at
places like Megiddo.
As a result he made Canaan, and to one
of it's imperial possessions, a province
in his vast empire.
Thutmose extended the empire up to the
borders of
the Hittite Kingdom in Anatolia, that is
modern day Turkey.
And although he never subdued the powerful
kingdom of Mitanni, in
the north, Mitanni is a kingdom that not
many people know about.
He confined this kingdom, which was a big
power player of it's day, to
the east side of Euphrates, where it
was separated from it's allies and it's
bastilles.
The contemporary superpowers of the day,
Babylon, Syria, Hittites, Alasia, which is
a
kingdom on the island of Cyprus,
immediately
sent diplomatic gifts to Egypt to
Thutmose.
The region long known as Canaan was now
securely in Egyptian hands.
Initiating the first period, of what one
may call the Pax Aegyptica that is the
Egyptian peace, a peace that resulted from
Egyptian military conquest.
The burden Egypt placed on the shoulders
of Canaan was extremely heavy.
Thutmose taxed the land in two basic
forms,
produce of the land and then human lives.
First he required that the inhabitants
provide
him with a portion of the annual harvest.
This led to an impoverishment of their
cities so
that their means of offering military
resistance was weakened.
Second, he demanded human bodies for his
armies, and for his labour forces.
This along with the, the perennial
campaigns
and wars led to a depopulation of Canaan.
Especially in the central hill country,
where later
the states of Israel and Judah would
emerge.
So this Egyptian piece, this Pax
Aegyptical, might have meant
relative peace but, it brought very little
prosperity for Canaan.
The second phase of the new kingdom
period, includes what is called the Am,
Amarna Period, Amarna which included the
reigns
of Amanhotep III, that is Tutmosis'
grandson.
And then Akhanaten, the famous king who is
introduced
the monotheistic reforms, so called
monotheistic reforms of Egypt.
And he was the father of Tutankhamum, The
King
Tut, the famous King Tut that everyone
knows about.
Now, the Amarna period is so important to
the study of ancient Israel, because of
the discovery of the archive of Amarna
letters which I mentioned in an earlier
lecture.
Now although some of the letters are quite
poorly preserved, the
archive provides us with incomparable
historical
knowledge of the situation in Canaan.
As I noted, many of the letters were sent
from Canaanite cities to the Pharaohs.
These cities were supervised by native
rulers whom the Egyptians appointed as
their mayors, their [FOREIGN], and the
king's territories, his Imperial estates.
However, when the Pharaoh was not looking
the mayor's
would often arrogate to themselves the
right to call
themselves king, that is [FOREIGN] or
[FOREIGN] and they
expected to be addressed as such by their
people.
So they may have been the governors or
the mayors for the, from the Egyptian
perspective,
but on the ground they treated themselves
as
kings and they wanted to behave as such.
Many of the letters consist entirely of
this fetching,
the comp, complaining to the Egyptian
overlord, to the court.
They're writing, begging for various
things.
And what bothers these mayors, most of
all, is the action of their competitors.
Those other neighbours who governed
neighbouring cities yet had,
these other competitors, had ambitions to
expand into their territory.
So they were encroaching on each others
territories.
So what happens, is that these local
rulers, who fear
loosing their lands, as well as their
lives sometimes, write
letters to the crown back in Egypt, and in
forms
comparable to prayers, they beg to see the
kings face.
They plead for him to make his annual
visitation, visitation, and to establish
justice in the land.
And this justice, establishing justice,
meant most of the time just
sending a battalion of royal archers,
these fighters, to punish rebels.
Let me cite an example of one of these
letters.
To the king, my Lord and my God and sun,
thus
speaks Biridiya, governor of Megiddo, the
loyal servant of the king.
At the feet of the king, my Lord and my
God and sun, seven times and seven times I
prostrate myself.
May the king know that since his archers
have gone back, Labayu
carries out acts of hostility against me,
and that we cannot shear the
wool, and that we cannot pass through the
gate in the presence of
Labayu, since he knows that you have not
given me archers for protection.
And now he intends to take Megiddo.
In truth the city is destroyed by death,
as
a result of pestilence, and disease
through this siege.
May the king grant 100 garrison troops to
guard the city, lest Labayu take it.
Now, whether Egypt on this occasion sent
military support to
Megiddo, which had always been important
to Egypt, is not known.
But who is this Labayu?
That's the question.
Who was, who was besieging the city, this
enemy that is reported about in the
letter?
Who is this guy?
The place from which he rules is called
Shokmul and
that is, re, corresponds to the biblical
Shechem or Chem.
This place, of course, is known from
Genesis, where a lot of
the patriarchs are around, throughout
Israel's
history, Shechem is an important place.
And Labayu, who operates there, that was
his base, was attempting to
expand from the Highlands into the Jezreel
Valley, where Megiddo is located.
Remarkably, from the biblical history,
Saul, Israel's
first king, is reported to have attempted
to do the same thing when he's
building his kingdom, his first kingdom
over Israel.
He, you'll remember one of the greats
scenes
where he dies, and he dies on Mount
Gilboa.
Why Mount Gilboa?
That is overlooking the Jezreel Valley,
where he fought a campaign.
So, Saul begins in the central hill
country, just like
Labayu, and he, he sets his sights on the
Jezreel Valley.
The Jezreel valley, where he's going to
build up a larger
kingdom, extend it into much more robust,
and more wealthy territorial state.
And, so we see this in the Amarna
letter's, but
also in the biblical record, very similar
things going on.
Now, another guy in the Amarna letter's,
whom his
neighbours liked to complain about, is a
certain, Abdi-Hepa.
Abdi-Hepa reigned in Jerusalem, which is
known in
these letters as URU-salim, URU-salim,
Jeru- salim, Jerusalem.
So from this location Abdi-Hepa, attempted
to expand
his kingdom also like Labayu, into other
territories.
So we have Abdi-Hepa and Shad Labayu they
have their
cities in the high country and they are
trying to expand.
Not without warrant I think you, we can
call King Saul and King David,
David reigned from Jerusalem or Hevron and
the Judah, and King Saul in the north.
They're very similar to Labayu and
Abdi-Hepa and many
scholars call them Labayu or Abdi-Hepa the
[FOREIGN] or resurrected.
Now why did Labayu and Abdi-Hepa and their
songs have such free reign,
to expand from their cities and create
little territorial states?
From little city-states to territorial
states?
Why did that, why was that allowed?
Why did they think they could get away
with it?
This insolence vis a vis the Egyptian
court.
The answer is that, is that these guys
inhabited the hinterland, the highlands,
the hill country, the region where the
later states of Israel and Judea emerge.
That's the core territories up here in the
hill country, and it's called today the
hill
country of Judea and Samaria, it's also
where
the territories are, the Palestinian
territories are today.
But these are the old core territories of
the states of
Israel and Judea, and this is when Labayu
and Abdi-Hepa, are beginning.
For the Pharos, now this is important, to
realize
that what was most important, was not this
hill
country up there, the Hentiland, which was
occupied, in
their minds by hillbillies, and dangerous
hillbillies at that.
The Egyptians seemed to have thought that,
what's best
is to leave that element to it's own
devices.
In the focus attention on the coastal
territories along the
Medeterrainian Coast, which were not only
much richer in resources,
but were also essential for the lines of
communication, and
transport with the super powers in the
north and into Mesopotamia.
So from Egypt, or as we noted, to get to
Mesopotamia, they had to go up along the
coast, and that was the most important
reason why
they wanted to keep that coast clear and
under control.
But what was going on up the hill,
highlands was not really to much of
their interest, as long as they did not
interfere with what's going down in the
coast.
Of course, one could also use the
Mediterranean Sea
for transporting troops to Harbor City, in
the North.
But if political turmoil along the
Canaanite coast were,
were allowed to go unheeded, then a
Northern power could
take advantage of the situation and expand
Southwards into
Canaan, and then end up right on Egypt's
front door.
This was on all accounts one of the worst
things that
could happen and it had to be avoided at
all cost.
So, what's important about these Amarna
letters is first, they
suggest that Egypt was much less
interested in the highlands.
The core territories of Israel and Judah,
okay?
And number two, that they offer us a
glimpse of the unceasing desire
and need of the rulers of the highlands,
to expand into the lowlands.
Especially into the fertile Jezreel
Valley.
The bread basket of the south, Southern
Levant, where for example Megiddo is
located.
Now, as long as Egypt could defend its
imperial interests, it could keep
these threats confined to the small
competing chieftains up in the hills,
right?
But, what happened, this is the question,
when the Egyptian empire collapsed, and
it was no longer there to keep these hill
country forces at bay?
The answer is, that we witness
develo, the development of territorial
states, Kingdoms
such as Israel and Judah, and their
neighbors Moab and Amon, all of those.
Thus, these important letters between the
Egyptian
court and their imperial governors in
Canaan,
reveal how rulers within Canaan tried
to expand their influence over larger
territories,
even while Egypt was keeping a relatively
close eye on what was going on.
And all this, helps us to imagine what
would happen once Egypt withdrew
from Canaan, and left these dynamics
to evolve with no external imperial
influence.
And all we could do is imagine what would
happen when these rulers had
free rein to do as they pleased,
without Egypt confining to their
provincial territories.
The same forces that work during this
time, can hence, can be extrapolated
over a period of centuries without
external
control, without the empire watching over
them.
As Egypt pulls out, what would happen?
And what we get is a constellation of
kingdoms as we have them in the first
millennium.
That is the time of the Bible.
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