Hittites

The Hittites were one of the pre-Israelite peoples of Canaan and, more broadly, the rulers of a great empire centered in Anatolia (modern Turkey) that reached its height in the late Bronze Age (roughly 1400–1200 BC). In the table of nations (Genesis 10:15), the biblical Hittites are descended from Heth son of Canaan, making them a Semitic Canaanite group distinct from—though historically overlapping with—the Anatolian Hittite empire known from archaeology. Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite, and Hittite neighbors appear throughout the patriarchal narratives as landowners and traders.

In the conquest narratives, Hittites are listed among the peoples Israel was to dispossess from Canaan. Uriah the Hittite, one of David's mighty men and the husband of Bathsheba, represents the integration of Hittite individuals into Israelite society at the highest levels. The great Anatolian Hittite empire, known from Egyptian records and its own cuneiform archives at Hattusa, was a major power that fought Egypt to a standstill at the Battle of Kadesh (c. 1274 BC) and concluded one of history's earliest known peace treaties. Their civilization collapsed around 1200 BC along with much of the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean world.