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The Testimony, December 2003 459

The Amalekites2. Were they the Hyksos?*

Debbie Hurn

IMMAN UEL VELIKOVSKY, perhap s the most

famous revisionist of the chronology of an-

cient times, proposed that the Am alekites were

the notorious Hyk sos invad ers of Egypt.1 He col-

lated ancient records of great uph eavals in Ara-bia that may ha ve been the cause of a westwar d

migration of the Amalekite tribes, and pro-

poun ded the theory that they entered Egypt justafter the Hebrew s left. This wou ld certainly have

been an ideal opportunity to invade, for Egypt

was ru ined (Ex. 10:7) and leader less (Ps. 136:15)

in the aftermath of the ten plagu es and th e Exo-

du s. In an age when n eighbouring countries soondominated an y nation that showed signs of weak-

ness, it is unlikely that Egypt was allowed to

recover in peace. Such a chance to overrun th e

perennially fertile delta, and plunder the treas-

ures of the usually impregnable Egyptian em-

pire, was indeed a rare wind fall.

The Hyksos and the Amalekites comparedBy comparing Egyptian literature regard ing the

Hyksos invaders with Arabian historians de-

scriptions of the Amalekites, Velikovsky high-

lights some strong parallels. Manetho was an

anti-Semitic Egyptian historian who wrote in

Greek. His work did not survive, but on the

subject of the Hyksos invasion he was cited atlength by Josephu s:

Tutimaeus [a Pha raoh]. In his reign, I know

not w hy, a blast of Gods displeasure br oke

up on u s . . . A people of ignoble origin from

the east, whose coming was un foreseen, had

the audacity to invade the country, which

they mastered by main force without diffi-

culty or even a battle;Some say that they were Arabians;

Their race bore the generic name of Hycsos

[Hyksos], which m eans king-shepherd s. For

Hyc in the sacred language denotes king,

an d sos in the common dialect means shep-herd or shepherds; the combined words

form Hycsos;

of the capital Baghdad (founded by the Arab

ru lers of the area in 762) were Jews. They p layed

a pr ominent role in the establishment of Iraq as a

nation; according to Mordecai Ben-Porat, chair-man of the Babylonian Jewish Her itage Centre in

Israel, as quoted by the Jerusalem Report, Iraqs

first minister of finan ce, Yehezkel Sasson , was a

Jew, as was the depu ty president of the Sup reme

Court. Jews p layed a k ey role in establishing th e

Iraqi jud icial and p ostal systems, the railways,

the customs bureau, and they w ere dominant in

the chamber of commerce.

Things began to be less favourable for the

Jews, however, after Iraq became indep enden t,

especially as conflict between Jews an d Arabs

developed in Palestine. After the establishment

of the State of Israel in 1948 things rap idly wor s-ened. In 1950 the government revoked the im-

port and export licences of Jewish trad ing firms,

devastating them, Jews in public service posi-

tions lost their jobs, and Jewish commu nities w ere

the subject of several bomb attacks. The Israeli

governm ent arran ged flights to Israel, and from

August 1949 to the end of 1952 120,000 Jews

emigrated from Iraq to Israel, mostly on these

flights, the p roject being nam ed Operation Ezraand Neh emiah . Only 17, 000 Jews rem ained in

Iraq.

Iraqi Jews flourished in Israel, despite initial

difficulties caused by the infant n ation having to

absorb large numbers of immigrants from vari-

ous coun tries. A few years later eleven per cent

of Israels teachers and seventeen per cent of

Israels doctors were Iraqi Jews. After the over-

throw of the monarchy in Iraq in 1958, things

worsened for the remaining Jews in Iraq, espe-

cially after Saddam Hussein seized control in1979. Numbers gradually reduced as they died

out or escaped. After the overthrow of theSadd am rgime, a reporter for theJerusalem Postvisited Baghdad and looked for surviving Jews.

He found a pitiful remnant, desperately poor

and mostly elderly, but still retaining sabbath

worship in an obscure synagogue.

* Quotations from the RSV unless stated otherwise.

1. Ages in Chaos, 1952, ch. 2.

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The Testimony, December 2003460

[The Hyksos] savagely burned the cities,

razed the temples of the gods to the ground ,

and treated th e whole native pop ulation with

the utmost cruelty.2In the remnan ts of Egyptian literature the Hyk-

sos invad ers are called Amu , and it is stated in

the Ipuwer Papyrus that they came from Asia.

They were a people imbued to the core with a

spirit of destruction. As far as is known, no monu -

ments of any historical or artistic value were

erected under their rule, and no literary works

survived their dominion in Egypt, with the ex-

ception of lamentations by their Egyptian vic-

tims, such as those contained in the Ipuwer

Papyrus.

The memory of the wickedness of these no-

mads is preserved by Manetho (see above). Heprovides the information that after the Hyksos

invaded the countrymurd ering, raping, pillag-

ing and bu rningthey established a dy nasty of

Hyksos ph araohs, the King-Sheph erds.

Several Arabian wr iters record an inva sion ofEgypt by the Am alekites. The oral traditions that

survived were written down in the ninth to the

twelfth centuries A.D. Some of these accountsare p atently fanciful or historically garbled, but

the essence remains: that at some point in his-

tory there were Amalekite Pharaohs who ex-

ploited and debased the wealth and might of

Egypt.

Velikovsky qu otes excerpts from the w orks ofseveral of these historians to demonstrate the

similarities with Egyptian accounts of the H yk-

sos:

The Amalekites reached Syria and Egypt and

took possession of these lands, and the ty-

rants of Syria and the Pharaohs of Egypt were

of their origin;

An Am alekite king, el-Welid, son of Doum a,

arrived from Syria, invaded Egypt, conquered

it, seized the throne and occup ied it without

opp osition, his life long;

When th is conqu eror came to Syria, he heard

rum ors about Egypt. He sent there one of hisservants named Oun a, with a great host of

war riors. El-Welid oppressed the inhabitan ts,

seized their possessions and drew forth all

the treasures he could find;

The Amalekites invad ed Egypt, the frontier

of which they had already crossed, and started

to ravage th e country . . . to smash the objects

of art, to ruin the monum ents;

There were Egyptian Pharaohs of Amalek-

ite descent.3

Egypt in eclipse

The Scriptu res furnish no information about wha t

hap pened in Egypt after the Israelites departed .

It is likely, however, that Egypts empire, ecol-ogy and economy w ere severely d amaged, and

took man y years to recover. From the conquest

un til the time of King Solomon, the only south-

ern enemies of Israel were Amalek and Midian.

There are n o Biblical references to military expe-

ditions by the pha raohs, or even to an Egyptian

political presence. Yet d uring all this long era,

according to the conventional chronology, Ca-

naan was d ominated by Egypt. Velikovskys re-

vised chronology p laces the Israelite wand erings,

the conquest and th e jud ges in the same period

as the Hyksos/ Amalekite rule over Egypt. If this

is a correct association, then Am alek was ind eedthe main southern pow er du ring the era of theJud ges, as the Bible record ind icates (see below).

The pattern of devastation that the Amalekites

pressed up on rural Israel du ring the time of the

Jud ges (Jud g. 6:4-6) is very similar to the King-

Shepherds exploitation of Egypts resources:

The Amu approach in their might and their

hearts rage against those who are gathering in

the harvest, and they take away [their] kine from

the ploughing . . . The land is utterly perished,

and nau ght remains.4

By accepting th is theory for the p resent, some

further insights arise from the Biblical records.

Velikovsky believed that Israel and Amalekpassed each other in th e Sinai, both nations h ur-

riedly migrating in a time of widespread up-

heaval. But, as sh own in Part 1, the Am alekites

had been active near the borders of Egypt for

quite some time before the Exodus (Gen. 14:7).

During Israels march through the Sinai Penin-

sula, Amalek made persistent raids upon the

stragglers, culminating in a full war at Mount

Sinai. This pattern does not describe two dis-

placed compan ies passing each other, but Israel

invad ing the territory of Amalek.

About a century before the Exodu s, the ph ar-

aoh who d id not know Joseph and enslavedthe Hebrews was afraid of an invasion by un-

named enemies: Come, let us deal shrewdlywith them , lest . . . if war befall us, they join our

enemies and fight against us (Ex. 1:8,10). He

may well have been referring to the Amalekite

2. All qu otat ions from Ages in Chaos, ch. 2.

3. All qu otat ions from Ages in Chaos, ch. 2.

4. Papyrus Ermitage 1116b, cited by Velikovsky , op. cit.,

p. 74.
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tribes who were active along the rou tes through

the Sinai and the Negev. Perhaps they seemed to

be likely allies of Israel because of their nom ad ic

origin and common Semitic ancestry. Pharaohand the p eople were u neasy (v. 12), for by then

the regional advantage gained for Egypt by

Joseph s policies had nearly aba ted. After the ten

plagu es and Egypts spectacular decline, the op-

portu nistic Amalekites, who before had not been

quite strong enough to challenge Egypt, could

simply expand into the Nile delta from their

territory in Sinai withou t a fight.

If the Amalekites took their chan ce to overru n

Egypt soon after Israel left it d esolate, they also

retained their influence in th e Arabian Peninsuladu ring the period of the Jud ges and early Kings.

In this time they extended their power intoCanaan, in alliance with th eir eastern brethren,the Am monites, Moabites, Midianites and Bne-

Kedem (the people of the east), as shown in

Part 1. Somehow, in the time between the Exo-

dus and mid-Judges, the Amalekites had in-

creased dram atically in nu mbers, for wh en they

encamped with the Midianites and the Bne-

Kedem in the Valley of Jezreel, they ap peared to

Israel as locusts and sand on the seashore

(Judg. 7:12, NASV). This may have been the re-

sult of living off the fat of the eastern Nile delta,

where conditions had once also helped greatly

to increase Israels birthrate.

During this period, th erefore, the Amalekiteswere not just dislocated tribes of Bedouin ban-

dits, but the mightiest among th e nations at the

time. Just before the conquest, Balaam blessed

Israel with th e word s, his king shall be higher

than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted(Num. 24:7). This was no great blessing unless

Agag was the best current example of a power-

ful ruler. When Balaam cursed Amalek he de-scribed them as the first of the n ations (v. 20).

They w ere not , of cour se, the first in reference

to origin, so this phra se is interpreted to mean,

the first nation to attack Israel. In the light of

their prop osed prom inence at the time, it wouldalso refer to their numbers, status and other dom i-

nan t qualities (such as ferocity). Thu s, by the end

of Israels forty years wanderings, the Agags

may have been the rulers of both Egypt and

Arabia. This explains the long Dark Age for

both Egypt an d Israel, in which the op pression

from the Amalekite invaders was so pervasive

that neither nation could thrive.

Did the Israelites know that Egypt had been

invad ed by the king-sheph erds? Velikovsky has

retranslated a v erse in Psalm 78 referring to th e

plagues upon Egypt: He [Yahweh] cast upon

them th e fierceness of His anger, wra th, and in-

dignation, and trouble, by sending evil angelsamong them (v. 49, AV). By a change in one

letter this can read, sending king-shepherds

among them.

Forty years of change

During the period of the wilderness wand erings

and the conquest it appears that there was a

decline in th e Amalekite presence in the Kadesh

district. When Israel defeated them at Rephidim

and adv anced on the Kadesh d istrict a year later,

the Amalekites were displaced from their an-

cient territory (Gen. 14:7) into the northern Ne-

gev (Num. 13:29). Here they joined with theCanaanites and Amorites in routing Israel dur-

ing the attempt to enter Canaan from the south

(14:43-45). Then , aware th at Egypt was w ide open

for invasion, they left the Negev and, flowing

into the delta, established th emselves there and

began to dominate the Egyptians.

By comparing Biblical references to the en-

emy nations at th e beginning of the forty years

with those at the end, this changing scene is

verified. When the twelve spies went into the

land an d came back to report to the peop le, the

territories of the enemy nations w ere these: The

Amalekites dwell in the land of the N egeb; the

Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Am orites dw ell inthe hill countr y; and the Canaan ites dwell by thesea, and along th e Jorda n (13:29). At the end of

the forty years, wh en the king of Arad attacked

the nation at Mount H or, the Negev was no longeroccup ied by Amalekites, but by Canaa nites (21:

1-3). Where had the Am alekites gone? They had

moved d own into Egypt, leaving the Canaanites

free to expand into the Negev. Thus, when the

Israelites came to fight w ith the king of Arad at

the end of the forty years, there were only Ca-

naanites in the Negev. In between these inci-

den ts there is no record of any clashes with the

Amalekites, and the explanation for their absenceduring this time is that they were preoccupied

with their invasion and dom ination of Egypt.

Thus, shortly after the Exodu s, Yahw eh d rew

the Amalekites down into Egypt, wh ich enabled

His people to remain u nmolested by th em in the

Negev for the du ration of their wand erings. Af-

ter the inciden t at Horm ah in the first year from

the Exodu s, the Amalekites do not app ear again

until the time of Ehud the judge (Judg. 3:13).

This appears to be at least fifty years into the era
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of the Judges (vv. 8,11), which followed about

thirty years of conquest u nd er Joshua . Amaleks

migration to Egypt some years before the con-

quest also helps to explain why the tribes ofJud ah and Simeon only encoun tered Canaanites

in their southern campaign and had some suc-

cess in claiming their inher itance (1:9,17).

Saul and Amalek

At the end of the period of the Jud ges the people

requested a king to lead th em into battle (1 Sam.

8:19,20), which in this time of oppression and

fear seemed to be a h igh p riority. King Saul rec-

ognised very early in his reign that Amalek was

the m ain obstacle to a secure k ingdom for Israel.

Perhaps he should be commend ed more than he

often is for the zeal he displayed in meetingthese expectations, for he did valiantly, and

smote the Am alekites, and d elivered Israel out

of the hands of those who plundered them

(14:48). Saul w as sub sequently comm and ed to

annihilate Amalek (15:3), and was also trium-

ph ant in th is camp aign (vv. 7,8). Even th ough he

disobeyed Yahweh by keeping their king alive

and preserving the spoil, he effectively broke theback of the Amalekite p ow er (v. 20).

Velikovsky attributes th e liberation of Egypt

from the Amalekites to this defeat of them by

Saul. At the time when Saul went to war a gainst

the Am alekites, however, their territory was from

Hav ilah as far as Shu r, which is east of Egypt(v. 7), which area excludes Egypt itself. KingAgag was captured, not in Avaris, the Hyksos

capital in the Nile delta, but in the city of Ama-

lek, which at this time lay w ithin Kenite terri-tory (v. 6). So it wou ld ap pear th at the Egyptians

had man aged to liberate themselves just before

the era of the Israelite kings, and that th e Amale-

kites had regrouped in the Negev. Thus, when

Saul overthrew the Am alekites, they were oper-

ating from a city (or cities) at the interface of

Philistia and southern Judah .

Havilah to Shur is the vital clue to th e extent

of Amaleks range in Sauls day. From Genesis25:18 we learn th at Ha vilah is on the w ay (as

you com e) to Assyria (Greens Interlinear). It w as

most likely the gateway to Assyria, just as Shu r

was to Egypt. The territory between these cities

represents the entire dom ain of the Arabs.

Havilah was therefore at least twice as far

from Israel to the northeast as Shur was to the

southwest. This would seem to be an unlikely

distance for Saul to go campaigning, som e 1,000

kilometres (600 miles) in all. As the Bible only

describes the one action in southern Judah in

wh ich Agag w as taken captive, 1 Samu el 15:7 is

best understood as meaning that Saul struck a

mortal blow at the centre of the Amalekite op-erations, causing the collapse of their en tire em-

pire from Hav ilah as far as Shur.

Where was the city of Amalek?

Egyptian sources for the defeat and expu lsion of

the Hyksos refer to the capture of their capital

Avaris in the Nile delta region and to the siege of

a city called Sharu hen. Sharuh en is the nam e of

one of the cities of the tribe of Simeon (Josh.

19:6), whose inheritance lay within the bord ers

of Judah (v. 1). It is listed among the thirteen

cities of Beer-sheba , wh ich confirms its location

toward s the southw estern limit of the land. Whenthe Hyksos/ Amalekites were expelled from

Egypt, they may have taken over this marginal

town of Jud ah and made it their new capital.

No d oubt w hen the Amalekites settled in their

new capital they redoubled their old habits of

plu nd ering th e peop le of Israel (1 Sam. 14:48), at

wh ich time Saul, eager to prov e himself as the

new king, began to fight with them. Before Saul

set out to destroy Amalek, he numbered his

troops in Telaim (15:4), which is probably the

same as Telem, another city of south ern Judah

(Josh. 15:24).

The site of the Amalekite stronghold am-

bushed by Saul is likely to have been th at todayknown as Tel Sharuh en(called by the Arabs Tell-el-Fara) on the southern bank ofNahal Besor

(Wadi Gaza), about twenty-five kilometres (fif-

teen miles) south of Gaza.5 It lies between theWay of Shur and the Way of the Land of thePhilistines, about thirty kilometres (eighteen

miles) west o f Beer-sheba (see map opposite). It

has strat a from Midd le Bronze Age IIb to Roman

times, and the earliest stratum h as Hyksos struc-

tures.

Saul am bushed the city of Amalek from the

valley besid e it (1 Sam. 15:5). The w ord for va l-

ley (nahal) means torrent-bed, and every city ofthese times (except Arad) w as built beside such

a source of water. In this case the referen ce is to

Nah al Besor (brook Besor), wh ich also appear s

5. Another candid ate for Sharu hen, and one that is pre-

ferred by som e archaeolog ists, is Tell el-Ajul. This tel

lies in the Gaza Strip amon gst the Philistines and on

the ancient coastal highway. The earliest stratum of

this city is also Hy ksos, and , like Tell el-Fara, it over-

looks the valley of Nah al Besor.

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SINAIGulfo

fSuez

Gulf

ofA

qa

ba

Red Sea

in a later conflict between the Amalekites andDavid (1 Sam . 30:9,10).

Tel Sharuhen is a very high, impressive tel

with sw eeping views of Philistia to the west and

southern Jud ah to the east. Any army approach-

ing over th e plains could easily be seen. Close tothe tel, how ever, Nahal Besor is a deep winding

ravine full of lush vegetation, which tw ists and

turn s in several places, making it possible for alarge army to approach withou t detection.

The location of Tel Sharu hen su ggests that th e

Amalekites and the Philistines had a cooperative

relationship aga inst their comm on enem y, Israel.

Perhap s the Philistines gave Sharu hen to the ex-iled Ag ag for the same reason that Achish later

gave Ziklag to David: to enlist his help in op pos-

ing Israel. Arab sources indicate that th e Philis-

tines intermingled w ith the Amalekites,6 sought

their favour and provided them with metalwork

and pottery. When Saul was finally defeated by

the Philistines in Moun t Gilboa, it was an Am a-

lekite (far from hom e, and thu s possibly attached

to the Philistine host) wh o claimed to have d es-

pa tched him (2 Sam. 1:8,13).

If the Hyk sos/ Amalekite iden tity is correct,then on e thing seems to be certain: the Egyptians

were bu sy trying to maintain th eir recent libera-

tion and keeping the Hyksos away from their

border around the same time that the young

King Saul began his campa igns. Israel and Egyp tpinned the King-Shepherds between them, and

finally managed to break their hold in th e region.

David and AmalekSaul insisted that he had annihilated the Am ale-

kites according to Yahw ehs comman d (1 Sam.

15:15,20), but t his is not t he last m ention of them

in Scripture. Although their king was killed andthe inhabitants of their capital were massacred,

other Amalekites from Havilah to Shur re-mained to stage a comeback. The Amalekites

were difficult to eliminate because of their wil-

dern ess battle skills and decentralised lifestyle.The ph ysical character of the country they occu-

pied necessitated a nomadic life, which they

adopted to the fullest extent. Their wealth

6. As cited by Velikovsk y, op. cit., p. 93.

the LandoftheWay

of Philistines

Mediterranean Sea

Ezion-geber

Eilat

Prese

ntborder

AncientRoutetoArabia

AncientWayofShu

r

The Negev

Wa

diA

rab

ah

Hebron

Beersheba

Dea

dS

ea

Gaza

Wilderness of Shur

el-Arish

60 miles

Wilderness of Sin

Lake Timsah

Wilderness of

Paran

Negev

Heights

AradSharuhen?

Gath

Kadesh-barnea

SuezCanal

Way

ofth

eW

ilderness

ofth

eRedSea

Wilderness of Zin

Sharuhen?

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Tel Sharuhen, situated on the southern bank of Nahal Besor, and the most likely site of the

Amalekite city taken by Saul.

consisted in flocks and herd s, and it app ears that

they took their household s along with them, even

on their military expeditions (Judg. 6:5).

During Davids exile from Saul, some Amale-kites were still found to the south of Philistine

territory, and he regularly made forays against

them (1 Sam. 27:8). He persecuted them with

unfailing success during the one year and four

months that he was under the patronage of

Achish , king of Gath (27:7,11; 29:3). Desp era te to

build up their nu mbers and w ealth again, Ama-

lek raided Philistia and Judah from the south,

and overcame and burned Ziklag while David

and his men were marching north w ith the Phil-

istine forces marching against Saul (30:1-2,14).

They took captive all the women and children

and plund ered every last thing of value, much ofwhich mu st have p reviously been theirs. In those

days, when survival depended up on pop ulation,the taking of captive women was a common prac-

tice (Deut . 21:10-14) and a shor t-cut to bu ilding

tribal strength.

This sudden invasion from the south is con-

sistent with the situa tion of the Amalekite nation

at the time. Only a generation before, they had

been proud rulers over Egypt and Arabia and

had reached the zenith of their power and popu -

lation. But now, after their expulsion from Egyp t

and their decimation at the hands of Saul, the

situation was very gr im for the survivors. After

their capital was bu rnt, they had been forced toretreat further to th e south of N ahal Besor, prob-

ably toward s the Kadesh district.

The pattern of assault on Ziklag was the same

as that which the Hyksos employed when they

invaded Egypt about 500 years before: Theysavagely bur ned the cities . . . carrying off the

wives and children into slavery.7 David and his

men feared the very w orst for their families, andnot only because Amalekite cruelty was legen-

dary. They themselves had never spared a soul

in all the raids on Amalek from their base in

Ziklag (1 Sam. 27:9,11) and probably believed

this raid to be an Amalekite act of revenge.Perhap s the most telling hint in Scriptu re that

the Amalekites and the Hyksos overlords of

Egypt were the same peop le is foun d w ithin this

accoun t. When David courageously led his men

in pursuit of the Amalekite marauders, they

found an u nconscious Egyptian in the op en coun-

try who had not eaten bread or d runk w ater for

three days and nights. He was a young man of

Egypt , servant to an Am alekite (30:13), and his

master had aband oned h im when h e fell ill. His

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admission reveals a very striking detail. The man

spoke of his being a servant and the Am alekitea master, as though this was the order of the

day. By what other means than the Hyksos/

Amalek identity could an Egyptian, the son of a

proud and ruling nation, be the servant of an

Amalekite, a poor nom ad? This unfortunate manand his heartless master were already th e last in

their respective roles. The Amalekites were in

retreat and decline, and only 400 men escapedDavids su bsequent retaliation.

Velikovsky comments on the events of this

period: On the ruins of the great Amalekite

Empire two kingdoms rose simultaneously to

freedom an d power: Jud ah and Egypt. The in-heritance was divided between them. Judah ab-

sorbed the Asiatic provinces of the Amalekites

from the Eup hrates in the north to the border of

Egypt in the south.8 Expansion was also east-

ward; David and Joab led the army of Israel

against Moab, Ammon, Edom an d Aram (Syria)

(2 Sam. 8; 12:26-31), and, bereft of their Amalek-

ite allies, they all fell before Israel. David dedi-

cated precious metals that he had taken from the

Am alekit es (8:12; 1 Chron. 18:11), yet n o specific

campaigns against Amalek are recorded at this

time, so it seems that the enemy was alreadygreatly diminished. Thus the Dark Age in the

Near and Middle East was over and King Solo-

mon inherited a w ide and peaceful realm.

Some Amalekites managed to surv ive through

the period of the Kings until Hezekiahs time.Then 500 men of the tribe of Simeon went to

dw ell in Mou nt Seir (the Central Negev in th is

context) and d estroyed the remnant of the Ama-lekites that h ad escaped (1 Chron. 4:42,43). These

were probably the descendan ts of the four h un-

dred you ng men, who moun ted camels and fled

from David and his men after the Ziklag inci-

dent (1 Sam. 30:17). Thus, by the time of theAssyrian invasion, Amaleks national destruction,

as proph esied by Balaam (N um . 24:20), was com-

plete. They may never hav e been exterminated

entirely, however, as evidenced by the appear-

ance of Haman th e Agagite, an evil man of influ-

ence in the Persian per iod (Est. 3:1; cf. 1 Sam .15:8).

(Concluded)

Nahal Besor, the brook Besor of 1 Samuel 30:9, and probably the valley of 1 Samuel 15:5.

7. Maneth o, qu oted by Joseph us, Against A pion , I, 76.

8. Velikovsky, op. cit., p p. 85-6. See 1 Kings 4:21.

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