told, had encamped in "the land of the Amorites," and they carried with
them on their farther march recruits from the countries through which
they passed. The Amorite "chief" himself was among those who followed
the barbarians to Egypt, eager for the spoils of the wealthiest country
in the ancient world.

Ramses III. of the Twentieth dynasty was now on the throne. He succeeded
in rolling back the wave of invasion, in gaining a decisive victory over
the combined military and naval forces of the enemy, and in pursuing
them to the frontiers of Asia itself. Gaza, the key to the military road
which ran along the sea-board of Palestine, fell once more into Egyptian
hands; and the Egyptian troops overran the future Judah, occupying the
districts of Jerusalem and Hebron, and even crossing the Jordan. But no
permanent conquest was effected; Ramses retired again to Egypt, and for
more than two centuries no more Egyptian armies found their way into
Canaan. Gaza and the neighbouring cities became the strongholds of the
Philistine pirates, and effectually barred the road to Asia.

The campaign of Ramses III. in southern Palestine must have taken place
when the Israelites were still in the desert. Between the two invasions
of Egypt by the barbarians of the north, there was no great interval of
time. The Exodus, which had been due in part to the pressure of the
first of them in the reign of Meneptah, was separated by only a few
years from the capture of Hebron by Caleb, which must have occurred
after its evacuation by the Egyptian troops. The great movement which
brought the populations of Asia Minor and the Greek islands upon Canaan
and the Nile, and which began in the age of the Exodus, was over before
the children of Israel had emerged from the wilds of the desert.

In the Old Testament the Amorites are constantly associated with another