[Footnote 8: Rehoboam is an Ammonite name, compounded with that of the
god Am or Ammi. Rehob, which is the first element in it, was also an
Ammonite name, as we learn from the Assyrian inscriptions.]

[Footnote 9: Numb. xxi. 27-29.]

[Footnote 10: x. 14.]

[Footnote 11: iv. 21.]




CHAPTER IV

THE NATIONS OF THE NORTH-EAST


Canaan is but the southern continuation of Syria, which shades off, as
it were, into the waterless wilderness. The name of Syria is usually
supposed to be an abbreviation of Assyria, but it is more probable that
it comes from Suri, the name by which the Babylonians denoted
Mesopotamia and Syria of the north, and in which Assyria itself was
sometimes included. As we have seen, the Syria of our own maps, and more
especially the southern half of it, was commonly known to the
Babylonians as the land of the Amorites; in the later inscriptions of
Assyria the place of the Amorites is taken by the Hittites. When Assyria
appeared upon the scene of history the Hittites had become the dominant
people in the west.