From these tablets we obtain certain details as to the state of the Holy Land and the surrounding country before the entry of the Israelites. Besides the kingdom of Mitanni mentioned above, there were the states of Alasia (supposed to be Cyprus), Ziri-basani (plain of Bashan), Hazor, Askelon, Lachish, Gaza, Qatna (west of Damascus), Accho, Simyra, Tyre, Sidon, the Amorites, the Hittites, Dunip (Tenneb), Jerusalem, etc., etc. Many of them were small states with the cities after which they are named as capital, and naturally were obliged to enter into a league for their common protection, or else accept the suzerainty of some more powerful state, falling, if its protector went under, into the power of the common invader. It must have been in consequence of this state of things in the east Mediterranean littoral that Egypt was able to extend her power so far, and subdue this large district.
From these tablets we learn something of their religion. To all appearance one of the gods most worshipped in the extreme west of Asia was Rimmon, the Rammanu ("thunderer") of the Assyrians and Babylonians, the Addu or Hadad of the Semitic nations of this district (the name Addu afterwards became general as the appellation of the god in Babylonia and Assyria), and the Tesupa or Tesub of Mitanni (Aram-Naharaim) and district to the north (Armenia). At Tyre they seem to have worshipped a personage or deity called Salmayatu, whilst the Phoenician Astarte is commemorated in âl Astarti, "the city of Astartu," perhaps Ashtaroth, 29 miles east of Tiberias (Petrie). As the word Ashtoreth is evidently a lengthening of the name of the Assyro-Babylonian goddess Istar, it is not to be wondered at that this goddess should be mentioned by the king of Mitanni, Dusratta, who refers to a statue of Istar of Nineveh, which had been sent to Egypt, and requests that it may be returned to him soon. The name of Nergal, also, was evidently familiar to the king of Alasia, for he speaks of the hand of that god as having killed all his people, when wishing to refer to the prevalence of a pestilence there, Nergal being the Assyro-Babylonian god of disease and death. In the same way Dusratta speaks of Samas, the Assyro-Babylonian Sun-god, but he refers to him more as the luminary which men love than as a god, though there is every probability that he was worshipped in Mitanni.(55) Another Assyro-Babylonian deity whose name occurs is Ninip, once in the name of Abdi-Ninip, "servant of Ninip," apparently a Gebalite, and again in _âl Bêth-Ninip_, "(city of) the temple of Ninip," in a district which Abdi-Asirta called upon to unite against Gebal--perhaps the Beth-Ninip in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. In the name of Abdi-Asirta it is to be noted that we have here, to all appearance, the name of the _asherah_ or "grove" of the Authorised Version, the "token" of the goddess Istar,(56) with the ideogram for which the word once interchanges. The Egyptian god Amana (Amon) is mentioned several times, invoked apparently as a god in whom the writer believed, though he was the special god of the Egyptians and the Egyptian king. In addition to the above deities, the names of men reveal Uras, the god of Dailem near Babylon, Bidina, another Babylonian deity, and Merodach, the principal god of the Babylonians. Among west Semitic deities may be mentioned Dagan (Dagon), Milku (Melech, Moloch), and others.