The Habiru

As early as the 1890s, scholars noticed a social unit featured in the Amarna Letters from Jerusalem called ha-bí-ru or ha-bí-ri (EA 286:19, 56; 288:38). In 1891, Zimmern identified this people group with the biblical Hebrews (‘ibrîm, עברים, 'brym; Zimmern, “Palästina,” 133–47). This early theory was based on the internal chronology of the Hebrew Bible, in which the exodus took place approximately 480 years before Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem (i.e., sometime in the mid-10th century bc; see 1 Kgs 6:1). This would set the biblical exodus and conquest of Canaan against the historical backdrop of the 15th century bc, near the time of the expulsion of the Semitic Hyksos from Egypt. In this framework, scholars found an extrabiblical confirmation of the biblical conquest of Canaan—the Habiru were the early Israelites who wreaked havoc on the cities of Canaan, prompting the local rulers to complain to the pharaoh. Scientific archaeological investigation in Palestine in the early to mid-20th century demonstrated that these early conclusions were no longer sufficient for the following reasons:

1. The archaeological record does not fully support the biblical portrayal of the Israelite conquest.

2. Should such a conquest have occurred, it could only have taken place in the 13th century bc.

In light of these new findings, George E. Mendenhall and Norman K. Gottwald reworked and popularized the Habiru-Hebrews connection (Mendenhall, “The Hebrew Conquest,” 66–87; Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh). They theorized that the emergence of ancient Israel in Canaan was tied to a peasant revolt rather than a conquest from the outside. These “revolting peasants” were a large 14th century bc social group that balked against Egyptian hegemony and began to live in the central hills of Palestine where, over time, they developed into the ethnically unique people of Israel. Yohanan Aharoni modified this theory by suggesting that the Habiru were probably absorbed into the emergent people of Israel, which is ultimately unclear, but remains a possibility (Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 176).

There are numerous problems with the argument that the Habiru should be understood as the biblical Hebrews, and subsequently, early Israelites (see Loretz, Habiru-Hebräer; see also Greenberg, “The Hab/piru,” esp. 91–96; Rainey, “Review,” 539–41; id., The Sacred Bridge, 88–89; Campbell, “The Amarna Letters,” 10–12). Two main points include:

1. On a comparative analysis with the cuneiform texts of Ugarit, the Amarna-Akkadian word ha-bí-ru of the Jerusalem letters should be normalized as ha-pí-ru or ha-pí-ri, not ha-bí-ru or ha-bí-ri, and is accurately transliterated as ‘apîrū.

2. The ‘apîrū of the Amarna Letters were a social group of urbanized political refugees that the vassals of Canaan viewed as being disloyal to Egypt because they acted as mercenaries for aggressive and enterprising local rulers seeking to increase their territory, such as Lab’ayu and his sons. This does not seem to fit the biblical account of the conquering Israelites.

The biblical authors seem to have drawn on the concept of the ‘apîrū. For example, in Judg 9, Abimelech hired a band of “worthless and reckless fellows, who followed him” (Judg 9:4 NRSV); he then took this band of mercenaries with him to kill his extended family, some 70 people (Judg 9:5). Judges 9 also records that the “lords of Shechem” conscripted an individual named Gaal, who had recently moved to Shechem with his family (Judg 9:26). Gaal and his kin were “stirring up the city” against Abimelech (Judg 9:31), and the lords of Shechem had put their confidence in Gaal to lead them in battle against Abimelech and Zebul (Judg 9:26). In these accounts, Abimelech, his band of mercenaries, and Gaal were clearly in line with the Amarna concept of ‘apîrū.

David also represents an example of an ‘apîrū. In the biblical narratives, David lived on the fringe of society in the wilderness of Ziph with a group of soldiers (1 Sam 23:14; 27:2; 2 Sam 8:1–18) and acted as a mercenary for Achish, a Philistine ruler (1 Sam 27:1–28:2). He also conducted raids on the cities of Canaan (compare 1 Sam 23:1–14; 30:1–20), all the while shrewdly attempting to form his own network of supporters in the south, the people that would eventually call him king (1 Sam 30:26–31; 2 Sam 2:1–4; 5:1–5). David then conquered the “Stronghold of Zion” at the city of Jebus and made the city his capital (2 Sam 5:6–15). In this way, David might be compared to the enterprising rulers and ‘apîrū of the Amarna period, who managed to take over neighboring cities and establish their own kingdoms. Unlike Lab’ayu, however, David lived in a time when Egypt was politically weak and thus managed to establish a kingdom that lasted some 400 years.