Who were the Hittites?

² “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. ³ Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. ⁴ From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. (Joshua 1:2–4)

The Hittites were a great warlike people that occupied the mountain countries of south Canaan. The name may be used here of all the nations of Canaan, like the Amorites in other places. To be promised all their land must have encouraged the Israelites.

The Hittites in the Bible.
     When Sarah died, Abraham purchased the field of Machpelah with a burial cave from Ephron the Hittite (Gen. 23:10–20). This incident between a patriarch and a Hittite was followed later by Esau’s act of taking two Hittite women as wives (Gen. 26:34).

     Hittites were included among the peoples dwelling from the river of Egypt to the River Euphrates—the region promised to Abraham. Hittites also occupied the land of Canaan while the Israelites were in Egypt. They were among the people who had to be driven out when Israel conquered Canaan under Joshua (Ex. 3:8, 17; Deut. 7:1; Judg. 3:5).

     After the dissolution of the Hittite empire, remnants of the Hittites were particularly visible in Palestine during the reign of David. Ahimelech the Hittite was among the close associates and trusted companions of David during his flight from Saul (1 Sam. 26:6). The most famous of these later Hittites was Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, whom David sent to his death to conceal his adultery with Uriah’s wife (2 Sam. 11:15). The northern border of Israel during David’s time was extended to the River Euphrates (2 Sam. 8:3) to include Syrian city-states. It is highly possible that “Hittites” of the Syrian region served in David’s administration (2 Sam. 8:17; 1 Kin. 4:3).

     Solomon had a Hittite wife (1 Kin. 11:1), apparently from a royal marriage to seal an alliance with a foreign power. After Solomon’s time, the “kings of the Hittites” were powerful rulers in Syria during the time when Judah and Israel existed as separate kingdoms (2 Kin. 7:6; 2 Chr. 1:17).

The Hittite Religion.
     The Hittites themselves described their array of pagan gods as “the thousand gods.” Among this diversity of deities, there were many names that were Hattic, Hurrian, Sumerian, and Canaanite in origin. The names of many gods occur in treaties of the Hittite people as guardian deities over the parties bound by treaty commitments. Each god was worshiped in its own native language. A storm god was the chief male god, and a solar goddess was his mistress.

     The Hittites may have been one of the pagan influences that pulled the nation of Israel away from worship of the one true God during its long history. Students of the Old Testament point out that the Hittites formed treaties with other countries long before the Hebrew people developed the consciousness of being a nation governed directly by God. Some scholars believe these treaties were used as a model for the covenant that God established with the Hebrews at Mt. Sinai