es of the king."
"The country of the king" which had "gone over to the Confederates" was
the territory over which Ebed-Tob claimed rule, while the district
occupied by Labai and his Beduin followers was handed over "to the men
of the district of the Confederates." The successes of the latter were
gained through the intrigues of Malchiel and the sons of Labai.

All this leads us to the neighbourhood of Hebron, and suggests the
question whether "the district of the Confederates" was not that of
which Hebron, "the Confederacy," was the central meeting-place and
sanctuary. Hebron has preserved its sacred character down to the present
day; it long disputed with Jerusalem the claim of being the oldest and
most hallowed shrine in Southern Palestine, and it was for many years
the capital of Judah, Moreover, we know that "Hebron" was not the only
name the city possessed. When Abram was "confederate" with the three
Amorite chieftains it was known as Mamre (Gen. xiii. 18), and at a later
day under the rule of the three sons of Anak it was called Kirjath-Arba.

According to the Biblical narrative Hebron was at once Amorite, Hittite,
and Canaanite. Here, therefore, there was a confederation of tribes and
races who would have met together at a common sanctuary. When Ezekiel
says that Jerusalem was both Hittite and Amorite in its parentage, he
may have been referring to its conquest and settlement by such a
confederacy as that of Hebron. At all events we learn from Su-yardata's
letter that Ebed-Tob eventually fell into the hands of his enemies; he
was captured by Labai, and it is possible that his city became at the
same time the prey of the Khabiri.

But all this is speculation, which may or may not prove to be correct.
All we can be sure of is that the Khabiri or "Confederates" had their
seat in the southern part of Palestine, and that we need not go outside
Canaan to discover who they were. Ebed-Tob, at all events, carefully
distinguishes them from either the Babylonians or the people of
Naharaim.

In his letters, as everywhere else in the Tel el-Amarna correspondence,
the Babylonians are called Kassi or Kassites. The name is written
differently in the cuneiform texts from that of the Ethiopians, the Kash
of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Both, however, are alike represented
in Hebrew by Cush, and hence we have not only a Cush who is the brother
of Mizrairn, but also another Cush who is the father of Nimrod. The name
of the lat