AMORITES ăm’ ə rīts (אֱמֹרִ֖י; LXX Αμορραῖοι).

1. Name. The Akkad. amurrû served to tr. the Sumer. mar-tu. Both are often tr. as “westerner(s).” While this seems adequate as an explanation of the name from the viewpoint of Babylonia, it fails to explain either the use of the name by the Amorites themselves (why would they call themselves “westerners”?) or its application to them by other western peoples such as the Hebrews. It seems preferable to admit that we do not know the original “meaning” of the designation amurrû. Certain groups which moved about on the fringes of the Syrian desert in the early second millennium b.c. called themselves by this name. It was heard by the settled peoples to the E, who then employed it as a general designation for western nomads and westerners in general. Much the same fate has befallen the word “Arab” among western Europeans and Americans, or the word “Indian.”

2. The Amorites,or Amurrû, in extra-Biblical sources. In the 11th year of his reign (c. 2360 b.c.) Sargon the Great of Akkad sent an expedition far to the NW to the land of Amurru in order to procure materials for his building projects. The chronicle which records this act of the eleventh (some think third) year of his reign says: “the land of the W to its limit his hand reached, he made its word one, he set up his images in the W, their booty he brought over sea.” Various omen texts confirm this chronicle: “he went to the land of Amurru, defeated it, and his hand reached over the four regions (of the world)”; and again: “he went to the land of Amurru..smote it for the second time (and) his warriors..brought him forth from the midst.” If Sargon made two expeditions to the W, one may have been in his third year and the other in his eleventh. Just where this land of Amurru was can be determined by the spots the king visited: the cedar forest in the Amanus Mountains, the “silver mountains” of the Taurus range. In other words, the land of Amurru was in Syria, stretching eastward as far as the ancient city of Mari on the Euphrates. Gudea, king of Lagash (c. 2125 b.c.), on one of his statue inscrs. tells of his expedition to the far NW to procure materials for the building of the temple of Ningirsu, his city-god: “In Umanum, in the mountains of Menua, he quarried great blocks of stone, as well as in Basalla in the mountains of Amurru. From them he carved stelae and set them up in the courtyard of the Ninnutemple. From Tidanum in the mountains of Amurru he brought alabaster in great blocks and fashioned it into slabs and erected them in the temple as barriers.” The existence of an extensive area which could be called the “land of (the) Amurru” does not necessarily presuppose an organized kingdom of Amurru. In fact no such organized kingdom becomes known until the Amarna Age (c. 1500 b.c.). It is quite in order to speak of the Amorite kingdoms of Syria and Mesopotamia, by which we mean Yamkhad-Aleppo and the Kingdom of Mari. In fact even the great Hammurabi of Babylon (c. 1792-1750 b.c.) can be called an Amorite. Shortly after 2000 b.c. Sem. peoples whose name types distinguish them from earlier waves of Semites such as the Akkadians (c. 2300 b.c.) begin to appear in concentration in Babylonia. Mounting concern on the part of the Sumer. rulers shows itself in the construction during the reign of Amar-Suen of Ur (c. 2040 b.c.) of a fortress along the lower course of the Euphrates River. The function of the fortress is betrayed by its name: “That Which Keeps Away Tidnum (= Amurru).” The measure succeeded temporarily. But in the fifth year of Ibbi-Sin of Ur (2025 b.c.) Amorites penetrated deeply into Sumer, cutting off Nippur and Isin in the N from the southern capital of Ur. Further deterioration in the power of the rulers of Ur led to the assumption of royal power in the towns of Isin and Larsa by two Amorites named Ishbi-Erra and Nablanum. About 1895 an Amorite sheik named Sumuabum began to reign as king of Babylon. His fifth successor on the throne of Babylon was Hammurabi (c. 1792 b.c.). About 1814 b.c. a resourceful Amorite by the name of Shamshi-Adad I began a rule in Assyria which was destined to have great influence. His reign lasted for thirty-three years (until 1782). During that time he was able to control a realm which stretched from E of the Tigris River to well into Syria in the W. His son, Yasmakh-Adad, ruled the important city of Mari for seventeen years (1796-1780). This was the golden age of the Amorites. For Amorite rulers governed Assyria in the NE, Babylonia in the SE, Mari and Yamkhad-Aleppo in the W. In addition tribes of Amorites who had not yet decided to become fully sedentary roamed about in the vicinity of Mari. The names of the tribes have a strangely Biblical ring to them: Banū-Yamīna, Ḫanū, Sutū. The first king of the organized “Kingdom of Amurru” is Abdi-Ashirta, who ruled c. 1390-1360 b.c. including the first eighteen years of the reign of Suppiluliuma I of Hatti. He was succeeded by his son Aziru (c. 1380-1345 b.c.), who allied himself with Suppiluliuma I of Hatti by treaty and became the latter’s vassal. The two kings of Amurru who followed Aziru, DU-Teshub and Tuppi-Teshub, ruled from c. 1345 to c. 1315 and were vassals of Mursili II of Hatti. In the archives of the Hittites were found both Akkad. and Hitt. VSS of a treaty between Mursili and Tuppi-Teshub. After the battle of Kadesh (c. 1300 b.c.), when King Muwattalli of Hatti had fended off an Egyp. attempt to control the land of Amurru, he installed a new king, Shapili (c. 1300-1286? b.c.). Shortly after Muwattalli died and Hattusili III had banished the former’s son by a concubine from the throne of Hatti (c. 1286 b.c.), Hattusili removed Shapili of Amurru from his throne and replaced him with Benteshina, who reigned until the end of Hattusili’s life (c. 1265 b.c.). Benteshina was succeeded by Shaushgamuwa (c. 1265-1230? b.c.). During the reign of Benteshina the Hitt. emperor had allowed Ini-Teshub of Carchemish to supervise affairs in Amurru. The new Hitt. emperor, Tudkhaliya IV, granted to Shaushgamuwa a greater degree of freedom and dignified him by dealing directly with him. In fact Tudkhaliya IV contracted a treaty with Shaushgamuwa, copies of which were kept at the Hitt. capital. During the twilight years of the Hitt. empire (c. 1260-1200 b.c.) the rulers of Amurru showed more loyalty to their Hitt. overlords than did other Syrian vassal kingdoms. During the centuries of the Neo-Assyrian empire (c. 900-600 b.c.) the land of Amurru is often mentioned, but it seems to conform to the usage of the term in the centuries prior to the Amarna Age (c. 2500-1500 b.c.), i.e., it refers to the general area of Syro-Pal. rather than to a specific kingdom tightly localized in the mountains of Lebanon.

3. The god Amurru. Although it would seem that the principal deity venerated by Amorites in the 18th cent. was Dagan (Dagon), and the Hurrian god Teshub was chief in the Amarna Age kingdom of Amurru (c. 1400-1200 b.c.), it is of some interest that a god who bears the name Amurru (Sumer. Mar-tu) appears in cuneiform documents from Syria, Assyria and Babylonia. This god is first attested in personal names from the third dynasty of Ur (c. 2100-2000 b.c.). Amurru-Martu was the son of the sky-god An. His consorts (wives) were Bēlet-ṩēri (“Lady of the Steppe”) and Ashratu (Asherah). Amurru shows the typical aspect of a storm god, storming over the land and wrecking cities. A Sumer. myth tells of how Amurru sought in marriage the daughter of the city god of Kazallu (a city in Middle Babylonia). The daughter’s name was Numushda. Numushda consented to the marriage despite warnings of well wishers, who told her of the rude customs of the nomad: he eats raw meat, often goes without a house, is not buried properly.

4. Language. The principal source of our knowledge of the Amorite language is the corpus of Amorite personal names, most of them from the Mari texts. This language is a member of the western branch of the Sem. family, closely related to Ugaritic, Canaanite, Hebrew and Arabic. In fact, if Amurru is extended to both Syria and Palestine, Canaanite, Moabite, Ugaritic and Phoenician would have to be considered as branches of the broader “Amorite” family. Amorite was also the ancestor of the Aram. language. Its importance for the understanding of certain aspects of Biblical Heb. can be illustrated by the occurrence in Amorite of a number of words which so far occur only in the Mari texts and in the OT.

5. Amorites in the OT. The term “Amorite” is used in several distinct ways in the OT. Occasionally (Gen 15:16) it denotes the pre-Israelite population in general. In other places, when it is paired and contrasted with the name “Hittite” (Ezek 16:3), the former may represent southern Syro-Pal. and the latter northern. Amorites are rarely localized. One group dwelt in the area later occupied by the tribe of Judah (Deut 1:19ff.; Josh 10:5ff.), another represented by the two kingdoms of Heshbon and Bashan settled to the E of the Jordan River (Num 21:13ff.; Josh 2:10; 9:10; 24:8; Judg 10:8; 11:19ff.). Sihon, Og, and Mamre are three Amorite leaders mentioned by name in the OT (Gen 14:13; Num 21:21; Deut 31:4). In keeping with the picture given elsewhere in the OT of the pre-Israelite inhabitants of the land displaced by them (Num 13:33; etc.), the Amorites are portrayed as towering figures “whose height was like the height of the cedars, and who was as strong as the oaks” (Amos 2:9). The ways of the pagan population of the land of Israel are the iniquitous ways of the Amorites (Gen 15:16). The Baals and Ashtartes and other “gods” whose worship seemed always to threaten to infiltrate the true worship of Yahweh are the “gods of the Amorites” (Josh 24:15; Judg 6:10). Chronologically the last mention in the OT of an Amorite group continuing to exist as a unit in the land is the Gibeonites, on whom King Saul inflicted such a slaughter and for which David later made atonement (2 Sam 21).

Bibliography A. Clay, The Empire of the Amorites (1919); Reallexikon der Assyriologie, I (1928), 99-103; E. Dhorme, “Les Amorrhéens,” in Révue Biblique 37 (1928) 161-180; 39 (1930) 161-178; 40 (1931) 161-184; D. O. Edzard, Die “Zweite Zwischenzeit” Babylonians (1957); J. R. Kupper, Les nomades en Mesopotamie au temps des rois de Mari (1957); W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity (1957) 109ff.; C. J. Gadd, “Babylonia c. 2120-1800 b.c.” in The Cambridge Ancient History, Revised Ed., fasc. 28, (1964), 33ff.; G. Roux, Ancient Iraq (1964) 164ff.; A. L. Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia (1964) 57ff.; A. Goetze, “The Struggle for the Domination of Syria, etc.” in The Cambridge Ancient History, Rev. Ed., fasc. 37 (1965).