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Surely he could never have attained so great an age, had he not performed meritorious deeds." Moses also remembered that Og was the only giant that had escaped the hand of Amraphel, and he perceived in this a token of God's special favor toward Og. Moses feared, moreover, that Israel in the recent war against Sihon might have committed sins, so that God would not now stand by them.
In fact, Babylonian rule did not come to an end in the west till after the death of Abraham; Khammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis, entitles himself king of "the land of the Amorites," as Palestine was called by the Babylonians, and his fourth successor still gives himself the same title.
And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations; That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar. All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea.
The age of Amraphel, indeed, is in certain respects an age of decline. The heyday of Babylonian art lay nearly two thousand years before it, in the epoch of Sargon and his son Naram-Sin.
Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaorner king of Elam, and Tidal "king of nations," made war with Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the "king of Bera, which is Zoar." A great battle was fought in the vale of Siddim, which is alleged to be now covered by the Dead Sea. The four kings were victorious over the five.
That the narrative has been taken from the Babylonian annals there is little room for doubt, and consequently it would follow from the dating that Amraphel was a Babylonian prince, perhaps that he was the ruler of the city which, from the days of Khammurabi onward, became the capital of the country.
The laws of Hammurabi, who is identified as the Amraphel of Scripture, Gen. 14:1, and who was contemporary with Abraham, were in existence many hundred years before Moses, and showed a high state of civilization, which began many hundred years before Abraham.
The autograph letters of Khammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis, have come down to us, and we even have letters of his time from a lover to his mistress, and from a tenant to his landlord, whom he begs to reduce his rent.
Khammurabi became sole king of Babylonia, which from henceforth obeyed but a single sceptre. Are we to see in the Amraphel of Genesis the Khammurabi of the cuneiform inscriptions? The difference in the names seems to make it impossible.
Babylonia was for a time under the domination of the Elamites, and while Amraphel or Khammurabi was allowed to rule at Babylon as a vassal-prince, an Elamite of the name of Eri-Aku or Arioch governed Larsa in the south.
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