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In the days of Abraham, Chedor-laomer, king of Elam and lord over the kings of Babylonia, marched westward with his Babylonian allies, in order to punish his rebellious subjects in Canaan. The invading army entered Palestine from the eastern side of the Jordan. Instead of marching along the sea-coast, it took the line of the valley of the Jordan.
Even more striking have been the discoveries which have restored credit to the narratives of the Old Testament, and shown that they rest on contemporaneous evidence. It was not so long ago that the account of the campaign of Chedor-laomer and his allies in Canaan was unhesitatingly rejected as a mere reflection into the past of the campaigns of later Assyrian kings.
It was while he "dwelt under the terebinth of Mamre the Amorite" that the campaign of Chedor-laomer and his Babylonian allies took place, and that Lot was carried away among the Canaanitish captives. But the triumph of the conquerors was short-lived.
We now know that long before the days of Abraham not only did Babylonian armies march to the shores of the Mediterranean, but that Canaan was a Babylonian province, and that Amraphel, the ally of Chedor-laomer, actually entitles himself king of it in one of his inscriptions. We now know also that the political condition of Babylonia described in the narrative is scrupulously exact.
This is followed by a name which is full of interest, for it reads Joseph-el or "Joseph-god." Pinches tells me that in early Babylonian contracts of the age of Chedor-laomer he has found the name of Yasupu-ilu or Joseph-el, as well as that of Yakub-ilu or Jacob-el.
The native princes of southern Babylonia resisted it, and the Elamites harried the country with fire and sword. In B.C. 2280 Kudur-Nankhundi, the Elamite king, sacked Erech and carried away the image of its goddess, and not long afterwards we find another Elamite king, Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer, claiming lordship over the whole of Chaldsea.
He was still "Abram the Hebrew," and it was as "Abram the Hebrew" that he made alliance with the Amorites of Mamre and overthrew the retreating forces of the Babylonian kings. Abram Abu-ramu, "the exalted father," is a Babylonian name, and is found in contracts of the age of Chedor-laomer.
It was a "kingdom-empire," like the empires of Solomon, of Nebuchadnezzar, of Chedor-laomer, and probably of Cyaxares, and it the best specimen of its class, being the largest, the longest in duration, and the best known of all such governments that has existed.
Whether there is any connection between the two facts we cannot say; but it may be that Eli-ezer had attached himself to the Hebrew conqueror when he was returning "from the slaughter of Chedor-laomer." The name of Eli-ezer, "God is a help," is characteristic of Damascus.
The Elamite king Chedor-laomer, or Kudur-Lagamar, as his name was written in his own language, must have been related to the Elamite prince Kudur-Mabug, whose son Arioch was a subject-ally of the Elamite monarch. Possibly they were brothers, the younger brother receiving as his share of power the title of "father" not "king" of Yamutbal and the land of the Amorites.
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