Amorite

The Amorites were an ancient people known both from history and from the Bible. In the Bible they may also have been giants. Amos describes the Amorite as tall as cedars, and Og, king of Bashan, was also an Amorite king (Deuteronomy 3:8).

Amos on the height of the Amorite

Amos compares the Amorite to cedars and oaks.

Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.

Amos 2:9, KJV

The Amorites were an ancient Semitic-speaking people who appeared in western Mesopotamia (modern Syria and Iraq) at the end of the third millennium BCE. They played an important role in the history of the region in the early second millennium BCE.

Origins and expansion

The Amorites first lived in the Syrian desert. Around 2100 BCE, in a time of political instability, they began to move into Mesopotamia, and they came to dominate several important city-states.

The Babylonian Empire

The best-known Amorite contribution to history is the founding of the first Babylonian Empire by Amorite dynasties. The most notable Amorite ruler was Hammurabi (reigned c. 1792–1750 BCE), known for the Code of Hammurabi, one of the earliest and most complete written law codes.

Cultural influence

The Amorites strongly shaped the culture and politics of Mesopotamia. They were responsible for a number of advances in law, literature and statecraft.

Language

The Amorites spoke a Semitic language, but it has not survived in extensive written records. Their influence on language shows in Akkadian, which was widely used in Mesopotamia.

Decline and assimilation

After Hammurabi and his successors, the power of the Amorite dynasties began to decline. Over time the Amorites were absorbed into the cultures and societies of Mesopotamia and the Near East.

The Amorites in the Bible

In Genesis 15:16, God tells Abram (Abraham) that his descendants will return to Canaan in the fourth generation.

But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.

Genesis 15:16, KJV

In Exodus 3:8 and 3:17, the land promised to the Israelites, a land “flowing with milk and honey,” includes the land of the Amorites among other peoples.

In Numbers 13:29, the Israelite spies report where the peoples of Canaan live. The Amorites live in the mountains, while the Amalekites live in the south.

The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.

Numbers 13:29, KJV

Numbers 21:21-31 tells of Israel’s conflict with Sihon, king of the Amorites. The Israelites asked to pass through his land, but Sihon refused and was defeated in battle.

Deuteronomy 1:44: chased as bees do

Moses recalls how the Amorites of the mountain drove the Israelites back.

And the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah.

Deuteronomy 1:44, KJV

Deuteronomy 3:2-11 describes the defeat of Og, king of Bashan, one of the last of the Rephaim, who is described as an Amorite king.

For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man.

Deuteronomy 3:11, KJV

In Joshua 10:5-6 and 10:12-14, the five Amorite kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish and Eglon join forces against Gibeon, whose people had made peace with Israel. This leads to the great battle in which Joshua famously commands the sun to stand still.

Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it.

Joshua 10:5, KJV

In Judges 1:34-36, the Amorites force the tribe of Dan into the mountains and do not let them come down to the valley.

In Ezekiel 16:3 and 16:45, Jerusalem is described in a metaphor: its father was an Amorite and its mother a Hittite.

And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother an Hittite.

Ezekiel 16:3, KJV

In Amos 2:9-10, God reminds Israel that he destroyed the Amorites, who were as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks, before Israel took the land of Canaan.