2 Kings 7:6 - "For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots, and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host: and they said one to another, Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and the kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us.

Map of the Hittite Kingdom (18th - 14th Century BC)

The Hittites. The Hittites (children of Heth) dwelt in the land of Canaan during the time of Abraham in the Hill Country around Hebron and in the south. The Hittites were numerous and powerful and became a threat to Egypt and even Assyria. They even invaded Babylonia at one point but then mysteriously left. There has been much light shed on the Hittite Nation through modern archaeology. The Hebrew word for Hittite was "Khitti" and they were referred to by the Egyptians as "Kheta" and by the Assyrians as "Hatti", and the Hittites referred to their kingdom as the Land of Hatti. The Hittites were descendants of Heth, the Second Son of Canaan, the son of Ham. Canaan was cursed by Noah and therefore the sons of Canaan were also under the curse. After the Tower of Babel they settled in the mountainous areas of ancient Turkey (Anatolia) and northern Syria. During the time of Joshua there were Hittites living in the land of Canaan in the south near Hebron and west of the Dead Sea. Joshua defeated them but did not annihilate them:

Joshua 3:10- "By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite out from before you.

There is much debate regarding exact details about the Hittites, their history, the boundaries of their kingdom, their language, their racial origin and more.

The Hittites in Faussets Bible Dictionary. Descended from Cheth or Heth, second son of Canaan. (See HETH.) A peaceable and commercial people when first brought before us at Kirjath Arba or Hebron (Genesis 23:19; Genesis 25:9). Their courteous dignity of bearing towards Abraham is conspicuous throughout. As he took the Amorites as his allies in warfare, so he sought: from the Hittites a tomb. The Amalekites' advance necessitated their withdrawal to the mountains (Numbers 13:29). In Joshua (Joshua 1:4; Joshua 9:1; Joshua 11:3-4; Joshua 12:8) they appear as the principal power occupying upper Syria, between Israel and the Euphrates. The Egyptian monuments represent them (Sheta) as forming a confederacy of chiefs, Egypt's opponents in the valley of the Orontes, during the 19th and 20th dynasties of Manetho, including Joshua's time. Sethos I took their capital Ketesh near Emesa, 1340 B.C. Two or three centuries later the Assyrian inscription of Tiglath Pileser (1125 B.C.) mentions them. As the Philistines appear in Joshua (Joshua 13:3; Judges 3:3) predominant in S. Canaan toward Egypt, so the Hittites in the N. Their military power is represented in Joshua as consisting in chariots (1 Kings 10:29; 2 Kings 7:6). A hieroglyphic inscription of Rameses II mentions Astert (Ashtoreth) as their god. Uriah, the unsuspicious, self-denying patriot, whom David so wronged though of his own bodyguard "the thirty," was a Hittite, and showed the chivalrous bearing which Ephron the Hittite and his people had showed of old. The names of Hittites mentioned in Scripture, Adah, Ahimelech, etc., seem akin to Hebrew. (See HEBREW.) G. Smith has just discovered their capital lying about half way between the mighty cities of the Euphrates valley and those of the Nile. Their art forms the connecting link between Egyptian and Assyrian art. The name of their capital is identical with that of the Etruscans. This implies a connection of the Hittites with that people.

1 Kings 10:29 - "And a chariot came up and went out of Egypt for six hundred [shekels] of silver, and an horse for an hundred and fifty: and so for all the kings of the Hittites, and for the kings of Syria, did they bring [them] out by their means."

Also see: Hittites in the Map of the Old Testament and Ancient Hittite Ruins - Free Bible

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