Heth (Bible)

Heth was the eponymous ancestor of the Hittites, a people mentioned frequently in the Hebrew Bible and in other ancient Near Eastern texts. He is identified as a son of Canaan, and therefore a descendant of Noah, according to Genesis 10:15. The Hittites, as descendants of Heth, were thus considered one of the Canaanite tribes inhabiting the land promised to the Israelites.

Biblical references to the Hittites often portray them as a powerful and established people. Abraham purchased the cave of Machpelah from Ephron the Hittite as a burial plot for Sarah (Genesis 23). This account highlights the presence of the Hittites in the land of Canaan during the patriarchal period. Later, King David’s soldier, Uriah, was a Hittite (2 Samuel 11), indicating their integration into Israelite society to some extent.

The relationship between the biblical Hittites and the historically attested Hittite Empire of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) has been a subject of scholarly debate. While the biblical texts suggest a Canaanite origin for the Hittites, the Hittite Empire was centered far to the north and spoke an Indo-European language. Some scholars suggest that the biblical Hittites were a smaller, related group or a remnant population of the larger Hittite empire that had migrated southward, while others propose that the name "Hittite" may have been applied to different groups at different times, or that the biblical Hittites were a different group altogether who were later identified with the more well-known Anatolian Hittites. The precise connection remains a point of ongoing discussion within biblical studies and archaeology.