"... The Hittites were a very real power. Not very many centuries before the age of they had contested the empire of Western Asia with the Egyptians, and though their power had waned in the days of they were still formidable enemies and useful allies. They were still worthy of comparison with the divided kingdom of Egypt, and infinitely more powerful than that of . But we hear no more about them in the subsequent records of the Old Testament. The age of Hittite supremacy belongs to an earlier date than the rise of the monarchy in Israel; earlier, we may even say, than the Israelitish conquest of ."