It was evidently near the upper Tenu, or
Rutennu, who seem to have dwelt on the hill country of Palestine. The
hill and the plain of Palestine are so markedly different, that in all
ages they have tended to be held by opposing people. In the time of
Sanehat the upper Tenu who held the hills were opposed to the Tenu in
general who held the plains; later on the Semites of the hills opposed
the Philistines of the plain, and now the _fellah_ of the hills
opposes the Bedawi of the plain. The district of Amuanshi in which
Sanehat settled was a goodly land, bearing figs and grapes and olives,
flowing with wine and honey and oil, yielding barley and wheat without
end, and much cattle. This abundance points rather to the hill country
near Hebron or between there and Belt Jibrin, as this south part of
the hills is notably fertile. The Tenu who came to defy Sanehat, being
in opposition to the upper Tenu, were probably those of the plain; and
the opposition to Sanehat may have arisen from his encroaching on the
fertile plain at the foot of his hills, as he was in the best of the
land "on the border of the next land."
The Egyptian was evidently looked on as being of a superior race by the
Tenu, and his civilisation won for him the confidence which many
wandering Englishmen now find in Africa or Polynesia, like John Dunn.
The set combat of two champions seems--by the large gathering--to have
been a well-recognised custom among the Tenu, while it exactly accords
with Goliath's offer in later times.
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