The Babylonian conquests introduced into Canaan the government and law, the writing and literature, of Babylonian civilisation.  The Babylonian language even made its way to the west, and was taught, along with the script, in the schools which were established in imitation of those of Chaldaea.  Babylonian generals and officials lived in Palestine and administered its affairs, and an active trade was carried on between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean coast.  The trade-road ran through Mesopotamia past the city of Harran, and formed a link between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.

From an early date libraries had existed in Babylonia stored with the literature of the country.  Similarly, libraries now grew up in “the land of the Amorites,” and the clay tablets with which they were filled made known to the west the legends and records of Chaldaea.  Amorite culture was modelled on that of Babylonia.

Babylonian influence lasted for centuries in western Asia.  In the age of Abraham the Amorites still obeyed the suzerainty of the Babylonian kings.  Khammurabi, the Amraphel of the Book of Genesis, calls himself king of the country of the Amorites as well as of Babylon, and his great-grandson does the same.  At a later date Babylonia itself was conquered by a foreign line of kings, and Canaan recovered its independence.  But this was of no long duration.  Thothmes iii., of the Eighteenth Egyptian dynasty (B.C. 1503-1449), made it a province of Egypt, and the Amorites were governed by Egyptian prefects and commissioners.  The cuneiform tablets found at Tel el-Amarna in Upper Egypt give us a vivid picture of its condition at the close of the Eighteenth dynasty.  The Egyptian power was falling to pieces, and Palestine was threatened by Hittite invaders from the north.  The native governors were fighting with one another or intriguing with the enemies of Egypt, while all the time protesting their loyalty to the Pharaoh.  Ebed-Asherah and his son Aziru governed the Amorites in the north, and the prefect of Phoenicia sends bitter complaints to the Egyptian court of their hostility to himself and their royal master.  Aziru, however, was an able ruler.  He succeeded in clearing himself from the charge of complicity with the Hittites against whom he had been sent, as well as in getting the better of his Phoenician rival.  The latter disappears from history, while the Amorites are allowed to settle undisturbed in Zemar and other cities of inland Phoenicia.

Under Ramses ii. of the Nineteenth dynasty, Canaan still yielded a reluctant obedience to Egypt.  In the troubles which had followed the fall of the Eighteenth dynasty, it had shaken itself free from foreign authority, but had been reconquered by Seti I., the father of Ramses.  Egyptian authority was re-established even on the eastern side of the Jordan; but it did not continue for long.  Ramses was hardly dead before Egypt was invaded by Libyans from the west and robber hordes from the Greek seas, and though the invasion was ultimately beaten back, its strength had been exhausted in the struggle.  The Egyptian empire in Canaan passed away for ever, and the Canaanites were left free to govern themselves.