But with Gimil-Sin the strength of the dynasty seems to have come to an end.  Babylonia was given over to the stranger, and a dynasty of kings from southern Arabia fixed its seat at Babylon.  The language they spoke and the names they bore were common to Canaan and the south of Arabia, and sounded strangely in Babylonian ears.  The founder of the dynasty was Sumu-abi, “Shem is my father,” a name in which we cannot fail to recognise the Shem of the Old Testament.  His descendants, however, had some difficulty in extending and maintaining their authority.  The native princes of southern Babylonia resisted it, and the Elamites harried the country with fire and sword.  In B.C. 2280 Kudur-Nankhundi, the Elamite king, sacked Erech and carried away the image of its goddess, and not long afterwards we find another Elamite king, Kudur-Laghghamar or Chedor-laomer, claiming lordship over the whole of Chaldsea.  The western provinces of Babylonia shared in the fate of the sovereign power, and an Elamite prince, Kudur-Mabug by name, was made “Father” or “Governor of the land of the Amorites.”  His son Eri-Aku, the Arioch of Genesis, was given the title of king in southern Babylonia, with Larsa as his capital.  Larsa had been taken by storm by the Elamite forces, and its native king, Sin-idinnam, driven out.  He fled for refuge to the court of the King of Babylon, who still preserved a semblance of authority.

Khammurabi or Amraphel, the fifth successor of Sumu-abi, was now on the throne of Babylon.  His long reign of fifty-five years marked an epoch in Babylonian history.  At first he was the vassal of Kudur-Laghghamar, and along with his brother vassals, Eri-Aku of Larsa and Tudghula or Tidal of Kurdistan, had to serve in the campaigns of his suzerain lord in Canaan.  But an opportunity came at last for revolt, it may be in consequence of the disaster which had befallen the army of the invaders in Syria at the hands of Abram and his Amorite allies.  The war lasted long, and at the beginning went against the King of Babylon.  Babylon itself was captured by the enemy, and its great temple laid in ruins.  But soon afterwards the tide turned.  Eri-Aku and his Elamite supporters were defeated in a decisive battle.  Larsa was retaken, and Khammurabi ruled once more over an independent and united Babylonia.  Sin-idinnam was restored to his principality, and we now possess several of the letters written to him by Khammurabi, in which his bravery is praised on “the day of Kudur-Laghghamar’s defeat,” and he is told to send back the images of certain Elamite goddesses to their original seats.  They had doubtless been carried to Larsa when it fell into the hands of the Elamite invaders.