Ge 15:16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
So... what exactly was the iniquity of the Amorites?
"The Amorite is called Amar on the Egyptian monuments, Amurra in the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna. As has already been remarked, the name was applied to the district which lay immediately to the north of Palestine, and included the sacred city of Kadesh on the Orontes, which afterwards became a stronghold of the Hittites. ... A comparison of the head of an Amorite with that of a Shasu suggests that the second is a degraded form of the first. The pointedness of the nose is exaggerated in the
Shasu, and his receding forehead contrasts unfavourably with the profile of the Amorite; but on the whole there are certain resemblances between them which lead to the possibility that both are referable to the same original type. ... It thus becomes probable that
the blond Shasu of the Egyptian monuments were an Amorite tribe of nomadic habits who were on that account classed with the other
'Plunderers’ or Bedawin of the desert by the Egyptian scribes."
--Sayce, Races of the Old Testament, p.111, 113, 117.
And of course we see
the receding forehead of the Shasu in their Hittite ancestors.
"The Amorites also occupied the whole of the mountainous district of Syria and Palestine from the neighbourhood of Kadesh in the north to the desert southward
of Judah, and on the eastern side of the Jordan they founded the two kingdoms of Bashan and Heshbon. In the mountains of Moab and Seir they formed the aboriginal population, partially dispossessed by the Semitic tribes of Moab, Ammon, and Edom, and the name of
Horite under which they went in Edom is best explained as
meaning “white,” in contradistinction to the Semitic Edomite or “red-man.” A passage in the Pentateuch (Numbers xiii. 29) expressly states that along with the Hittites and Jebusites
they inhabited the mountainous region, while the Canaanites dwelt on the coast and the valley of the Jordan. That
Jebusite simply means a cross between Hittite and Amorite is clear from the statement of Ezekiel (xvi. 3, 4, 5) that Jerusalem, whose old name of Jebus gave rise to that of Jebusite, was born of
a Hittite mother and an Amorite father. The Egyptian monuments bear witness to the same “interlocking” of Hittite and Amorite."
--Sayce, The White Race of Palestine
So, apparently, the advent of the Hittites into Amurru and the intermixing of these two tribes is what made the iniquity of the Amorites come to the full... because the Hittites were warriors. The Amorites are the writers of Ugarit which spoke Hebrew. Clay writes of them in his books on the Amurru and the Empire of the Amorites, etc. In any case, the Shasu of Yhw is being discovered all over the web.
