The plains which thus appear to have been in pos- session of the Canaanites, specially so called, were not only of great extent ; they were also the richest and most important parts of the country, and it is not un- likely that this was one of the reasons why —
2. The name "Canaanite" is also applied as a gen- eral name for the non-Israelite inhabitants of the land, as we have already seen was the case with " Canaan." Instances of this are Gen. xii, 6 ; Num. xxi, 3, where the name is applied to dwellen in the south, who in xiii, 29, are called Amalekites ; Judg. i, 10, with which comp. Gren. xiv, 18, and xiii, 18, and Josh, x, 5, where Hebron, the highest land in Palestine, is stated to be Amorite; and Gen. xiii, 12, where the **land of Ca- naan" is distinguished frx>m the very Jordan Valley it- self. See also Gen. xxiv, 8, 87 ; oomp. xxviii, 2, 6 ; Exod. xiii, 11 ; comp. 6. But in many of its occurs rences it is difficult to know in which category to place the word. Thus, in Gen. i, 1^: if the floor of Atad was at Bethhogla, close to the west side of the Jordan, "the Canaanites" must be intended in the narrower and stricter sense ; but the expression " inhabitants of the land" appears as if intended to be more general. Again, in Gen. x, 18, 19, where some believe the tribe to be intended, Gesenins takes it to apply to the whole of the Canaanite nations. But in these and other sim- ilar instances, allowance must surely be made for the different dates at which the various records thus com- pared were composed ; and, besides this, it is diflicult to estimate how accurate a knowledge the IsraeliteB may have possessed of a set of petty nations, from whom they had been entirely removed for four hundred years, and with whom they were now again thought into contact only that they might exterminate them as soon as possible. Again, before we can solve such questions, we ought aXao to know more than we do of the usages and circumstances of people who differed not only fh>m ourselves, but also possibly in a mate- rial degree firom the Orientals of the present day. The tribe who possessed the ancient diy of Helvon, be- sides being, as shown above, called interehangeably Canaanites and Amorites, are in a third passage (Gen. xxiii) called the children of Heth, or Hittites (comp. also xxvii, 46, with xxviii, 1, 6). The Canaanites
CANAANTTE
66
CANAANITE
vho wen dwelling in the Und of the sonih when the Imelites ihade their attack on it may have been driven to these higher and more barren grounds by some other tribes, possibly by the Philistines who displaoed the Avites, also dwellers in the low country (Deut. ii, 28). See Kurtz, Hiat, of the Old Covenant, voL i, § 45.— Smith, Diet, s. v.
III. StMiory of the CamianUuk' Raee.-^TYui Israel- ites were delivered from Egypt under Moses, in order that they might take poseession of the land which God had promised to their fathers. This country was then inhabited by the descendants of Canaan, as described above. These nations, and especially the six or seven flo fireqnently mentioned by name, the Israelites were eommanded to dispossess and utterly to destroy (Exod. niii, 28; Num. xxiuii, 58; Deut. xx, 16, 17). The destruction, however, was not to be accomplished at once. The promise on the part of God was that he would ** put out those nations by little and little," and the command to the Israelites corresponded with it; the reason given being ** lest the beasts of the field in- oesse upon thee" (Exod. xxiii, 29 ; Deut. vH, 22).
The destructive war commenced with an attack on the Israelites by Arad, king of the Canaanites, which issued in the destruction of several cities in the ex- treme south of Palestine, to which the name of Hor- mah was given (Num. xxi, 1-3). The Israelites, how- ever, did not follow up this victory, which was simply the consequence of an unprovoked assault im them ; but turning back, and compassing the land of Edom, they attempted to pass through the country on the other side of the Jordan, inhabited by a tribe of the Amorites. Their pfissage being reftised, and an at- tack made on them by Sihon, king of the Amorites, they not only forced their way through his land, but detizoyed its inhabitants, and, proceeding onward to- ward the adjoining kingdom of Bashan, they in like mamier destroyed the inhabitants of that district, and slew Og, their king, who was the last of the Rephaim, or giants (Deut. ill, 11). The tract of which they thus benme possessed was subsequently allotted to the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and the half tribe of Ma- nasseh. See Exode.
After the death of Moses, the Israelites crossed the Jordan, and« under the conduct of Joshua, took pos- aeasion of the greater part of the Promised Land, and destroyed its inhabitants. Several ciUes, however, still held out, particularly Jebus, afterward Jerusalem, which was not taken till the time of David (2 Sam. T, 6), and Sidon, which seems never to have yielded to the tribe of Asher, to whom it was nominally allotted (Jodg. ], 81). Scattered portions also of the Canaan- itish nations escaped,* and were frequently strong enough to harass, though not to dispossess, the Israel- ites. The inhabitants of Gilieon, a tribe of the Hi- rites, made peace by stratagem, and thus escaped the destruction of their fellow-countrymen. Individuals from among the Canaanites seem, in later times, to have united themselves, in some way, to the Israel- ites, and not only to have lived in peace, but to have been capable of holding places of honor and power : thus Uriah, one of David*s captains, was a Hittite (1 Cfanm. xi, 41). In the time of Solomon, when the kmgdom had attained its highest glory and greatest power, all the remnants of tiiese nations were made tribotary, and bond-service was exacted from them (1 Kings ix, 20). The Girgaahites seem to have been either wholly destroyed or absorbed in other tribes. We find no mention of them subsequent to the book of Joehna; and the opbnion that the Gergesenes, or Gadarenes, in the time of our Lord, were their de- ■oeudants, has little evidence, except the simUarity of names, to support it (RosenmQller, Scholia in Gen, X, 16 ; Belaud, Paltsstma, i, 27, p. 138). The Anakites were completely destroyed by Joshua except in three cities, Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod (Josh, xi, 21-23) ; and the powerful nation of the Amalekites, many times de- IL— E