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unto Lasha.'* But the sacred historian informs us, that several Canaanitish families, in process of time, settled in the circumjacent countries. His words are:-'And afterwards were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad;' namely, beyond their original bounds, which he then proceeds to describe.

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The true situation of Sidon, the first born of Canaan, is clearly determined by the famous city of that name. The descendants of Heth, or the Hittites, the second family of Canaan mentioned by Moses, were planted in the southern division of the country.+ Moses informs us, that Sarah died at Hebron, and Abraham spake to the sons of Heth' about the purchase of a burying-place; and adds in a following verse, 'Abraham stood up and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth ;' which sufficiently proves their claim to that part of the family inheritance. The principal settlements of the Hittites were in the mountainous part of the country; for the Hittites are mentioned with the Jebusites as dwelling in the mountains.§

Next to the Hittites, in the same tract of country, and not less renowned for bravery, were planted the sons of Jebus, who seem to have been its original inhabitants.

The Amorites also dwelt in the mountainous region of Canaan, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Hittites and the Jebusites. The Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites,' said the spies in their report to Moses, 'dwell in the mountains.'|| The correctness of this statement was afterwards attested by Joshua (one of these spies) in the history of his wars;¶ and by his great predecessor, in his last address to the

* Genesis x. 19.

Bochart. Phaleg. lib. iv. c. 36. p. 304; Wells' Hist. Geog. vol. i.

p. 137.

+ Genesis xxiii. 7.

Numbers xiii. 29.

§ Joshua xi. 3.
Joshua xi. 3.

people of Israel, in which he calls the mountainous tract lying next to Kadesh-barnea, the mount of the Amorites.' * This nation seems to have occupied a considerable extent of country stretching towards the Jordan; for when Chedorlaomer and the confederate kings invaded Canaan, in the days of Abraham, they smote the Amorites that were in Hazazon-tamar, the same as En-gedi,† which we know from other parts of Scripture, was placed among the mountains near the river Jordan.

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The primitive settlements of the Amorites seem to have been about Kadesh-barnea, near the wilderness of Paran; for the sacred historian mentions them as a people which the tribes of Israel were forbidden to attack in war. This tract was therefore called emphatically the land of the Amorites, and Sihon, the king of it, is always styled Sihon king of the Amorites. The sacred writers mention another Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, which lay at some distance from Kadeshbarnea. Moses was informed by Jehovah, that the border of their inheritance should turn from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, and pass on to Zin; and the going thereof shall be from the south to Kadeshbarnea.' This Kadesh, near the wilderness of Paran, where the hosts of Israel encamped a long time, was the place whither the spies returned from searching the land of Canaan, and where, by their unbelief, they brought upon themselves, and the whole nation who gave credit to their report, the judgment of wandering forty years in the deserts of Arabia. But the Israelites came not to Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, till the last year of that period. From these considerations, it appears that Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran, and Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, were two distinct places, at a considerable distance from each other.§ † 2 Chron. xx. 2. Numb. xxi. 13; Deut. i. 4; Michaelis Spicil. part ii. p. 19. § Wells' Historical Geography, vol. i. p. 273.

* Deut. i. 7.

The Girgashite is the next family mentioned by Moses, who seem to have settled toward the sources of the Jordan. Here, on the eastern side of the sea of Tiberias or Galilee, stood the city of Gergesa; a name probably derived from the Girgashites.

The Hivite was planted in the country adjoining to Sidon, in the upper or northern parts of Canaan; for in the book of Judges it is stated that the Hivites dwelt in mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon unto the entering in of Hamath.*

These were the families that originally peopled the land of Canaan, and their relative situations. But the statement now made, must be understood only in reference to the first settlements of the sons of Canaan; for, in the lapse of ages, they intermingled with one another, or migrated to countries at some considerable distance from their allotted inheritance. Of all these families, the Amorite became the most numerous and powerful: they founded kingdoms on both sides of the Jordan, and frequently gave their name to any one or more of the other nations of Canaan.

The remaining families of Canaan, mentioned by Moses in the tenth chapter of Genesis, in the opinion of Dr Wells, most probably seated themselves within the true borders of Canaan; but in process of time, being dispossessed by the Philistines of at least the greater part of their original inheritance, they were obliged to remove their settlements nearer to one another in some parts of the country, or to leave their native soil in quest of other possessions. The descendants of these families, who were thus driven from the land of Canaan, or blended into one society by the hostile irruption of the Philistines, receive the general name of Canaanites from the sacred writers; because they could no longer distinguish them by their peculiar Thus, when the spies reported that the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwelt in the *Judges iii. 3; Michaelis Spicil. part ii. p. 21.

names.

mountains, and the Canaanites by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan ;* the meaning is supposed to be, the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; but the mixed descendants of the five other families, which can no longer be distinguished, and are therefore designed by the general name of Canaanites, dwell either in what is left them by the sea, or else, where they have since seated themselves by the coast of Jordan.†

Where these exiled or blended families that originally bore the names of the Arkite, Senite, Arvadite, Zemarite, and Hamathite, finally settled, it may be difficult to determine. In a subject so obscure, and of an antiquity so remote, we can only hope to approximate the truth. In stating the scanty hints which ancient geographers have left behind them, I shall follow the order of the inspired writer.

The Arkite, who is first mentioned by Moses, is thought to have settled about that part of mount Libanus, where the city of Acre is placed by Ptolemy and other geographers.‡

The situation of the Senite is supposed to be indicated by a city not far from the Arkite settlement, called Sin. The district where it stood still retained its name in the time of Jerome, who mentions the fact, though the city itself had disappeared by the ravages of war, in ages long anterior to the period when he flourished.

The memory of the Arvadite seems to be preserved in the little isle of Aradus, on the coast of Syria, whither, it is conjectured, the Arvadites fled for safety from the cruelty of their invaders. Bochart says they occupied an island on the coast of Phoenicia at the mouth of the river Eleutheros, and part of the neighbouring continent, where stood Laodicea and other cities.

* Numb. xiii. 29.

+ Wells' Hist. Geog. vol. i. p. 134, &c. Bochart, Phaleg. lib. iv. cap. 36, p. 305; Wells' Hist. Geog. vol. i. p. 140.

The Zemarite probably settled on the neighbouring continent, for geographers find a town on that part of the coast named Simyra, not far from Orthosia: and Eusebius expressly traces the origin of the Orthosians to the Samareans. The Jewish historian also mentions a city called Zemaraim, in the tribe of Benjamin, probably from some of the Zemarites that settled there, within the land of Canaan.*

The only remaining family is the Hamathite, or the inhabitants of the land of Hamath, often mentioned in the Scriptures, and whose principal city was called Hamath. This some understand of Antioch, an ancient and celebrated city of Syria, situated on both sides of the Orontes, about twelve miles from the shores of the Mediterranean; others of Epiphania, or the Lesser Hamath.+

But besides the sons of Canaan and their descendants, who were settled within the limits of the promised land, or in its immediate vicinity, several tribes and nations of different origin, fixed their abodes in the circumjacent countries, of which it is necessary to take some notice.

The sacred historian mentions a people under the name of Avims, whose settlements extended from Hazerim unto Azzah.‡ Azzah, in the opinion of all interpreters, is the same city that was afterwards known by the name of Gaza; and Hazerim is probably the same place that Moses, in the book of Numbers, calls Hazaroth, in whose neighbourhood the children of Israel had one of their stations, as they travelled through the deserts of Arabia.

These people were probably descendants of Cush; and in process of time were dispossessed of this tract of country by the PHILISTINES, descendants of Mizraim, who seized upon the country of the Avims, and the adjacent parts of Canaan lying on the Mediterranean.

* Bochart. Phaleg. lib. iv. cap. 36, p. 307.

+ Michaelis Spicil. part ii. p. 52; Wells' Hist. Geog. vol. i. p. 141. Deuteronomy ii. 23.

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