Page 36 - Biblical Backgrounds

Conquering and Settling the Canaan (Joshua, Judges, and Ruth)

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The Jewish people lived as nomads as they traveled to the Promised Land. This means that they were
people who did not stay at one location for a long time. They would migrate from one place to another
in search of better pasture. They lived this lifestyle for about forty years in tents in various areas of
Mount Sinai. While they had been attacked on occasion during their wandering, they had defeated
these enemies.

Canaan had changed greatly since the days of Abraham. The land now had armed cities throughout the
region. “One day Abraham roamed at will, seemingly, throughout Canaan, but now the region contained
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kingdoms with well-defined territories.” They had developed alliances they would call upon to help in
the event of a foreign invasion. The Hebrews, if they still had around three million people as Voss said
they did when they set out from Egypt, were a formidable enemy. Yet the true fear was of the Jewish
God. This is especially the case considering the stories they had heard about the Hebrew God who had
brought Egypt to its knees 40 years earlier. In this section, we will examine some of the important
backgrounds to the conquest and settling of the promised land.

The Lesson ...

Ancient Mesopotamia and Abraham.

The location of the inhabitants of the Promised Land requires multiple levels of explanation. The biblical
reader must understand what the land looked like before and after the conquests. Before the
conquests, the peoples who inhabited the land had built up major defensive cities. Genesis 10:15-19
names the people groups in the Canaan area that descended from Canaan:

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“Canaan fathered Sidon, his firstborn, and Heth, and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the
Girgashites, the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the
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Hamathites. Afterward, the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. And the territory of the
Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of
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Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. (ESV)

75 Keith N. Schoville, “Canaanites and Amorites,” Peoples of the Old Testament World, edited by Alfred J. Hoerth
and others (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 167.
76 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Ge 10:15–19). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

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