Canaan

Canaan ('low-land') was the name originally applied to the low coast-land of Palestine on the Mediterranean, inhabited by the Canaanites (strictly so called), as opposed to the mountain-land (cf. Numbers, xiii. 29); and in this original sense the name is still applied in Isa. xxiii. 11, to the Phœnician, and in Zeph. ii. 5, to the Philistine coast-land. Just as with the name Palestine (= Philistia) at a later period, the name Canaan became extended to the whole country, yet only to the part west of the Jordan, the part east of Jordan being contrasted with it as the 'Land of Gilead.' The people and their progenitor (Gen. ix. 18 et seq.) were named after their dwelling-place, the Hebrew use of the verb kana' (nikhna' = 'to be bowed, sunken, subdued') readily lending itself to a reference to the conquest of the Canaanites. See PALESTINE.