Canaanites

Canaanites, in the Old Testament, a name very frequently used to include all the heathen inhabitants of the country between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. In the time of the Patriarchs they appear a people in some degree civilised, cultivating their lands and living in towns; and by the time of Joshua their country was thickly peopled, and studded with walled towns, each under its own king. Their religion was a licentious worship of Baal and Ashtoreth, as the productive powers of nature. Their subjugation by Joshua was merely temporary, and it was only by degrees that they were made tributary. The northern tribes of Israel were largely intermixed with the Canaanite element, as is shown many centuries later by the name Galilee ('circle of the heathen'). The tenacity of the Canaanite race is seen from the fact that the fortress of the Jebusites (Jerusalem) was not conquered till the time of David, and that the remainder of the Canaanites were first reduced to vassalage by Solomon. According to Sayce, 'M. Clermont-Ganneau has shown that the present peasantry of Canaan are the descendants of the ancient Canaanites, partly of Semitic, and partly of non-Semitic blood.' In many passages of the Old Testament the name Canaanites has its more restricted sense, signifying one of the peoples of Palestine which dwelt on the low ground on the sea-coast to the north of Carmel—i.e. the Phœnicians. Hence it is that the word 'Canaanite' sometimes is synonymous with 'merchant.' See PALESTINE, PHŒNICIANS, HITTITES.