Judges 18:7

Then the five men departed, continuing their scouting expedition, and came to Laish, in the extreme northern part of Canaan, east of the headwaters of Jordan, and saw the people that were therein, who belonged to the Canaanitish tribes of Northern Palestine, how they dwelt careless, after the manner of the Zidonians, to whom they were probably related, quiet and secure, concerned chiefly with commercial interests and not given to warlike enterprises; and there was no magistrate in the land that might put them to shame in any thing, no hereditary ruler to oppress them in any respect, no conqueror, no tyrant, bothered them; and they were far from the Zidonians, their city may have been a colony of Zidon, but they were so far from the coast of the Mediterranean that assistance from there could hardly be expected, and had no business with any man, they had entered neither into an offensive nor a defensive alliance with any of the neighboring cities. They hurt no man, and therefore did not expect to be hurt by any one, although they belonged to the nations whom the children of Israel had been commanded to exterminate.