Canaan The land of Canaan took its name from Canaan the son of Ham, who in turn was a son of Noah (Genesis 10:1,6). The territory stretched along the Mediterranean coast from Phoenicia (Sidon) in the north to Philistia (Gaza) in the south, and extended inland to the hills of Syria and the valley of the Jordan River (Genesis 1:10-19).
This was the land that God promised to give to Abraham and his descendants (Israel) as a national homeland (Genesis 1:12-7; Genesis 13:12-17; cf. Exodus 1:3-8; Exodus 6:1-4; Numbers 13:2,17). The land’s boundaries were more clearly defined some centuries later when the Israelites were about to take possession of it. The northern boundary went from the region of the Jordan’s headwaters to the coast. The southern boundary went from the Dead Sea through Kadesh-barnea to the Brook of Egypt, which it then followed to the coast. The eastern boundary was the Jordan River and the western boundary the Mediterranean Sea (Numbers 1:34-12). (For details of the physical features of the land See Palestine.)
The Canaanite people
In the time of Abraham many tribal groups lived in Canaan along with the original Canaanites. Many of these tribal peoples feature in the history of Israel’s origins and early development, but all were destined to lose their land to the Israelites (Genesis 1:15-21; Exodus 3:8; Numbers 23:29; See Amalekites; Hittites; Hivites; Jebusites; Perizzites; Rephaim).
The most dominant of the peoples of Canaan were the Amorites. They had settled widely and intermarried extensively with the Canaanites, till the names ‘Canaanite’ and ‘Amorite’ became general terms that people used interchangeably to refer to the entire population of Canaan (Genesis 1:12-7; Genesis 15:16; Joshua 24:3,18; See Amorites).
Conquest of Canaan
Though all the Canaanite peoples were religiously and morally corrupt, God gave them ample time to repent before he finally executed his judgment upon them. It was several hundred years from the time God warned of judgment to the time the judgment actually fell. Only when the Canaanites’ wickedness had gone beyond the limits that God’s tolerance allowed did God command the Israelites to destroy them and possess their land (Genesis 15:16; Deuteronomy 1:7-5; Deuteronomy 20:17-18).
When the Israelites conquered Canaan, they also conquered territory that bordered the Jordan River on the east and was occupied by the Amorites (Numbers 1:21-35). Two and a half of Israel’s twelve tribes settled in this trans-Jordan territory. This means that Canaan itself (i.e. the area west of Jordan extending to the Mediterranean Sea) was occupied by only nine and a half tribes (Numbers 1:32-33; Numbers 34:13-15). (Concerning Israel’s conquest of Canaan and subsequent history in the land See Israel.)