Today let’s have a quick look at the 6-nation states God had called Israel to either destroy or expel from the Land of Canaan forever.
They are as follows…
The Canaanites:
The grandson of Noah who was cursed because of the sin of his father Ham who strolled into Noah’s tent when he was naked and drunk. The Tribe of Canaan was just one tribe among many living in the Promised Land although the whole land was named after them (in other words called “Canaan” before it became “Israel”).
The Hittites:
The Hittites were located where modern day Turkey is today and they were a very large and quite advanced civilization. They had established numerous towns sprawled throughout the land of Canaan and you may be surprised to know that they were NOT descended from Canaan. Nope, they come from the seed of Japheth…hence my guess is they were a bit Caucasian-looking.
The Amorites:
Okay, so we should all be quite familiar with this people group. The Amorites were the sworn enemies of Israel originally hailing from Mesopotamia. And guess which famous Biblical figure was an Amorite before God called him to leave his people and his land. If you guessed Abraham, BINGO! You got it!
The Jebusites:
The number one reason why you should know who the Jebusites are is because they were the original founders of Jerusalem way before the area came to be called Jerusalem. That’s right! This Canaanite tribe resided in Jerusalem before they were conquered by Joshua, a conquest later completed by King David.
The Perizzites:
Many scholars believe that the word Perizzite is NOT the name of any particular tribe or a city-state but instead was just a nickname used to refer to the many people groups clustered in the northern hilly areas of Canaan. Mention of the Perizzites in the Torah occurs when Jacob complained to his sons because of the crime of Shechem saying “You have brought trouble on me by making me obnoxious to the Canaanites and Perizzites, the people living in this land” (Genesis 34:30). Also in the Book of Exodus, Moses promises to the Israelites to bring them to the land of the Perizzites and the Amorites.
The Hivites:
Nailing down the identity of the Hivites is a bit more challenging. Why? Because there is zero mention of them outside the Bible. We have to rely solely on the Torah for information about them. We know from the Book of Genesis that they occupied the area near Shechem and probably didn’t carry much weight outside of that area. The King of Shechem whom Simeon and Levi (Jacob’s sons) killed was referred to as a “Hivite”. It could have just been a nickname more than some official name of a people group or nation-state.
Well there you have it folks!
The six nations who banded together to fight Israel…
…and…
…the six nations who God promised that He would utterly destroy.
Five of these nations were descended from the cursed line of Ham and one was descended from Japheth.
Now just in case you’re wondering…if Abraham was descended from Shem, why was he also an Amorite?
The answer is because Abraham was a descendant of Shem in terms of his blood line but… …he became affiliated with the Amorites via either intermarriage or he could have joined the Amorite Tribe by swearing a declaration of independence
You can read an earlier article I wrote about this topic by clicking HERE.
Oh, and by the way, it isn’t by chance that these particular 6 nation-states make an appearance here in the Book of Joshua.
Check out these verses from the Book of Exodus.
“Obey what I command you today. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land where you are going, or they will be a snare among you. Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles. Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Be careful not to make a treaty with those who live in the land; for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you and you will eat their sacrifices. And when you choose some of their daughters as wives for your sons and those daughters prostitute themselves to their gods, they will lead your sons to do the same.”-Exodus 34:11-16
So you can see that many, many years later, the Lord through Moses already made it clear that these people groups must be either driven out of His Land or be destroyed without mercy.
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