As the Scriptures tells us, Abram arrived in the country which we now call Palestine, a country occupied at this period by the Canaanites. Now in a phrase occurring shortly after the quotation given above we learn that YAHWEH intended in fact to 'give' the land of Canaan to Abram's descendants. It was a project of some magnitude. The Canaanites, with the formidable fortresses which here and there they had built for their defense, would not, it might be guessed, allow themselves to be dispossessed of their land and agricultural wealth by these wandering shepherds with their poor tents and their flocks, often reduced to skin and bone by reason of the droughts. No great pretensions to prophecy were needed to foresee a merciless struggle between these two civilizations of Canaan and Yisrael. A more dangerous and insidious conflict could also be foreseen at the spiritual level. Idolatrous customs, Canaanite rites, were accepted by the clan of YAHWEH's faithful subjects, thus corrupting the practice of the set apartness revealed to Abram, spreading their materialist and immoral tenets among the Yisraelite populace when they came in touch with the Canaanites.

Whence came the Canaanites? They can be regarded as an original branch, like all the Semitic tribes, from the Syro-Arabian steppes. Hence, ethnically speaking, if not in every way brothers, they were at least very near cousins of the Arameans, the group of wandering tribes, scattered over a large part of the Fertile Crescent, to which Abram's clan belonged. In about 3000 B.C. a group of these Canaanites settled on the coast where they set up a sort of maritime and commercial federation which was known as Phoenicia. Another party of these same Canaanites seized the mountain mass and coastal plains forming Palestine proper. In this connection Scriptural historians usually adopt the terminology of the Scriptures: the name of Canaanites is used only for the Semitic invaders who settled between the Yardan and the Mediterranean, in the country which was to serve as the setting for the history of Yisrael.

When at the beginning of the third millennium the Canaanites appeared in this part of the country they found there a few groups of Neolithics of various races. In fact, excavation has shown that some of these men of the stone age, especially at Gezer, cremated their dead, while at sites not very far away others buried the bodies, either straight in the ground or in vaults beneath cromlechs, menhirs or cairns. Some of these megalithic monuments still exist in fairly large numbers on the plateaux in Transjordania and, less numerous, on the same side of the Yardan. Yisraelite tradition attributed these huge constructions to a legendary race of giants known as Rephaim. Prehistorians are not of the opinion that these pre-Canaanite peoples were Semites. It may well be that they were Indo-Europeans.

In any case, from 2500 B.C. -that is five centuries after their arrival in the country -the Canaanites had practically eliminated these primitive populations (which in any case were rather thin on the ground) by destruction or assimilation.

The Canaanites swept into the country as a wave of warlike tent-dwelling nomads, though this formed no obstacle to their adoption of a settled way of life. Occasionally a tribe, attached to their pastoral traditions, desired to continue living in tents, looking after their flocks. But, generally speaking, the invaders seem to have chosen an urban or agricultural existence. They built strongly fortified cities, fairly far apart with farms raising stock and cereals around them to supply their food. Between these widely spaced cities the countryside was empty and the pasture land as yet belonged to no one. Abram's clan was to find in these great open spaces the opportunity to wander at will according to the needs of the flocks.

It must not be forgotten that the Canaanites were Semites. Far more than their Akkadian cousins, who adopted the Sumerian pantheon and worship, the Canaanites, even after they had settled down, remained attached to their primitive nomadic religion. They kept the gods of their ancestors, Semitic idolatry, the naturalist religion based on the characteristic sexual rites of Arabian religious practice.

As a result, Abram was not long in finding out that the proximity of the Canaanites with their idols constituted a real danger and that the Hebrews, adherents of the new faith, had to be protected against lapsing into the old religion of the desert. This was a constant peril. All these shepherds and slaves of Abram's clan were Semites with an inclination, by reason of their race, to be influenced by the innumerable deities publicly worshipped by the Canaanites. Moreover, for centuries to come the Yisraelites betrayed a marked attraction for these immoral and orgiastic forms of worship. We can understand that, for these primitive people of the steppes, the lofty and spiritual belief of YAHWEH, with no temples, statues or vivid rites, was less attractive than the sensual and spectacular ceremonies performed in the Canaanite sanctuaries, located generally on the sacred 'high places', near springs or at the mouth of mysterious caves.

Choice here was wide, There was Baal (the Master), the god of wind, of storm and lightning. Beside him his consort Asherah, goddess of fertility whose naked statue displayed, suitably emphasized, her female characteristics. Elsewhere we find EI (the Strong, the Powerful), another celestial being with his consort Ashtoreth (Ashera), often denounced by the Scriptural writers. Then there was also Adonis (Adonai, the Lord) a young god, of great beauty, the symbol of vegetation. At the end of autumn he was reputed to die, spending the winter hidden in the tomb and rising again in the spring, more attractive than ever. These were the principal Canaanite deities which assumed different names and attributes according to the cities in which they were venerated. Thus Anat and Ashera sometimes appear as kindly protectresses of reborn nature and some times as harsh viragos pleased by the horrors of war and living only for bloodshed and massacre. Their emblem was the lion, a bloodthirsty animal.

Around these important personages was a whole host of gods, borrowed from Mesopotamia and Egypt. All was continual movement, with constant transformation or combination. Following the locality a Canaanite deity could adopt another name, or even change sex. There was no lack of picturesque anecdote to explain the changes, the parentage of the gods together with their hates and crimes, and their adulteries and unbridled passions. As if to strengthen the basely material side of this religion the priests adopted human sacrifice and also, as in the Mesopotamian sanctuaries, the official institution of ritual prostitution.

Abram and later on his sons, the patriarchs, had to preserve from this moral contamination the men of their clan and move towards the faith of the ONE, the only, the invisible YAHWEH whose spiritual demands were far loftier.  

THE LAND OF CANAAN. Ancient Palestine

Smallness of the land of Canaan

It is quite a small country amounting to a little less than 10,000 square miles (if the territory east of the Yardan is included), smaller therefore than the state of Maryland in the U.S.A. and only a little larger than Wales in the U.K.

The four natural regions of the land of Canaan

There are four principal natural regions, dividing the country into parallel strips:

1. The coastal plain of the Mediterranean from the Wadi of Gaza (the modern Ghazzeh) to the last spur of the Carmel range.

2. Between the Mediterranean and the Yardan: the hills of the plain of Jezreel (or Esdrelon) continued to the south by the mountain masses of Samaria (or Mount Ephraim) and of Judaea.

3. The Ghor or valley of the Yardan.

4. To the east of the Yardan, between Yardan and the Arabian Desert, the mountain mass of Bajan, Gilead, Moab (in general the mountains and steppes of the modern kingdom of Yardan).

1. The coastal plain

From Mount Carmel to the Wadi of Ghazzeh is the low coastal region, rectilinear in shape (save for the Carmel spur). Along the whole line of coast is a fringe of sand dunes. To the east of these dunes a plain of rich soil brought down by the streams forms the richest region of Palestine. The climate is mild, the soil fertile, and there is enough water. As the east is approached the plain becomes increasingly drier. This is the corn-growing region and is also suitable for cattle rearing. The richness of the soil here forms a strange contrast with the poverty of adjoining Judaea.

2. In the north is Galilee, the land of hills, springs and forests. This pleasant region is formed by the two mountain masses with the fertile plain of Jezreel (or Esdrelon) in between.

To the south of the plain of Jezreel is the massif of Samaria (with Shechem), undulating country with abundant springs and rich pasture land.

To the south of the massif of Samaria is that of Judaea. The plateau stretches from the Hebron to Yerusalem; there are highlands with a harsh winter climate; it has few springs or streams but wells have been dug almost everywhere. There is little or no forest land and cultivation is difficult, but flocks of sheep or goats can find food on these steppes.

On the west between Judaea and the Mediterranean is the Shephala, the corn-growing district with abundant water.

To the east of the Yardan, the wilderness of Judaea (or Judah) slopes down to the Dead Sea.

To the south of Judaea is the Negeb, a dry, desert region.

3. The Ghor ('hole' or 'hollow')

This is the long rift valley stretching from the lake of Tiberias to the Dead Sea. Its lowest point occurs where it enters the Dead Sea, 1290 feet below the level of the Mediterranean. The Ghor is a desert through which the Yardan flows; but in the narrow alluvia! plain there is plentiful vegetation.

4. The plateaux of the east (Transjordania)

To the east of the Ghor, dominating the rift from a height of 3000 feet, a high plateau rises abruptly and then slopes down to the eastern desert. We can her! distinguish the three principal regions mentioned by the Scriptures:

To the north the land of Gilead, not unlike Judaea.

In the centre, Moab, which is fairly fertile.

In the south Edom, almost a desert.

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