Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/632

 CHANAAN

570

CHANAAN

Cham's wickedness? Certain it is, that this curse, as well as the blessing invoked upon Sem and Japheth, was especially fulfilled in their posterity. The descendants of Chanaan were partly rooted out, partly subjected by the Israelites; and all the Cha- naanite races, as such, disappeared from the scene of liistory. Others have tried to solve the problem by critical methods. It was supposed that (ien.. ix, 20-27 was derived from a source in which Chanaan had taken the place of his father, Cham, and so was passed off as Noe's third son. It is as conceivable that in the original prophecy the name of Cham occurred, and that the Israelites, seeing the prophecy fulfilled, especially in the posterity of Chanaan, might have changed it to that of the son. But none of these critical conjectures has any solid foundation.

Quite uncertain, too, is the opinion which represents Chanaan as the youngest of Cham's four sons. It is based on Gen., x, 6: "And the sons of Cham: Chus, and Mesram and Phuth, and Chanaan". But this whole list of the descendants of Noe's sons is, at least in substance, ethnographical, and the order of succession geographical; hence an enumeration of tribes beginning with the most distant and ending in Palestine. In verses 16-20, therefore, there is question only of Chanaanite tribes, and they occupy the last place because they dwell in, or near, Palestine. Consequently it cannot be concluded from this that Chanaan was the youngest son of Cham.

The Land of Chaxaan. — With a few exceptions the Biblical writers seem to indicate by this name, at the least, the whole of Western or cis-Jordanic Palestine. It extends from the desert of Sin in the south to near Rohob and the entrance to Emath in the north (Num., xiii, 3, 18; cf. 22). A more accurate demarcation of the land of Chanaan is in Num., xxxiv, 3-12, and Ezech.. xlvii, 15-20. For though the name does not occur in Ezechiel, the identity of the boundary lines drawn there is not to be doubted. In either text the western boundary is formed by the Mediterranean, and the greater part of the eastern by the Dead Sea and the lower course of the Jordan.

The southern frontier coincides with that of the territory of Juda (Jos., xv, 1-4), whilst Cadesbarne (.lilt Kedis), 30° 33 X. hit., may be taken as the most southern point. From St. Jerome's time (In Ezech., Migne, XXV, 476—478) the northern frontier was placed in Middle or even Northern Syria. From this passage of St. Jerome even a fons Daphnis (Daphne near Antioch) found its way into the Vul- gate (Num., xxxiv, 11) instead of the town of Ain. But though some of the border towns are not yet known with absolute certainty, we may take for granted nowadays that this northern boundary- line of Chanaan must be drawn to the south of the Lebanon and Hermon, at about 33° 18' NT. hit.; and that it completely coincides with the northern frontier of the country conquered and inhabited by the Israelites, which, according to numerous quotations, stretched "from Han to Bershabee" or "from the entering in of Emath unto the brook of Egypt", The northern pari of the eastern boundary, however, seems to follow, not the upper course of the Jordan, Imt the course of the Rukk&d from H&n&r-'En&n (/■.'/-

Hadr) to ' Lwi r LyUn), so that here the whole of

Western Jaulan still seems to lie included in the land of Chanaan — not, however, the land of Galaad or •he country in general beyond the Jordan to tin- south of the Jarniuk. All the places (incited above agree with this conception, and only twice docs the name of the count ry Chanaan occur in a more limited sense: first for the l'hicnician coast (Is., xxiii, 11).

and secondly for the low land of the Philistines (Soph., ii 5) hut 1 1 in a time when only these regions along the coast! were still inhabited by Chanaanites.

We have already seen how the name was honoured

even later still in Phoenicia itself. In Egypt the name of the country seems to be used especially for the sea-coast; at the same time the name Chanaan- ites is also applied to the inhabitants of the moun- tainous country behind it. In the Tell el-Amarna letters the country of Kinahhi seems to include both the Phoenician coast and the mountains of Upper Galilee, and probably, farther to the north, the country of Amurri (Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon). Cf. H. Clauss, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina- vereins (1907). XXX, 17, 29, 30, 35, 36. 64. 67.

Gen., x, 15-18 enumerates as the descendants of Chanaan a series of tribes, most of which, and origi- nally perhaps all, were settled outside Palestine pro] ier, and up to Northern Syria: "And Chanaan begot Sidon, his firstborn, the Hethite, and the Jebusite, and the Amorrhite, and the Gergesite, the Hevite and the Aracite: the Sinite, and the Aradian, the Samar- ite, and the Hamathite: and afterwards the families of the Chanaanites were spread abroad." These lat- ter are the tribes peopling Biblical Chanaan or West- ern Palestine: "And the limits of Chanaan were from Sidon as one comes to Gerara even Gaza, until thou enter Sodom and Gomorrha, and Adama, and Seboim even to Lesa. " If we may identify Lesa (A.V. Lasha) with Lesem (Jos., xix, 47) or Lais (Judges, xviii, 14, etc.), the Dan of later days, the coast from Sidon to Gaza and Gerara is here indicated as the western boundary of Chanaan, and the valley of the Jordan from the Pentapolis to Lais- Dan as the eastern boundary. But the "Codex Samaritanus" has in verse 19 quite another statement: "And the border of the Canaanite was from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, and [from the Eu- phrates] to the hindmost [or Western] Sea." Appar- ently by "the Canaanite" are here meant all the de- scendants of Chanaan, mentioned in verses 15-18, of whom the Hethites, at least, lived close to the Eu- phrates. It is hard to decide which reading is the original one. Both show the descendants of Chanaan settled in the Biblical "land of Chanaan". i. e. the later "land of Israel". As a rule it is the pre-Israel- itish inhabitants of this "land of Chanaan", taken collectively, who are indicated by this common name of Chanaanites. Thus in the Pentateuch, especially in parts attributed to a Jahvistic source, as c. g. Gen., xii, 6, xxiv, 3, 37, xxxviii. 2, 1, 11. Elsewhere, however, chiefly in so-called Elohistic parts, the name of Amorrhites is used in the same general sense. And very often as many as six or seven, or even eleven, dif- ferent tribes or peoples are distinguished, one of which in particular bears the name of Chanaanites. Thus e. g. Exod., iii, 8: "The Chanaanite, and Hethite, and Amorrhite and Pherezite, and Hevite, and Jebu- site." Repeatedly (e. g. Jos., iii. 10), the Gergesites, mentioned above (Gen., x, 16), are added; and in (ien., xv, 19-21, we find "the ('means and Cenezites, the Cedmonites . . . the Raphaim also"; whilst in Num., xiv, 25, the Amalecite;inAV. Deut., ii, 23, and Jos., xiii. 3, the A vims; and in Jos., xi. 21 (and else- where), the Enacims are named, leaving out other older, and probably trans-Jordanic. tribes like the Zuzim, the Emim, and the Chorreans (Gen., \i\. 5,6).

Of most of these tribes little or nothing is known. For Amorrhites see article under that title. The

lletliiie. founded a mighty kingdom in Northern

Syria. 1 oi t it is uncertain whether their namesakes in the south of Palestine (Ceil.. x\iii. 3. wvi. 34, etc)

had anything in common with them besides the name. \1m.ui tin- Chanaanites in a more limited sense we

learn that they had their dwelling-place to the east

and west of the mountains, i. e. along the coast of the Mediterranean and in the valley of the Jordan and the Araha to the south of the Dead Sea i.N'uni.. xiii. 30, \iv. 25; Deut.. i. 7, xi. 29 sq. : Jos., v. I. \i, 3, xiii. 3). So it is by this name that the Phoenicians are still called in Abd., 20; and the "Syrophenician"