II.
THE CANAANITE CIVILIZATION.
Contemporary inscriptions and recent excavations make it possible to form a very definite conception of conditions in Canaan when the Hebrews crossed the Jordan. The dominant civilization was that of the Canaanites, the descendants of the Semitic invaders from the desert who entered Palestine centuries before the ancestors of the Hebrews. Naturally they settled first along the fertile coast plains that skirt the western Mediterranean. In later times these were known as the Phoenicians. As the population increased, the Canaanites pushed their outposts along the broad valleys that penetrated the uplands of Palestine. These valleys were especially fertile and attractive in the territory later known as Galilee and Samaria. The wide Plain of Esdraelon and its eastward extension, the Valley of Jezreel, cut straight across the central plateau of Palestine. The Plain of Esdraelon was the strongest centre of the Canaanite civilization. A few outposts were established in the Jordan valley, as for example, Laish, later known as Dan, at the foot of Mount Hermon, and Jericho, at the southern end of the Jordan valley. Only a few Canaanite villages were found along the more barren hills of Southern Canaan. There the peoples and civilization still retained the imprint of their desert origin.
Along the coast plains and across the great Plain of Esdraelon ran the main highways that connected the three earliest and most nourishing centres of the world's civilization: the Egyptian on the southwest, the Amorite on the north, probably between the southern Lebanons, and the Babylonian to the east and northeast. For centuries the Canaanites had absorbed the ideas, institutions, and culture of these stronger peoples. So fundamentally had the Babylonians impressed the Canaanites that practically all of the inscriptions coming from this early period are written in the Babylonian script. Even in writing to their Egyptian conqueror during the fourteenth century, the Canaanite kings of Palestine used this same Babylonian system of writing. The Amorite civilization had so strongly influenced the Canaanites that to-day it is difficult for the archaeologist to distinguish between the two. By certain of the Biblical writers the terms Canaanite and Amorite are used interchangeably. As early as 1600 B.C. Egypt, under the ambitious conquering kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, had overrun Palestine and for the next three or four centuries ruled it as a tributary province. The nearness of Egypt made its influence still more powerful, so that in nearly every mound and Canaanite ruin the excavator finds hundreds of reminders of the presence of the Egyptian civilization.
The Canaanites had long since left behind them the nomadic state and had developed a strong agricultural and commercial civilization. Their life centered about certain important cities like Megiddo on the southwestern side and Bethshean on the eastern side of the Plain of Esdraelon. Their cities were usually built on a low-lying hill in the midst of rich encircling plains. They were provided with thick mud walls, behind which the inhabitants felt secure from attack. Over each city ruled a petty king, whose authority, however, did not extend far beyond the surrounding fields that belonged to the inhabitants of the town. Generally these city states were independent. In many cases they were hostile to each other; and the long rule of Egypt had tended to intensify this hostility, for Egypt had depended upon this local jealousy to maintain its control. The diversified physical contour of Palestine likewise strengthened this tendency toward separation rather than unity.
This type of political organization favored the growth of polytheism rather than the worship of one god. Each city had its local god or baal, which was worshipped at a high place either within the city or on some adjacent height, while in the larger cities elaborate altars and temples were reared to them. These local deities were regarded as the gods of fertility which gave to their worshippers ample harvests and numerous offspring both of the family and of the nock. The principle of generation occupied such a prominent place in the Canaanite cults that in time they became exceedingly immoral and debasing. To secure the favor of their gods the Canaanites brought rich sacrifices to their altars and observed certain great annual festivals with ceremonies very similar to those later adopted by the Hebrews.
While the Canaanites were on a much higher plane of material civilization than the Hebrews, they ultimately fell a prey to those hardy invaders of the desert: (1) Because they were incapable of strong united action, and (2) because their civilization was corrupt and enervating. Courage and real patriotism were almost unknown to them even as early as the seventeenth century B.C., when the Egyptian king Thutmose III invaded the land of Palestine. Their strong walls and their superior military equipment, however, made their immediate conquest by the Hebrews impossible. This explains why the earliest account of the initial conquest, now found in Judges 1, is chiefly devoted to recounting the strong Canaanite cities which the Hebrews failed to conquer.