3.
“Behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession” (Deut. xxxii, 49).
In the twelfth chapter of Joshua is given a list of thirty-one kingdoms which were conquered by them. This was in the fifteenth century B.C. From this time forward they are represented as a mighty nation by Bible historians.
Rameses III. overran Canaan and conquered it between 1280 and 1260 B.C. The Egyptian records give a list of all the tribes inhabiting it. The children of Israel—the Hebrews—were not there. In the fifth century B.C., when Herodotus, the father of history, was collecting materials for his immortal work, he traversed nearly every portion of Western Asia. He describes all its principal peoples and places; but the Jews and Jerusalem are of too little consequence to merit a line from his pen. Not until 332 B.C. do the Jews appear upon the stage of history, and then only as the submissive vassals of a Grecian king.