15. A very important fact should be noticed here. These Canaanites spoke a Shemitic language, but they were, as here seen, descendants of Ham through Canaan. Recent discoveries show that long before their settlement in the land of Canaan they are met with first in Southern Arabia, from whencethey made their way northward to certain islands in the Persian Gulf, their next resting-place being on the flat shores of the Persian Gulf at the mouth of the Euphrates. They then emigrated to the shores of Phœnicia, carrying the name Canaan, or, as they pronounced it, Chna, “the low-lying,” to their new inheritance on the shores of Phœnicia. Their associations were Shemitic and their language also, although they were by descent Hamitic.
The temples still standing in the times of the Romans upon the islands in the Persian Gulf were Phœnician,and the inhabitants claimed to be the original stock of the famous race of Palestine.[36]“Canaanite” in after times became the term used to signify a merchant or trader, from the habits of the people.[37]
16. The people of Heth, another son of Canaan, became in later times a very powerful nation, whose history has only recently been brought to light. Their name as Hittites has been found in the Egyptian records, from which it is shown that at one time, so early as that of Moses, they were sufficiently powerful to resist the forces of the king, Rameses II., of Egypt. On one of the Egyptian monuments they are represented as making a treaty with the Egyptian monarch which was as favorable to them as to him, B. C. 1333 (Brugsch).
17. Sidon, the city of that name, was early a fishing station of the Phœnicians on the coast of the Mediterranean west of the Lebanon Mountains, twenty-two miles north of Tyre. This place, now in existence, yet bears the name of the ancient son of Canaan.
18. The Canaanites were “spread abroad” over what is now known as Palestine, from Sidon to Gaza and Gerar, “as thou goest to Sodom and Gomorrah and Admah and Zeboim, even unto Lasha,” Gen. 10:19. Gaza is well known, being 150 miles southwest of Sidon and about two miles from the shore of the Mediterranean, and is now a town of 15,000 inhabitants. Sodom and Gomorrah are not certainly located, being by some supposed to have been at the south end of the Dead Sea, but by others at the north end. Neither of the remaining names can be identified with any known sites. But it is plain that the Canaanites occupied the whole of Palestine west of the Jordan and as far north as the Lebanon Mountains, the Arvadites and Hamathites extending beyond them more than 130 miles north of Sidon. See the map.
CHAPTER III.
THE DESCENDANTS OF SHEM. JOB.
1. The descendants of Shem are next given: (a) Elam was north of the Persian Gulf and east of the Tigris; Shushan was its capital in later times. (b) Asshur was the origin of the name Assyria. The Assyrian monuments show that Nineveh was built after Babylon, and that the Assyrians were a later people than the Babylonians and derived their literature from them, and also that they were a Shemitic nation. (c) Arphaxad was settled north of Assyria on the table-land between Oroomiah and Van. (d) Lud appears to be represented by Lydia in western Asia Minor, though at first it was a wider district. (e) Aram settled in Syria near the Upper Euphrates, and as far west as the Upper Lebanon Mountains north of Palestine, which we learn from the Assyrian inscriptions. The four children of Aram are Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. Uz is thought to be the district east of the Jordan known as the Hauran, parts of which are very fertile.This was the land of Job, and is reckoned in Arabia by Josephus.[38] The remaining three names are associated with the following lands: first, Hul, with el-Huleh, a region in Northern Palestine, at the head-watersof the Jordan; second, Gether, with the district of Ituræa between the waters of the lake el-Huleh and Uz; third Mash, with a site known as Maisel Jebel. But these identifications are only probable.
2. Arphaxad had a son Salah who begat Eber, whose descendants were the ancestors of Abraham through Peleg, in whose days “was the earth divided.” Peleg appears to have settled near the Euphrates, since a city named Phaliga once existed at the place where the river Chaboras falls into the Euphrates from the east.
3. The descendants of Peleg’s brother, Joktan, thirteen in number, seem to have found their early settlements in Southern Arabia and as far south as Isfor on the southeast coast, which is supposed to represent the Sephar of the text, Gen. 10:30.