Chapter III: The Entrance Into Canaan

=1. After the long residence= in the region of Kadesh the Israelites =took up their march= to Canaan. The generation now existing had been almost altogether born in the desert, and had been raised under the tutelage of Moses and his brother Aaron. Miriam, the sister, had undoubtedly added much to the influence which her brothers exerted by her nearer relation to the female population. The discipline had had its full effect during this long period, and there had grown up a vigorous and well-ordered race, totally different from the race that had left Egypt forty years before.

=2. It is probable= that during this long period =Moses had written= out much, if not all, of the Scriptures usually attributed to him under the title of “the books of Moses.” Although there is no definite statement in Scripture that all of these books, called the Pentateuch, are the composition of Moses, certain parts are spoken of as those of his personal writing. But of the five books the parts spoken of are only in the closing chapters of the last book, namely, Deuteronomy, and as the five have never been known except as forming one roll or volume, the general belief and tradition attribute the whole five to Moses as author. The impression that Moses was the author of Genesis, and that this book of Genesis was the beginning of “The Law,” is apparent in the writings of Longinus, the Greek author, A. D. 270, who quotes Gen. 1:3 as “the beginning of Moses’ law.”[66]

=3. The census of the nation= at this time shows that nearly 2,000 men had disappeared, and perhaps this lessening of the population was due to the deaths of the strangers and aliens who had become mixed in the vast crowd at the time of their departure from Egypt.

The first census was taken at Sinai in the second year after the crossing of the Red Sea, Num. 1:46, and was 603,550. The second census was taken nearly 40 years afterwards, just before the entrance into the promised land, Num. 26:51, and was 601,730, the difference being 1,820. The census included only the able-bodied men fit for war and over 20 years of age.

=4. Moses died= upon Mt. Pisgah without crossing the Jordan, Aaron died on Mt. Hor, and Miriam died at Kadesh. These leaders being dead, the authority to take charge was vested in Joshua.

MT. HOR, MT. NEBO, MT. PISGAH.

=5. Mt. Hor= is 45 miles south of the Dead Sea, having the ruins of the city Petra near its eastern base. Wandering Arab tribes control all access to these two places, but a small chapel marks the spot, according to tradition, where Aaron died on the top of the mountain.

=Pisgah= is supposed to be a high plateau ten miles east of the mouth of the Jordan, and Mt. Nebo a higher portion of the same general range, but it is at a short distance east of that part where the high table-land of Moab begins to descend to the Dead Sea. From this elevation very extensive views of the land west of the Jordan may be had.

THE ERA OF JOSHUA.

=6. From the high table-land= of Moab the Israelites descended to the eastern Jordan plains a few miles north of the Dead Sea, and soon crossed the river and landed upon the wide plain west of the banks. The crossing must have occupied the bed of the river for a long distance.

On entrance upon the land of Canaan proper the hosts of Israel renewedly consecrated themselves to the service of Jehovah at Gilgal. They accepted Joshua as their commander, and began their first attempt at subduing the Canaanites by an attack on Jericho.

GILGAL AND JERICHO.

=7. The first of these names= represents simply a gathering-place of the Israelites when the dedication of themselves to the Lord took place. Its position is supposed to have been at a place still called Gilgal, in the Arabic Jiljulieh, nearly three miles west of the Jordan and six miles north-northwest of its mouth. Jericho at this time was near the present Ain es Sultan, a very fine spring one and a quarter miles northwest from the present little Arab village called Er Riha or Jericho by travellers, and five miles west of the river. After its destruction at this time it was rebuilt B. C. 918, 1 Kin. 16:34, at the mouth of the valley of the Kelt, which is the ancient valley of Achor, and existed at that place in the time of our Saviour. The present miserable Arab village Er Riha and the tower near it were built during the crusades.

The name Gilgal signifies a “rolling” and also a “circle,” and probably the twelve stones taken from the bed of the Jordan were placed in the form of a circle, making the real significance more emphatic, but the true significance of the name is given in the passage, Josh. 5:9, as a rolling off “the reproach of Egypt,” as described in that chapter. There were two other towns bearing this name of which mention is made hereafter.

THE SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN.

=8. Jericho= was inhabited =at this time= by a luxurious people and one that evidently had profited greatly by the richness of the vast plain of the Jordan. The mention of the precious metals, “the silver and gold and vessels of brass and iron,” Josh. 6:19, the “goodly Babylonish garment,” the 200 shekels of silver, the wedge of gold of 50 shekels’ weight stolen by Achan, Josh. 7:21, and the references to Baal-peor in the historic connection, prove their wealth and suggest the nature of their idolatry. Recent historic discoveries show the cruelty and fearful depravity of the people with whom they were associated. They were therefore given over to destruction in accordance with the customs of that time.

The name Jericho seems to mean the “city of the moon,” a name given to the city because of the early worship of the moon at that place under the title Ashtoreth, which doubtless was derived from the earlier title of the Babylonian Astarte, the goddess of love. It was given about this time to a city in Bashan called Ashteroth Karnaim, meaning Ashtoreth of the two horns, Gen. 14:5.

CANAAN.

=9. This was the name= of the land which the Israelites were now to conquer. The name was well known to the Egyptians, and we find it upon the monuments in Egypt and in Assyria. A description of this land occurs in Egyptian records as early as the time of Thothmes III. (1600 B. C., Brugsch), also in the reign of Rameses II., “the Pharaoh of the oppression” (1350 B. C., Brugsch), and from these descriptions it is plain that the land was settled by numerous tribes who were well provided with the comforts of living.

They were not only numerous, but many of their cities were strongly defended by fortresses. The list of articles recovered by Rameses II. after his battles in Canaan bore testimony to the wealth of the people and to the luxuries of their times, for among many other articles were ivory, ebony, chariots inlaid with gold and silver, suits of armor, fragrant woods, gold dishes with handles, collars and ornaments of _lapis lazuli_, silver dishes, vases of silver, precious stones, brazen spears, etc., “the plunder in fact of a rich and civilized country.”[67]

THE AMORITES.

=10. The land of Canaan at the time of Joshua= was no barbarous or ill-defended region. In the assault upon the Canaanitish city of Dapur[68] by Rameses II. the standard of the Amorites appears hoisted on the highest tower of its citadel.[69] From the pictures of the Amorites upon the monuments in Egypt they were armed with the bow and the oblong shield, and used chariots of solid construction fit for rough ground, and it is probable that the “sons of Anak,” Num. 13:33, were a distinguished clan among the Amorites and not a distinct people.[70] They were selected for their size and strength.

THE HITTITES.

=11.= It has been only recently that the history of the Hittites has come to light. =The earliest references= to this people in secular history are those which are found in the history of Assyria. They are first mentioned in Scripture as the sons of Heth, Gen. 23:3, in connection with the purchase by Abraham of the cave of Machpelah at Hebron. But fifty-three years before that event the Amorites seem to have been an important tribe, and fought under the direction of Abraham the first battle recorded in Scripture, Gen. 14.

The tribe of Hittites grew to be a strong and remarkable nation of warriors, extending their conquests into Assyria and far into Asia Minor. Their name occurs in Homer[71] under the form of “Ketaioi” and in the Egyptian annals in the time of the great conqueror, Thothmes III., B. C. 1600, wherein it is recorded that he received the tribute from the “chief of the great Kheta,” or Hittites, which tribute consisted in gold, slaves, and cattle. Thus it appears that in a few centuries after the time when Abram bought the cave of Machpelah of the sons of Heth, B. C. 1860, they had become a great people. Before the Exodus they were the powerful rivals of Egypt.

=12.= Until recently =the expression in the book of Joshua= (1:4) that the land of the Hittites extended “from Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates,” seemed to be an exaggeration. But the recent discovery of the ruins of their great capital, Carchemish, situated upon the Euphrates, and the mention of another city not far off, namely Pethor, where Balaam dwelt, beside many remains extending far into Asia Minor, all prove that it was no exaggeration, but historic truth, which is recorded in the book of Joshua concerning their extended empire. They were finally conquered by the Assyrians, and their great cities, Carchemish and Pethor, captured, 719 years before the Christian era, and they never again rose to power.

The other Canaanitish tribes were unimportant.

THE LANGUAGE OF CANAAN.

=13. The discovery= in A. D. 1868 of the Moabite stone, at Dibon, the ruins of which city are twelve miles east of the Dead Sea, shows that the Moabites in that region spoke a language similar to the Hebrew.

The date of this stone is about 900 B. C. Its inscription is a remarkable corroboration of the history contained in 2 Kings 3.

Discoveries at Sidon, a Phœnician town on the Mediterranean, and at other places, show that a modified Hebrew was very generally the language of all the Canaanites.

=14. The pertinacity= with which the more devout and learned of the Israelites held to the Hebrew during the captivity in Assyria, and ever since amid all nations and lands, proves that they never forgot the language which Abraham spoke, but cherished it during their residence in the land of Egypt, and it is probable that before their entrance into Canaan they had entirely ceased to speak what little they knew of the Egyptian tongue. They were the more able and ready, therefore, to receive the ten commandments and all the rest of those laws which were written in the Hebrew. And, moreover, there could have been very little if any difficulty in their understanding the language of the inhabitants into whose land they had now come.

THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF CANAAN.

=15. The land of Canaan= was bounded on the west by the Mediterranean, on the east by the Jordan, on the south by the desert, and on the north by the mountains of Lebanon. This was the land of promise.

At Jericho the valley of the Jordan is a depressed plain about 850 feet below the Mediterranean, and the surface of the Dead Sea on the south is still lower, being 1,293 feet below the Mediterranean, so that from ancient Jericho to the Dead Sea, six miles distant, the valley of the Jordan falls rapidly.

Jerusalem is very nearly due west of the mouth of the Jordan, and is placed on the highest land, with the exception of the Mount of Olives, between the Jordan and the Mediterranean on that line of latitude, being about 2,600 feet higher than the sea.

=16. About 60 miles= in a straight line due north of the Dead Sea the Jordan issues from the Sea of Galilee, the waters of which were called, in our Saviour’s time, the Sea of Tiberias and the Lake of Gennesaret. The shape of the lake is oval, but broader in the northern half, its length north and south being nearly thirteen miles and greatest breadth about seven miles. Its surface is 682 feet below the level of the Mediterranean and the hills on the eastern shore rise to the height of the great eastern plateau of the table-land of ancient Bashan, which is 2,000 feet above the Mediterranean. The waters are fresh and abound with fish.

=17. In the times of Joshua= and of the early occupation of the land by the Israelites, the lake was called Chinnereth (Num. 34:11) and Chinneroth (Josh. 11:2), [_pron. Kin´nereth and Kin´neroth_], and a city of the same name existed on its western shore very near the present site of Tiberias. Traces of this ancient city have been recently (1887) discovered just outside the southern walls.

Ten miles north of the Sea of Galilee is a smaller reedy lake four miles long, which is supposed to be the “waters of Merom” (Josh. 11:5), but now known as Huleh by the Arabs. Into the northern end the upper Jordan finds its way as it descends from the lower parts of Mt. Hermon. The surface of this lake is seven feet above the Mediterranean, and extended plains are on the west and for several miles northward, beyond which the land rapidly rises into the mountains.

=18. The country is uplifted= midway between the Jordan and the Mediterranean and forms an irregularly broad mountainous ridge stretching from the far south to the borders of the plain of Esdraelon, called in Scripture “the valley of Megiddo.” This plain is the largest in Palestine and extends from near the Mediterranean on the west to a valley plain near the Jordan valley on the east, where it is called the valley of Jezreel. It is generally about 100 feet above the sea level, or 150 in its highest average level.

In various parts it has been the chosen battle-ground of several of the fiercest contests in Biblical and in modern warfare.

North of the plain of Jezreel the land rises again into the broken and irregular hill country of Galilee until the region of the Lebanon Mountains appears.