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UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

THE HISTORY OF THE CANAANITES AND

PHILISTINES.

SECT. I.

The History of Canaan.

UNDER the general denomination of Canaan.

ites are included the seven nations, distinguished in scripture by the names of Hittites, Je. busites, Amorites, Girgasites, Hivites, Perizzites, and Canaanites, property so called. They appear to have laboured in a particular manner under the evil influence of the curse denounced against their progenitor, Canaan; being doomed in the end to subjection, expulsion, or extirpation: and were, in all probability, subdivided into many little kingdoms; since we read of thirty-one Canaanitish kings, who were subdued by the victorious arms of Joshua.

With respect to customs, manners, arts, sciences, and language, these nations may be supposed to have differed widely from each other, according to the different courses of life, which naturally resulted from their respective situations. Tho e who resided on the seacoasts were merVOL. II. chants,

B

chants, in which capacity they will be considered when spoken of as Phoenicians, for by that name they were afterward known to the Greeks. The others, who had an inland situation, were partly employed in rural avocations, and partly in the exercise of arms. Those who resided in the

walled cities and fixed abodes, cultivated the land; and those who wandered about, grazed cattle, or carried arms; so that it is easy to discern among them the several distinct classes of merchants, artificers, soldiers, shepherds, and husbandmen. It is also sufficiently obvious, that they were well appointed for war; that their towns were well fortified, and themselves well supplied with military weapons; that they were enterprising, obstinate, and almost invincible; and by no means deficient in craft or policy.

Their religion seems to have been undefiled to the days of Abraham, who acknowledged Melchisedek as a priest of the most high God: but after this period they degenerated apace; and in the days of Moses were become incorrigible idolaters; for he strictly enjoined the Israelites not to intermarry with them, but to "destroy their altars, overthrow their images, cut down their groves, and smite them without mercy." They are said to have compelled their children to pass through fire to the idol Moloch; to have contaminated their altars with human sacrifices; and to have abandoned themselves entirely to the gratification of their impure desires. Of their government nothing more can be said, than that they were comprehended in a great number of states under subjection to chiefs or kings; and that all their business was transacted in popular assemblies.

The

The beginning of their history is extremely dark, and much encumbered with the hypotheses of the learned, who have contemplated their antiquities. They are supposed, upon the increase of their families, to have possessed themselves of the Arabian side of Egypt; and there to have erected a kingdom coeval with that of Mizraimn. But the incongruity, which subsisted between their customs and those of the Egyptians, occasioned some fierce contentions, which terminated in their total expulsion.

B.C.

The first authentic account of this people applies to the inhabitants of the 1912. vale of Siddim, who were invaded by

Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and reduced to pay an annual tribute. Thirteen years after their subjugation they revolted, and determined to dispute their rights with the conqueror; but their effort proved unsuccessful, and they were chastised with the most exemplary rigour. At this time Lot was taken captive, and rescued by his kinsman Abraham.

B. C.

No further mention is made of their concerns during the space of fifteen years; 1897. but at length a terrific judgment was executed on the inhabitants of Siddin, in consequence of their gross impiety and uncleanness. Four cities of this fertile and pleasant vale, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, were at once destroyed by fire and brimstone; and the whole tract of country in their vicinage was consumed, and became the Dead sea, or lake Asphaltites.

After this destruction of one branch of the Canaanites, with their whole territory, except the city of Bela, the Hittites treated with Abrabam respecting the cave of Machpelah, and their behaviour

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behaviour towards that patriarch merits our warmest approbation.

B. C.

Nothing material occurs after this trans1734. action, for the space of one hundred and

twenty-eight years, when Hamor, king of Shechem, sold a piece of ground to Jacob: and Dimah, the daughter of that patriarch, enflamed Shechem, the son of Hamor, with the most ardent and ungovernable passion; in consequence of which, he violated her chastity, and brought that dreadful massacre upon his unfortunate subjects, which is circumstantially detailed in the thirty-fourth chapter of the book of Genesis.

When Moses first advanced towards the borders of the promised land, the Canaanites in the south-eastern parts of the country united with the Amalekites, to impede the progress of Israel; but they were eventually unsuccessful, though permitted to repulse such of the chosen people as attempted to enter their territory against the express decree of God. Arad was king in the south-eastern part of Canaan, when Moses had a second time advanced to the frontiers. He went out against the invaders, and took many of them prisoners; but he was afterward completely vanquished, and his country utterly destroyed.

Sihon, the Amorite, residing in the ancient country of the Moabites and Ammonites, being requested to grant a free passage through his country to the Israelites, marched out to oppose them but he sustained an overthrow at Jaazer, which was attended with the loss of all his pos

sessions.

B. C.

Og, king of Bashan, is reckoned among 1452. the sovereigns of the Amorites: he was of the race of giants, and had an iron bedstead

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