Canaan

“ Canaan was dearer to the pious Israelites as it was God's inheritance than as it was their own, as it was the land in which God was known and his name was great rather than as it was the land in which they were bred and born and which they and their ancestors had been long in possession of. ”

“ ILLUSTRATIONS:
THE WOMAN OF CANAAN
Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ”

“ In all the sources of the Pentateuch the possession of Canaan is the goal toward which the whole history moves, from the call of Abraham to the last exhortations of Moses in the plains of Moab, and they must all have narrated, however briefly, the occupation of the country. The history of the conquest and division of Canaan is the subject of the Book of Joshua. ”

“ That is the difference between the life of a Christian who has, and one who has not entered into Canaan. In wandering backward and forward; going after the world, and coming back and repenting; led astray by temptation, and returning only to go off again;—a life of ups and downs. In Canaan, on the other hand, a life of rest, because the soul has learned to trust: "God keeps me every hour in His mighty power." There is the second difference: the life in the wilderness was a life of want; in Canaan, a life of plenty. ”

“ Again Canaan will become the glory of all lands, and Jerusalem the glory of Canaan. Here, again, after centuries of wandering, shall the throne of David find rest, and on it one of David’s seed, chosen and anointed of God, accepted of men, and served by the nations. Crowned and imperial Salem shall become the home of her long-captive sons and daughters. Israel and Judah shall meet together, and shall be one stick, one people, having one head, one throne, one city, one Lord, even Jesus. ”

“ There is a spiritual and eternal rest set before us, and promised to us, of which Canaan was a type; we are all (in profession, at least) bound for this rest; yet many that seem to be so come short and shall never enter into it. And what is it that puts a bar in their door? It is sin; it is unbelief, that sin against the remedy, against our appeal. Those that, like Israel, distrust God, and his power and goodness, and prefer the garlick and onions of Egypt before the milk and honey of Canaan, will justly be shut out from his rest: so shall their doom be; they themselves have decided it. ”

“ Canaan. There is something inexpressibly awful in the words respecting Canaan, and they are full of instruction respecting sin. They show what an awful thing sin is in the sight of God, and how superficial is man’s estimate of its guilt; for here is a whole race laid under a solemn curse in consequence of the sin of its head. As Adam brought a curse on the world, so Ham brought one on Canaan. The curse inflicted in that case was bondage, and the prophecy was that Canaan should be a servant of servants to both his brethren: i.e. to both Shem and Japheth. And now look at the fulfilment. ”

“ What are singing men and singing women to a heavy ear? The pleasant land is despised still. Canaan is not worth the scaling of a single wall, or an encounter with one Amalekite. The farm, the merchandise, and the wife, are made the captain to take us back, in spite of the invitations of love and the treasures of glory. ”

“ Canaan, the land promised to the fathers as an everlasting possession, with its costly productions, is a type of the inheritance bestowed by the Lord upon His church, and of blessedness in the enjoyment of the gifts of the Lord which refresh both body and soul. ”

“ Clear evidences of the divine purpose to be realized through the obscure peasant people who lived among the uplands of central Canaan are found in a study of the characteristics of the Old Testament world. It is indeed the earliest and one of the most significant chapters in divine revelation. Most of its area is a barren wilderness, supporting only a small nomadic population. The three fertile spots are Babylonia, Canaan, and Egypt. The first and last are fitted by nature and situation to be the seats of powerful civilizations, destined to reach out in every direction. ”

“ The chiefs of Israel returned to their settlements with a new sense of duty and peril; but Canaanite civilization had attractions, Canaanite women a refinement which captivated the heart. And the civilization, the refinement, were associated with idolatry. The myths of Canaan, the poetry of Tammuz [41] and Astarte, were fascinating and seductive. We wonder not that the pure faith of God was corrupted, but that it survived. In Egypt the heathen worship was in a foreign tongue, but in Canaan the stories of the gods were whispered to Israelites in a language they knew, by their own kith and kin. ”

“ The very geographical position of Canaan helps us to understand the Hebrews, and even to see how it was that in this land it was possible to nurture from such unpromising beginnings the wonderful development of religion that was to make this smallest of all lands one of the most sacred spots on earth, and this strange and limited people among the greatest contributors to the moral and religious ideas of humanity. ”

“ To every newly arrived Christian in Canaan is given the command, "Go forward and possess the land." To do this battles must be fought, giant foes must be defeated, and the greatest diligence must be practised. God promised ancient Israel to drive out all the nations of Canaan from before them, and that every place whereon the soles of their feet should tread should be theirs, if they would diligently keep all the commandments that the Lord commanded them, to love the Lord, to walk in his ways, and to cleave unto him. ”

“ When the Hebrews settled Canaan, they learned much from the earlier inhabitants of the land. Becoming farmers, they quite naturally fell into the way of worshipping the god of harvests, and other agricultural deities of the Canaanites. The "high places" are repeatedly spoken of, these being places where other gods were worshipped. When roused by danger, they renewed their covenant with Jahweh and returned to more careful performance of their part of the early agreement. ”

“ The name means "fisheries"—an appropriate one for a city on the sea, which must of course have been at first a settlement of fishermen. "Canaan" really is the name of a vast region, inhabited by a great many nations and tribes, all differing from each other in many ways, yet manifestly of one race, wherefore they are called "the sons of Canaan," Canaan being personified in a common ancestor, given as one of the four sons of Ham. ”

“ O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. 6 And the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds, and folds for flocks. 7 And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah; they shall feed there: in the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening: for the LORD their God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity. ”

“ A warning to send cold fear along the spine of any man who was raised in that isolated back-country, called Canaan, that lies between Tularoosa and Black River—to send him racing back to that swamp-bordered region, wherever the word might reach him. ”

“ The account of the posterity of Canaan, of the families and nations that descended from him, and of the land they possessed, is more particular than of any other in this chapter, because these were the nations that were to be subdued before Israel, and their land was in process of time to become the holy land, Immanuel's land; and this God had an eye to when, in the mean time, he cast the lot of that accursed devoted race in that spot of ground which he had selected for his own people ”

“ It was certainly not the true Canaan which they possessed, any more than one still possesses the beloved object while he embraces only his corpse. Where the Lord is not present with His gifts and blessings, there Canaan cannot be. It was just as the land of the presence of the Lord, that it was so dear and valuable to all believers.—From what has now been said, it appears that, as regards the historical reference, we need not limit ourselves to the times of the Old Covenant, nor dream of a return of Israel to Canaan to take place at some future time. ”

“ In the days of their rest and prosperity, when they should be masters of Canaan. We must not think that our religion is instituted only to be our work in the years of our servitude, our entertainment in the places of our solitude, and our consolation in affliction; no, when we come to possess a good land, still we must keep up the worship of God in Canaan as well as in a wilderness, when we have grown up as well as when we are children, when we are full of business as well as when we have nothing else to do. ”

“ Behold the people of Canaan, which are numerous, shall go forth in battle array against the people of Shum, and shall slay them that they shall utterly be destroyed; and the people of Canaan shall divide themselves in the land, and the land shall be barren and unfruitful, and none other people shall dwell there but the people of Canaan ”

“ As a punishment for this, the Lord gave them over to their enemies, so that they were repeatedly oppressed and deeply humiliated by the Canaanites, and the nations that were living round about Canaan. ”

“ When one arrives at Canaan today, he should immediately have a fine basket of the fruit of the land, and go to the church and tell preacher and people, that in the providence and mercy of God he has received a clean heart full of pure love, or in other words, he has been sanctified wholly. ”

“ Canaan was their inheritance; it was theirs by promise. God gave it to them and their seed, and they held it by grant from his crown, (Ps. cxxxvi. 21, 22) ; but now, "It is turned to strangers; those possess it who have no right to it, who are strangers to the commonwealth of Israel and aliens from the covenants of promise; they dwell in the houses that we built, and this is our reproach." It is the happiness of all God's spiritual Israel that the heavenly Canaan is an inheritance that they cannot be disseised of, that shall never be turned to strangers. ”

“ First came the influence of the superior civilisation of the subdued natives. Canaan had a comparatively flourishing agriculture and a more luxurious mode of living. The religion of the Canaanites was instinct with the various phases of land cultivation. ”

“ The Canaanites were Semites in speech, if not in blood. The language of Canaan is what we term Hebrew, and must have been adopted either by the Israelites or by the patriarchs their forefathers. Between the dialect of the Phoenician inscriptions and that of the Old Testament the difference is but slight, [pg 84] and the tablets of Tel el-Amarna carry back the record of this Canaanitish speech to the century before the Exodus.
In person, as we learn from the Egyptian monuments, the Canaanites resembled their descendants, the modern inhabitants of Palestine. ”

“ The Wilderness of Canaan is a wild, rough district bordering on the Jordan Valley, through which every pilgrim and home-seeker must pass before he finds his home site and settles down. Some pilgrims are fortunate in passing through it quickly, while others, coming under the spell of two old giants who live there, have a very hard time passing through. ”

“ For the geography and civilization of Canaan about 1400 B.C. we have valuable evidence in the Egyptian papyrus Anastasi I., which mentions Kepuna (Gubna, Gebal-Byblus) the holy city, and continues: “Come then to Berytus, to Sidon, to Sarepta. Where is the ford of Nat-’ana (? Nahr el-Kāsimīyeh, or a town) ? Where is ’Eutu (? Usu, Palaetyrus) ? Another city on the sea is called a haven, D’ar (Tyre) is its name, water is carried to it in boats; it is richer in fish than in sands.” ”

“ The Amarna texts make it clear that the inhabitants of Canaan during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries B.C. had a high degree of culture. While most people were probably illiterate, each community had its professional scribes who could write in at least one foreign language. Akkadian cuneiform, and not Canaanite, was the language of diplomatic correspondence between the city states of Canaan and the Egyptian court. ”

“ Their coming safely to Canaan rolled away the reproach of Egypt, for it silenced that spiteful suggestion of the Egyptians, that for mischief they were brought out, the wilderness had shut them in, Exod. xiv. 3. Their wandering so long in the wilderness confirmed the reproach, but now that they had entered Canaan in triumph that reproach was done away. When God glorifies himself in perfecting the salvation of his people he not only silences the reproach of their enemies, but rolls it upon themselves. ”

“ As to the customs, manners, arts, sciences, and language of the seven nations that inhabited the land of Canaan, they must, from the situation they severally occupied, have been very different. Those who inhabited the sea coast were merchants, and by reason of their commerce and wealth scattered colonies over almost all the islands and maritime provinces of the Mediterranean. ”