An Article in our Ongoing Series:
Canaanite Genocide.
Moral Problems with the Bible.
http://www.britam.org/canaan/Canaan1.html
Contents:
1. Three Reasons why the Israelites Could Not Drive Out the Canaanites At Once.
2. The Commandment to Destroy the Canaanites:
What Does the Law Say? Maimonides.
3. The Amorites.
4. Sexual Immorality Associated with Canaanites and Egyptians!
5. Amorite Practices to Became the Accepted Norms in the USA!
6. Amorites and Canaaanites (as well as Israelites?) in Africa.
7. A Few Relevant Verses.
8. Parallels with the Palestinians of Today.
9. The Reason was to Keep Israel from Sin!
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1. Three Reasons why the Israelites Could Not Drive Out the Canaanites At Once.
See the Brit-Am Commentary (BAC) to Genesis 15:16:
http://britam.org/Genesis/Gen12to17LechLacha.html
1. The iniquity of the Canaanites (Amorites) was not yet complete (Genesis 15:16).
2. To Teach the Israelites WAR (Judges 3:2).
3. In order that the land not become a waste the Amorites were to be left in their cities until the Israelites become numerous enough to occupy all of the area (Deuteronomy 7:22).
2. The Commandment to Destroy the Canaanites:
What Does the Law Say?
Maimonides
83. Kings and Their Wars - Melachim u-Milchamoseihem
http://www.torah.org/learning/halacha-overview/chapter83.html
We are commanded to destroy the seven nations of Canaan and it is forbidden to let any Canaanite live, as it says "[But from the cities of these nations...] you shall not let any soul live; for you shall destroy them... [in order that they do not teach you to imitate all their abominations]" [Deut. 20:16-18].
It is forbidden to forget the evil deeds of Amalek; we are commanded to remember them and to destroy all trace of him, as it says "Remember what Amalek did to you... you shall wipe out the memory of Amalek... you shall not forget" [Deut. 25:17,19].
However, if these nations accept peace terms they are not to be killed. Before declaring war we are commanded to offer peace terms, as it says "When you approach a city to make war on it you must call out to it regarding peace" [Deut. 20:10]
(We are forbidden to do this with Ammon and Moab, as it says "You shall not seek their peace or welfare" [Deut. 23:7]; but if they make peace with us we accept it.)
3. The Amorites
The Amorites (-Proper) possessed the Land east of the Jordan as well as some of the territory to the west of it.
Sometimes the term "Amorite" is used as a generic name for all the Canaanites.
Deuteronomy 2:
32 Then Sihon and all his people came out against us to fight at Jahaz. 33 And the LORD our God delivered him over to us; so we defeated him, his sons, and all his people. 34 We took all his cities at that time, and we utterly destroyed the men, women, and little ones of every city; we left none remaining.
Deuteronomy 3:
3 So the LORD our God also delivered into our hands Og king of Bashan, with all his people, and we attacked him until he had no survivors remaining. 4 And we took all his cities at that time; there was not a city which we did not take from them: sixty cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. 5 All these cities were fortified with high walls, gates, and bars, besides a great many rural towns. 6 And we utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city.
Amos 2:
9 Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them,
Whose height was like the height of the cedars,
And he was as strong as the oaks;
Yet I destroyed his fruit above
And his roots beneath.
10 Also it was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt,
And led you forty years through the wilderness,
To possess the land of the Amorite.
Archaeologist have found much evidence of what they consider to be Amorites in Ancient Mesopotamia.
The term Amor was a name used in Egypt and Akkadian (Assyria and Babylon) for the Land of the Amorites and Amurru for the Amorites themselves.
Later it seems these terms could also be applied to Israelites.
Amorite
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorite#
Biblical_Amorites
The Biblical Amorites seem to have originally occupied the region stretching from the heights west of the Dead Sea (Gen. 14:7) to Hebron (13:8; Deut. 3:8; 4:46-48), embracing "all Gilead and all Bashan" (Deut. 3:10), with the Jordan valley on the east of the river (4:49), the land of the "two kings of the Amorites," Sihon and Og (Deut. 31:4; Josh. 2:10; 9:10). Both Sihon and Og were independent kings. These Amorites seem to have been linked to the Jerusalem region, and the Jebusites may have been a subgroup of them. The southern slopes of the mountains of Judea are called the "mount of the Amorites" (Deut. 1:7, 19, 20).
Five kings of the Amorites were first defeated with great slaughter by Joshua (10:10). Then more Amorite kings were defeated at the waters of Merom by Joshua (Josh. 11:8). It is mentioned that in the days of Samuel, there was peace between them and the Israelites (1 Sam. 7:14). The Gibeonites were said to be their descendants, being an offshoot of the Amorites that made a covenant with the Hebrews; when Saul would break that vow and kill some of the Gibeonites, God sent a famine to Israel.
Indo-European hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorite#
Indo-European_hypothesis
The view that Amorites were fierce, tall nomads led to an idiosyncratic theory among some writers in the 19th century that they were a tribe of "Germanic" warriors who at one point dominated the Israelites. This was because the evidence fitted then-current models of Indo-European migrations. This theory originated with Felix von Luschan, who later abandoned it.[citation needed]
Houston Stewart Chamberlain claimed that King David and Jesus were both Aryans of Amorite extraction. This argument was repeated by the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.[7]
In reality, the Amorites spoke a Semitic language, followed mid eastern Semitic religions and had Semitic personal names. Their origins were believed to have been the lands immediately to the west of Mesopotamia, in the Levant (modern Syria).
Notes from E. Adams:
The Yoruba derive themselves from Arabia, from Lamurudu ben Kanaan. The Hausa nations trace themselves back to a founding dynasts descended from an immigrant prince of "Baghdad" and a queen descended from ancient immigrants from Canaan. Dierk Lange's many studies of the ANE connections of these most influential dynasties in West Africa conclude that the connections are real for the ruling elements. ... West Africans know that they were branded Canaanites and carried away into slavery by being accused to be of the same race as the accursed Canaan. They also know that their own oral traditions are replete with connections to this area. The Phoenicians-Kinanu also explored and traded down the West Coast of Africa, and Berbers who also traced their origins to Canaanites played a role in several dynasties.The Berber traditions commonly refer themselves back to Canaan. ... These Canaanites were supposed to have arrived with the hordes of Ifricos en route from Arabia to the Maghreb, after having been expelled by King David. Or they arrived somewhat later with the Kinanu/Phoenicians. All these N & W African Canaanite genealogies are quite distinct connections to Canaan, as opposed to Arabia, Misr, or Habesh. ..
It is important to point out that the very first transfer of this racist ideology about the curse of Canaan from Palestine to another scenario of ethnic dominance, enslavement, and conquest, may be its use in Ethiopia, where it is documented as early as the 8th c AD? in reference to the Shanqella or Nilo-Saharan speakers who were being enslaved.I can't swear to the date because I would have to search for my notes, but I remember the day I learned this fact twenty years ago. I was very unsettled because I realized that the modern western slave traders had not been the first to use this myth in a post-Biblical context to rationalize crimes against black(er) people. There is no way the Ethiopians, who derived themselves from a founding Ityopi son of Kush son of Ham, would have been enslaving people in the name of an accursed Ham, but rather an accursed Canaan, whom they perceived as referring to people blacker or more Negroid than they, covered by their contemptuous term Shanqella.
According to Weippert in RLA Kanaan was in the Amarna letters an Egyptian province which stretched from the border of Egypt to the northern provinces of Amurru and Upe [Damascus area and the Biqa']. He also points out that in EA 162, Amurru is included in Kanaan , and that in EA 151 the name Kanaan also includes Kilikia (Danuna), Ugarit, Kadesh on Orontes, Amurru, and Upe. This is hardly a "small portion" of the Mediterranean Levant! And it is quite a coincidence with the Genesis 10 genealogy of the sons/tribes of Canaan as including Heth (Kilikia, cf. the tradition preserved in Bar Hebraeus that the Canaanites took possession of Southern Anatolia) and Hamath (Kadesh), and the Amorites.
E. Adams
Claims for Canaanites in both Africa and Europe. http://www.burlingtonnews.net/centerindians4.html
Some Black, Colored, and White Historical Identifications.
William McKee Evans,
"From the Land of Canaan to the Land of Guinea.
The Strange Odyssey of the Sons of Ham" (1980). http://tmcdaniel.palmerseminary.edu/Land-of-Canaan_Adobe8.pdf
This is an interesting social-historical study showing how different white and black peoples upon being enslaved were identified as Canaanites.
cf.
Brit-Am Now no. 1566
#3. Germany and the Amorites?
http://britam.org/now2/1566Now.html#Germany
"Franks who live in the country of Amor, who appear as neighbors of the Frisians and the Saxons. "
4. Sexual Immorality Associated with Canaanites and Egyptians!
Leviticus 18
1 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: I am the LORD your God. 3 According to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do; and according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do; nor shall you walk in their ordinances. 4 You shall observe My judgments and keep My ordinances, to walk in them: I am the LORD your God. 5 You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the LORD....
24 Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for by all these the nations are defiled, which I am casting out before you. 25 For the land is defiled; therefore I visit the punishment of its iniquity upon it, and the land vomits out its inhabitants. 26 You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, either any of your own nation or any stranger who dwells among you 27 (for all these abominations the men of the land have done, who were before you, and thus the land is defiled), 28 lest the land vomit you out also when you defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. 29 For whoever commits any of these abominations, the persons who commit them shall be cut off from among their people.
30 Therefore you shall keep My ordinance, so that you do not commit any of these abominable customs which were committed before you, and that you do not defile yourselves by them: I am the LORD your God.
5. Amorite Practices to Became the Accepted Norms in the USA?
See:
Obama to Use Foreign Aid to Force Gay Rights Overseas as Official US Policy
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?tag=amorites
6. Amorites and Canaaanites (as well as Israelites?) in Africa
Brit-Am Note:
An examination of Tribal names and legends in Africa shows evidence of Canaanite Origins.
There is also much of Israelite Lore as well.
The question is whether the Israelite characteristics are due to ancestry or cultural assimilation?
It could be that before being driven out the Canaanites being neighbors and subjects of the Israelites absorbed aspects of their culture?
Nahum Slouschz made the same point concerning the Carthaginian of North Africa who were also descended from Phoenician Canaanites.
Alternately were there also Israelites amongst them?
When relevant sources concerning the possibility of finding Lost Israelites cross our path we should not ignore them.
On the other hand it is not the task of Brit-Am to deal with such questions.
We deal with the Lost Ten Tribes as they came to expression in Biblical and historical terms.
See:
Ephraimite Criteria
http://www.britam.org/criteria.html
Excerpts from Different Sources:
South Sudan May as well be called Luoland
http://thetorchnews.net/opinions/
guests/415-south-sudan-may-as-well-be-
called-luoland.html
Extracts:
The Luo Nation lives in nearly 10 states, Central Africa, Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and the two Sudans
Consanguine with them were the ancient Murru ("Amorites" of Babylon), Canaanites (Phoenicia), Colchians (Armenia), Kaptah (Copts of Egypt), Nubians (Sudan), Danaans (Greece), Dananns (Ireland), Dravidians(India), Edomites (Sinai), Etruscans (Italy), Gauls (France), Hausa (Nigeria), Lixitae (Morocco), Minoans (Crete), Sumerians (Iraq) and Susans (Persia).
They included the Muru, a Sudanic offshoot of the Amorites, who probably are the ancestors of the Mur-nyala of Alego in modern Kenya's Siaya and Migori.
Kenya: Maasais, Canaanites And the Inca Connection
http://allafrica.com/stories/
200706050712.html
Nairobi [Kenya]? WHY IS ENKAI, THE Creator god of the Maasai, almost the same as Enki, who created the Sumerians, as well as Enoch, the Canaanite hero who stormed heaven, and Inca, the divine chief of the ancient Andeans.
Is it accidental that if you reverse the syllables of those names - a word-game which ancient societies played all the time - you get Ka'in of the Sumerians, Kainan of the Canaanites, Cain of Genesis and Chanes of Mesoamerica?
The Yoruba and other Canaanite/Hebrew Israelites of Nigeria By Jide Uwechia
http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/
sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian
-hercules/the-yoruba-and-other
-canaanitehebrew-israelites-of-
nigeria-by-jide-uwechia/
Extracts:
Yorubas and the neighbouring nationalities located in Nigeria have this oral tradition of an origin extraneous to West Africa.
Hugh Clapperton in 1820s reported a work by Sultan Bello, the Caliph of the Sokoto Caliphate, where he asserted that the Yorubas were descended from Canaanite tribe from Palestine.
Around the 1880s Samuel Johnson a Yoruba christian also wrote a book that made similar claims for Yoruba origins as Sultan Bello?s. In 1880, Johson naively sent this work to the Church Missionary Society in England for review and publication.
The Church Missionary Society suppressed the manuscript upon realizing the explosive information it contained. The Society declared the book lost. It was not until 1923 that Johson's brother was able to publish an edited copy of this work. Johnson?s thesis was that the Yorubas were descended from Lamurudu (Nimrod) the first King of Mesopotamia. Johnson died in 1901.
1955 S.O. Obiaku, a Nigerian historian and scholar claimed a Meroite origin (Sudan/ancient Ethiopia-Kush) for the Yorubas. Emmanuel Uguhulu another respected Nigerian scholar claimed a Hebrew origin for the Esan tribe. Esan is part of the greater Edo nation, which is related to the Yoruba nation of Nigeria.
Efik traditions claim that the Efiks originated in Palestine, crossed the Sahara and arrived Nigeria via Sudan. The Efiks are located in the south-eastern corner of Nigeria.
Iberian Jews of Yoruba Nationality
The Bnai Ephraim ("Children of Ephraim") from Nigeria, live among the Yoruba nationalities. Their oral history tells that the Bnai Ephraim people came from Morocco after the Jews were banished from the Iberian Pennisula sometime after 1492.
November 10, 2009, 9:05 amReply
cyntajah says
The Yorubas are the best people to give you the facts about their origin. Let me try and help you here-.The Yoruba are Caananites descended from Caanan?s third son whose name was Ijebu-hence the Jebusites.They are the brothers to the Hivites who goes by the name Housas and they lived in the North of Nigeria-{Niger Area}.Back in the latter part of the twentieth Century-around 1979-80 an African wrote to the united Nation asking the United Nation to give them back the lands which Joshua and the people of Israel took from their fathers. Who could that African be ??? Who once lived in Caanan???
7. A Few Relevant Verses:
Deuteronomy 7:
16 Also you shall destroy all the peoples whom the LORD your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.
17 If you should say in your heart, These nations are greater than I; how can I dispossess them? 18 you shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: 19 the great trials which your eyes saw, the signs and the wonders, the mighty hand and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So shall the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid. 20 Moreover the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until those who are left, who hide themselves from you, are destroyed.
Note:
The word translated as "hornet" can also connote sickness.
HORNET in Hebrew is Tzirah. It could also be related to the word for leprosy, Tsaarah. The great commentator Iben Ezra suggested that the hornet in this case was some kind of insect that spread disease. The enemy was miraculously weakened before the Israelites joined battle with them.
See Also:
The Brit-Am Commentary (BAC) to this passage from Deuteronomy.
http://www.britam.org/deuteronomy/3ekev.html
Deuteronomy 20:
16 But of the cities of these peoples which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, 17 but you shall utterly destroy them: the Hittite and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, just as the LORD your God has commanded you, 18 lest they teach you to do according to all their abominations which they have done for their gods, and you sin against the LORD your God.
8. Parallels with the Palestinians of Today.
BAC on Joshua ch.11
http://britam.org/joshua/joshua11.html
[Joshua 11:19] THERE WAS NOT A CITY THAT MADE PEACE WITH THE CHILDREN OF
ISRAEL, SAVE THE HIVITES THE INHABITANTS OF GIBEON: ALL OTHER THEY TOOK IN BATTLE.
[Joshua 11:20] FOR IT WAS OF THE LORD TO HARDEN THEIR HEARTS, THAT THEY SHOULD COME AGAINST ISRAEL IN BATTLE, THAT HE MIGHT DESTROY THEM UTTERLY, AND THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE NO FAVOUR, BUT THAT HE MIGHT DESTROY THEM, AS THE LORD COMMANDED MOSES.
Maybe this is why the Arabs and Palestinians and others cannot make peace with the Jews? Maybe their evil nature is pushing them in the path of their own destruction. The question remains how long will the Jews go on letting themselves be victimized and only retaliating in a limited fashion whenever innocent citizens of Israel are killed? How long should one hold back when a dog with rabies keeps coming for you and biting you no matter how often you hit him?
9. The Reason was to Keep Israel from Sin!
It is also to be noted that in practice the Canaanites were to be given the option of leaving peacefully.
When the Israelites under Solomon did completely subject the Amorites they did not exterminate them but rather left them were they were though
in circumscribed status. This may have been a mistake but the Bible does not seem to criticize Solomon about it.
Note that not only certain specific foreign peoples were so judged BUT ALSO whole Israelite cities that worshipped false gods.
cf. Deuteronomy 13:12-18
The reason for the extermination is given that it was in order for the Israelites not to be lead astray.
This is the purpose of Israelite existence.
All the world exists for this.
Also note that the Israelites did not fulfill the commandment and because of that they intermixed with the nations in question, they followed other gods and were punished for it.
Judges 2:1-3; 1 Kings 11:5; 14:24; 2 Kings 16:3-4.
This is why the Ten Tribes were exiled.
All the Israelites intermixed with the Canaanites and learnt from their bad ways.
In the next section we hope to expand a little on this matter.
For More Articles in this Series,
See:
Canaanite Genocide. List of Articles.