A Land Called Canaan

"So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him. And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD, and called upon the name of the LORD. And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south." (Genesis 12:4-9)

The land of Canaan (and its inhabitants known as Canaanites) will be discussed many, many times in our study of the Bible. The fact that the Lord is sending Abram into Canaan is not a thing of chance. It is what I like to call an "orchestration" of God, as God "orchestrates" so much of the events that occur in a believer's life, I believe. God orchestrates for various reasons perhaps; but in this case with Abram, it is to fulfill His promises and the promises spoken through His prophets, men of God called to speak God's Word to the world around them.

Such a prophet was Noah. If you recall, Noah prophesied about the descendants of Ham, specifically regarding Ham's son Canaan. Canaan made a name for himself in the world; so much that the land is named after him. But not in a sense that brings any honor to his name; in fact, it is totally opposite as we will begin to see in tomorrow's posting when we explore the spirituality of Canaan.

For today I would like us to take a look at the geographical location of the land called Canaan.

The area biblically known as Canaan is the area that today is comprised of all of Israel, the Gaza strip and Palestinian territories south of Israel, and borderland areas of both Lebanon and Syria north and northeast of Israel. It is basically all land west of the Jordan River. The Jordan River is a major north-south river in Israel, the northern part of it lying in Lebanon at the Mediterranean (I am assuming its source), and the southern part ending at the Red Sea (again assuming its final destination, running through the Dead Sea on its way to the Red Sea). The country of Jordan lies directly east of the Jordan River as does Syria to the northeast. The Jordan River will play a key part in many of the historical events of the Bible.

Canaanites were described as a people who "dwell by the sea" (Numbers 13:29). That surely means along the coastline of what is now modern day Israel, but possibly also meant the lowlands but not the mountainous regions of that area. There are actually six other nations that are linked by ancestry to the Canaanites and are sometimes considered to also be Canaanites even though the Bible usually lists the Canaanites first, and then these six follow as though they are separate and yet the same: Hivites, Amorites, Hittites, Jebusites, Perizzites, Girgashites. All of these dwelled in the land known as Canaan. In fact, we will see that the Hivites are the people who ruled "the place of Sichem;" the place where God promised this faithful man Abram: "Unto thy seed will I give this land." No matter how many inhabitants the land of Canaan had when Abram arrived, it is the land that the Lord has now promised to give to the descendants of Abraham.

Abram moved on past Sichem to a "mountain on the east of Bethel…having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the LORD." Abram did not stay long in either Sichem or in this mountain east of Bethel. He continued to journey south.

Knowing what we do now about the geographical aspects of Canaan, there is nothing unusual about Abram building an altar to the Lord in the land of Canaan. But we have yet to explore the spiritual aspects of Canaan, and once we see that, we will see the importance of the fact that Abram's first action, upon pitching his tent, was to worship God as he did in this place.

We will explore the inhabitants of the land of Canaan in more detail in the next posting, but here is a clue as to what the spirituality of the Canaanites was like: it has, as its root and foundation, the sexual perversion of Ham, Noah's youngest son.