Canaan in the second millenium bce

336 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

relatively limited areas (the so-called “dimorphic zones”) (Rowton 1973a).28
However, in periods of widespread decline of the urban systems — like the
downfall of the Early Bronze urban system in the late third millennium, the
demolition of many Syro-Anatolian kingdoms in the seventeenth-sixteenth
centuries, and the total destruction of the urban system in Anatolia and Syro-
Palestine in the twelfth century BCE — the processes of uprooting and nomadi-
zation were greatly accelerated, and population groups might have migrated
to distant areas. Moreover, in no other period in the history of the ancient
Near East was the disruption of urban culture in Anatolia and Syro-Palestine
so all-inclusive and complete as in the twelfth century BCE. The kingdom of
Ebla survived the destructions of the late third millennium BCE and formed
a sort of barrier to large-scale migration of northern elements into Canaan
in the the late third millennium BCE. The kingdom of Yamḫad (Ḫalab) and its
satellite kingdoms survived the destructions of the seventeenth/sixteenth
centuries BCE, though on a much reduced scale, and many Canaanite king-
doms suffering devastations in the sixteenth-early fifteenth centuries grad-
ually recovered and are known to have existed throughout the Late Bronze
Age. In the twelfth century, on the other hand, all Anatolian and Syrian king-
doms (save for Carchemish and Melid) were utterly sacked with no recovery.
The wave of destruction reached as far as the Aegean and the Balkan regions.
No wonder that groups of Sea Peoples reached both the coast of Canaan and
the western Mediterranean.29

The settlement process in Palestine in the twelfth-eleventh centuries
BCE was synchronous with an enormous wave of migration, whose results
were felt in all areas of Western Asia and in large parts of the Mediterranean.
The claim that there was a limited reservoir of manpower in the peripheral
areas of Canaan and that the settlement was necessarily an inter-Palestinian
process (Gottwald 1979:441–473; Chaney 1983:39–46; Lemche 1985:386–406,
411–413) ignores the historical moment in which the settlement was tak-
ing place. Documentary evidence indicates that large-scale migration in the
Syro-Mesopotamian areas was taking place during Iron Age I, and it seems
that various groups (i.e., Sea Peoples and other Syro-Anatolian bands, as well
as West-Semitic Syro-Mesopotamian pastoral groups) reached the Land of
Canaan in this period. We may conclude that the penetration and settlement

28. Lemche 1985:84–201 criticized the concept of dimorphism, suggesting the term
“polymorphous society” (1985:198).

29. For a comprehensive study of the Sea Peoples, see Barnett 1975b:359–378; Strobel
1976; Sandars 1978; Helck 1979:132–144; Schachermeyr 1982; Brug 1985; Singer 1988:239–
250.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 337

of “northern” groups played an important role in the settlement process in
Canaan the twelfth-eleventh centuries BCE.

Migration from the Former Hittite Empire to Canaan in Iron Age I

Five ethnic groups of “northern” origin are mentioned in the biblical tra-
dition of the seven nations dispossessed by the Israelites: Hittites, Hivites,
Jebusites, Girgashites and Perizzites (Mazar [Maisler] 1930:80–82; Mendenhall
1974:142–163; Mazar 1981:75–85). The Hittites are mentioned in conjunction
with the city of Hebron (Gen. 23), in a late, fictive story that is usually as-
signed to the P source. The three benê/yelîdê hā‘ănāq — Ahiman, Sheshai and
Talmai — whose names are non-Semitic, may have been members of a north-
ern migrating group that settled at Hebron (Num. 13:22; Josh. 15:14; Judg. 1:
10). Ahimelech the Hittite (1 Sam. 26:6) and Uriah the Hittite (2 Sam. 11; 23:
39) served in the army of David. Uriah lived in Jerusalem, and, if he were
born there, he might have been a Jebusite. However, both Ahimelech and
Uriah may as well have been members of David’s band, which moved with his
“mighty men” from Hebron to Jerusalem after its conquest. The marriage of
Esau to Hittite women (Gen. 26:34; 27:46; 36:2) is mentioned in texts that are
assigned to the P source and possibly reflects the close contacts between the
inhabitants of southern Judah and Edom in the Persian period. Thus, it is pos-
sible that some Anatolian groups migrated and settled in the hills of Judah
and that post-Exilic scribes, who were aware of their early settlement in the
area, called the autochthonous population of the Judean hill country by the
name “Hittites” (see below).30

The Hivites most probably arrived from Que (Cilicia), which was known
in ancient times by the name Ḫuwe (Albright 1950:22–25; Görg 1976:53–
55). They settled near the Liṭani River, between the mountainous ranges of
Hermon and Lebanon (Josh. 11:3; Judg. 3:3; 2 Sam. 24:7), in western Benjamin
(Josh. 9:7), and possibly also in the area of Shechem (if we may trust the late
fictive story of Gen. 34:2).

The Jebusites destroyed the Canaanite city of Jerusalem and settled there
in Iron Age I. Their exact place of origin remains unknown, but they appar-
ently came from the Hittite empire, as may be inferred from the words of
Ezekiel on the Hittite origin of Jerusalem (Ezek. 16:3, 45) and the Hurrian/
Hittite name (or title) Araunah/Auarnah (2 Sam. 24:16–25) (Mazar [Maisler]
1930:80–82; 1936:189–191; Rosen 1955:318–320; McCarter 1980a:512, with ear-

30. For the Hittites in the Bible, see Maisler 1930:76–82; 1936:189–191; Forrer 1936:190–
203; 1937:100–115; Hoffner 1969:27–55; 1973:213–221; Kempinski 1979:21–45.

338 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

lier literature; Abramski 1985:55–56; Wyatt 1985).31 The Girgashites came
from Karkisha in western Anatolia (Mendenhall 1974:145; del Monte and
Tischler 1978:182–183). The location of their domain in Canaan remains
unknown. The origin of the Perizzites is unknown, but, like the other four
groups, they possibly migrated from the area of the former Hittite empire
and settled at some unknown place(s) in Canaan (for the Perizzites in the
Bible, see Na’aman 1988:42–44, with earlier literature).

Only two of the seven pre-Israelite nations represent the autochtho-
nous population of the country: Canaanites and Amorites (though the latter
is an archaic non-historical name). The rest bear names of splinter groups
that migrated to Canaan in the twelfth century and settled there side by
side with the settlements of local and migrating West-Semitic groups (the
so-called “Israelites”). The lack of mention of the prominent Egyptian pres-
ence in Canaan in the thirteenth-twelfth centuries BCE; the omission of the
Hurrians (one of the most distinctive population groups of Canaan in the
Late Bronze Age) from the list of pre-Israelite nations (Finkelstein 1988b:
339–345; de Vaux 1967:481–497; 1978:83–89; Na’aman 1982:180–182; Anbar
and Na’aman 1986–1987:3–12, with earlier literature); and the inclusion in
the list of pre-Israelite nations of groups which entered Canaan at the same
time as the “Israelites” — all these clearly indicate how vague and mistaken
the memory of the early history of Israel was when the early traditions of
Israel were composed in writing.

We may conclude that the quake caused by the wave of the Sea Peoples
and the destruction of the urban culture in the Syro-Anatolian zone brought
about the migration of groups of uprooted fugitives southward, groups who
gradually destroyed the rest of the urban centers in Syria and Canaan. Some
of the migrants gradually settled in northern and central Syria, establishing in
the eleventh-tenth centuries the kingdoms termed “Hittite” in the Assyrian
sources and in the Bible (Gen. 10:15; Josh. 1:4; 1 Kgs. 10:29; 11:1; 2 Kgs. 7:6),
and Neo-Hittite (or Syro-Hittite) by modern scholars (Landsberger 1948:12–
40; Hawkins 1974:67–83; 1982:372–441). Others migrated southward along
the Syro-African Rift Valley and reached Canaan. This wave of uprooted peo-
ple may well have caused the Egyptian withdrawal from Canaan (as a sort of
“last straw that broke the camel’s back”). At first, the Egyptians were able to

31. According to Fuss (1962:162–163), Araunah was the name of the threshing floor on
which a local Jebusite cult etiology was told, and the author derived the proper name from
the toponym’s name. Whether the Jebusites have anything to do with either the Amorite
clan Yabasa of the Mari tablets or the Amorite proper name Yabusum is not clear. See
Forrer 1936:199–200; Huffmon 1965:177; Mendenhall 1974:145.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 339

withstand the pressure of the Sea Peoples, who arrived by sea and along the
Mediterranean coast in the time of Ramesses III (1184–1153 BCE), and, for a
while, consolidated their rule in Canaan. The penetration of new groups of
fugitives, whose entry must have been attended by plunder and destruction,
decided the issue. In the time of Ramesses VI (1143–1136 BCE), the Egyptians
were obliged to retreat and to abandon the Canaanite cities that, until then,
were entirely dependent on their military strength. The latter soon fell
victim to the various groups that were active at that time in Canaan (Sea
Peoples, migrants from the Hittite empire, West-Semitic pastoral groups and
local bands of cApiru) and were sacked and utterly destroyed.

The northern migrants settled down along their line of march: Hivites
resided near the Liṭani Valley, northwest of Jerusalem, and possibly near
Shechem (if we may trust the fictive story of Gen. 34:2). The Jebusites de-
stroyed Jerusalem and established themselves there, and “Hittites” possi-
bly dwelt in the hill country of Judah. Other northern groups settled in var-
ious hill country sites, as indicated by the Khirbet Raddana “Hittite” krater
(Callaway and Cooley 1971:15–19). Mendenhall even suggested that the
Transjordanian kingdoms of Sihon and Og were founded by similar northern
groups (Mendenhall 1974:151, 160), but his view lacks concrete foundations.
It must be emphasized that the sources for the location of these northern
groups are usually late and legendary and, therefore, should be treated with
great caution. Thus, it is possible that some of this “evidence” is no more than
literary constructions that do not reflect the ancient reality. Such are the nar-
ratives of the settlement of Hivites at Shechem (Gen. 34) and at Gibeon (Josh.
9), along with that of Hittites at Hebron (Gen. 23). Even more problematic are
the names and titles assigned in these late narratives to their institutions and
leaders: “people of the land” and “Hittites” at Hebron (Gen. 23), “elders” at
Gibeon (Josh. 9), and “nāśi’ of the land”and “men of their city” at Shechem
(Gen. 34:2). Elders may well have been the central institution in their villages
(but see 2 Sam. 24:16) (Mazar 1981:78; Abramski 1985:55–56), but one must be
extremely cautious about the exact nature of the institutions that are men-
tioned in such late legendary texts.

The paucity of artifacts of “northern” origin in Iron Age I sites ostensibly
raises doubts as to the northern origin of their inhabitants. However, there
are no exact rules about the relationship between material culture and eth-
nicity. Sometimes migrants retain their original cultural traditions; in other
cases they adopt the local culture and leave no sign of their origin in the
material culture. The Khirbet Kerak-people, the Hyksos (in Egypt) and the
Philistines illustrate the former case. On the other hand, there is hardly any
sign in the material culture of the northern origin of the Hurrians and other
northern groups that reached Canaan in the sixteenth-early fifteenth centu-

340 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

ries BCE (for a detailed discussion of this problem, see Na’aman 1994). For ex-
ample, one-third of the names mentioned in the Taanach letters of the late
fifteenth century are “northern” (Glock 1971:17–30), but the Canaanite mate-
rial culture of Late Bronze Taanach does not disclose any northern element.
It is worth noting that the migration of these mid-second millennium north-
ern groups is particularly instructive, because their origin, their route of mi-
gration (via the Syro-African Rift Valley), and their distribution in Canaan are
quite similar to those of the northern groups of the twelfth century BCE.

Another example is that of the deportees brought to Palestine by the
Assyrians in the late eighth-seventh centuries BCE. According to biblical
and Assyrian sources, thousands of deportees of various origins (Arameans,
Babylonians, Iranians, Arabs, Elamites) were exiled to the country at that
time,32 but these ethnic groups, which settled in various parts of the country,
are not reflected in the material culture of the period.

However, the best example is that of the Assyrian merchants who lived
in Cappadocia in the nineteenth-early eighteenth centuries BCE. They dwelt
in Anatolian houses, used local pottery and adopted other elements of the
local material culture. It is only from the information provided in tablets and
seals that their long presence in Anatolia can be clearly detected (Mellaart in
Adams 1974:252–253).33

We may conclude that only written sources reliably disclose the migrat-
ing peoples of the late second millennium BCE and their origin. Material cul-
ture may also indicate their presence in the country, but no negative con-
clusions can be drawn from the lack of positive evidence (see Kramer 1977:
91–112; London 1989:37–55, with earlier literature).34

Famine and Migration in the late Thirteenth-Eleventh Centuries BCE

Famine played an important role in the large-scale migrations of the late
thirteenth-twelfth centuries BCE. Documents from Hattusha, Ugarit and
Egypt indicate severe food shortage in the closing decades of the Hittite em-
pire, culminating in a disastrous famine (Wainwright 1959:197–203; 1960:24–
28; Klengel 1974:165–174; Singer 1983:4–5). The efforts of the Hittite rulers
to overcome the food shortage by organizing and expediting consignments
of grains from Egypt and northern Syria to the areas stricken by famine did

32. For the Assyrian deportations, see Oded 1979. For the Assyrian deportation to
Palestine, see Na’aman and Zadok 1988:36–46; Na’aman 1989:43–62, with earlier literature.

33. For further examples of a later date, see Isserlin 1982:9–24; 1983:89.
34. For further evidence of “northern” influence on the Iron Age I material culture of
Palestine, see Beck 1990.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 341

not meet with lasting success. The severe famine played an important role in
the Sea Peoples’ movements; the exhausted Hittite empire was unable to halt
them and, in a relatively short time, fell prey to their assaults (Wainwright
1959; Singer 1985:122–123; 1988:243–244). Herodotus (I 94) reported that
the Tyrsenoi (most probably identical with the Tursha, one of the groups
of the Sea Peoples) migrated from Lydia to Italy after they had suffered se-
vere famine for eighteen years, and there they became known as Etruscans
(Wainwright 1959:197–213; Strobel 1976:182–190, with earlier literature).

Further evidence of drought and severe famine in the eleventh century
appears in the Assyrian and Babylonian sources (Brinkman 1968:124–130,
387–389; Neumann and Parpola 1987:171–182). Remarkable in these docu-
ments is the concentration of natural catastrophes that caused severe food
shortages, obliging the pastoral groups to obtain food supplies by raids on
the settled areas. The nomadic razzias brought about the destruction and
abandonment of many cities and villages in the two kingdoms. Neumann
and Parpola suggested that there is evidence of a long-term climatic change
in vast areas of Europe, Asia, and Africa ca. 1200–900 BCE and that its cumu-
lative effects make it a factor of the utmost historical significance. In their
opinion, the climatic change affected the economies and stability of the or-
ganized states and brought about massive, devastating incursions of nomads
into Mesopotamia, forays that are evident from the Assyrian and Babylonian
sources of the twelfth-eleventh centuries (Neumann and Parpola 1987:161–
182).35

Against this background, we may better understand the sources referring
to Canaan of the thirteenth-twelfth centuries BCE. In a letter found at Aphek,
the Ugaritic commissioner asks the Egyptian prefect of Canaan to restore to
him a consignment of fifteen metric tons of wheat. International commerce
in the Late Bronze Age was usually confined to luxury goods; a transaction
involving grain must have been the result of unusual circumstances, i.e., of
the drought and famine in that period (Singer 1983:4–5).36 Later, Merneptah
(1212–1202 BCE) sent ships with grain to Hatti (Wainwright 1983:24–28). The
ostraca of the time of Ramesses III unearthed at Lachish and Tel Serac, in
which large quantities of grain are mentioned, may well reflect an Egyptian
effort to store grain in face of the long drought and famine (Goldwasser 1984:
77–93).

35. For a general historical survey, see Wiseman 1975:443–481.
36. Lemche (1985:423) was unaware of the large scope of the droughts and famine and
noted that “we have no sources which relate that there was famine because of drought in
Palestine during the period between 1500 and 1000.”

342 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

Papyrus Anastasi VI presents the form in which an official on the eastern
border of Egypt might have reported to his overseer (Wilson 1969a:259). The
passage merits being cited in full:

We have finished letting the Shasu of Edom pass the Fortress of Mer-ne-Ptah — life,
prosperity, health! — which is in Tjeko, to the pools of Per-Atum of Mer-ne-Ptah Hotep-
hir-Maat, which are in Tjeku, to keep them alive and to keep their cattle alive, through
the great ka of Pharaoh . . .

The Egyptians allowed nomadic groups to enter their country, carefully
supervising their comings and goings (Wilson 1969a:258; Alt 1936:26–33).

It is against this background that we may gain a better understanding of
the biblical traditions of the Patriachs’ migrations to Egypt. It is said of Abram
(Gen. 12:10), “Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to
Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.” The motif of
a famine is mentioned again in the narrative cycle of Isaac (Gen. 26:1) and is
emphasized particularly in the cycle stories of Joseph. It seems to me that in
the background of these narratives was the vague historical memory of the
long period of drought and famine throughout Western Asia in the last quar-
ter of the second millennium BCE. The shortage of grain supply in Canaan
became particularly acute following the destruction of the Canaanite urban
system, because the economy of the pastoral groups was dependent on the
supply of cereals from towns and villages in their vicinity. The food shortage
obliged various groups to migrate to Egypt to obtain sustenance for them-
selves and their herds. The prolonged famine, so markedly affecting the life-
style of the nomads, and the ensuing migrations have been engraved deeply
in the collective historical memory of the Israelites; the two elements have
been both telescoped into a continuous narrative cycle focused on the his-
tory of the Patriarchs’ family and given a literary-novelistic form. These mi-
grations, taking place at various times and involving various groups, find
their literary expression in the Joseph cycle. For example, Jacob says to his
sons: “Behold, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt; go down and buy
grain for us there that we may live, and not die” (Gen. 42:2); and Jacob’s sons
say to the Pharaoh: “We have come to sojourn in the land; for there is no pas-
ture for your servants’ flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan;
and now, we pray you, let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.” (Gen. 47:
4). These verses reflect well economic strategies of pastoral groups in face of
shortage of food and pasture in their homeland.

These twelfth century migrations, telescoped and shaped in an outstand-
ing literary-theological dress, may well have formed the vaguely memo-
rized background of the story of pastoral groups coming out of Egypt (i.e.,
the Exodus). It seems to me that the narratives of the entry into and the exit
from Egypt vaguely reflect the exceptional reality of a certain historical pe-

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 343

riod (late thirteenth-twelfth centuries BCE), rather than the routine migra-
tions of West-Semitic pastoral groups (as scholars sometimes interpret it).

We may conclude that migrations from Canaan to Egypt and backwards
must also be taken into account in the discussion of the origin of the groups
settling in Palestine in Iron Age I. These movements fit nicely the overall pic-
ture of large-scale migrations in all parts of Western Asia and again show the
unstable and fluid demographic situation in this period.

Summary and Conclusions

The overall picture emerging from the various sources does not corrob-
orate the assumption that the Iron Age I settlement process was an internal
Palestinian one and that the inhabitants of the new settlements originated
only from among the local Canaanite urban-rural-pastoral elements. I have
described at length the enormous intensity of the historical events occurring
in Western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean in the late thirteenth-twelfth
centuries BCE, which brought in their wake an unprecedented wave of mi-
grations and profound demographic change in the entire region. The scope
and intensity of these events and the ensuing population movements do not
fit reconstructions that separate a certain region from the entire Western
Asiatic arena and isolate its micro-history from the overall historical devel-
opments of that time. In my opinion, neither the “internal immigration and
conquest model” nor the “sociological hypothesis” offers adequate explana-
tions for the settlement process, because both discuss it in isolation from the
overall historical, demographic, economic and social developments of the
late thirteenth-eleventh centuries BCE.

A complicated picture emerges from the combination of the documentary
and archaeological evidence. Various groups (whose overall number cannot be
estimated) originating from different Western Asiatic regions entered Canaan
in Iron Age I, joining the autochthonous pastoral groups of the Late Bronze Age.
Some of them migrated from the former areas of the Hittite empire as a result of
the severe famine and the influx of Sea Peoples. Other groups — like the “sons of
Jacob,” who, according to biblical tradition came from northern Mesopotamia,
and whose eponymous father is described as “a wandering Aramean” (Deut. 26:
5) — might well have migrated from West-Semitic-speaking regions. Still others
possibly migrated to Egypt, some returning to Canaan after a while. The sixth
century description of Jerusalem (Ezek. 16:3 — “Your origin and your birth are
of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite, and your mother a
Hittite”) reflects nicely the kind of telescoped history that remained in the col-
lective memory hundreds of years after the close of the events.

The entry of these groups into Canaan led to an increase in the number
of pastoral and bandit splinter groups in the peripheral areas, overstraining

344 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

their economic capacity. Years of drought and the destruction of the urban
system severely interrupted the supply of grain to the pastoral groups. The
increase in the number of nomads, the interruption of the delicate balance
between the urban-rural and pastoral sectors and the lack of grain — these
combined factors obliged nomads to engage in part-time work in agriculture
and gradually drove them to settle down. Settlement, thus, started on both
sides of the Jordan in the late thirteenth or early twelfth century BCE and
continued throughout Iron Age I.

The model that emerges from my analysis is of small and larger groups
of variegated ethnic and cultural background who settled during a long pe-
riod and slowly and gradually started cooperating in the new environment.
It goes without saying that the title “Israelites” is inappropriate for the early
stages of settlement of these groups and can be applied only to the time of
unification and consolidation of the new settlements and the emergence of a
unified new leadership at the end of the eleventh century BCE.

The Name Israel in the Merneptah Stela

The mention of Israel in Merneptah’s stela (of his fifth year — 1209 BCE)
plays an important role in discussions of the early history of Israel. In the
closing lines of the stela, following the detailed description of the Pharaoh’s
victory over the Lybians, the following passage appears:37

The princes, prostrated, say “Shalom”;
None raises his head among the Nine Bows.
Now that Tehenu has come to ruin Hatti is pacified;
Canaan has been plundered into every sort of woe.
Ashkelon has been overcome, Gezer has been captured,
Yeno‘am was made non-existent;
Israel is laid waste (and) his seed is not.
Hurru has become a widow because of Egypt.
All lands have united themselves in peace,
Anyone who was restless, he has been subdued.

The names and titles of the Pharaoh are mentioned before and after this
passage, thus, enclosing a ten-“line” unit. This literary unit is divided into
three parts: two introductory lines, a middle section and two closing lines
(Fecht 1983:120–121). This structure is the key to the correct analysis of the
inscription. The opening and closing lines express the idea that the world
was united and pacified as the result of the Pharaoh’s great achievements.
The central section specifies these achievements: the destruction of Tehenu

37. For the translation of the passage, see Yurco 1986:189. For other translations, see
Wilson 1969c:378; Fecht 1983:113, 120; Hornung 1983:232–233.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 345

(Lybia), the pacification of Hatti and the plundering of Canaan. The sentence
relating to Lybia summarizes a long poetic eulogy of the Pharaoh’s victory
over the Lybians, and the mention of Canaan introduces the following por-
tion in which the author gives more details of the Egyptian Asiatic campaign.
At the end of the middle section a summary sentence appears (“Hurru has
become a widow because of Egypt”), which echoes the introductory sentence
(“Canaan has been plundered into every sort of woe”).

Three of the four Canaanite toponyms (Ashkelon, Gezer and Yeno‘am) are
well known from other Egyptian inscriptions, but the name Israel is an ex-
ception and does not appear in any other Egyptian source. According to the
defining determinative, it is clear that Israel is a people, and the other three
toponyms are cities (Engel 1979:383–387; Stager 1985:61*; Yurco 1986:190, n.
3). It has been suggested recently that the literary difference between the
three cities and the people matches the four battle scenes from Karnak, de-
picting the Pharaoh fighting, on the one hand, three fortified towns and, on
the other hand, a mass of enemies in the open country.38 Israel is, thus, a col-
lective name and is not linked to a well-defined territory.

The location of Merneptah’s “Israel” is disputed among scholars.39 It is
mentioned after Yeno‘am, a Transjordanian city (Na’aman 1977:168–177,
with earlier literature; 1988:183–184), and, if we follow the order of top-
onyms in the passage, it should be sought in the same area. It is equally pos-
sible, however, that the author mentioned the cities first and the people next
and that there is no sequential order of listing. This may be supported by the
assumption that, in the course of the campaign, the main force was led by
the king and that various task forces were sent to different parts of Canaan
(Kitchen 1973:442–447). Such an assumption opens the way for identifying
Israel according to each scholars’ historical reconstruction, but makes the
conjectured location highly speculative. Usually scholars have identified
Merneptah’s Israel in the area of Shechem, the important Israelite center of
the early monarchic period, where numerous early Iron Age I settlements
have been detected. Nothing, however, is known of a group called “Israel” in
this period, 200 years before the foundation of the monarchy and the begin-
ning of the protohistory of Israel. It is worth noting that the Egyptians called
the hill country around Shechem, and possibly even larger parts of the high-

38. For the relation of the text and the reliefs, see Stager 1985:56*–64*; Yurco 1986:189–
201. For a criticism, see Redford 1986:188–200.

39. For recent discussions of the problem, see Engel 1979:387–399, with earlier liter-
ature; Otto 1979:200–205; Stager 1985:56*–64*; Ahlström and Edelman 1985:59–61; Yurco
1986:207–212; Ahlström 1986:37–43.

346 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

lands, either “the land of Shechem” or “mountain of Shechem” (in Papyrus
Anastasi I, a literary composition of the time of the Nineteenth Dynasty)
(Wilson 1969a:230; 1969b:477; Ahituv 1984:173–174). The absence of this
name may possibly indicate that the Egyptians fought “Israel” in another
area. It seems to me that there is no way to settle this issue and that locat-
ing the group called “Israel” in the hill country of Manasseh is no more than
guesswork that cannot either be supported or dismissed unless new evidence
comes to light in future research.40

Not only the location, but also the character of the group called “Israel”
in this early period remains unknown. There are a few ancient Near Eastern
parallels to similar early isolated occurrences of names of people/kingdoms
that became well defined only at a much later time. Thus, the name Aram
appears in various late third and second millennium sources. Most of these
names are homonyms that have nothing to do with the Arameans, but the
references from Ugarit and Egyptian sources may represent an early allu-
sion to Aram/Arameans.41 However, the history of the Arameans begins with
the earliest ascertained reference to them in a concrete historical context,
namely, the annals of Tiglath-pileser I (1114–1076). The character and distri-
bution of the proto-Arameans hardly are applicable to the study of the his-
tory of the Arameans in historical periods.

The name Uruatri/Uratri, later changed to Urartu, is mentioned for the
first time in the inscriptions of Shalmaneser I (1273–1244). The Assyrian king
conquered the eight lands of Uruatri and brought them under submission.
However, the history of Urartu starts with the earliest references to the king-
dom in the time of Ashurnaṣirpal II (883–859), about 350 years later. The early
reference to Urartu sheds little light on the history of the late kingdom (for
the early reference to Uruatri, see Munn-Rankin 1975:279–280).

In conclusion, it can be said that, in spite of the great importance of the
mention of a group named “Israel” in a late thirteenth century Egyptian doc-
ument, it is best to refrain from building on this isolated reference any hy-
pothesis concerning the location and formation of Israel at that time. After

40. According to Ahlström and Edelman (1985; see Ahlström 1986:37–43), Israel was
primarily a geographical name for the central Palestinian hill country. However, in the
Merneptah’s inscription, the name “Israel” clearly refers to people and has a different de-
terminative than the other three cities (see Engel 1979:383–387; Stager 1985:61*; Yurco
1986:190, n. 3). Furthermore, Israel and Canaan have different determinatives and have no
parallel place in the inscription. Finally, there is no biblical reference that lends support
to the assumption that Israel was initially a geographical name. The entire supposition is
guesswork and is not supported by concrete evidence.

41. For the early references to Aram, see Kupper 1957:112–114; Zadok 1991:106, with
earlier literature.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 347

all, the maintenance of a name of a social organization does not necessarily
imply any other sort of cultural continuity. Hundreds of years separate this
from all other references to Israel, and the Egyptian text is open to various in-
terpretations, none of which can be verified with any degree of certainty.

Literary-Historical Study of the Conquest Stories
in the Book of Joshua and in Judges 1

Introduction

It is commonly accepted today that the majority of the conquest stories
in the Book of Joshua are devoid of historical reality.42 Malamat tried to avoid
this conclusion by suggesting that Israel’s traditions regarding the conquest
should be reduced to five basic “underlying phenomena” (Malamat 1979:
37–39):43 (1) the Israelites took possession of Canaan by force; (2) the road
from Egypt to Canaan along the coast was blocked to the Israelites; (3) the
Canaanite populace west of the Jordan had no unified, overall military or-
ganization with which to confront the invaders; (4) no attempt was made to
stop the Israelites from fording the Jordan; and (5) the Israelites succeeded
against the Canaanites only in the hill country and on its western slopes.

None of these five points, however, is acceptable, and the methodolog-
ical approach underlying the suggestion is unacceptable as well. First, the
selection of the five “underlying phenomena” is arbitrary. For example, the
second point is marginal within the conquest tradition; the third point does
not accord with the vast Canaanite coalitions that fought Israel, according
to Joshua 10–11; and the fifth point again does not fit the conquest tradi-
tion, according to which Joshua and the Israelites conquered the entire land
(Josh. 10:40–41; 11:16–17, 23). Fundamental features, on the other hand, such
as the conquest of the Land of Israel by the twelve tribes under Joshua, the
long wandering in the Sinai Desert that preceded the entry into the land, and
the exclusive conduction of the invasion from the east are arbitrarily omit-

42. For critical discussions of the biblical description of the conquest, see Mendenhall
1962:66–87; Gottwald 1979, passim; Lemaire 1982:20–24; Chaney 1983:39–90; Callaway 1985:
31–49; Lemche 1985:416–437. For a more flexible reconstruction, which takes into account
a movement of Canaanite and non-Canaanite groups into the hill country, see Ahlström
1986:11–36 (esp. pp. 35–36). See also Fritz 1981:61–73; 1987:84–100; 1987:84-100; Miller
1977:87–93; Schoors 1985:77–92.

43. For the term Grundzüge, used similarly by Malamat for the prehistory of Israel, see
Malamat 1983:309–311. For a criticism of Malamat’s suggestions, see Thompson 1987:32–
40.

348 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

ted. The random isolation of certain features from their literary and histori-
cal setting is methodologically incorrect.

Second, the list of “underlying phenomena” ignores the new archaeologi-
cal surveys and excavations, which indicate that the hill country was sparsely
inhabited in the Late Bronze Age and that no military power prevented pas-
toral groups from penetrating it and settling in its large uninhabited areas.
The entire concept of an invasion and conquest of the highlands in the thir-
teenth-twelfth century is alien to historical reality. The Iron Age I settlement
process in the hill country is hardly illuminated by the biblical conquest tra-
dition.

We may conclude that the above-mentioned five “phenomena” are no
more “historical” than the rest of the material in the conquest stories.
Thompson (1987:33) has noted correctly that “[t]he prominence or domi-
nance of a tradition has no necessary relationship whatever to the issue of
historicity.” It remains to be seen whether any authentic memory of the early
Iron Age survived in the narratives of the Book of Joshua and of Judges 1.

The Date and Historical Background of the Conquest Narratives in the Book
of Joshua

In light of the non-historical character of the conquest tradition in the
Book of Joshua, one should raise a fundamental question: Where did the au-
thor derive the material for his narratives? We have yet to establish whether
a vague memory of past events was retained in some stories. It is clear, how-
ever, that most of the conquest stories are devoid of historical foundation.
One may assume that the author designed the past descriptions in light of
the reality of his time; because he was well acquainted with the sites and the
environment portrayed by him, he composed narratives that outwardly ap-
pear authentic (save for the conquest by miracle of Jericho). This assump-
tion may be supplemented by another: To add a sense of authenticity to his
narratives, the author borrowed the military outlines from concrete events
that had taken place in the history of Israel. The evidence for this will be pre-
sented in the following five examples.

1. Scholars have suggested that the conquest by stratagem of Ai is a liter-
ary reflection of the historical episode of the battle at Gibeah (Judg. 20) (Roth
1963:296–303; Rösel 1976a:33–35; de Vaux 1978:618–619). Unfortunately, the
literary relationship between the two narratives was not examined in detail,
and it is not clear whether the author of Joshua 8 worked the narrative of
Judges 20, or vice versa. The author of the story of Ai was certainly impressed
by the prominent ruins of the site (Khirbet et-Tell), assuming that it was con-
quered by the Israelites when they occupied the country. To give his story

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 349

of the capture of Ai an aura of authenticity, he used military elements of the
tradition of either the capture by stratagem of Gibeah or the conquest of an-
other unknown site, transplanting them within a new environment that he
knew very well from personal acquaintanceship (Zevit 1983:28–33). The con-
quest story of Ai did not emerge from an authentic historical memory of the
event, but is rather the outcome of a reworking and adaptation of a conquest
story relating to another site.44

2. The battle of Joshua against the five Amorite kings opens the episode
of the conquest of southern Canaan. Scholars have suggested that the con-
quest story is composed of three literary units: the battle of Gibeon (vv. 1–
15), the five kings at the cave of Makkedah (vv.16–27), and the conquest of
the five Amorite cities (vv. 29–39) (Elliger 1934:47–71; Weippert 1971:29–33;
Soggin 1972:121–132; Weimar 1976:51–62; de Vaux 1978:627–635). The combi-
nation of chapters nine and ten is the result of the work of a late redactor and
is, thus, secondary (for Josh. 9, see below, part four) (Möhlenbrink 1938:264–
265; Noth 1960:147 n. 4).

The battle of Gibeon usually was regarded as an authentic episode of the
conquest era, and some scholars even assumed that Joshua was the Israelite
commander in the battle (Alt 1936:23–24; Schunck 1963:28–39; Halpern 1975:
303–316; de Vaux 1978:631–635). According to the narrative in Joshua 10, the
league of “Amorite” kings was formed as a reaction to the treaty of Joshua
with the Gibeonites, and, following their defeat in battle, they fled west-
ward. However, the treaty of “Israel” with the Gibeonites can hardly ante-
date the eleventh century BCE, when the settlement process reached the
stage of regional unification (see below, part four). At that time, there were
no “Amorite” kingdoms able to attack the Benjaminite-Gibeonite league.
Historically, the conclusion of a treaty with the Gibeonites did not constitute
the casus belli between the Canaanite cities and the “Israelites.”

Noth assumed that the old narrative depicted the battle between Israel
and “all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the hill country” (v. 6). At a
second stage, the “collector” (Sammler) combined the episode of the battle of
Gibeon with that of the cave of Makkedah. The personal names and the cities
of the five Amorite kings (vv. 1, 3, 5, 23) were integrated into the story only
at a third stage (Noth 1937:26–31; 1953:60–63).45 However, not only is the lit-
erary analysis highly uncertain, but there is also a major historical difficulty
in Noth’s reconstruction: The Amorite kings’ line of escape along the Beth-

44. For further suggestions, see Lipschitz 1983:100–110, with earlier literature
(Hebrew).

45. For a more daring reconstruction, see Fritz 1969:139–140.

350 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

horon route “as far as Azekah and Makkedah” indicates that they came to the
battle from the Shephelah and returned there following their defeat. Noth’s
assumption (1953:61) that the old story depicted the battle of Benjaminites or
Ephraimites against “all the kings of the Amorites that dwell in the hill coun-
try” does not fit this line of march and escape.

Other scholars assumed that only “all the kings of the Amorites” were
mentioned in the original story, that their origin was in the Azekah-
Makkedah region, and that they marched to the battle from this area and fled
there following their defeat (Rösel 1976b:505–508; de Vaux 1978:631–632).
However, all these solutions are involved with many unnecessary textual as-
sumptions and with alterations in all parts of the narrative.46 The close sim-
ilarity between the story of the battle at Gibeon and that of the battle at the
Waters of Merom (see the fifth section, below) suggests that the appearance
of the king of Jerusalem at the head of a coalition that fought near his city is
an original narrative element. We may conclude that all efforts to integrate
the story of Joshua 10 within the reality of the early settlement period by sug-
gesting various textual hypotheses meet with enormous difficulties.

The story of the battle of Gibeon may be defined technically as a “bat-
tle report” devoid of concrete details (Möhlenbrink 1938:264; Noth 1953:13;
Gunn 1974:286–317). More important, however, is the emphasis on the theo-
logical motif of a “Yahweh war” (for the terminology, see Jones 1975), accord-
ing to which it is the Lord who fights for His people and defeats its enemies,
and all human activity is subjected to His will (Blenkinsopp 1972:44, 50–52).
Möhlenbrink was correct when he dismissed the definition “Heldensage” for
the narrative (Möhlenbrink 1938: 264).47 It is not a local “ätiologische Sage” (Alt
1936:19–20; Noth 1937:22–36; 1953:60–67; Weippert 1971:20–24, 29–33),48 but
a narrative that from the very outset was composed as an integral part of the
history of Israel.

It seems to me that the battle of Gibeon was modeled after the historical
episode of David’s second campaign against the Philistines (2 Sam. 5:22–25;
1 Chr. 14:13–16). By way of a frontal attack, David won his first battle against
the Philistines in the valley of Rephaim, north of Bethlehem (2 Sam. 5:17–
21; 1 Chr. 14:8–12; see 2 Sam. 23:13–17). The Philistines attacked for a sec-
ond time; according to 2 Samuel 5:22 the battle took place in the valley of
Rephaim, whereas 1 Chronicles 14:13 merely mentions “the valley.” This time,
David launched a surprise night attack, defeated the Philistines and smote

46. For a more daring reconstruction, see Weimar 1976:56–62.
47. For a comprehensive discussion of the problem, see recently Coats 1987:15–32.
48. For an entirely different interpretation of the etiology in these narratives, see
Sanmartín Ascaso 1986:260–261.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 351

them either “from Geba to Gezer” (2 Sam. 5:25) or “from Gibeon to Gezer” (1
Chr. 14:16).

The second reference to the valley of Rephaim as the site of battle is
problematic, because one would expect some territorial gains as a result
of the first victory. Moreover, according to the closing lines, the Philistines
were smitten near Geba/Gibeon, north of the valley of Rephaim. We may as-
sume that the second battle was conducted in “the valley” (1 Chr. 14:16),
north or northwest of Jerusalem (Jebus), and that “Rephaim” was interpo-
lated in 2 Samuel 5:22 by a late redactor in an effort to identify the missing
site of the second battle (Driver 1913:265; Tidwell 1979:207–208). This as-
sumption may be supported by the words of Isaiah 28:21: “For the Lord will
rise up as on Mount Perazim, he will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon.”
The prophet alludes to the two victories of David (assigned by the prophet to
the Lord): one on Mount Perazim (i.e., Baal Perazim of 2 Sam. 5:20, with re-
placement of the forbidden theophoric element Baal by the common noun
“mount”), and the second in the valley near Gibeon. David made a surprise
attack at night on the Philistines (this is the stratagem to which 2 Sam. 5:23–
24 alludes), defeated them and pursued the fleeing enemy along the Beth-
horon route down to Gezer in the northern Shephelah.

The description of Joshua’s campaigns against the five Amorite kings is,
in my opinion, a literary reflection of the historical episode of David’s second
battle against the Philistines near Gibeon. The five Amorite kings are reflec-
tions of the five Philistine lords (śrnym) whom David defeated by night attack
and pursued along the Beth-horon route. The continuation of the pursuit “as
far as Azekah and Makkedah” is a literary device to combine the story of the
battle of Gibeon with the episode of the cave of Makkedah. One may further
suggest that the citation from the “Book of Jashar” (Josh. 10:12–13) originally
referred to David’s war against the Philistines (compare 2 Sam. 1:18) and
that the two toponyms mentioned in the poem — Gibeon and the valley of
Aijalon — fit David’s pursuit much better than Joshua’s pursuit (for the Book
of Jashar, see Holladay 1968:166–178; de Vaux 1978:632–635). There is no lit-
erary similarity between the narratives of Joshua 10 and 2 Sam. 5:22–25; only
certain details are common to the two episodes.

One cannot rule out the possibility that a certain “Israelite” group fought
autochthonous Canaanite elements near Gibeon at some remote prehistori-
cal time and that a vague memory of the episode is reflected in the story of
Joshua 10:1–15. However, at present there is no way to reconstruct either its
background or its course and results.

3. The story of the battle of Gibeon was combined with that of the capture
of the five kings in the cave of Makkedah (Josh. 10:16–27) by extending the
line of escape. The background of the latter episode is unknown (Noth 1937:

352 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

22–36; 1953:60–66; Weimar 1976: 54–56; de Vaux 1978:630–631). One may as-
sume that this was an old local story transmitted by oral tradition, relating
the tale of five kings who hid themselves in a cave and were caught and ex-
ecuted. It is more reasonable, however, to link the story with Sennacherib’s
campaign against the kingdom of Judah in 701 BCE and his wars in the
Shephelah. The key to the episode is the hanging of the five kings on ‘ēṣîm
(vv. 26–27). It is preferable to translate ‘ēṣ, in this context, as “post” rather
than “tree,” as one should bear in mind that impalement on posts was the
common Assyrian method of executing leaders of conquered cities (see Josh.
8:29) (see Weippert 1971:28, n. 69).49 With all due caution, it is suggested that
the episode at the cave of Makkedah reflects a somewhat similar event of the
time of Sennacherib’s campaign in the area of Makkedah. The narrator incor-
porated the motif of impalement in his story, because he assumed that the re-
ality of ancient times was the same as that of his own days.

4. The episode of Joshua 10:29–39 is the third literary unit in the chap-
ter, appearing as the last stage in Joshua’s conquest of southern Canaan. It
has a uniform schematic style and was linked with the episode of Makkedah
by v. 28, in which the conquest of Makkedah was described in the same man-
ner as that of the other five cities. Some scholars attributed historical au-
thenticity to the story of the capture of the five cities (Elliger 1934:49–55,
68–70; Schunck 1963:31–36; Soggin 1972:129–130), but their hypothetical re-
constructions rest on weak foundations. Others assumed that the entire ep-
isode is fictive (Noth 1937:29–31; de Vaux 1978:629–630; see also Weippert
1971:32–33).

A close study of the campaign in vv. 29–39 brings to light similarities with
Sennacherib’s campaign to Judah.50 The Assyrian campaign was directed
against the Shephelah, and many important cities, including Lacish and
Libnah (2 Kgs. 18:14, 17; 19:8), were captured and destroyed.51 Eglon should
probably be identified with Tel cEton (Noth 1937:33–34; Rainey 1983:9–10);
soundings conducted at the site indicated that it was destroyed and aban-
doned at the end of the eighth century (Ayalon 1985:54–62; Zimhoni 1985:
63–90). All three Shephelah cities mentioned in Josh. 10:29–39 were impor-
tant Judahite cities before the campaign and were totally destroyed by the

49. For an illustration of an execution by impalement of the Judahite leaders of Lachish,
see Ussishkin 1982:102, 104.

50. For Sennacherib’s campaign to Palestine, see, e.g., Honor 1926; Childs 1967; Na’aman
1974:25–39; Millard 1985:61–77; Tadmor 1985:65–80; van der Kooij 1986:93–109; Gonçalves
1986; Vogt 1986.

51. For the results of the recent excavations, see Ussishkin 1980:174–195; 1982; 1990:53–
86, with earlier literature.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 353

Assyrians. The sudden interruption of the king of Gezer in the course of
Joshua’s campaign to the Shephelah is the most outstanding element of the
story. It may reflect Egyptian intervention in the course of Sennacherib’s
campaign against Judah (cf. 2 Kgs. 19:9), which ended with the battle of
Eltekeh and an Assyrian victory over the Egyptian task force.

Excavations at Khirbet Rabûd (biblical Debir) indicated that the city was
destroyed at the end of the eighth century (Kochavi 1974:16–18). Further ar-
chaeological data concerning sites located in the hill country of Judah, in par-
ticular the central city of Hebron, are missing. Assuming that Sennacherib’s
task forces attacked the hill country region of Hebron and Debir, de-
stroying cities therein,52 we may conclude that Joshua’s campaign to the
Shephelah and the hill country of Judah in vv. 29–39 is a general reflection of
Sennacherib’s campaign of 701 BCE. First the fortified cities of the Shephelah
were conquered and destroyed; second, in the course of the campaign, a task
force attacked from the west and was defeated; and third, some fortified cit-
ies were conquered and destroyed in the hill country.

We may now clarify the details of the episode of Joshua 10:29–39. The au-
thor selected five major Judahite cities, parallel to the number of cities that,
according to his description, took part in the battle of Gibeon. All of the five
cities were located on ancient tells, which was interpreted as a sign of an-
tiquity, and all (or most) of the cities were conquered in the course of the
Assyrian campaign to Judah.By way of a stereotype battle report, he linked
the five cities to a continuous line of march that follows the general course of
a historical campaign conducted along this line. It goes without saying that
the episode is fictive and has nothing to do with Iron Age I. On the other hand,
the mention of all six Shephelah towns to which Joshua 10 alludes in the town
list of Joshua 15 (vv. 39, 41, 42, 49, 54 — a document apparently dated to the
time of Josiah [Alt 1925:100–116; Na’aman 1991:5–32, with earlier literature])
supports my conclusion about the late date of the episode in Joshua 10.

5. The northern campaign described in Joshua 11 is divided into two lit-
erary units: the battle at the Waters of Merom (vv. 1–9) and the conquest of
Hazor and the other northern towns (vv. 10–14). In its main outlines, the pre-
sentation of the northern campaign (11:1–14) is similar to that of the south-
ern one (10:1–39): (a) a detailed description of the coalition formed to fight
Israel (vv. 1–5); (b) a divine assurance to Joshua (v. 6); (c) a surprise attack and
a decisive victory in battle (vv. 7–9); and (d) the taking of the northern towns
(vv. 10–14) (for the textual comparison, see de Vaux 1978:655). The battle at

52. In earlier works I have suggested that Sennacherib did not conquer and destroy the
hill country of Judah. See Na’aman 1979:73–74, 83–86; 1986:17.

354 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

the Waters of Merom (vv. 1–9) and the battle of Gibeon (10:1–15) are closely
related both in structure and phraseology (Noth 1953:67; Fritz 1973:132) and
in the concept of “Yahweh war.” The schematic character, the omission of
many details and the motif of a total conquest brought about by one decisive
victory are also common to both descriptions. One can hardly doubt that the
two narratives were composed according to the same literary and theological
pattern, apparently by the same author.

The introduction to the campaign (vv. 1–5) is deliberately detailed to form
the background for the conquest of the northern parts of the Land of Israel
in a single decisive victory. The leader of the coalition (Jabin king of Hazor) is
mentioned first, followed by the names of the three most important Canaanite
cities in the north (Madon/Maron, Shimron/Shimcon and Achshaph), all sit-
uated along the border of the Galilee (Na’aman 1986:122–127). The narrator
marked the extent of the Canaanite coalition by using the names of the nat-
ural districts of Judah (hill country, Arabah, Shephelah), describing it as fol-
lows (v. 2): “and to the kings who were in the northern hill country, and in
the Arabah opposite (neged)53 Chinneroth, and in the Shephelah in front of?
the district? (penê nāpat) of Dor on the west.”54 Verse 3 lists the six pre-Israelite
nations and is possibly a late expansion of the original story (Noth 1953:62,
68). By the combination of all these elements, the narrator portrayed a pic-
ture of “a great host, in number like the sand that is upon the seashore.” After
the defeat, this great host fled, according to v. 8: “as far as Great Sidon and
Misrephoth-maim and eastward as far as the valley of Mizpeh.” The three
toponyms are located on the northern border of the tribal boundary system
and are the counterparts of Qadesh-Barnea, which is located on its southern
border and is mentioned in the summary of Joshua’s campaign to the south
(Josh. 10:41) (Na’aman 1986:40–67, with earlier literature). The portrayal of
an enemy fleeing northward, outside of the Land of Israel (rather than to its
fortified cities within the Land), is in accord with the imaginary account of
the makeup and numerical strength of the Canaanite coalition assembled for
battle. The episode in its present form is a fictive literary creation devoid of
historical foundation.

When these elements (i.e., the literary structure, the concept of a “Yahweh
war” and the enormous range of participants) are removed from the narra-
tive, only few distinctive elements remain. In spite of the schematic charac-

53. See Noth 1953:62. For a detailed discussion, see Barthélemy 1982:20.
54. The LXX for Joshua 11:2 helps to reconstruct the original version. See Holmes 1914:
53. It seems to me that the plural form npwt is the result of a conflated reading of the orig-
inal pny npt. For the various interpretations of the term nph, see Ben-Dov 1976:70–73, with
earlier literature; Na’aman 1986:184–185.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 355

ter of the source material and the lack of concrete details, scholars usually
have suggested that the story of Joshua 11:1–14 reflects a historical episode
of the thirteenth-twelfth centuries BCE.55 The reconstruction of the assumed
historical event is controversial, because the narrative hardly supplies the
necessary details. Each scholar integrated the episode within the historical
development according to his/her overall view on this period.

The place of the king of Hazor at the head of the coalition and the em-
phasis on the destruction of his city can be attributed to the historical mem-
ory of the primacy of the kingdom of Hazor among the Canaanite kingdoms
(see Josh. 11:10; Judg. 4:2, 23, 24).56 The mention of Jobab, the king of Madon/
Maron (v. 1), is due to the proximity of his city to the battlefield. The most
outstanding element in the entire episode is the divine command to ham-
string the horses and set fire to the chariots (v. 6) and its fulfilment (v. 9).
Such a command does not appear in the biblical laws or in other conquest
narratives. However, it is mentioned in the account of David’s campaign
against Hadadezer of Zobah (2 Sam. 8:3–4). The outlines of David’s Aramaic
campaign are reported in a brief and dry account, and it is difficult to recon-
struct it in detail. It seems that David conducted a surprise attack on the king-
dom of Zobah when its king (Hadaezer) operated in the far north, erecting his
stela (yād) near the Euphrates (2 Sam. 8:3). Zobah was defeated and many sol-
diers and chariot horses were captured. “And David hamstrung all the char-
iot horses, but left enough for a hundred chariots” (v. 4). The hamstringing
of the horses (cf. Gen. 49:6) was carried out either for military reasons or as a
kind of punishment (for David’s campaign against Zobah, see McCarter 1984:
242–252, with earlier literature).

There are several elements that are common to the campaigns of Joshua
and David: victory by a surprise attack of the Israelite infantry against an
enormous foreign army whose backbone was the chariotry, and the elimi-
nation of the chariot horses by hamstringing. It seems to me that the au-
thor again used a well-known historical episode as a model for his narrative,
adapting it to its new topographical arena. The Waters of Merom is appar-
ently the spring of Wādi el-Ḥamam, northeast of Tel Qarnei Ḥiṭṭin, the site of
the Canaanite city of Marom/Maron (Na’aman 1986:126). It is located on the
main route leading to Hazor. The location of the battlefield is in good accord
with the main object of the author: to demonstrate that it only required a sin-
gle victory over the Canaanite coalition to conquer the whole region.

55. Alt 1939:18–19; Noth 1938:10–11; 1953:67; Aharoni 1957:89–98; Maass 1958:109–117;
Yadin 1972:108–109, 129–132; 1979:60–63, 66–67; Malamat 1979:52; de Vaux 1978:656–657.

56. The problems involved with the destruction of the city of Hazor will be discussed
below.

356 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

It is not entirely impossible that a battle between Canaanite forces and a
certain “Israelite” group was waged at the Waters of Merom in early Iron Age I.
However, we are unable to reconstruct its background, course and results due
to the nature of the sources that have come down to us.

The discussion of the conquest stories in the Book of Joshua (the conquest
of Jericho by miracle is not my concern here) indicates that the author used
later events of a military nature as models for his compositions. The military
episodes were “borrowed” both from David’s wars against the Philistines and
Arameans and from Sennacherib’s campaign to Judah. Whether the strata-
gem of the battle at Ai reflects a historical battle conducted near Gibeah is
not clear. The author possibly assumed that the wars of the conquest era, for
which he had neither sources nor detailed traditions, were quite similar to
those portrayed in his composition. By using the course and stratagems of
later wars, he gave a sense of authenticity to his narratives. The author pos-
sibly may have heard some vague traditions of wars at Gibeon and the Waters
of Merom and, therefore, linked his narratives to these places. However, the
course and details of the conquest narratives were borrowed from a different
reality and, hence, do not reflect the events of the Early Iron Age.

Alt and Noth have suggested that most of the conquest stories in the
Book of Joshua emerged as local etiological sagas and were only later incor-
porated in the national, all-Israelite history.57 It seems to me that the oppo-
site is true: The stories were composed from the very outset as part of the
history of Israel. The leading historiographical idea of the author was that
the Land of Israel had been conquered as a national operation, initiated and
guided by the Lord and carried out by the twelve tribes under the leader-
ship of Joshua. The cycle of conquest stories is connected, inseparably, with
Joshua, the twelve tribes and the concept of a “Yahweh war.” If indeed there
was once a pre-Deuteronomistic account, it cannot be extracted from the
present composition.

Of the hero of this cycle of stories, Joshua, hardly anything is known.58 He
was an Ephraimite and was buried at Timnath-heres, in the southern part

57. Alt 1936:19–20; Noth 1937:22–36; 1953:60–67; see Weippert 1971:20–24, 29–33. For an
entirely different interpretation of the etiology in these narratives, see Sanmartín Ascaso
1986:261–282. For an earlier criticism of the views of Alt and Noth, see Kaufmann 1955:76–
80; 1959:24–31; Seeligmann 1961:154–155. For further criticism, see Seeligmann 1961:141–
169; Childs 1963:279–292; 1974:387–397; Long 1968, with earlier literature; Golka 1976:410–
428; 1977:36–47; Van Seters 1983, passim.

58. For the efforts of scholars to reconstruct the achievements of the “historical
Joshua,” see, e.g., Alt 1936:13–29; Weippert 1971:37–41, with earlier literature; de Vaux
1978, passim; Seebass 1985:53–65; Donner 1984:127–128.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 357

of Mount Ephraim (Josh. 24:30; Judg. 2:9). Legends of his heroic deeds were
probably related by the local inhabitants near his grave; some of them may
well have been collected by the Dtr historian. The placing of Joshua at the
head of the conquest campaign possibly was influenced by the traditions of
the hegemony of the tribe of Ephraim in the early history of Israel, as is in-
dicated by the stories of the Book of Judges and the blessings of the tribes.
Certain of his traits may well have been “borrowed” from the portrayal of
David, the historical conqueror of the Land of Israel. However, there is no cer-
tainty in all these assumptions, and there never will be, due to the great an-
tiquity of the period to which the events are assigned and the late date when
the stories were composed in writing.

Historical Analysis of Judges 1:1–26 and the Parallel Episodes in the Book of
Joshua

Judges 1:1–2:5 is a literary unit that was inserted between Joshua 24:31
and Judges 2:10ff. Judges 2:6–9 is a resumptive repetition (Wiederaufnahme)
of Joshua 24:28–31, written when this unit was interpolated (Moore 1895:4;
Burney 1918:1; Smend 1971:506–509; Auld 1975:263–265; Soggin 1981:40–41).
The first part of the passage (Judg. 1:1–18) relates how the tribal territory of
Judah — as delineated in Joshua 15:1–12 — was conquered: “First” (batteḥilāh,
v. 1), the tribe of Judah went up to fight the Canaanites, won the battle and
conquered Jerusalem (vv. 1–2, 4–8). “And afterward” (we ’aḥar), the tribe of
Judah extended its campaign and fought the Canaanites “who dwelt in the
hill country, in the Negeb and in the lowland” (v. 9). Hebron and Debir in the
hill country, Hormah in the Negeb, and Gaza, Ashkelon and Ekron in the “low-
land” had been conquered during the course of the campaign (vv. 10–15, 17–
18). The conquest of Bethel by the Josephites opens the second part (vv. 22–
26) and is followed by a list of the unconquered Canaanite cities in the areas
alloted to the northern tribes (vv. 27–35; see v. 21). In the last part of this liter-
ary unit, the angel of the Lord denounces Israel for making a treaty with the
inhabitants of the land and adopting their gods (Judg. 2:1–5) (Weinfeld 1967:
95; Smend 1971:507–508). Verses 4–5 present a name-etiology of the toponym
Bochim/Bachuth, located “below Bethel” (Gen. 35:8) (Na’aman 1987:18, with
earlier literature).

The message of Judges 1 is clear: the tribe of Judah took possession of its
allotment, but the northern tribes (including the tribe of Benjamin) failed to
gain control over theirs; later, when these tribes grew stronger, they did not
expel the Canaanites, but rather put them to forced labor (vv. 21, 27–33, 35).
The coexistence with the Canaanites in the land drove the people to idolatry.
The chapter, thus, introduces (though secondarily) the period of the Judges,

358 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

the main feature of which is the subjection of Israel to its neighbors as a pun-
ishment for the sin of idolatry (Judg. 2:2–4, 11–13, 17–19). The entire chapter
is written with transparent pro-Judahite tendentiousness and can be consid-
ered as a complete conquest story, alternative and supplementary to the con-
quest stories of the Book of Joshua (Wellhausen 18892:213; Blenkinsopp 1972:
43; Auld 1975:284–285).

A closer look at Judges 1 indicates that the chapter is built up of originally
independent episodes that the author combined together in an effort to pro-
vide them with an overall meaning. His source material included the episode
of the war with Adoni-bezek, the conquests of Hebron, Debir, Hormah and
Bethel, the peaceful settlement at Arad and the list of “conquest lacunae.”
Part of the early material has remarkable parallels in the Book of Joshua,59 but
the rest has no clear parallels in the Old Testament. The author prefixed his
composition with an introduction (vv. 1–3); focused the description on the
tribe of Judah, acting in cooperation with Simeon its southern neighbor; and
added a connecting sentence (v. 9), an etiological comment (v. 26) and short
notes that refer to conquests (vv. 8, 18). In two episodes (v. 8 as against v. 21;
v. 18 as against v. 19) the list of “conquest lacunae” contrasts brief descrip-
tions composed by the author (Wright 1964:108–109; Auld 1975:266). It is ev-
ident that the author of Judges 1 collected some (oral or written) anecdotes
that were not included in the Book of Joshua, supplemented them with ma-
terial that he had found in the latter source, and composed a kind of an “ap-
pendix” that in a way supplemented the Book of Joshua and also served as an
introduction to the Book of Judges.

In the early days of modern research, scholars regarded Judges 1 as a bet-
ter source for the early history of Israel than the Book of Joshua (see for ex-
ample, Meyer 1881:117–146; Moore 1895:7–8; Burney 1918:xxxix, 1–2, 47–52).
This was the result of the episodic character of the description and the em-
phasis of the author on the failure to dispossess the autochthonous Canaanite
population. The general impression gained from the chapter is that of a par-
tial conquest by independent clans and tribes, without national leader and
all-inclusive tribal unity. Such a picture matched both the narratives of the
Book of Judges and the scholarly consensus that the conquest and settle-
ment process was more fragmented and complicated than the scene emerg-
ing from the Book of Joshua. However, scholarly evaluation of the material
included in this chapter has changed drastically, recently. It is clear now that
Judges 1 depends on the Book of Joshua at all points at which it offers simi-

59. For a close comparison of the texts of Joshua and Judges 1, see de Geus 1966:32–53;
Auld 1975:267–284. For recent discussion, see Rösel 1988:127–129.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 359

lar or identical material (Moore 1895:4; Burney 1918:1; Smend 1971:506–509;
Auld 1975:263–265; Soggin 1981:40–41; de Geus 1966:32–53; Auld 1975:267–
284; Rösel 1988:127–129).

In what follows, I will deal separately with the individual episodes to de-
termine whether they may shed some light on the period to which they are
assigned by the author.

1. In a recent article, I treated at length the episode of Adoni-bezek
(Na’aman 1988:42–47, with earlier literature), and it is not necessary to
enter into a detailed discussion here. It seems to me that only vv. 5a, 6–7a
were retained from the original story and that the rest of the narrative in vv.
1–8 was composed by the author of Judges 1. The message of the old story
is the retribution of Adoni-bezek, expressed in his own words (v. 7a): “as I
have done, so God has requited me.” The city of Bezek (today Khirbet Ibziq)
is located northeast of Shechem (1 Sam. 11:8), and the old story probably
emerged in the area of the tribe of Manasseh. The name of the enemy’s ruler
was apparently forgotten, and, in the old story, he was called by the name
of the battlefield: “the Lord of Bezek.” He must have been an important king
in the north Manassite area, who treated his subjects in a cruel and humili-
ating manner. After his defeat in battle, he received similar treatment. It is,
thus, reasonable to assume that the ruler before whom “seventy kings used
to pick up scraps” under his table (v. 7) was the ruler of Shechem (Welten
1965:145; for other suggestions, see Weippert 1971:54, 146, n. 5). During the
Late Bronze Age, Shechem was the major Canaanite kingdom of the central
hill country and controlled vast areas in which large and small towns were
located. No other ruler in the entire hill country fits the image of a con-
queror and overlord of many subjected kings. The old narrative may well
have belonged (like the story of Judg. 1:22–26) to the stock of conquest sto-
ries of the sons of Joseph. This, of course, is merely a hypothesis and can-
not be verified.

The linkage of this episode with Jerusalem and the conquest of Judah
was due to the similarity of names, Adoni-bezek and Adoni-zedek. The lat-
ter was the king of Jerusalem, who, according to Joshua 10, headed the coali-
tion that fought Joshua. His fate following the battle of Gibeon is not men-
tioned in the text. By the coalescence of personal names and identification
of Jerusalem as Adoni-bezek’s capital city, the author of Judges 1 was able
to fill the gap in the story of Joshua. He, thus, described the death of Adoni-
bezek (v. 7b) and the capture of his ostensible city (v. 8) and attached these
new elements to the end of the story (Welten 1965:145–146; de Vaux 1978:
541–542). The process of gap-filling delineated here illustrates well the sub-
tle manner by which the author of Judges 1 supplemented the conquest sto-
ries of the Book of Joshua.

360 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

It is clear that the story, in its final form, is fairly late (its author was fa-
miliar with the story of Joshua 10 and jointly mentions the Canaanites and
Perizzites, an association that belongs to a late stratum in the biblical tradi-
tion) and that most of it is devoid of historical authenticity (for the late date
of the pair Canaanites and Perizzites, see Na’aman 1988:42–44). One should
entirely dismiss the claim that the tribe of Judah wandered from the area of
Manasseh across the land of Ephraim and entered its allotted area from the
north (Hertzberg 1926:216–221; Aharoni 1967:197; Mazar 1971:88–89; Yeivin
1971:75–76, 95–96). The assumed Judahite conquest of Canaanite Jerusalem
at an early stage of Iron Age I is likewise non-historical (Aharoni 1967; Mazar
1971:89; 1981:78; Yeivin 1971:76 and n. 47, 96). The city was probably con-
quered and destroyed by a migrating group of Jebusites, who subsequently
settled at the site and lived there until it was captured by David.

2. The portrayal of the occupation of the cities of Kiriath-arba (Hebron)
and Kiriath-sepher (Debir) in the books of Joshua differs slightly from that in
Judges 1. The episode of Joshua 15:13–19 is the source from which the author
of Judges 1:10–15 drew his material. In Judges 1 the tribe of Judah initiates the
conquest of the hill country, whereas Caleb is “Judahized” by implication (see
Num. 13:6; 34:19; 1 Chr. 4:13–15). In Joshua 15:13–14 Caleb is not explicitely
treated as a Judahite, and he receives Hebron (and by implication the Judean
hill country) as a personal allocation due to his faithfulness to Yahweh (Beltz
1974:30–37; Miller 1977:222–224, 236–238; de Vaux 1978:523–526, 534–536,
with earlier literature; Auld 1980, passim).

The subject matter of Joshua 15:13–19 is also treated in Joshua 14:6–15.
This Deuteronomistic tradition is a later development of Joshua 15:13–19 and
is dependent on it (Auld 1980:29, 82). Noth (1943:44–47; see Mowinckel 1964:
44) suggested that originally it was connected with Joshua 11:21–23, another
passage dealing with the occupation of the hill country of Judah. We may
conclude that Joshua 15:13–19 is the oldest source relating to the occupation
of Hebron and Debir by Caleb and Othniel.

Joshua 15 emphasizes that Caleb received Hebron as a special grant, held
his allocation within Judah’s overall territory (v. 13), and drove out the three
benê hā‘ănāq, Sheshai, Ahiman and Talmai (v. 14). Remarkably, the tradition
does not refer to the conquest of a city, but rather to the driving out of three
persons bearing non-Semitic names (for the analysis of the three names, see
Lipiński 1974:45–46, with earlier literature), who are defined by the descrip-
tive term benê/yelîdê hā‘ănāq (Num. 13:22, 28; Josh. 15:14). Indeed, Hebron was
not occupied in the Late Bronze Age (Hammond 1965:267–270; 1966:566–569;
1968:253–259; Ofer 1989:90–91; 1990:193, 196–198), whereas Debir, which ac-
cording to Joshua 15:15–19 was captured by Othniel, was then the major
urban center of the Judean hill country. The difference in the traditions may

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 361

well reflect a vague memory of the settlement process in the two main cen-
ters of the Judean hill country.

What might have been the historical roots of the tradition regarding the
dispossession of the three benê/yelîdê hā‘ănāq from Hebron? The construct
form yelîdê hā‘ănāq was compared with yelîdê hārāpā’, which was the name
of a professional group of warriors in the Philistine army who fought the
best warriors of Israel (2 Sam. 21:15–22; 1 Chr. 20:4–8) (Willesen 1958:193–
194, 209–210; L’Heureux 1976:83–85). We have already noted that migrating
groups from the Hittite empire may have entered the hill country of Judah in
early Iron I. Thus, it is suggested that the construct forms yelîdê hārāpā’ and
benê/yelîdê hā‘ănāq designated, in biblical terminology, groups of elite pro-
fessional troops that the northern migrants (Philistines, Hittites) formed
in Canaan in imitation of the custom in their homelands. According to this
analysis, the traditions of the occupation of Hebron memorized the victory
of the West-Semitic clan of Caleb, migrating from the Negeb south of Canaan
(Num. 13–14), over the professional troops of a Hittite migrant group. Just as
the wars against and victory over the elite troop of yelîdê hārāpā’ are the most
prominent memory from David’s conquest of eastern Philistia (2 Sam. 21:15–
22), so the decisive victory over the elite troops of the Hittites at Hebron was
memorized by the Calebites.

The close relationship of yelîdê hārāpā’ and benê/yelîdê hā‘ănāq was already
noted by a late Deuteronomistic author, who created a direct link between
the ousting of the “Anakim” from the hill country of Judah and their survival
in the coast of Philistia. He, thus, artificially counted three towns cleared of
“Anakim” in the hill country of Judah (Hebron, Debir and Anab) as against
three towns inhabited by “Anakim” on the coast of Philistia (Gaza, Gath and
Ashdod) (Josh. 11:21–22).

3. The episode of the capture of Kiriath-sepher (Debir) by Othniel, the son
of Kenaz, follows that of Caleb’s occupation of Hebron (Josh. 15:15–19; Judg.
1:11–15). Othniel appears in this tradition as the brother of Caleb, who is de-
scribed in certain traditions as a Kenizzite (Num. 32:12; Josh. 14:6, 14). The
well-known literary motif of offering the leader’s daughter to the victorious
hero (1 Sam. 18:17–27) dominates the narrative. The Kenizzites had strong
ties with Edom (Gen. 36:11, 15, 42) and it is evident that a Kenizzite group
captured Debir and settled there and that the conquest, thus, was attributed
to its eponym. The association of the Calebite and Kenizzite traditions, and

60. For the relations of the Kenizzites and the inhabitants of Edom, see de Vaux 1978:
535–536.

362 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

Othniel’s description as Caleb’s brother, are the result of their neighborhood
in the south Judean hill country (Beltz 1974:83).60

The details of the Achsah narrative are not clear enough. Noth regarded
it as a local etiological story explaining why the springs occupied by the
Kenizzites are in the territory of the Calebites (Noth 1953:90; cf. Cooke 1918:
144). If one accepts this supposition, the springs should be sought in the area
of Hebron, but there is no certainty about this point (for the identification of
the springs at some distance from Debir, see Kochavi 1974:2–3, 29–30).

A large, possibly fortified, Late Bronze city was discovered at the site of
ancient Debir (Khirbet Rabûd) (Kochavi 1974:4–10, 19–26). It was the only
urban center in southern Judah in the fourteenth-thirteenth centuries, dom-
inating the area from the Beer-sheba Valley in the south to Beth-zur in the
north. The exact date of its destruction is unknown, due to the limited scope
of the excavation. The explicit conquest tradition in Joshua 15 and Judges 1
may reflect a vague memory of the taking of the Canaanite city by a semi-no-
madic group that lived in its vicinity. The Kenizzites possibly took advantage
of the situation at the end of the Late Bronze Age, destroyed and sacked the
city, and gradually settled at the site, apparently absorbing elements of the
former Canaanite population in their midst.

4. Another conquest tradition relates the conquest and total destruction
of the city of Zephath, which was renamed Hormah (Judg. 1:17). I already
have discussed the subject at length elsewhere and will summarize my con-
clusions in brief (Na’aman 1980:136–143, with earlier literature). Hormah
should be sought in the western Beer-sheba Valley (the biblical Negeb), pos-
sibly at Tel Ḥalif (Tell el-Khuweilifeh) — a large mound situated at the junc-
tion of the Shephelah, the Negev and the hill country. Its position and the
fact that it overlooks vast areas accord well with the name “Zephath.” One
may assume that the traditions about the conquest of Hormah (Num. 21:1–3;
Judg. 1:17) reflects a vague memory of the capture of the city by a southern
semi-nomadic group that subsequently settled at the site (see Josh. 15:30; 19:
4; 1 Sam. 30:29–30; I Chr. 4:30;)61 Excavations at Tel Ḥalif exposed a flourishing
Late Bronze II city (Strata IXB-VIII) that came to an end ca. 1200 BCE. Iron Age
I occupation (Stratum VII) was exposed immediately above it (Seger 1983:4–
9). The results of the excavations, thus, are in good accord with the biblical
traditions of the conquest and settlement of Hormah.

61. The adverbial expressions ‘ad haḥōrmā (Num. 14:45) and ‘ad ḥōrmā (Deut. 1:44) are
comparable to the expression ‘ad tummām (Deut. 2:15; Josh. 8:24; 10:20), both meaning
“until they were utterly destroyed.” The expression ‘ad (ha)ḥōrmā was selected as a pun on
the toponym Hormah. It is evident that Numbers 14:44–45 and Deuteronomy 1:43–44 have
nothing to do with the conquest of the city of Hormah (see Na’aman 1980:139).

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 363

The destruction of Hormah and its eastern neighboring city, Debir, was
apparently the outcome of the increase in the number of pastoral groups in
southern Canaan in early Iron Age I. The shortage of grain and other neces-
sary supplies brought about conflicts betewen the two Canaanite cities, lead-
ing to their destruction and the gradual settlement of the nomads in order
to obtain grain.

The tribe of Simeon is mentioned twice in Judges 1: in the introduction
(v. 3) and in v. 17. It seems to me that Simeon’s place in the conquest and re-
naming episode is original and that its mention in the conquest tradition in-
fluenced the author to include its name in the introduction. The role of Judah
in the episode of Hormah is secondary and is due to the author’s intention to
attribute it all operations that took place within its allocated territory (see
v. 10: “And Judah went”; v. 11: “He went from there”; v. 16 “with the children
of Judah”).

5. The episode of the settlement of the Kenites at Arad is related in Judges
1:16 and, with some corrections, reads as follows:

And the descendants of [Hobab] the Kenite, Moses’ father-in law, went up from the City
of Palms with the children of Judah at the descent(?) (bmwrd) of Arad [LXX version],
which is in the Negeb of Arad; and they went and dwelt with the Amalekites (’t h‘mlqy)
[LXX version].62

The text refers to the peaceful settlement of the Kenites in the area of
Arad (cf. Judg. 4:11) and their neighborly relations with the Amalekites. The
latter may well have been the dominant tribal group in the Beer-sheba Valley
in Iron Age I (cf. 1 Sam.15:6). Indeed, it has been suggested that Tel Masos,
the most important center in the Beer-sheba Valley in the twelfth-eleventh
centuries, was an Amalekite center (Kochavi 1984:46; Herzog 1984:72; Rainey
1984:101; Finkelstein 1984:200–202; 1988b:43–46; 1988a:243, 248–251). The
earliest settlement at Arad (Stratum XII) was dated to the eleventh century
(Aharoni 1981:181–192). Judges 1:16 possibly refers to this time, when Arad
was already established, and the Amalekite center of Tel Masos reached its
zenith.

According to the text, the Kenites “went up from the City of Palms.”
Although the latter is a well-known designation for Jericho (Deut. 34:3; Judg.
3:13; 2 Chr. 28:15), it is preferable to identify the site with Tamar, situated
south of the Dead Sea (1 Kgs. 9:18; Ezek. 47:19; 48:28), on the main road lead-

62. For the translation of the passage, see Burney 1918:14–17. For the suggestion to
read at the end of v. 16 ’th ‘mlk (“and Amalek went and settled with him”), see Barthélemy
1982:73–74. For a detailed discussion including various textual emendations, see Mittmann
1977:213–219.

364 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

ing from the Arabah to Arad (for the place of Tamar, see Aharoni 1967:197–
198; 1963:30–42; Mittmann 1977:225–233, with earlier literature).

6. The episode of the conquest of Luz (Bethel) in Judges 1:22–26 has no
links with the Book of Joshua. It may be assumed that this short anecdote had
an independent existence prior to its incorporation into the chapter. The be-
ginning of v. 22 corresponds to the opening lines of the chapter and marks
the start of its second part. The author deliberately inserted the words gam
hēm (“they also”) in reference to waya‘al yehûdā (“Then Judah went up”; v. 4)
to emphasize the relationship between the two somewhat parallel introduc-
tions (Auld 1975:276).

The short narrative has several traits in common with other biblical spy
stories. Particularly clear is the similarity to the narrative of Rahab and the
spies (Josh. 2): the sending of spies to prepare the conquest, the promise to deal
kindly with the person who agrees to help them perform their mission and the
fulfilment of the promise when the city was captured. It seems to me that the
etiological notation in v. 26 (“And the man went to the land of the Hittites and
built a city, and called its name Luz, that is its name to this date”) was attached
to the original story by the author of the chapter, who noted the similarity be-
tween the ancient name of the city (Luz) and that of a Neo-Hittite city of his
time (for a different analysis, see Noth 1960b:276, n. 22). The etiological element
is likewise secondary within the narrative of Rahab and the spies (Josh. 6:25).63

The two etiological notes, which include the formula “until this day,”
mark the effort of late scribes to reaffirm the authenticity of the conquest
narratives relating to Jericho and Bethel by a kind of personal testimony
(Childs 1963:290–292). The two narratives originally ended with an identical
motif: the safe departure of the unharmed person who had helped the spies,
with his/her family, from the captured city (Josh. 6:23; Judg. 1:25).

Bethel was captured by a stratagem that is unique in the conquest nar-
ratives: penetration by way of mebô’ hā‘îr into the fortified city. The narra-
tor clearly refers to a secret passage, a kind of postern rather than the city
gate that can be seen by everybody (Malamat 1979:48–49, with earlier litera-
ture). The words “and they smote the city with the edge of the sword” refer
to the razing of the city, the same expression appearing in other episodes of
the capture and destruction of Canaanite cities in the Book of Joshua (10:28–

63. Anbar (1984:255–257) has convincingly suggested that the original narrative of
Rahab and the spies included Joshua 2:1–9a, 12–16, 22–23 and 6:22–23. This early narrative
was expanded in two stages, the earlier of which included 2:12b, 17–21 and 6:17b, 24. The
secondary nature of 6:17b and 25 was already noted by Steuernagel 1900:173–174. Thus, it
is clear that the etiological element was added only at the second stage of the transmission.
For a recent detailed discussion of Joshua 2, see Floss 1982 (esp. p. 72).

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 365

39). The significance of the expression may be inferred from the comparison
of Joshua 19:47 (“and they smote it with the edge of the sword”) with Judges
18:27 (“and smote them with the edge of the sword, and burned the city with
fire”), both referring to the same event. There is, thus, no concrete founda-
tion for Noth’s claim (Noth 1957:11–12, n. 6; 1960b:276) of inconsistency be-
tween the biblical description of the capture of Bethel (by treachery) and
the results of the archaeological excavations conducted at the site (the Late
Bronze Age city was covered with ash layers). Archaeologically, it is impos-
sible to date accurately the destruction of the city (Finkelstein 1988b:72–73,
with earlier literature). It is likewise impossible to establish with certainty
whether Bethel was conquered by a West-Semitic or by a non-Semitic group
that entered the hill country at that time.

In conclusion, it can be said that the anecdote may have preserved an au-
thentic memory of the conquest of Late Bronze Age Bethel, though this is by
no means certain.

Why did the author of Judges 1 include the episode of the conquest of
Bethel in his composition? An obvious answer is the tendency to fill in “gaps”
in the conquest stories of the Book of Joshua. The fall of Bethel is missing in
Joshua; only the capture of its eastern neighbor Ai is described in detail. The
author, thus, filled in an ostensible “gap,” just as he filled another with the
episode of the conquest of Jerusalem. There is, however, another and more
subtle answer. It has already been noted that the author deliberately empha-
sized the failure of the northern tribes to drive out the Canaanites, thus, ex-
plaining their troubled history as portrayed in the Book of Judges. Is it just
by chance that the only city conquered by the Josephites (who may stand in
this context for all the northern tribes) is Bethel, the future center of apos-
tasy and the seat of the golden calf? With all due caution, I would suggest that
the episode in vv. 22–26 was incorporated into the chapter both as a bridging
of a “gap” in the conquest tradition of Joshua and as a kind of hidden polemic
against the northern tribes, who were able to capture only one city: the fu-
ture center of heresy and idolatry.

To sum up, some of these episodes may possibly reflect vague memories
of Iron Age I, in particular the traditions of the conquest and occupation of
clans that had settled within the territory of Judah. Vague conquest tradi-
tions of the Josephites may have survived in the anecdotes of the battle at
Bezek and the capture of Bethel. The list of unconquered Canaanite cities in
Judges 1:21, 27–35 was probably borrowed from the description of the tribal

64. My previous analysis of the list of unconquered Canaanite cities in Judges 1 must be
corrected in light of the present conclusions. See Na’aman 1986:95–98, 198–199. For a re-
cent discussion, see Rösel 1988:121–127.

366 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

allotments in the Book of Joshua, a system that possibly reflects the reality
of the tenth century BCE.64 We may conclude that the short notes and anec-
dotes are better sources for the early history of Israel than the detailed con-
quest stories of the Book of Joshua.

The Conquest of Hazor and Dan and the List of the Vanquished Canaanite
Kings

(1) According to Joshua 11:10–11, the city of Hazor was conquered and
burnt after the great victory at the Waters of Merom. Fritz suggested that
the original narrative in chapter 11 included vv. 1–9, 12a and 14 and that the
capture of Hazor was added to the story at a later stage of transmission (Fritz
1973:129–130). Other scholars also assumed that the taking of Hazor does not
belong to the original account.65 Fritz’s claim that vv. 12b–13 are editorial is
acceptable. The capture of Hazor, on the other hand, finds a parallel in the
conquest of the six southern cities after the great victory at Gibeon (Josh. 10:
28–39). The taking of Hazor plus a general statement concerning the con-
quest of the other northern cities is exactly what one would expect in light of
the sequence of events in chapter 11 and the similarity to chapter 10. We may
conclude that vv. 10–11 are an integral part of the original story of the battle
at the Waters of Merom.

Some scholars assumed that the sequence of events in Joshua 11 reflects
historical reality and that the city of Hazor was destroyed following the de-
feat in battle at the Waters of Merom.66 In light of the doubts concerning the
antiquity and historicity of the sources describing the latter battle, this as-
sumption is highly unlikely. Rather, we should treat the episode of conquest
(vv. 10–11) in isolation to determine whether it reflects an authentic memory
of the early history of Israel.

According to the excavation report, Hazor was destroyed around the mid-
thirteenth century or slightly later (Yadin 1972:108–109; 1976:495).67 The last
mention of the city is in Papyrus Anastasi I (“Where does the mahir make
the journey to Hazor? What is its stream like?”), a text composed in the time
of the Egyptian Nineteenth Dynasty (Wilson 1969b:477). On the other hand,
the Iron Age I settlement of Tel Hazor and Upper Galilee does not antedate
the late twelfth or early eleventh century BCE (Finkelstein 1988b:98–110,
with earlier literature). The long time-span of about 100–150 years between

65. Noth 1938:10–11; 1953:69; [but note 1957:14–15; 1960:273–274]; Miller 1977:234, 282.
66. Noth 1957:14–15; 1960b:273–274, 275 n. 1; Maass 1958:109–117; Yadin in Aharoni
1960:234–238; 1972:108–109, 129–132; 1979:60–63, 66–67; 1982:19–22; Soggin 1972:135–137;
Malamat 1979:52; de Vaux 1978:660–667, 677.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 367

the destruction of Hazor and the resettlement of the mound and its vicin-
ity makes it difficult to trust the authenticity of the biblical conquest tradi-
tion. One would rather suggest that the short note in vv. 10–11 is an infer-
ence based on the historical memory that “Hazor formerly was the head of
all those kingdoms” (Josh. 11:10). The author attributed to Joshua (who, ac-
cording to his narrative, captured the entire Land of Israel) the conquest of
“the head of all those kingdoms” as well. The background for the conquest of
Hazor round about the mid-thirteenth century BCE is unknown. One can only
hope that the renewed excavations at the site will shed more light on the de-
struction of this important Canaanite city.

(2) A detailed description of the migration of the tribe of Dan and the con-
quest of Laish is related in Judges 18; other short notes appear in Joshua 19:
47 and Judges 1:34–35.

Scholars have noted that the narrative in Judges 18 concerning north-
ward migration is a transparent mockery of the tribe of Dan, its sanctuary
and priests.68 Noth (1962:71) noted correctly that the narrative could be con-
sidered a legend of the founding of the sanctuary at Dan, but that “this would
be but a caricature of such a legend.” Both the Levite and the cult image
standing at the center of the newly founded sanctuary are portrayed in an
unflattering light. The molten image, which was produced from stolen silver,
is stolen for the second time and transferred to the north. The lowly Levite,
dependent entirely on the “lord of the temple,” behaved both disgracefully
and disloyally: He remained silent when the cult object was removed and
then joined the robbers, seeking a better job in the north. The Danites are
likewise depicted as highly unsavory types — a band of brigands, rather than
a migrating clan: They took by threat the cult image from a place where they
had formerly enjoyed hospitality, inducing the priest who served there to
leave his benefactor and join them. After they had robbed Micah’s shrine and
taken away his priest, they insolently threatened to kill Micah if he tried to
stop them.

In the description of Jeroboam’s cultic arrangements, it is related that he
made two golden calves, erecting them in Bethel and Dan (1 Kgs. 12:28–29).
Verse 30b reads: “and the people went before the one even unto Dan.” This
transfer of the golden calf from Bethel to Dan is, in my opinion, the back-
ground against which the polemical narrative of Judges 18 was composed. It

67. For an earlier proposed date for the destruction of Canaanite Hazor, see Beck and
Kochavi 1985:36–38, with earlier literature.

68. Halévy 1890:207–217; Noth 1962:68–85; Preuss 1971:60–67; Soggin 1981:264–278;
Rudin-O’Brasky 1985:143–151; Amit 1990:4–20, with earlier literature. For a comprehensive
study of the biblical Danite traditions, see Niemann 1985:61–147.

368 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

is the transfer of the bull image (and other cult objects as well) to Jeroboam’s
newly founded cult center at Dan that is ridiculed by the author of Judges
18. The priests who served in Dan presumably came from the priesthood of
Bethel and were likewise portrayed in a satiric manner. One may also recall
the suggestion of Halévy that Judges 17 contains a hidden but severe criti-
cism of the temple and cultic arrangements of Bethel and that the condemna-
tion of Bethel is stronger than that of Dan (Halévy 1890:210–216; Amit 1990:
12–19). Judges 17–18 is a harsh criticism of the sanctuaries of Bethel and Dan
and of Jeroboam I’s cultic objects and priests in both sites.

When we eliminate for a moment the elements that refer to the house
of Micah, the graven image, the Levite and the etiological note (v. 12) from
the narrative, we are left with a clear and coherent narrative. It opens with
a short exposition of Dan as a tribe seeking an inheritance (v. 1). The Danites
sent spies to explore the land (v. 2); these spies came to Laish and reconnoi-
tred the site (v. 7). Then they returned and urged their brothers to go and
conquer it (vv. 8–10). A band of 600 armed men set forth from Zorah and
Eshtaol (v. 11), reached Laish, captured it and set the city on fire (vv. 27a–28),
renaming it Dan, “after the name of Dan, their ancestor” (v. 29).

Malamat suggested that “this tribal episode is a sort of diminutive model
of a campaign of inheritance, the pattern of which appears on the national
scale in the Exodus and pan-Israelite conquest cycles” (Malamat 1970:1). In
my opinion, the narrator attained the “diminutive model” by reworking
the old spy story in Numbers 13–14 and combining it with the short note
in Joshua 19:47. No independent sources for the Danite northward migra-
tion were available to him. Malamat has already noted the close relations
between the spy story in Numbers and our episode (Malamat 1970:1–7). For
the similarity of Joshua 19:47 and Judges 18:27–29 note: wykw ’wth/m lpy ḥrb,
wyšbw bh, wykr’w llšm/šm h‘yr dn k/bšm dn ’byhm. The narrator of Judges 17–
18 clearly borrowed the details of the Danite migration and the conquest of
Laish from the Book of Joshua (for a different analysis, see Veijola 1977:24,
n. 69). He sometimes expanded and somewhat altered his sources, as is evi-
dent from the exposition of the story (compare v. 1 with Josh. 19:40–47; Judg.
1:34–35).

We may conclude that the narrative of Judges 17–18 includes polemic and
satiric elements directed against the sanctuaries of Bethel and Dan on the
one hand and the reworking of earlier sources on the other hand. It is cer-
tainly not the kind of document that may shed light on the Danite migration
of Iron Age I.

Joshua 19:47 reads as follows:

When the territory of the Danites was lost to them, the Danites went up and fought
against Leshem, and after capturing it and putting it to the sword they took posses-

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 369

sion of it and settled in it, calling Leshem, Dan, after the name of Dan their ances-
tor.

Judges 1:34–35 relates that the Amorites exerted pressure on the Danites
pushing them back “into the hill country.” Later, the sons of Joseph subdued
the Amorites and subjected them to forced labor.69

The best points of departure for a historical evaluation of these notes are
the excavations conducted at Tel Dan (for the Iron Age I findings from Tel
Dan, see Biran 1989:71–96). Several collared-rim jars were found in pits that
had been dug into a level of destruction of the Late Bronze Age. The pits are
ascribed to Stratum VI and contained various vessels of Iron Age I. Collared-
rim jars were revealed in large numbers in Strata VI-V of Tel Dan and are of
the type common in the central hill country. The northern limit of distribu-
tion of these vessels is the Jezreel Valley and the Acco plain. Their appearance
in large numbers in far-off Dan most probably reflects the migration of peo-
ple from the central hill country to northern Palestine.

What remains unclear is the chronological relationship between Stratum
VII (Late Bronze Age) and Stratum VI (Iron Age I) at Tel Dan. Pits dug into
a destruction level do not indicate the time span that separated the two
strata.70 At Hazor, too, pits of Iron Age I were dug into the destruction level
of the Canaanite city. However, there is a gap of about 100–150 years between
the destruction of the Late Bronze Age city and the first Iron Age I settle-
ment.71 Provided that there is a similarity in the history of Tel Dan and Hazor
in Iron Age I (Hazor XII = Dan VI; Hazor XI = Dan V), a similar occupational gap
between the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age I may be suggested for Tel Dan.
This issue must be investigated in detail before any historical conclusions can
be drawn about the settlement process at Tel Dan in Iron Age I.

The excavations at Tel Dan have demonstrated that the Iron Age I settle-
ment was founded by people who migrated from the central hill country. This
is in good accord with the biblical tradition of the origin of the Danites from
the northern Shephelah. This migration was apparently the result of the

69. For the LXX version of Joshua 19:47 and its assumed contribution to textual history
of the MT, see Holmes 1914:15–16, 70; Cooke 1918:186; Auld 1975:277–278.

70. Biran (1989) did not discuss in detail the possible gap of settlement between
Stratum VII and Stratum VI at Tel Dan. Moreover, he dated both Hazor XII and the sites dis-
covered by Aharoni in Upper Galilee to the beginning of the twelfth century BCE (1989:75–
76, 81; for the correct chronological date of these settlement, see next note). His dating of
Stratum VI is, thus, partially based on erroneous data.

71. Finkelstein (1988b: 98–101, 104–110) dated the foundation of both Hazor XII and the
settlements of Upper Galilee to about 1100 BCE; see Mazar 1981:34–35; 1984:64.

72. For the city of Ekron in Iron Age I, see Gitin and Dothan 1987:200–205; Dothan 1989:

370 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

conflict with the autochthonous population (called “Amorites” in the LXX to
Josh. 19:47 and Judg. 1:34–35, and “Canaanites” in Josh. 16:10; Judg. 1:29; 1 Kgs
9:16) and the strengthening of the neighboring Philistine kingdom of Ekron.72
It remains unclear whether this was a peaceful migration and the Danites set-
tled in a site that was mainly deserted, or whether they conquered and de-
stroyed the Late Bronze settlement, as related in the biblical tradition.

The expansion of the Josephites (i.e., the Ephraimites) to the northern
Shephelah (Judg. 1:35) should be dated to the tenth century BCE, following
the defeat of the Philistines and the establishment of the monarchy. David’s
conquests opened the way for migration of the inhabitants of the hill coun-
try to the lowlands, including the northern Shephelah. The events to which
Joshua 19:47 and Judges 1:34–35 refer can be dated to the twelfth century
(the Danite migration) and the tenth century (the subduing of the Amorites/
Canaanites by the Josephites), with a considerable time span separating
them.

(3) The list of “the kings of the land whom Joshua and the people of Israel
defeated on the west side of the Jordan, from Baal-gad . . . to Mount Halak . . .”
(Josh. 12:7) was composed to fill the territorial gaps that remained in the con-
quest narratives. Baal-gad and Mount Halak are located on the northern and
southern boundaries of the tribal allotments (Kallai 1975:31–32; Na’aman 1986:
39–73 [esp. pp. 42–43]); the list of kings and their cities reflected the overall
scope of the Israelite conquest. The MT lists thirty-one cities, whereas the LXX
gives only twenty-nine: Bethel and Madon are missing. The city of Maron was
already listed after Shimcon (LXX version: mlk šm‘wn mlk mdwn), and Madon
(an old scribal error for the original Maron) must have been inserted into the
text by a glossator; Bethel possibly was excised from the LXX, because, accord-
ing to Judges 1:1, it was conquered “after the death of Joshua.”73 Thus, it is pos-
sible that the original list included thirty names.

Fritz (1969:136–161) suggested that the author used a register of fortified
cities of the time of Solomon for his list, which he copied and integrated into
the conquest stories. However, first, many important cities mentioned in the
accounts of David and Solomon (e.g., Dan, Beth-shean, Aruboth, Socoh, Beth-
shemesh, Beth-horon, Beer-sheba) are not included in the list. Second, the
resemblance between the list and the conquest narratives both in names of
towns and in their order of listing is not explained by this proposal. Third, the

1–22. For a suggested reconstruction of the Philistine growth and expansion, see Singer
1985:114–118.

73. For the city of Madon, see Barthélemy 1982:23–24. For the city of Bethel, see
Aharoni 1967:209; Barthélemy 1982:25. For other textual differences between the MT and
the LXX of Joshua 12, see Barthélemy 1982:23–27, with earlier literature.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 371

assumption that the author arbitrarily selected a list of towns for his compo-
sition has no clear parallels in the Deuteronomistic history. More plausible is
the assumption that the list was based on the conquest and settlement nar-
ratives (Aharoni 1956:29–36; 1967:208–211). The names of many towns were
cited from these narratives, though not exactly in their original order. The
list was supplemented by additional names (Geder/Gerar, Adullam, Tappuah,
Hepher, Aphek, Jokneam, Tirzah) to reach the number thirty.

Aharoni (1967:208–209)] suggested that the names were borrowed from
additional descriptions that have not been preserved. It is not clear, however,
whether such sources were available to the author; the analysis of the con-
quest stories, rather, indicates the limited scope of the available source ma-
terial. It seems to me that the author of the list selected the names of various
“old” towns located in regions that were missing from the conquest narra-
tives, possibly towns that were situated on ancient tells, a phenomenon that
was considered an indication of great antiquity. He, thus, created a “map of
conquest” that covered most of the districts of the Land of Israel and served
as a supplement to the detailed narratives in the previous chapters.

We may conclude that the list of Canaanite kings and their cities is a late
literary compilation and cannot be used for the historical reconstruction of
the early Iron Age.

The Treaty between Israel and the Gibeonites

The treaty with the Gibeonites (Josh. 9) is an outstanding narrative within
the conquest stories of the Book of Joshua. The semi-legendary character of
the narrative becomes evident even from a superficial reading of the text:
Why did the Gibeonites rely on such a transparent deception as the request
for a covenant, although such a covenant was not needed by people who lived
in a remote country? How were the Israelites deceived so easily, although the
suspicion “perhaps you live among us” was expressed at the beginning of the
negotiation? It is clear that the entire narrative, with all its legendary traits,
was only the means by which the author was able to attain his objective — the
treaty between Israel and the Gibeonites.

From the beginning of modern research, scholars were aware of the pres-
ence of secondary elements in the story. There is consensus about the scope
of the late Priestly stratum inserted into the story (vv. 15b, 17–21, and the
word lā‘ēdāh in v. 27) (Steuernagel 1900:185–186; Noth 1953:9, 11; Liver 1963:
227–232; Halbe 1975:613–617, 630). However, there has been a long debate
about the original core of the narrative, and various solutions to the prob-
lem have been offered (see, e.g., Steuernagel 1900:185–188; Cooke 1918:75–82;
Möhlenbrink 1938:241–245; Noth 1953:50–59; Halbe 1975:617–630; Rösel 1985:
30–35). The exact demarcation of the original story is not necessary for my

372 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

discussion. Therefore, I will treat the narrative, minus the Priestly stratum,
as a complete literary unit.

The key to the correct understanding of the aim of the story is its close re-
lationship with the rules for the conduct of warfare in Deuteronomy 20:10–18
(Blenkinsopp 1966:207–213; Kearney 1973:1–19). One set of laws demands, un-
conditionally, the extermination of all the inhabitants of Canaan (vv. 16–18);
a second set allows subjugation of cities that are “very far from you,” if they
surrender unconditionally (v. 11), and orders the extermination of all males
if they refuse (vv. 12–14). The relevant law for interpreting the episode of the
Gibeonites is worded as follows (v. 11): “And if its answer to you is peace and
it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor
for you and shall serve you.” Joshua adhered to the Deuteronomic law in all its
details: he believed that the Gibeonites had come “from a very far country”
(v. 9), surrendering unconditionally to the Israelites and, thus, “made peace
with them, and entered into a covenant with them, to let them live” (v. 15a).
The idiom ‘krt bryt l’ (“made a covenant with”) refers to a vassal treaty (com-
pare 1 Sam. 11:1–2; 1 Kgs. 20:34), an interpretation that is supported by both
the orders of the Gibeonite elders to their messengers (v. 11: “we are your ser-
vants”) and the messengers’ words to Joshua (v. 8: “we are your servants”).
Joshua treated the Gibeonites according to the strict law that applied to a
“very far from you” city that surrenders unconditionally. The close relation-
ship between the law and the narrative is indicated by both theme and vocab-
ulary (Vriezen 1975:151, n. 38). Joshua had unconsciously violated the law of
the ban (cf. Ex. 23:32; 34:12; Deut. 7:2; Judg. 2:2), and the narrator emphasized
this by repeating the key expression ‘krt bryt l’ (vv. 11. 15a, 16) three times.

This analysis clarifies the main message of the narrative: Under no condi-
tion was it permissable to conclude a treaty with the inhabitants of the land
and to spare them; the one exception — Gibeon — was achieved by deception.
The Gibeonite narrative is, thus, a paradigm: A historical hero or historical
event is portrayed in a way that teaches a lesson to all generations to come.
The elements of the narrative may be authentic, at least partially, and derived
from reality as it was known to the narrator, but, in its present form, it is non-
historical (Rofé 1974:153–154; 1988, pp. 140–141).

Various elements in the narrative suggest a relatively late date: (a) The
reference to the conquest of Jericho and Ai in the introduction (v. 3). Also,
the words (v. 4) “they on their part (gam hēmāh) acted with cunning” refer
to the stratagem by which the city of Ai was conquered. Thus, it is clear that
the narrator had before him the two conquest narratives. (b) The close rela-
tionship to the Deuteronomic laws of war. (c) The Gibeonites’ reply in v. 24 is
Deuteronomistic in both formulation and concept and depends on the word-
age of Joshua 2:9. The verse (save possibly for the words “his servant Moses”)

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 373

is an integral part of the original story and answers Joshua’s question in v.
22. The originality of the other Deuteronomistic elements is disputed among
scholars (e.g., vv. 9b–10, 27b) and will not be taken into account (although
they may well belong to the original story). (d) It is the only narrative in the
conquest and settlement cycle in which Joshua and the men of Israel are por-
trayed critically. Note, in particular, the severe accusation in v. 14 that they
“did not ask direction from the Lord.” We may conclude that the story of the
treaty between Israel and the Gibeonites was composed by a narrator who
was familiar with the conquest stories relating to Jericho and Ai and with the
Deuteronomic law of war, exemplifying the latter in the “historical reality.”
The earliest possible date for the narrative is the end of the First Temple pe-
riod, but it is prefeable to date it to the early Second Temple period, when
the problem of relationships with the inhabitants of the land was again on
the agenda.74

For a better understanding of the Gibeonite story, I would like to compare
it with another paradigmatic narrative that refers to the relationship of the
Israelites with the local inhabitants of Canaan, that is, to Genesis 34. This nar-
rative was composed in the post-exilic period as an admonition against mar-
riage with the inhabitants of the hill country of Samaria (Amit 1984:31–47;
Diebner 1984:59–76; Na’aman 1993).75 To exemplify the prohibition, the nar-
rator, at the beginning, presents a marriage proposal that is ostensibly a log-
ical offer to make amends for the rape (v. 4). Negotiation between the parties
is at the center of the narrative and the Shechemites are willing both to be
circumcised and to offer generous economic terms to settle the matter (vv.
8–12). But the sons of Jacob resist all temptations, and, for them, the nego-
tiation is merely a stratagem to revenge the rape, to release their sister and
to cancel the marriage agreement. The message of the narrative is clear: You
must not marry the local inhabitants under any conditions, including a read-
iness on their part for circumcision and/or the offer of desirable economic
terms.

There are numerous elements that are common to the Gibeonite and
Shechemite narratives: (a) Both are paradigmatic stories ostensibly portray-
ing past relationships with the autochthonous population, called “Hivites” by
the narrator; (b) Negotiation occupies a major part in both narratives; and (c)
A cunning stratagem is used in both to achieve one side’s objective. It seems to
me that the late narrators deliberately selected foreign enclaves, of which they

74. For a similar date based on different arguments, see Kearney 1973:1–8, 16–19.
75. The very late date attributed by Diebner to the narrative in Genesis 34, in my opin-
ion, is unacceptable.

374 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

learned or inferred from earlier sources, as a background for their composi-
tions. The story of Abimelech at Shechem (Judg. 9) refers to a Canaanite en-
clave at Shechem in the period of the Judges, and the episode of the execution
of Saul’s offspring at Gibeah of Saul (2 Sam. 21:1–14) refers to the Gibeonites as
a non-Israelite group. Whether the narrators were familiar with other tradi-
tions about Gibeon and Shechem in the pre-monarchic period is unknown (for
a close comparison of the two narratives, see Blenkinsopp 1972:37–40).

A third legendary story that uses one of the pre-Israelite nations to con-
vey a message is Genesis 23. The narrative has been assigned to P since the
early days of modern research (Skinner 1910:335; Gunkel 1917:273–274; von
Rad 1972:246–250) and has distinctive parallels in the Neo-Babylonian “di-
alogue sale documents” of the seventh-fifth centuries BCE (Petschow 1965:
103–120; Tucker 1966:77–84). A long negotiation with the local Hittite popu-
lation is at the center of the story, culminating in an agreement and the pur-
chase of the burial plot. The message conveyed by the narrative is clear: The
land of Hebron was legally purchased by the Patriarchs, who buried their
family there, and it belongs to the people of Israel for all time to come. The
story reflects a time when Hebron was settled by non-Israelites, following the
exile or desertion after 587/586 BCE. One may safely assume that it was com-
posed to justify the rights of the post-Exilic community to the burial site in
the former Judahite city of Hebron.

Several elements are common to all three narratives: (a) the conveyance
of a message to a contemporaneous audience; (b) the dialogue that occupies
a central place in the story; and (c) the selection of “pre-Israelite nations”
who lived in the hill country (Hivites, Hittites) as the counterparts to the
Israelites. In my opinion, all three were composed in the early Second Temple
period, reflecting specific problems that troubled the Jewish community of
returnees at that time. The three towns (Shechem, Gibeon and Hebron) were
selected in accordance with the narrators’ assumptions about the location of
the pre-Israelite nations. The possible sources for Shechem and Gibeon were
mentioned above; the narrator may well have learned of Hittites in Hebron
from the three non-Semitic names of the “sons of Anak,” whom Caleb drove
out from the site (Num. 13:22, 28; Josh. 15:14; Judg. 1:10).

We may conclude that Joshua 9 is a late legendary story, possibly of the
early Second Temple period, and cannot help us to reconstruct the history of
Israel in the early Iron Age. For the relationship with the Gibeonites, we must
examine the source used by the author of Joshua 9, that is, 2 Samuel 21:1–14.
The close relationship of the two episodes is well known and has been dis-
cussed in detail by many scholars (see, e.g., Cazelles 1955:165–175; Malamat
1955:1–12; Blenkinsopp 1972:89–94; McCarter 1984:440–446, with earlier lit-
erature).

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 375

There was a famine in the days of David for three years, so runs the story,
and by divination the “reason” for the famine was discovered: “There is blood
guilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death” (v. 1).
David negotiated with the Gibeonites and finally gave them seven of Saul’s
offspring, who were executed at the spring “in Gibeah of Saul on the moun-
tain [sic!] of the Lord” (bgb‘t š’wl bhr yhwh) (note v. 9: “on the mountain be-
fore the Lord”).76 The second part of the story (vv. 10–14) does not concern
us here.

Other evidence of Saul’s conflict with the inhabitants of the western
Benjaminite hill country appears in 2 Samuel 4:2. The city of Beeroth was
populated by Benjaminites following the flight of its inhabitants to Gittaim,
a village located in the northern Shephelah (today el-Burj = Ḥorvat Tittora),
on the margins of the hill country (for the identification of Gittaim at el-Burj,
see Schmitt 1980:80–92). The flight was certainly the result of Saul’s persecu-
tion of the town’s population. The background to the enmity of Saul toward
the inhabitants of western Benjamin is not related in our sources. One would
naturally assume that it was the result of their non-Semitic origin, the differ-
ence in cult and culture (2 Sam. 21:2), and their close relationship with the
Philistines, Saul’s mortal enemies.

What was Saul’s grave sin that brought about three years of famine, which
could only be cleared by the blood of his offspring? The nature of the offense
is related explicitly in the story (v. 2b):

Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites;
although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to slay them in
his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.

It was suggested that the verse is an editorial Deuteronomistic expansion
of the original story (Veijola 1975:108). Granting this assumption, its words
still fit the overall tenor of the story. We may conclude that an old treaty be-
tween the Israelites and the Gibeonites is at the background of the story of
David and the Gibeonites’ revenge in 2 Sam. 21:1–14.

When was the treaty concluded and who were the parties to the agree-
ment? As a point of departure, we must take the pattern of settlement in the
hill country of Benjamin and the southernmost part of the land of Ephraim in

76. For a recent discussion of 2 Samuel 21:6, see Barthélemy 1982:300–301. The reading
“in Gibeah of Saul on the mountain of the Lord” is supported by the reference to Gibeath-
elohim in 1 Samuel 10:5. In my opinion, the two names refer to one and the same place,
the cultic site of Gibeah of Saul, where Saul prophesied according to the story of 1 Samuel
10:9–13 (see Driver 1913:80, 82). For a different interpretation of the text, see Blenkinsopp
1974:5; McCarter 1984:438.

376 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

Iron Age I. Excavations and surveys conducted in the area revealed a marked
difference between the eastern and western parts of the region: Some nine-
teen Iron Age I settlements are located east of the Jerusalem-Nablus road, as
against five on its western side (Finkelstein 1990:199–200). A similar picture
was discerned in the hill country of Ephraim and Manasseh: The settlement
process initially took place mostly on the desert fringes and in the central
range; only at later stages, from the eleventh century onward, did penetra-
tion into the hilly and rocky areas in the west intensify (Finkelstein 1989:53–
59). Two of the western Iron Age I sites are identified with Gibeonite villages:
Gibeon (el-Jib) and Beeroth (Khirbet el-Burj). It is not clear, however, whether
Chephirah (Khirbet Kefireh) also was extensively settled in Iron Age I (Vriezen
1975:135–158). Whether the four Hivite cities mentioned in Joshua 9:17 were
indeed occupied in the pre-monarchial period is not beyond doubt (note their
mention in the early Second Temple period: Ezr. 2:25; Neh. 7:25, 29).77

In light of the pattern of settlement in the hill country and the intensi-
fication of the settlement process in its western parts only in the eleventh
century, we may assume that the treaty between the “Israelites” and the
Gibeonites should best be dated to the eleventh century BCE. Consolidation
and unification of the settlements in the eastern and central parts of
Benjamin necessarily antedated this event. It was only with the emergence
of problems that were the concern of the entire hill country of Benjamin that
such a treaty became necessary. We may conclude that the attribution of the
“Israelite” treaty with the Gibeonites to the “conquest era” is due to literary-
theological considerations and does not suit the historical reality.

It is not clear who concluded the treaty on the “Israelite” side: Was it the
villages of eastern and central Benjamin? Or did south Ephraimite villages take
part in the agreement? Or was it Saul himself who concluded the treaty, violat-
ing it after a while?78 The nature of the treaty is also not clear. One would nat-
urally assume that at first it was a parity agreement and that with the gradual
strengthening of the “Israelite” side, the latter became the dominant party.
We may further assume that, in light of this development, the Gibeonites tried
to rely more heavily on their western neighbors, the Philistines, as a coun-
ter-balance to the growing strength of their eastern neighbors, and that the
conflict with Saul was the direct result of this policy. At all events, the pre-
sentation of the Gibeonites as the inferior party to the treaty is due to the par-
adigmatic nature of the story of Joshua 9, being modeled on the laws of war

77. For a Second Temple dating of the story, see recently Briend 1992:10–17.
78. For a discussion of the problem, see Schunck 1963:38–39; Vriezen 1975:149–157;
Halbe 1975:630–641.

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 377

in the Book of Deuteronomy. The narrator depicted them according to the law
that refers to very distant cities that surrendered unconditionally before the
Israelites, thus, making them “hewers of wood and drawers of water . . . for the
altar of the Lord to continue to this day” (Josh. 9:27).79

Summary

The few possible authentic indications of the early Iron Age have been
preserved in the short anecdotes and notes, rather than in the long narratives
of the Book of Joshua. Such are the references to the occupation of Hebron,
Debir, Hormah, Bethel and Laish, and the settlement at Arad. Common to all
these episodes (save for Arad) is the renaming of the sites after their con-
quest: Kiriath-Arba — Hebron; Kiriath-Sepher — Debir; Zephath — Hormah;
Luz — Bethel; Laish — Dan. A reference to the renaming of sites also appears
in the short episodes of the conquest and settlement of Transjordan (Num.
32:37–38, 41–42) and may indicate an early conquest tradition. (For the re-
naming of cities in biblical tradition, see Eissfeldt 196:69–79). Also remark-
able is the persistence of traditions relating to the occupation of important
sub-tribal centers in the land of Judah (clans of Calebites, Kenizzites, Kenites,
Simeonites). Similar traditions have not survived for the northern tribes.
This may reflect the authors’ interest in the history of Judah and their will-
ingness to “investigate” the origins of the tribe on the one hand, and their ig-
norance of the history of the northern tribes on the other hand.

Only few cities in the central hill country were destroyed in the late thir-
teenth-early twelfth centuries BCE. Debir was the only Canaanite city in the hill
country of Judah in the fourteenth-thirteenth centuries and was possibly con-
quered by the Kenizzites. Jerusalem was apparently captured by the Jebusites,
who subsequently settled there. The note on its conquest by the tribe of Judah
(Judg. 1:8) lacks historical reliability. Bethel was the only Canaanite city in the
southernmost part of Ephraim and was conquered by one of the groups that
entered the hill country in early Iron Age I. The conquest tradition in Judges
1:22–25 may have preserved a vague memory of its capture by stratagem, al-
though this is by no means certain. Some of the Canaanite cities in the hill
country of Manasseh probably existed side by side with the new Iron Age I set-
tlements (Alt 1939:8–13; de Vaux 1978:635–640; Finkelstein 1988b:80–91, 348–
351). It is evident that the conquest of the few isolated Canaanite cities in the

79. For the complicated problems involved with historical understanding of v. 27, see
Haran 1961:159–169, with earlier literature; Halbe 1975:632–634; de Vaux 1978:623–624;
Briend 1992:17–20.

378 Canaan in the Second Millennium BCE

hill country played a secondary, though vital, role in the overall process of the
occupation of the hill country in early Iron Age I.

Enormous difficulties are involved with the historical analysis of the nar-
ratives about wars conducted near Gibeon, the Waters of Merom and Bezek.
One cannot exclude the possibility that these narratives preserved some re-
mote echoes of wars conducted in these places in early Iron Age I. However,
such wars — if they indeed took place — do not lend themselves to recon-
struction. On the other hand, the narratives of the capture of Jericho and Ai
and the conquest of the six cities of the Shephelah and the hill country of
Judah are devoid of historical reality. The comprehensive conquest saga in
the Book of Joshua is a fictive literary composition aimed at presenting the
occupation of the entire Land of Israel, initiated and guided by the Lord and
carried out by the twelve tribes under Joshua. Military events that took place
in the course of the later history of Israel were used by the author as models
for his narratives. These military episodes were entirely adapted to the new
environment, so that, in no case, can we trace a direct literary relationship
between the original story/tradition and its literary reflection.

When were the conquest narratives of the Book of Joshua composed? The
unified character of the text, in which Joshua and the twelve tribes play the
major role, points to a relatively late date. I have suggested above both that
Sennacherib’s campaign to Judah in 701 BCE possibly served as a model for
the description of Joshua’s campaign to the Shephelah and the hill country
of Judah (Josh. 10:28–39) and that the mentioning of hanging on ‘ēṣîm (Josh.
8:29; 10:26) possibly reflects the Assyrian way of punishing rebel leaders by
impalement on posts. The composition of the conquest saga is certainly no
earlier than the seventh century BCE. One cannot rule out the possiblity that
isolated episodes, in particular the short anecdotes and notes, were written
sometime before the penning of the unified literary work. However, the main
block of material was composed at a late date as part of the Deuteronomistic
history of Israel. Thus, hundreds of years separate the historical work from
the time to which it is attributed. This enormous gap explains the minor con-
tribution of the conquest stories to the early history of Israel.

At the end of the second section, I suggested that the long period of
drought and famine in the late thirteenth-twelfth centuries BCE was en-
graved in the collective historical memory of Israel and that the stories of
migration from Canaan to Egypt and back vaguely reflect this memory. It
seems to me that the overall historical picture in the Book of Joshua may be
explained in the same manner. The collective historical memory of Israel re-
tained the impression of the total destruction of the Canaanite urban system
in the late thirteenth-twelfth centuries BCE. When the Dtr historian tried to
portray the early history of Israel, he took this vague memory as his point

The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History 379

of departure, describing how the Canaanite towns were captured and razed
by the twelve tribes under the leadership of Joshua. The conquests were as-
sociated with the great tells located in the hill country and the Shephelah,
which were conceived as the former seats of the Canaanite kings. In this way
emerged the biblical conquest description that, save for its underlying very
thin foundation, has only a tenuous contact with historical reality.

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