What were the seven nations expelled from Canaan?

The names here, as everywhere, are doubtless significant. They suggest those powers of evil which preoccupy and would prevent our enjoyment of our God-given inheritance in Christ. The Hittite, "child of terror" — how spiritual dread makes cowards of us all! The Girgashites, "dwellers in clay;" alas, we are prone to settle down in the dust of earth, instead of rising to our heavenly portion. The Amorite, "the talker," rather than the doer of the Word. The Canaanite, "the trafficker," companion to the talker, who turns the very truth of God into merchandise. The Perizzite, "the countryman," suggesting perhaps the thought of great power, nobility, false pride; and the Hivite, "the villager," suggesting the opposite, a false humility; while the Jebusite, "the treader down," never rests until all divine things are put beneath the feet. All these are to be cast out. Any alliance with them is to be utterly refused. Their religion and their ways are to be abhorred. They are not to be feared because of their greatness, but relentlessly are they to be overthrown (Deut. 7).

Then the Lord brought Israel over Jordan, where they defeated Jericho, then the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites (v.11). All of these victories were manifestly not because of the superior power of Israel, but the Lord "sent the hornet before you" (v.12). This is figurative of the fact of God's so dealing with the enemies that they were frightened as though attacked by hornets and thus rendered helpless to fight. Two kings of the Amorites are specifically mentioned as defeated without the help of Israel's sword or bow. Thus God had given Israel a land for which they did not labor and cities they had not built, and vineyards and olive groves they had not planted.

It was Paul who rose to address the congregation. 'And Paul stood up and beckoning with the hand said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear God,1 hear. The God of this people chose out our fathers and exalted the people in their sojourn in [the] land of Egypt and with a high arm brought them out of it, and for a time of about forty years bore them nurse-like in the desert, and when He had destroyed seven nations in [the] land of Canaan, He gave them their land for an inheritance, in about four hundred and fifty years. And after these things He gave judges until Samuel the prophet and then they asked for a king; and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of [the] tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. And having removed him, He raised up for them David as king, to whom also bearing witness He said, I found David, son of Jesse, a man according to My heart, who shall do all My will. From his seed, according to promise, did God bring to Israel a Saviour, Jesus, when John had preached before [lit. before the face of] His entrance a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was fulfilling his course, he said, What suppose ye that I am? I am not [He], but behold, there comes One after me the sandal of Whose feet I am not worthy to loose' (vers. 16-25). {1 The place given to Gentile proselytes is here in the apostle's address distinctly marked for the first time.}

Seven nations are mentioned as occupying the land, which God gave to Israel. These nations were steeped in the most awful licentiousness and practised the vilest abominations. There are different reasons to believe that Satan possessed them in a peculiar manner. God had tolerated these nations for many centuries. He waited in His mercy before the sword of justice was unsheathed. The measure of their wickedness was now full, the time for judgment had come. The Lord called Israel to be the executioner of that awful judgment. And whenever they carried out the divine judgment, not sparing any one, they had an object lesson of the holiness and righteousness of God. Their sons and daughters were not to marry any members of these doomed nations. That would result in apostasy from Him and in idolatry. All their altars, their images and their groves they were to destroy. They were a holy people. But the Lord did not choose them because they were more in number than other nations. Jehovah loved them. Solemnly they are once more told that the Jehovah who hath set His love on them is a faithful, a covenant keeping God. He keeps His covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments. But He also repays them that hate Him. Promises of blessings follow. If they are obedient, if they hear, keep and do (verse 12) the Lord would bless them. It is refreshing to read all these gracious promises. May they encourage us to trust in Him and walk in obedience. In Christ even greater blessings than these are put on our side. We know from subsequent history, how completely Israel failed to carry out all these instructions. They practised the vile abominations of the nations they were commanded to destroy. God had to deal with them in judgment. Instead of the blessings enumerated in verses 12-24, the curse was visited upon them. God's gifts and calling are without repentance; in a future day the remnant of Israel will inherit these things through the grace of God.

Again the Lord emphasizes the importance of Israel's sanctification from the nations. When they entered the land, God would give them victory over the inhabitants, as He had promised, seven nations greater and mightier than they (v.1). But on Israel's part there was to be no mercy shown to these enemies. They were to utterly destroy them (v.2). This is a picture of believers today being responsible to destroy the deception of evil spirits in opposing the truth of the Word of God in such a way as to deprive us of our rightful inheritance. We must not in any way compromise with satanic pressure.

The address was ended. The Gospel had been preached. The appeal not to reject it had been made. We have seen how Peter could preach the Gospel (2, 10). We learn here how Paul could preach it. It was objective, not subjective, truth on which he chiefly dwelt. He spoke of God, and of His ways, full and varied as they were. God had chosen their fathers. God had exalted them in Egypt, and had brought them out with a high arm. God too had suffered their manners in the wilderness, and, destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, had divided it among the tribes by lot. Then He appeared as a Giver . He gave them judges and prophets. He gave them too Saul as king. After that He was known as a Raiser-up , first of David, then of his seed - Jesus in the incarnation, and last in raising Him up in resurrection. A Fulfiller also of promises had He proved Himself to be. A Giver, a Raiser up, a Fulfiller of His promises - what an announcement was heard that day! If such God is, on His word all can and should rest. Who can wonder that such an address deeply touched, and interested too, the audience, both Jews and proselytes, or that they desired to hear such words again? For we should read verse 42, "As they went out, they besought that these words might be spoken to them the next Sabbath," and not as in the AV, that "when the Jews were gone out, the Gentiles besought," etc. As yet Luke has not noticed the presence of Gentiles in the synagogue.

The country whose divinely-given title is "the land of Israel," and which God says is "the glory of all lands": (Ezek: 20:6), was occupied by seven other nations when the people of Israel arrived upon its frontiers. The gross corruptions with which those nations filled that land were amply sufficient to deprive them of any decent title to further possession. In Abraham's day the cup of their iniquity was not full (Gen 15:16); but it was overflowing when Israel's hosts came upon them as God's executioners. To anyone who doubts the righteousness of dispossessing those nations to make room for Jehovah's chosen people, it is sufficient to quote Lev: 18:25: "the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomits out its inhabitants. "

As to the seven nations who were to be dispossessed, it was on the ground of their wickedness that God, in the exercise of His righteous government, was about to drive them out. Every landlord has a perfect right to eject bad tenants; and the nations of Canaan had not only failed to pay their rent, as we say, but they had injured and defiled the property to such an extent that God could no longer endure them; and therefore He was going to drive them out, irrespective altogether of the incoming tenants. Whoever was going to get possession of the property, these dreadful tenants must be evicted. The iniquity of the Amorites had reached its highest point, and nothing remained but that judgement should take its course. Men might argue and reason as to the moral fitness and consistency of a benevolent Being unroofing the houses of thousands of families and putting the occupants to the sword; but we may depend upon it the government of God will make very short work with all such arguments. God, blessed for ever be His holy Name, knows how to manage His own affairs, and that too without asking man's opinion. He had borne with the wickedness of the seven nations to such a degree that it had become absolutely insufferable; the very land itself could not bear it. Any further exercise of forbearance would have been a sanction of the most terrible abominations; and this of course was a moral impossibility. The glory of God absolutely demanded the expulsion of the Canaanites.

Israel then were to have been the executioners of God's judgment on these utterly corrupt peoples, and their extermination was designed to have a salutary effect as regards themselves. It would have prevented their making these marriages with daughters of the various peoples, which was the surest way by which they would catch the infection of their awful idolatrous systems. Their subsequent history shows how their failure in this matter largely accounted for their own constant dabbling in idolatrous things, which ultimately brought about their own judgment and dispersal under the Assyrians and Babylonians. Failing in a complete way to judge and destroy the evil, they caught its infection and fell under its power. The separation enjoined was a natural rather than a spiritual one, but a complete necessity, as God well knew.

In Canaan, in the promised land, still the same great story is told. Did the men of Jericho or the forces of the seven nations, each greater and mightier than Israel, come against them; Jehovah says, "I delivered them into your hands." Did Israel take the aggressive? it was not by sword or bow they won the day, but because "I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you." In wars, defensive or offensive, in onslaughts of foes or onslaughts on foes, always, and alone, the Lord wrought the victory. Can the Christian fail to rejoice in like grace, yea, to make his boast in his God, who is the God of all grace and of all might? Such a portion of the word as the latter part of Romans 8 recounts God's ways for us, as does this last chapter of the book of Joshua tell Jehovah's ways for Israel.