With the volatile situation in the Middle East all over the news lately, I have recently become interested in the historical links between the conquest of Canaan and the surrounding area today and so I decided to do a little research.
We learn in the bible about the covenants the Lord has made with His firstborn children, the children of Israel. We also read in several places in the scriptures, references to the Jews and the conquest of Canaan, the promised land, where the Israelites fell short of doing what God commanded them to do whenever they were sent to attack and conquer the land of Canaan. Let us take a quick look at these areas and see what we can glean from the price the Jews paid, and continue to pay, for the lack of completing what The Lord commanded them to do…to kill and conquer and to not take hostages in the battles for these areas.
First, let’s look at the region of Bashan of the bible. A major city in the region of Bashan is Golan. We know the area today as the Golan Heights with Golan still as the major city of this hill country. Og of the Amorites was one the major king of the area during Joshua’s time and as you recall, Joshua didn’t utterly wipe out all the Amorites, these highland mountaineers are described as powerful people of great stature, “like the height of the cedars”1. In fact, Joshua got duped by the Gibeonites, a branch of the Amorites, into signing a treaty with them, against advice, and later The Lord ended up punishing His people for not honoring this ill-fated treaty when Saul killed a bunch of the Gibeonites and King David had to decide which punishment the Israelites would receive in 2 Samuel chapter 21. It may have been a horrible treaty, but this is an example that shows The Lord always honors His treaties and covenants.
Next, let’s look at Hebron2.. During the time of Joshua and the Canaan conquests, Hebron was under the control of three sons of Anak who was considered a descendant of the nephilim (Numbers 13:33) and also referred to as Rephaite3 (Rephaim) Anak is also linked to the name Anax in Greek mythology which was a king of giants and considered about 18 feet tall.4 Today, Hebron is the largest city in The West Bank.
OK, how about Gaza…Gaza is located along the western coast of Canaan (Israel) bordering Egypt and after Joshua and the tribe of Judah failed to completely eliminate all the Anakim (nephilim) from here, as well as Gath and Ashdod, and the rest of the the area as they were directed (as we read about in Joshua 11:22), it became a major city of the Philistines and remained a major thorn in the side of the Jews all through the book of Judges. Gaza happened to have been the city where Samson pulled the temple down around him in Judges 16:21.
A couple more…
Gath was the hometown of Goliath and his four brothers and David took care of those guys.
Ashdod is another coastal city near Gaza and was the city of Philistia where the Ark of the Covenant was taken and it kept pulling down the statue of Dagon, night after night…too bad they didn’t have video cameras…it would have been a fantastic thing to watch…
What do all these areas have in common? They are all locations within Canaan where Joshua was ordered by the Lord to utterly destroy the kingdoms within the land of Canaan. I used to have problems with apparent cruelty of Our Lord to kill not only the soldiers, but the women and children of these nations within the borders of Canaan until I studied about the nephilim and I realized the purpose behind the orders (destroy all signs of the corruption of the human genome). I truly feel because they didn’t fully carry out the orders of The Lord’s commandment and utterly destroy their enemies that lived in the above strongholds four thousand years ago. The Israelites are discovering that the dweller of the areas are once again a major thorn in the side of God’s people. I believe there is more to this than just the failure to eradicate all traces of the nephilim. We have found from the bible that demons are territorial and the failure to wipe out the races of the nephilim within their borders also meant that whatever demons (demons would be a study in its own right) Satan also planted in those areas are most likely still there doing their bidding for their master, just as they would have in the Bronze Age when Joshua fell short of fully obeying The Lord. The results we read about in the papers on a daily basis.
What is that you say? You don’t know who the nephilim are? Look here: http://www.nwcreation.net/nephilim.html
God Bless,
Jim
1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amorite
2 http://www.burlingtonnews.net/hebron.html
jimbussell 
Thank you for your write-up! I first heard about this topic on a video by Chuck Missler where I was studying Genesis before and after the flood. I wanted to know more about it so I gooled it and your article came up.
I had the same feelings as you had about God wanting to kill men, women, and children to eliminate entire cities. I didn’t understand it until I started to study a bit more and realized that there was a gene pool problem in these societies. That is why God sent the flood in the first place.
I still have a question about how these survived the flood. I know the Bible says “and after that,” meaning that they survived or emerged after the flood. My thoughts on this are that Noah was “perfect” in his generations, which means he was pure (I think). I would assume that his wife was the same because the messiah would have to come from an untainted background. But what about Noah’s daughter-in-laws? Were they pure or did they carry some sort of gene? I would appreciate your thoughts.
Sorry for the delay in replying, Jennifer. I don’t believe any of the nephalim survived the flood, but I do believe that Satan seeded the human race with them again as he did before the flood. Perhaps the environmental conditions weren’t as ripe for them as before or maybe God’s people were better prepared to deal with them for it seems that they weren’t as big a deal as before, except in the areas of Canaan that our Lord commanded they obliterate.
Jim
“…the price the Jews paid, and continue to pay, for the lack of completing what The Lord commanded them to do…to kill and conquer and to not take hostages in the battles for these areas”
Jim, I think that the tribe of Dan may be part of the connection. Dan’s original allocation was in south-west Canaan. Sampson, a Danite, was a one-man-army against the Philistines. Judges 18 describes how Dan eventually settled near the Golan Heights, because they could not conquer their allotted land. I’ve recently been wondering if there is some relationship between Dan’s inability to conquer the land, now the Gaza Strip and somehow also “infecting” the area in which they finally settled, the Golan Heights.
Michael S Heiser, PhD has some interesting insights in his book, The Unseen Realm, including the notion of territorial agents, the gods of the nations.
I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts regarding these things with respect to present day Israel.