Genesis 10:15

Canaan. For some unknown reason Moses omits the enumeration of the descendants of Ham’s third son Phut, and proceeds to Canaan, youngest of the four brothers. The land of Canaan was strategically located on the important “bridge” between Asia and Africa, between the two great river cultures of antiquity, in Mesopotamia and Egypt. The Biblical Canaan was Palestine west of the Jordan, extending north into present Lebanon and Syria.

Sidon his firstborn. The seaport Sidon, known as “great Zidon” at the time of the Hebrew conquest (Joshua 11:8), named in Egyptian hieroglyphic and Mesopotamian cuneiform texts, was the most powerful of the Phoenician city-states from the earliest times. Many Phoenicians then called themselves Sidonians even when they were actually citizens of neighboring cities.

The Sidonians occupied Cyprus and founded colonies in Cilicia and Caria in Asia Minor, on various Greek islands, on Crete, and on the coasts of the Black Sea.

Leadership among the cities of Phoenicia passed from Sidon to its sister city Tyre about 1100 B.C. The Phoenicians were friendly to David and Solomon and to the northern kingdom of Israel as well, but exercised an evil religious influence upon the latter. Esarhaddon claimed to have conquered the island city of Tyre, but Nebuchadnezzar, after capturing mainland Tyre, failed to take the island city after a siege lasting 13 years. As a result Sidon once more played an important role, during the Persian period, but was completely destroyed by Artaxerxes III in 351 B.C. The same fate befell Tyre a few years later, when Alexander took it in 332 B.C., so bringing to a close the long and glorious history of the Phoenician city-states.

Heth. Ancestor of the Hittites, called Kheta by the Egyptians and Hatti in cuneiform texts. The Hittites, with their capital in central Asia Minor, grew into a strong empire in the 17th century B.C. They gained control over much of Asia Minor and Syria, and in extending southward came into conflict with Egypt. This centralized Hittite Empire was later destroyed by the “People of the Sea” and dissolved into many Syrian city-states. The Assyrians called Syria the country of the Hittites. Hittite texts, in both cuneiform and hieroglyphic forms of an Indo-European language, have given us rich information on the history, laws, and culture of this nation. Probably, however, the descendants of Heth were the earlier “proto-Hittites,” whose language was called Hattili.