Canaan

The Merchants of Men

The Bible warns the people not to give to much power to any system of government that might return them to the bondage of Egypt where they were literally merchandise. By consenting to those systems and practices a relationship of "voluntary servitude" may become legally binding upon the people. Voluntary servitude is still legal. So through covetous practices you can still become "human resources" or what Peter called merchandise like in Babylon and Egypt which results from eating at the table of the Pharaoh where your appetite for the dainties of those systems becomes a Snare entangling you in the elements of the world and returning to The mire offered by the merchants of men.

The word Kana`aniy [ןענכ] can mean “descendant or inhabitant of Canaan”, but more specifically it means “a merchant, trader, or trafficker”. Its composing letters in Hebrew are KafNunAyinNun. from the word KafNunAyin meaning to humble or subdue as in be brought into subjection.

Were they called “traders” in Hebrew because they were good business men or was there another aspect to their character and methods that made them so detestable to Israel?

Sodom was a city like Canaan and, in it, the people were a possession of the State as persons.

“And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.” Genesis 14:21

The Hebrew word translated “persons” here is nephesh. There are numerous different Hebrew words translated occasionally into the word “person”. Nephesh is translated “soul” 475 times and only translated “person” a few times. The use of the word “person” interchangeably with the word “soul” is not unheard of in the Bible, history or law.

“And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: The merchandise of gold, and silver, … beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.” Revelation 18:11-13

Knowing that the State considers that it owns the people as persons, which may include the idea of owning the very souls of men, can give new meaning to other verses in the Bible.

To understand history, it is of value to understand the historical concepts of law. This includes the laws that men make for themselves and the law by which they are authorized to make laws for themselves. What makes law, law? The precept upon which laws are constructed have remained the same throughout the ages.

Much of this construction of law is discussed in the book, The Covenants of the gods, but there are a few issues that need to be addressed just to clarify the concepts that form the union of man’s dominion into the City-States like Babylon, Sodom, and Egypt. The distinction between the words “man” and “person” seems trivial, but there are few concepts and relationships that are more important to understanding these issues.

The organized State is composed of what the law calls “persons”. These persons are specifically members. When reading legal forms and regulations, people should understand that there is a difference between a “man” and a “person” according to the law.

“This word ‘person’ and its scope and bearing in the law, involving, as it does, legal fictions and also apparently natural beings, it is difficult to understand; but it is absolutely necessary to grasp, at whatever cost, a true and proper understanding of the word in all the phases of its proper use… The words persona and personae did not have the meaning in the Roman which attaches to homo, the individual, or a man in the English; it had peculiar references to artificial beings, and the condition or status of individuals… A person is here not a physical or individual person, but the status or condition with which he is invested… not an individual or physical person, but the status, condition or character borne by physical persons… The law of persons is the law of status or condition.”

“A moments reflection enables one to see that man and person cannot be synonymous, for there cannot be an artificial man, though there are artificial persons. Thus the conclusion is easily reached that the law itself often creates an entity or a being which is called a person; the law cannot create an artificial man, but it can and frequently does invest him with artificial attributes; this is his personality… that is to say, the man-person; and abstract persons, which are fiction and which have no existence except in law; that is to say, those which are purely legal conceptions or creations.”

These “persons” have a status which includes obligations, duties, and allegiance as a part of their membership in the State which is not the same as the state of freedom enjoyed by the natural man. As a person, a portion of a man’s natural being or soul is incorporated.

“Membership in a political society, implying a duty of allegiance on the part of the member and a duty of protection on the part of society.”

Being a member of the State is dependent, not upon the man, but upon the person created by his relationship with the state. The person is not considered by his relationship with Nature and Nature’s God, but by his covenants he makes with the State, both specific and constructive. Although men are created equal, they may not remain equal due to their oaths, applications, and participation with the institutions they create. Man, in his pure form, is in a state of Nature, but there is another State which is a quality that belongs to man as a person:

State: “That quality which belongs to a person in society, and which secures to and imposes upon him different rights and duties in consequence of the difference of that quality.”

“Although all men come from the hands of nature upon an equality, yet there are among them marked differences…”

“Three sorts of different qualities which form the state or condition of men may, then, be distinguished: those which are purely natural, those purely civil, and those which are composed of natural and civil or municipal law.”

As mentioned earlier in Micah, some would not partake in the error of the people, nor eat of the flesh of the caldron. Those who would not participate were warred against and persecuted.

“Thus saith the LORD concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him.” Micah 3:5

The early Christians suffered for much the same reason. They would not eat that which was sacrificed to idols as the Nicolaitans did. Their non-involvement created suspicion and envy, which led to most of the persecution by the Roman Empire and the civil powers of the world.

“If you will not be turned, you will be destroyed.”

These merchants of men were not exclusive to Canaan. There were men in Northern India who were called Asuras. They were identified as the mercantile caste. They built a huge system of irrigation lakes and canals. These monuments of engineering were accomplished by a readily available and large well-regulated labor force. This system both prospered and oppressed the people.

As they controlled the utility of these civic projects, they also controlled the people who depended upon the use of their production. Those who mastered the product of their common effort often expanded their personal wealth and power with an impoverishing effect on the general population.

There arose a ruling elite with the corresponding subjugation of the masses. Not only the circumstance of this economic system, but also the mind set of the populace kept the people subservient. The elite ruling class exercised an ever-increasing authority in the created legal realm, often with a uniform rise of injustice and oppression.

There was another group of people who opposed the Asuras’ desire for domination. This race of independent-minded people often stood and occasionally warred against these traffickers of bondage. In the totalitarian quest for the sweat and blood of men, appetite grows. The desire in some for individual autonomy and love of liberty becomes a thorn in the side of those ambitious merchants of men, the world of all Canaanites.

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The Canaanites were not just people who lived in the l|and of Canaan but they had social systems that made the people merchandise. The Canaanite religion is said to be polytheistic where there are "gods many" as Paul says. If religion was really just what you think about God or gods you may misunderstand what the real problem was with the Canaanites. Religion was always the way in which you provided for the needy of society and kept the commandments of God.

While, there are reports that there was child sacrifice at times in history, there is no reference to it in ancient Phoenician or Classical texts. The biblical representation of Canaanite religion is always negative and associated with Baal and Balaam. The working practices of their religion actually involved covetous practices which besides fundamentally in violation of the Ten Commandments over time degenerated them into what Polybius called perfect savages. Like the Corban of the Pharisees it made the word of God to none effect and the people merchandise who by those practices cursed children.

The Canaanites like Egypt Assyria and others were all banking on having one purse to bind the people like the golden calf did or the Corban of the Pharisees which Christ condemned. These schemes of the Nimrods and Cains of the world who were the benefactors and fathers of the earth since the beginning. Jesus was not a socialist. Socialism is incompatible with Christ's teachings.

Peaceful invasion of Canaan

The Bible seems to indicate that there was a military invasion of Palestine when Israel came into Canaan. But a growing number of archaeologists are now contending that such a violent invasion of Canaan by Israel is inconsistent with the archaeological record.

Evidently this modern view began to change in the 1930s when John Garstang and William F. Albright excavated at Jericho and Beitin. But the beliefs of some of the people of Judea at the time of Christ also thought military genocide was unacceptable. Certainly Christ would not and he seemed to be in agreement with Moses.

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Yet, some still believe that ancient Israel was a theocracy in which God commanded the nation through prophets and gave them power and authority to carry out genocide and defeat what we imagine to be idolatrous peoples. And then we are suppose to believe Jesus changed the policy of God to "forgiveness and grace ... nonviolence, gentleness, and love".

If we are to believe Moses and Jesus were in agreement and the prophecy of Revelation is that the 144,000 will be in harmony with both Moses and Jesus then was the Old Testament actually in harmony with the New Testament? Has sophistry crept into our modern translation & understanding of the Old Testament?

Is the references to the old fading away or being obsolete only refer to the apostasy of the Jews and Pharisees and not to what Moses intended from the beginning?

Who can learn the "song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb"?

According to Matt Flannagan and Paul Copan a two-pronged argument by Nicholas Wolterstorff s that “First, it is quite implausible that those who authorized the final form of the text [of Joshua] were affirming that all Canaanites were exterminated at God’s command. Second, the accounts that appear to say otherwise are utilizing extensive hyperbole and are not intended to be taken literally” (84-85)

They go into complex arguments suggesting that Joshua was using “hagiographic hyperbole".

But if we just look at the text we see.

"But thou shalt utterly destroy them; [namely], the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee:" (Deuteronomy 20:17)

The verb "destroy" in Hebrew is charam and is translated "destroy" 34 times but "utterly" 10 times and "devote" twice. It is also translated "accursed", "consecrate", "forfeited", "flat nose", "utterly to make away", and "slay" at least once.

What if Joshua actually meant "devote" or "consecrate" some of those times that we see the translators making his use of the word charam mean "destroy"?

How can a single word mean "to ban, devote" also mean "destroy utterly, completely destroy" or mean "to consecrate, devote" but also mean "dedicate for destruction"?

As a noun charam has the same letters but s translated into "net" or "accursed thing" 9 times each. It is also translated "accursed" and "curse" 4 times each, and "cursed thing" 3 times, But is translated "devoted" or "devoted thing" a haf dozen times.

The same noun charam is translated "destruction" twice 1 Kings 20:42 and Zechariah 14:11 which is also translated "devoted thing" twice in both Leviticus 27:28 and Numbers 18:14.

And the same word charam translated "dedicated thing" in Ezekiel 44:29 once is translated "destroyed" in 1 Samuel 15:21 .

The Hebrew word charam as noun and verb is composed of three letters ChetReishMem םרח. If we remove the letter Mem and replace it with the letter Deleth we get the word charad

Did we read the Bible wrong in these accounts of genocide?

Canaanites also refers to a way in which people governed themselves. Like the Assyrians or Asuras and Egypt there are forms of governments, politics, and economies that are not compatible with Christ and His kingdom of God of righteousness. The covetous practices of the Corban of the Pharisees was condemned by Christ.

Pantheon of Canaan

Canaanite deities were organized in a pantheon starting with Ugaritic called El the creator which would be like the word elohiym, his consort or female counter part is Athirat (Asherah), the storm god Baal, and his sister Anat, a goddess of hunting and warfare. El, the chief god of the pantheon, is identified in Canaanite art as a seated male figure with arms raised as if about to give a blessing.

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