And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
The Amorites. Taking the term, not as representing the whole people of Canaan, but as the name of a distinct tribe, they inhabited the mountains not only of central Palestine, but of the northeast (Numbers 21:1-35) and the southwest (Judges 1:34-36).
The Canaanites - (see the note at Genesis 15:20.)
The Girgashites. Their locality is unknown, though it is believed to be what in the New Testament is called "the country of the Gergesenes" (Matthew 8:26); the lake-country, bounded on the north by Hermon, and on the east by the mountain ridge that runs south from it. But the Girgashites seem to have extended their possessions to Gadara, on the Hieromax, the principal river of Bashan (Luke 8:26).
( The Hivites) - i:e., according to Gesenius, 'villagers,' and to Ewald, 'midlanders.' Their name, dropped out of the Hebrew text, is retained in that of the Samaritan, and of the Septuagint. They formed a numerous tribe, whose territory stretched along the western side of Hermon, up the spacious Wady et-Teim, between Libanus and Antilibanus, toward Baalbek (Joshua 11:3; Judges 3:3: cf. 2 Samuel 24:7). The omission of their name in this list has appeared so strange that some writers have attempted to identify them with the Kadmonites, who are not enumerated in other passages, while the Hivites are mentioned. But a far likelier conjecture is that they are the same as the Avites, whose town, Avim, was situated in the same district as the Hivites of Gibeon. Their name is not inserted in the report of the spies (Numbers 13:29), and the conclusion is, either that they had become greatly reduced, or were scattered in various localities.
The Jebusites are first heard of as possessing Jebus (Joshua 10:1; Joshua 15:63). But it is doubtful whether they were settled in that place in the days of Abram, as it seems to have formed originally part of the Rephaite territory. The assurance to Abram of Canaan being appropriated as the future inheritance of his posterity, but of its postponement until a period long posterior to his own time; the announcement of the degradation and servitude to which they would be subjected in a foreign land; their eventual deliverance in a state of joy and triumph, while their oppressors should suffer the retributions of a righteous Providence; the specification of the precise period when their establishment should be effected by the displacement, either through conquest or peaceful submission, of the hopelessly corrupt aborigines of Canaan;-all these details, which could not have been consistently strung together by a forger in later times, point to an early date for this prophecy, and form a group of circumstances so far beyond the sphere of natural sagacity to foresee, as to stamp it with the unmistakeable characteristics of a supernatural origin. The utterance of it at the time of forming the compact with Abram was an element in the consideration of it of the greatest importance; and there cannot be a doubt that, being carefully preserved among the families of Abram's descendants, their faith in its accomplishment would animate and support the hearts of pious Israelites amid their deepest depression in Egypt.