Phut seems to be the Egyptian Punt, on the Somali coast. Spices and other precious objects of merchandise were brought from it, and the Egyptians sometimes called it "the divine land." The Lehabim of verse 13 are the Libyans, while the Naphtuhim may be the people of Napata in Ethiopia. The Caphtorim or inhabitants of Caphtor are the Phoenician population settled on the coast of the Delta. From an early period the whole of this district had been colonised by the Phoenicians, and, as Phoenicia itself was called Keft by the Egyptians, the part of Egypt in which they had settled went by the name of Keft-ur or "greater Phoenicia." From various passages of the Old Testament(1) we learn that the Philistines, whom the kings of Egypt had once employed to garrison the five cities in the extreme south of Palestine, had originally been Phoenicians of Caphtor, so that the words of the verse before us must have been moved from their proper place, "Caphtorim, out of whom came Philistim," being the correct reading.
Canaan signifies "the lowlands," and was primarily the name of the coast on which the great cities of Phoenicia were built. As, however, the inland parts of the country were inhabited by a kindred population, the name came to be extended to designate the whole of Palestine, just as Palestine itself meant originally only the small territory of the Philistines. In Isaiah's prophecy upon Tyre (xxiii. 11) the word is used in its primitive sense, though here again the Authorised Version has misled the English reader by mistranslating "the merchant-city" instead of "Canaan." Sidon, "the fishers' town," was the oldest of the Canaanite or Phoenician cities; like Tyre, it was divided into two quarters, known respectively as Greater and Lesser Sidon. Heth or the Hithites adjoined the Phoenicians on the north; we shall have a good deal to say about them in a future chapter, and therefore pass them by now. The Amorite was the inhabitant of the mountains of Palestine, in contrast to the Canaanite or lowlander, and the name is met with on the Egyptian monuments. The towns of Arka and Simirra (or Zemar) are both mentioned by Tiglath-Pileser II, while the city of Arvad or Arados (now Ruâd) is repeatedly named in the Assyrian inscriptions. So also is Hamath (now Hamah), which was conquered by Sargon, and made by him the seat of an Assyrian governor.