Hivite

AI summary: The Hivite entry matters because the cross references use the name to connect ancestry, geography, and later historical encounters in the land. Hivites appear among the peoples of Canaan, in the Dinah narrative through Hamor and Shechem, and in the conquest traditions where coexistence, deception, and incomplete removal all shape Israel's experience. Their presence is therefore spread across both patriarchal and national stages. Taken together, the material presents this Hivite figure as an ethnographic ancestor whose descendants form part of the persistent human landscape surrounding Israel.¹

One of the original tribes scattered over Palestine, from Hermon to Gibeon in the south. The name is interpreted as “midlanders” or “villagers” (Gen. 10:17; 1 Chr. 1:15). They were probably a branch of the Hittites. At the time of Jacob’s return to Canaan, Hamor the Hivite was the “prince of the land” (Gen. 24:2-28). They are next mentioned during the Conquest (Josh. 9:7; 11:19). They principally inhabited the northern confines of Western Palestine (Josh. 11:3; Judg. 3:3). A remnant of them still existed in the time of Solomon (1 Kings 9:20). ³