Exodus 3 Footnotes

3:8 Which people groups did Israel actually conquer? The Bible’s lists of nations that inhabited the land of Canaan differ from one another. Among the seven lists of nations provided in the Torah, only three agree completely (vv. 8,17; Dt 20:17). The first list (Gn 15:19-21) is the longest, containing the names of ten people groups. One contains seven names (Dt 7:1), while the others contain only six (Ex 3:8,17; Dt 20:17). There are at least two explanations for these differences. First, some of the groups may have been exterminated from the land before the time of Moses. The Kadmonites, Kenizzites, and Rephaim are mentioned only in the list given to Abraham, who lived hundreds of years earlier. According to Dt 2:20-22, the Ammonites destroyed the Rephaim. Perhaps the Kadmonites and Kenizzites were also eliminated before the time of the exodus. Second, the remaining lists may not have been intended as an exhaustive cataloging of all the cultural groups present in the land; they merely listed the major people groups with which Israel would have to deal.