Hivites

The Hivites are one of the peoples of pre-Israelite Canaan, listed among the Table of Nations as a son of Canaan and recurring in the standard catalog of nations whose land Yahweh promised to Israel. Two Hivite communities receive narrative attention: the Shechemites of central Canaan and the Gibeonites of the central Benjamite plateau. Outside those two episodes, the Hivites appear chiefly in formulaic lists of Canaanite peoples slated for dispossession or, after the conquest, surviving as a population subjected to Solomon's forced labor.

A Canaanite Tribe

The genealogies place the Hivite within the lineage of Canaan: "and the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite" (Gen 10:17), repeated verbatim in 1 Chr 1:15. From the outset the Hivite is therefore not an outsider to the land but an indigenous Canaanite branch.

Shechemites and Gibeonites

Two clans are explicitly identified as Hivite. The Shechemite line surfaces in the violation of Dinah: "And Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her; And he took her, and plowed her, and violated her" (Gen 34:2). The Gibeonites are the second: when their delegation reaches the Israelite camp in worn clothes and moldy bread, the Israelites suspect a near neighbor: "And the men of Israel said to the Hivites, Perhaps you⁺ dwell among us; and how shall we make a covenant with you⁺?" (Jos 9:7). After the conquest narrative closes, the summary makes the Gibeonite identity explicit: "There was not a city that made peace with the sons of Israel, except the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: they took all in battle" (Jos 11:19).

Esau's Hivite Wife

Esau's marriages weave him into Canaanite kinship. Among the wives listed in Genesis 36 is "Oholibamah the daughter of Anah, the daughter of Zibeon the Hivite" (Gen 36:2). The earlier notice of Esau's wives at age forty (Gen 26:34) labels both fathers Hittite in UPDV; the Hivite link rests on Gen 36:2.

Dwelling Place

The Hivite range stretches from the northern frontier southward. Joshua locates them at the foot of the great northern massif: "the Hivite under Hermon in the land of Mizpah" (Jos 11:3). Judges places the unsubdued remnant on the same northern range: "the Hivites who dwelt in mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon to the entrance of Hamath" (Jud 3:3). David's census tour likewise traces a route through Hivite territory in the north: "and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites, and of the Canaanites" (2 Sam 24:7). Together with Shechem in the center and Gibeon further south, this gives the Hivite a broad but discontinuous footprint along the spine of the land.

Land Given to Israel

The Hivite is a fixed member of the standard list of nations whose territory is assigned to Israel. The Sinai charter promises angelic guidance to dispossess them: "For my angel will go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: and I will cut them off" (Ex 23:23). The mechanism follows immediately: "And I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you" (Ex 23:28). Deuteronomy reissues the mandate in the language of total destruction: "but you will completely destroy them: the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; as Yahweh your God has commanded you" (De 20:17). After the settlement, Judges acknowledges the gap between mandate and outcome: "And the sons of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites, the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites" (Jud 3:5).

Conquered by Joshua

The Hivite belongs to the coalition that resists Joshua's advance. The roll-call of allied kings opens the Joshua narrative: "the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard of it" (Jos 11:3 // Jos 9:1). The summary catalog of the defeated kings repeats the same six names across every terrain of the land — "in the hill-country, and in the lowland, and in the Arabah, and in the slopes, and in the wilderness, and in the South; the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite" (Jos 12:8). Joshua's farewell speech recasts the conquest as Yahweh's act: at Jericho "the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Girgashite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite ... I delivered them into your⁺ hand" (Jos 24:11).

Tribute to Solomon

A Hivite remnant survives the conquest and persists into the monarchy. Kings reports: "As for all the people who were left of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of the sons of Israel ... their sons who were left after them in the land, whom the sons of Israel were not able completely to destroy, of them Solomon raised slave labor to this day" (1 Ki 9:20-21). Chronicles preserves the parallel: "As for all the people who were left of the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, who were not of Israel ... of them Solomon raised slave labor to this day" (2 Chr 8:7-8). The Hivite thus enters the canonical record at the Table of Nations and exits it as conscripted labor under Israel's third king.