thus himself interpreted these threatenings.  He subverted their government, dispossessed them of their land, divested them of national power, and made them tributaries, but did not exterminate them.  He “destroyed them utterly” as an independent body politic, but not as individuals.  Multitudes of the Canaanites were slain, but not a case can be found in which one was either killed or expelled who acquiesced in the transfer of the territory, and its sovereignty, from the inhabitants of the land to the Israelites.  Witness the case of Rahab and her kindred, and that of the Gibeonites.[C] The Canaanites knew of the miracles wrought for the Israelites; and that their land had been transferred to them as a judgment for their sins.  Josh. ii. 9-11; ix. 9, 10, 24.  Many of them were awed by these wonders, and made no resistance.  Others defied God and came out to battle.  These last occupied the fortified cities, were the most inveterate heathen—­the aristocracy of idolatry, the kings, the nobility and gentry, the priests, with their crowds of satellites, and retainers that aided in idolatrous rites, and the military forces, with the chief profligates of both sexes.  Many facts corroborate the general position.  Witness that command (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16,) which, not only prohibited the surrender of the fugitive servant to his master, but required the Israelites to receive him with kindness, permit him to dwell where he pleased, and to protect and cherish him.  Whenever any servant, even a Canaanite, fled from his master to the Israelites, Jehovah, so far from commanding them to kill him, straitly charged them, “He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose—­in one of thy gates where it liketh him best—­thou shalt not oppress him.”  Deut. xxiii. 16.  The Canaanitish servant by thus fleeing to the Israelites, submitted himself as a dutiful subject to their national government, and pledged his allegiance.  Suppose all the Canaanites had thus submitted themselves to the Jewish theocracy, and conformed to the requirements of the Mosaic institutes, would not all have been spared upon the same principle that one was?  Again, look at the multitude of tributaries in the midst of Israel, and that too, after they had “waxed strong,” and the uttermost nations quaked at the terror of their name—­the Canaanites, Philistines and others, who became proselytes—­as the Nethenims, Uriah the Hittite—­Rahab, who married one of the princes of Judah—­Jether, an Ishmaelite, who married Abigail the sister of David and was the father of Amasa, the captain of the host of Israel.  Comp. 1 Chron. ii. 17, with 2 Sam. xvii. 25.—­Ittai—­the six hundred Gittites, David’s body guard. 2.  Sam xv. 18, 21.  Obededom the Gittite, adopted into the tribe of Levi.  Comp. 2 Sam. vi. 10, 11, with 1 Chron. xv. 18, and xxvi. 4, 5—­Jaziz, and Obil. 1 Chron, xxvii. 30, 31.  Jephunneh the Kenezite,