Judges 3:1-4

Here is a list of the nations that YAHWEH permitted to remain in the land so he could use them to test the Israelites who had not known what it was like during the Canaanite wars. He wanted the succeeding generations of Israel, who had not known war before, to learn the art of warfare. So he left in the land the five Philistine principalities and all the Canaanites, Sidonians, and Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon from Mount Baal Hermon as far as Lebo Hamath. They remained in the land to test Israel to see if they would obey YAHWEH’s commands that Moses had given to their ancestors.