Jebusites

Jebusites [Heb. yebusi]. A people group.

According to the list of nations in Genesis, the Jebusites were descendants of Canaan (Gen 10:16). Some suggest that the Jebusites were considered Canaanites because they lived in that area and that they were probably more closely related to the Horites or Hurrians who may have arrived in Jerusalem during the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1950–1550 BC).

In spite of the fact that God promised the land of the Jebusites to the descendants of Abraham (Gen 15:18–21), the Israelites did not immediately expel them (Josh 15:63; Judg 1:21). The Canaanites, including the Jebusites, were greater and mightier than Israel (Deut 7:1). It was not until the days of David that Israel finally conquered the Jebusites (2 Sam 5:6–9). Some of them, however, survived this campaign as indicated by a later reference to Araunah, the Jebusite (2 Sam 24:18–24), and by Solomon’s decision to make them laborers (1 Kgs 9:20–21).

When David conquered the city of Jebus, he established the capital of Israel there and renamed it Jerusalem (2 Sam 5:5–7). Afterward, the Jebusites disappear from the biblical narrative as an established group of people.