No sooner does the Abraham of Genesis arrive in Canaan than the narrator informs us that “the Canaanite was then in the land” (Gen 12:6). Yet immediately God an-nounces his intention to give this land to Abraham's descendants (v. 7). From the outset of the Abraham narrative, the divine promise of nationhood and territory is haunted by the presence of the indigenous inhabitants of Canaan. Though mostly a silent feature of the landscape, they emerge from time to time to encounter and threaten the first family.