Though Moses had assured the Pharaoh that all the Israelites needed was to go a short journey of three days into the wilderness, and there sacrifice to their God, it was well understood that the desert was not to be the end of their pilgrimage.

Canaan, and Canaan only, was the destined country they had in view.
In the early inscriptions of Babylonia, Canaan is included in the rest of Syria under the general title of "the land of the Amorites." The Amorites were at the time the dominant population on the Mediterranean coast of western Asia, and after them accordingly the whole country received its name.

The "land of the Amorites" had been overrun by the armies of Babylonia at a very remote period, and had thus come under the influence of Babylonian culture.

As far back as the reigns of Sargon of Akkad and his son Naram-Sin (B.C.

3800), three campaigns had laid it at the feet of the Chaldaean monarch, and Palestine and Syria became a province of the Babylonian empire.