Hazerim

Hazerim (meaning villages or enclosures) appears in Deuteronomy 2:23 as the name of the temporary, unfortified settlements in which the Avvim lived in the region of southern Canaan before being displaced by the Caphtorim (Philistines) who came from Caphtor (Crete). The word hazerim refers to the kind of unwalled open villages — essentially semicircular encampments of tents or huts — common to the semi-nomadic peoples of the Negev and coastal plain. The passage illustrates that the Canaanite and coastal populations also underwent significant displacement before Israel's arrival, not by Israel's hand but by other migrations, situating Israel's conquest within a broader pattern of population movement in the ancient Levant.