Canaanite Period:
The Canaanites, assumed to be the first inhabitants of Palestine and Jerusalem, were nominally ruled under Egyptian hegemony in the twentieth century B.C.E. The first occurrence of the name of Jerusalem comes from the Canaanite period which carries a North Semitic name, meaning "the city founded by the god Salem." The city occupied the elongated hill that was later to be known as the City of David. Only 12.5 acres in size, the city was naturally well defended, and had at its base one of the most abundant springs in the area.
Jebusite Period:
By the end of the second millennium, probably about 1000 B.C.E., Jerusalem underwent a sharp ethnic change: it became Jebusite. The Jebusites were akin to the Hittites whose homeland was Anatolia and northern Syria. Uriah the Hittite, an officer in David's army and Bathsheba's first husband, must have belonged to this ethnic group. a memory of those times is preserved in the Old Testament: "Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem: Thine origin and thy nativity is the land of the Canaanite; the Amorite was thy father and thy mother was a Hittite" (Ezekiel 16:3).
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