The Hittites were a Canaanite tribe descended from Heth, son of Canaan, and were by far the strongest and largest of the Canaanite tribes. Their huge empire, the Land of Hatti, stretched from Asia Minor to Palestine with its capital in what is now central Turkey. It was the major empire of Abraham's time, with the commercial, cultural, and military power to influence the entire Levant. Esau bound himself to them by marriage when he took Adah, daughter of Elon the Hittite, as a wife (Genesis 36:2-3). He also married Aholibamah, a Hivite, and Basemath, Ishmael's daughter. These marriages tied together the Edomites, the Hittites, the Hivites, and the Ishmaelites by blood and marriage. Their kinship helps explain the alliances among Israel's persistent enemies, which Esau's descendants, the Edomites, would be expected to lead.

The Hittites were a Canaanite tribe, by far the stronger and larger of the Canaanite peoples, whose huge empire stretched from Asia Minor to Palestine. It was the major empire of Abraham's time, the United States of its day, with the power, resources, and military to match. Esau took a Hittite wife, Adah the daughter of Elon the Hittite (Genesis 36:1-3), and this marriage tied the Edomites to the Canaanites. Along with Esau's marriage to Basemath, Ishmael's daughter, and Ishmael's own ties to Egypt through his mother and wife, it shows that Egypt, Ishmael, Edom, and the Canaanites form a related people by marriage and blood. The Hivites, by contrast, were a smaller Canaanite people based in the land of Canaan.

The Hittites were one of five peoples the spies listed as occupying Canaan, living in the mountains alongside the Jebusites and Amorites, while the Amalekites held the south and the Canaanites the coast and the Jordan. They were colonists from a huge empire in Anatolia far to the north, known for military prowess, and their conquests reached far down the coast until Egypt stopped them. The spies used them to argue that Israel could not take the land. First, the peoples covered the whole country, so there was no room for 2.5 million Israelites. Second, Israel would have to defeat them in succession, beginning with the Amalekites and then the Hittites, whose strength seemed unbeatable. This was a distortion born of fear, and the spies' exaggerations fed the people's rebellion and faithlessness. Caleb and Joshua countered that the inhabitants were no threat, since God was with Israel and their protection had departed from them. The Hittites reappear in God's promise to Joshua, which gives Israel every place the sole of its foot treads, from the wilderness and Lebanon to the Euphrates, "all the land of the Hittites," to the Great Sea. The fearful generation saw the Hittites as invincible, while the trained next generation took God's promise without fear or rebellion.