Israel’s relationship with the land was quite different from the surrounding peoples and from the Canaanites. With those other nations there was often a mythical explanation of their connection with the land. Thus Babylon was Marduk’s city, while Thebes was ‘the honourable hill of the Primeval beginning’. Israel did not regard the land as divine, but rather saw it as a provision of God through historical events which he controlled. The connection with the land came through history, not mythology.