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(Heb. Chetf, çֶú , dread; Sept. ( ὁ ×åôôáῖïò , and so Josephus, Ant. 1, 6, 2), a son (descendant) of Canaan, and the ancestor of the HITTITES (Gen_5:20; Deu_7:1; Jos_1:4), who dwelt in the vicinity of Hebron (Gen_23:3; Gen_23:7; Gen_25:10). The ‘kings of the Hittites” is spoken of all the Canaanitish kings (2Ki_2:6). In the genealogical tables of Genesis 10 and 1 Chronicles 1, Heth is named as a son of Canaan, younger than Zidon the firstborn, but preceding the Jebusite, the Amorite, and the other Canaanitish-families. The Hittites were therefore a Hamitic race, neither of the “country” nor the “kindred” of Abraham and Isaac (Gen_24:3-4; Gen_28:1-2). In the earliest historical mention of the nation the beautiful narrative of Abraham's purchase of the cave of Machpelah they are styled, not Hittites, but Bene-Cheth (A.V. “sons and children of Heth,” Gen_23:3; Gen_23:5; Gen_23:7; Gen_23:10; Gen_23:16; Gen_23:18; Gen_23:20; Gen_25:10; Gen_49:32). Once we hear of the “daughters of Heth” (Gen_27:46), the “daughters of the land,” at that early period still called, after their less immediate progenitor, “daughters of Canaan” (Gen_28:1; Gen_28:8, compared with Gen_27:46, and Gen_26:34-35; see also 1Ki_11:1; Eze_16:3). In the Egyptian monuments the name Chat is said to stand for Palestine (Bunsen, Egypten, quoted by Ewald, Gesch. 1, 317, note). SEE HITTITE.