'Nations' in the Bible

They abandoned the LORD God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods from among the gods of the nations who surrounded them. They bowed down in worship of them, and by doing so angered the LORD.

I also will not henceforth drive out any from before them of the nations which Joshua left when he died:

Joshua left those nations to test Israel. I wanted to see whether or not the people would carefully walk in the path marked out by the Lord, as their ancestors were careful to do."

Therefore the LORD left those nations, without driving them out hastily; neither delivered he them into the hand of Joshua.

Now these are the nations which the LORD left, to prove Israel by them, even as many of Israel as had not known all the wars of Canaan;

He left those nations simply because he wanted to teach the subsequent generations of Israelites, who had not experienced the earlier battles, how to conduct holy war.

These nations included: the five rulers of the Philistines and all of the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived in the Lebanese mountains from Mount Baal-hermon as far as the entrance to Hamath.

And they took as wives the daughters of these nations and gave their daughters to their sons, and became servants to their gods.

So the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. The commander of his forces was Sisera who lived in Harosheth of the Nations.

Sisera summoned all his 900 iron chariots and all the people who were with him from Harosheth of the Nations to the Wadi Kishon.

Barak pursued the chariots and the army as far as Harosheth of the Nations, and the whole army of Sisera fell by the sword; not a single man was left.