The Jebusites (/ˈdʒɛbjəˌsaɪts/; Hebrew: יְבוּסִי, romanized: Yəḇusi) were, according to the Book of Joshua and Books of Samuel from the Hebrew Bible, a Canaanite tribe that inhabited Jerusalem, called Jebus (Hebrew: יְבוּס, romanized: Yəḇus, lit. 'trampled place') before the conquest initiated by Joshua (Joshua 11:3, Joshua 12:10) and completed by David (2 Samuel 5:6–10). According to some biblical chronologies, it was conquered in 1003 BC.

A majority of scholars agree that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value for early Israel and reflects a much later period.

1 Chronicles 11:4 states that Jerusalem was known as Jebus before this event. Scholars sometimes dispute the identification of Jebus with Jerusalem.

The identification of Jebus with Jerusalem has been disputed, principally by Niels Peter Lemche. Supporting his case, every non-biblical mention of Jerusalem found in the ancient Near East refers to the city as "Jerusalem". An example of these records are the Amarna letters, several of which were written by the chieftain of Jerusalem Abdi-Heba and call Jerusalem either Urusalim (URU ú-ru-sa-lim) or Urušalim (URU ú-ru-ša₁₀-lim) (1330s BC). Also in the Amarna letters, it is called Beth-Shalem, the house of Shalem.

The Sumero-Akkadian name for Jerusalem, uru-salim, is variously etymologised to mean "foundation of [or: by] the god Shalim": from Semitic yry, "to found, to lay a cornerstone", and Shalim, the Canaanite god of the setting sun and the nether world, as well as of health and perfection.

Lemche states:

There is no evidence of Jebus and the Jebusites outside of the Old Testament. Some scholars reckon Jebus to be a different place from Jerusalem; other scholars prefer to see the name of Jebus as a kind of pseudo-ethnic name.

Theophilus G. Pinches has noted a reference to "Yabusu", which he interprets as an old form of Jebus, on a contract tablet that dates from 2200 BC.