2 Give orders to the children of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land of Canaan; (this is the land which is to be your heritage, the land of Canaan inside these limits,)
And to you and to your seed after you, I will give the land in which you are living, all the land of Canaan for an eternal heritage; and I will be their God.
Saying, To you will I give the land of Canaan, the measured line of your heritage:
Make a move now, and go on your way into the hill-country of the Amorites and the places near it, in the Arabah and the hill-country and in the lowlands and in the South and by the seaside, all the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. See, all the land is before you: go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their seed after them.
And Abram went through the land till he came to Shechem, to the holy tree of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were still living in the land. And the Lord came to Abram, and said, I will give all this land to your seed; then Abram made an altar there to the Lord who had let himself be seen by him.
For all the land which you see I will give to you and to your seed for ever. And I will make your children like the dust of the earth, so that if the dust of the earth may be numbered, then will your children be numbered. Come, go through all the land from one end to the other for I will give it to you.
And in the fourth generation they will come back here; for at present the sin of the Amorite is not full. Then when the sun went down and it was dark, he saw a smoking fire and a flaming light which went between the parts of the bodies. In that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram, and said, To your seed have I given this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenite, the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite, And the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim, And the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.
Say to the children of Israel, When you go over Jordan into the land of Canaan, See that all the people of the land are forced out from before you, and put to destruction all their pictured stones, and all their metal images, and all their high places: And take the land for yourselves, for your resting-place: for to you I have given the land as your heritage.
The Lord is my heritage and the wine of my cup; you are the supporter of my right. Fair are the places marked out for me; I have a noble heritage.
But I said, How am I to put you among the children, and give you a desired land, a heritage of glory among the armies of the nations? and I said, You are to say to me, My father; and not be turned away from me.
And you are to make an equal division of it; as I gave my oath to your fathers to give it to you: for this land is to be your heritage.
To make their eyes open, turning them from the dark to the light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may have forgiveness of sins and a heritage among those who are made holy by faith in me.
Which is the first-fruit of our heritage, till God gets back that which is his, to the praise of his glory.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Numbers 34
Commentary on Numbers 34 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 34
Nu 34:1-29. The Borders of the Land of Canaan.
2. this is the … land of Canaan—The details given in this chapter mark the general boundary of the inheritance of Israel west of the Jordan. The Israelites never actually possessed all the territory comprised within these boundaries, even when it was most extended by the conquests of David and Solomon.
3-5. your south quarter—The line which bounded it on the south is the most difficult to trace. According to the best biblical geographers, the leading points here defined are as follows: The southwest angle of the southern boundary should be where the wilderness of Zin touches the border of Edom, so that the southern boundary should extend eastward from the extremity of the Dead Sea, wind around the precipitous ridge of Akrabbim ("scorpions"), thought to be the high and difficult Pass of Safeh, which crosses the stream that flows from the south into the Jordan—that is, the great valley of the Arabah, reaching from the Dead to the Red Sea.
5. river of Egypt—the ancient brook Sihor, the Rhinocolura of the Greeks, a little to the south of El-Arish, where this wady gently descends towards the Mediterranean (Jos 13:3).
6. the western border—There is no uncertainty about this boundary, as it is universally allowed to be the Mediterranean, which is called "the great sea" in comparison with the small inland seas or lakes known to the Hebrews.
7-9. north border—The principal difficulty in understanding the description here arises from what our translators have called mount Hor. The Hebrew words, however, Hor-ha-Hor, properly signify "the mountain of the mountain," or "the high double mountain," which, from the situation, can mean nothing else than the mountain Amana (So 4:8), a member of the great Lebanon range (Jos 13:5).
8. entrance of Hamath—The northern plain between those mountain ranges, now the valley of Balbeck (see on Nu 13:21).
Zedad—identified as the present Sudud (Eze 47:15).
9. Ziphron—("sweet odor").
Hazar-enan—("village of fountains"); but the places are unknown. "An imaginary line from mount Cassius, on the coast along the northern base of Lebanon to the entering into the Bekaa (Valley of Lebanon) at the Kamosa Hermel," must be regarded as the frontier that is meant [Van De Velde].
10-12. east border—This is very clearly defined. Shepham and Riblah, which were in the valley of Lebanon, are mentioned as the boundary line, which commenced a little higher than the sources of the Jordan. Ain is supposed to be the source of that river; and thence the eastern boundary extended along the Jordan, the sea of Chinnereth (Lake of Tiberias), the Jordan; and again terminated at the Dead Sea. The line being drawn on the east of the river and the seas included those waters within the territory of the western tribes.
13-15. The two tribes and the half-tribe have received their inheritance on this side Jordan—The conquered territories of Sihon and Og, lying between the Arnon and mount Hermon, were allotted to them—that of Reuben in the most southerly part, Gad north of it, and the half Manasseh in the northernmost portion.
16-29. names of the men … which shall divide the land—This appointment by the Lord before the Jordan tended not only to animate the Israelites faith in the certainty of the conquest, but to prevent all subsequent dispute and discontent, which might have been dangerous in presence of the natives. The nominees were ten princes for the nine and a half tribes, one of them being selected from the western section of Manasseh, and all subordinate to the great military and ecclesiastical chiefs, Joshua and Eleazar. The names are mentioned in the exact order in which the tribes obtained possession of the land, and according to brotherly connection.