God defines the boundaries of the land He promised to the people with absolute clarity, so that if we knew the exact location of the geographical points mentioned in the text, even today its boundary could be drawn on the ground with an accuracy...
God defines the boundaries of the land He promised to the people with absolute clarity, so that if we knew the exact location of the geographical points mentioned in the text, even today its boundary could be drawn on the ground with an accuracy of hundreds of meters. Such precision may seem almost implausible, and yet this is exactly how God draws the boundary of the land on which His people are to live. He also chooses the people who, in due time, after the conquest, will have to divide the land among the tribes.
Such thoroughness makes one think. The question of borders, of their alteration, of different peoples' conquest of different lands, and of the consequences of this has always been relevant, above all in the context of ideas about "historical rights," "legal borders," annexations, the rights of the conqueror, and other such things to which both victors and defeated usually appealed.
Meanwhile, for God the question of borders and their movement has never been a formal and purely legal question. The same is true, in fact, of the question of "human rights" in general, at least in the sense in which it is usually raised in our day. Simply because neither individual people nor nations have any inalienable rights. Of course, a person himself may think he has them, but at the first collision with nature or with society he very quickly understands that both nature and society know only one "right": the right of the strong.
The only alternative to this right can be love, but love is not characteristic of nature or of fallen society; it exists only in God. For God, only the dynamics of relationship matter - whether with an individual person or with a whole people, since one can speak of whole peoples having relationships with God. God leads each people, setting each people its own historical task and offering it the optimal historical path from His point of view, just as He sets each person his own spiritual task, offering him as well the optimal path, both spiritual and practical.
What a people has and how it manages it depends on which path it chooses and how closely that path corresponds to God's purpose for the people, just as what belongs to an individual person and how he manages what belongs to him depends on which path the person chooses and how closely his choice corresponds to God's will.
If the path of an individual person or of a whole people is far from God's purpose, war is inevitable, and then the question of who owns what will be determined by the results of that war. But if a people or a person follows God step by step, God Himself will define all the boundaries. For Him they are, in fact, already defined, and He reveals His determination to His people. What follows depends on the people themselves.
34 Directions concerning the bounds of Canaan, Num 34:1-15.
Concerning the division of it, Num 34:16-29.
34:2 Coasts - Or limits or bounds, to wit, of the land beyond Jordan. Which are here particularly described,
34:3 Your fourth quarter - Which is here described from east to west by divers windings and turnings, by reason of the mountains and rivers.The salt sea - So called from the salt and sulphurous taste of its waters. Eastward - That is, at the eastern part of that sea, where the eastern and southern borders meet.
34:4 From the south - Or, on the south, that is, proceeding onward towards the south. Azmon - Which is at the west - end of the mount of Edom.
34:5 The river of Egypt - Called Sihor, Jos 13:3, which divided Egypt from Canaan. The sea - The midland sea, called the sea emphatically, whereas the other seas, as they are called, are indeed but lakes.
34:6 The great sea - This midland sea from the south to the north, so far as it runs parallel with mount Libanus.
34:7 Hor - Not that Hor where Aaron died, which was southward, and bordering upon Edom, but another mountain, and, as it is conceived, the mountain of Libanus, which is elsewhere mentioned as the northern border of the land, and which, in regard of divers parts, or by divers people, is called by divers names, and here Hor, which signifies a mountain, by way of eminency.
34:17 Eleazar - Who was to act in God's name, to cast lots, to prevent contentions, to consult with God in cases of difficulty, to transact the whole business in a solemn and religious manner.
34:19 Judah - The order of the tribes is here different from that, Num 1:7, Num 1:26, and in other places, being conformed to the order of theirseveral inheritances, which afterwards fell to them by lots. Which is an evident demonstration of the infinite wisdom of God's providence, and of his peculiar care over his people.