NOTES for Num 34:1-29

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.