Godmindfamily, Chapter 11

Chapter 11: The Promised Land

The Promised Land originated with the Abrahamic Covenant, in which God unconditionally promised to give Abraham’s ‘offspring’ the territory from the ‘river of Egypt’ to the Euphrates (Genesis 15:18) including the lands of the Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Kenites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites and the Girgashites (Genesis 15:19), that became known as the Promised Land. This is a vast territory that includes parts of what is currently Israel, Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. God also promised that Abraham’s offspring would ‘bless all the nations of the earth’ (Genesis 22:18). The river of Egypt is generally understood to be the Brook of Egypt, not the Nile. The original Hebrew word zera, translated here as seed or offspring, is singular and can be understood to denote a group of descendants or one descendant.[i]

Abraham’s ‘offspring’ is often taken to mean his descendants, the Jewish people, although Abraham’s descendants technically include many Arabs (via his son Ishmael) and other Gentiles. In Galatians 3:16, Paul pointed out that Christ was that offspring or descendant who would inherit the Promised Land, and wrote: ‘if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring [or, seed] and heirs according to promise’ (Galatians 3:29). Gentiles in Christ thereby inherit the Promised Land. This was corroborated by Jesus when he said: ‘your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day’ (John 8:56); Abraham may have ‘seen’ Jesus’ day when God promised the patriarch land to his offspring. Therefore, if you have Christ’s blood in you, you are God’s child, and Abraham’s descendant. That helps to explain why Gentiles are prophesied to live in the millennial kingdom alongside Jews (Ezekiel 47:21–23). Moreover, John the Baptist said to some Pharisees and Sadducees seeking baptism: ‘Don’t think to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’, for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire.’ (Matthew 3:9–10). This means that Jewish people cannot be complacent about inheriting the Promised Land via genealogy, because entry into God’s kingdom depends (partly) on deeds, and God was able to raise up new children of Abraham (Gentile Christians) by unconventional means. Indeed, Jesus is the stone the builders rejected (Psalm 118:22; Luke 20:17) from whom God raised children of Abraham. The Promised Land is thus better understood as the land promised to Jesus, the Messiah although many Jews will live there, as passages such as Deuteronomy 30:20 and Genesis 28:13–15 make plain, so that both interpretations of ‘offspring’ are in some way correct. God’s promises to Israel still apply to the Jewish people, but really only to the remnant who are faithful and turn back to God in the End Times.Further confirmation that some Jews will inherit the land can be found in God’s covenant with Jacob, Abraham’s grandson, and the progenitor of the House of Israel. God promised Jacob the land he slept upon, and that his offspring would ‘spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south’ (Genesis 28:14). ‘In you and in your offspring, all the families of the earth will be blessed’ (Genesis 28:14) clarified that it was from Jacob’s line that the Messiah would emerge. Jacob was named Israel by God (Genesis 32:28). He had twelve sons by his wives Leah and Rachel (and their servants Bilhah and Zilpah), who became progenitors of the tribes of Israel (Genesis 49): Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Zebulun, Isachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Joseph and Benjamin. However, Joseph is sometimes not listed as a tribe, because two tribes were named after his sons Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 48).

A more limited territorial extent of the Promised Land in the millennial kingdom is presented in the Book of Ezekiel (47:13–23): ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: This shall be the border, by which you shall divide the land for inheritance according to the twelve tribes of Israel: Joseph shall have two portions. You shall inherit it, one as well as another; for I swore to give it to your fathers: and this land shall fall to you for inheritance. This shall be the border of the land: On the north side, from the great sea, by the way of Hethlon, to the entrance of Zedad; Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazer Hatticon, which is by the border of Hauran. The border from the sea, shall be Hazar Enon at the border of Damascus; and on the north northward is the border of Hamath. This is the north side. The east side, between Hauran and Damascus and Gilead, and the land of Israel, shall be the Jordan; from the north border to the east sea you shall measure. This is the east side. The south side southward shall be from Tamar as far as the waters of Meriboth Kadesh, to the brook of Egypt, to the great sea. This is the south side southward. The west side shall be the great sea, from the south border as far as over against the entrance of Hamath. This is the west side. So you shall divide this land to you according to the tribes of Israel. It shall happen, that you shall divide it by lot for an inheritance to you and to the strangers who sojourn among you, who shall father children among you; and they shall be to you as the native-born among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. It shall happen, that in what tribe the stranger sojourns, there you shall give him his inheritance, says the Lord Yahweh.’This land is bordered by the Mediterranean to the west, the Jordan to the east, the brook of Egypt to the south, and near Damascus to the north. The reason for the difference between the two prophesied borders of the Promised Land in the Bible is that initially it will match the dimensions given in Ezekiel, but over time, due to heightened fertility in the kingdom age (Jeremiah 30:19–20), the population of Israel will expand to encompass a broader territory. When people regularly live to 300, are very healthy and happy, and birth control isn’t being used, then yes, you are going to get a population explosion that makes the post-war baby boom look like a mere blip by comparison. Note that Israel, even at its maximum historical extent under David and Solomon, never reached the size of the Promised Land in Ezekiel or in Genesis, indicating future fulfilments. And because Ezekiel is clearly set in the millennium, and the borders of the land promised refer to geographical features pertaining to this earth, such as the Mediterranean (in the new earth there will be no sea (Revelation 21:1)), we know that the land promised to Abraham and via Ezekiel will be in the millennium. The above quote from Ezekiel 47 also makes it plain that some Gentile foreigners will also be allowed to settle in the Promised Land: because although they are not of Jewish descent, they will have Jesus’ blood and body in them, and are thereby heirs to Abraham.

[i]Nally, J. Seed and offspring – single or plural? Link: https://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/50209#:~:text=However%2C%20the%20Hebrew%20word%20zera,a%20later%20%22seed%22%20fulfillment!

Read the next chapter here: https://www.robertensor.com/post/godmindfamily-chapter-12