Numbers 34:2
"Command the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land of Canaan, it will be allotted to you as an inheritance with these boundaries:
Sermons
BoundariesJ. Parker, D. D.Numbers 34:1-15
The Lord Appoints Boundaries for the Promised LandD. Young Numbers 34:1-15
The Promised LandW. Jones.Numbers 34:1-15














I. CONSIDER THESE BOUNDARIES ACCORDING TO THE EXTENT OF WHAT THEY INCLUDED. The territory was a very limited one, geographically speaking. The promised land, intended to typify the large privileges of the believer, and the heavenly and everlasting inheritance, was not a continent, nor even a considerable part of a continent. The Lord would teach Israel, and through them all his people, the difference between bigness and greatness, between quantity and quality, between mere superficial extent and the inexhaustible wealth that comes out of a really good ground. A square mile in the land that the Lord hath blessed is better than all the sands of Sahara. There was no legitimate room in Israel for men of Alexander's spirit, weeping because there were no more worlds to conquer. The scene that God thus mapped out was large enough to give impressive and beautiful illustrations of his ways, and to bring peace, prosperity, and happiness worthy of bearing such names to all who received his will in the fullness of it. Though only a limited territory, it was for that reason all the more compact; and at a very short notice the whole nation could gather to any point for purposes of worship or defense. Outsiders, who did not know how blessed was the nation whose God was the Lord, might count the land only a little one among the thousands of the whole earth. All depends on what we mean when we speak of the lives of certain people as limited, poor, narrow, and unprivileged. Such words may only reveal our ignorance, our erroneous principles of judgment, and not the real state of affairs. It should ever be part of the brightest radiance of God's glory in the eyes of his people that he can welcome the poor and the lowly to his choicest blessings and to the sweetest pleasures he can confer upon the human heart. Their poverty and lowliness do not unfit them for these things. Paul, who had to work with his own hands, and who said that having food and raiment he was therewith content, was also able to say, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" (Romans 11:33). No lord of broad acres he, no partaker of luxurious repose among intellectual pleasures, but still he knew of the peace that passeth all understanding, the joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, and something of the breadth, and length, and depth and height of that love of Christ which passeth knowledge. We had need be very sure of our competency before we begin to pronounce judgment on the compass and depth of a true believer's life.

II. CONSIDER THE EXACTNESS OF THESE BOUNDARIES. The country was carefully defined, and could give no occasion for boundary disputes. And all Christians have a carefully-defined life marked out for them. Even external circumstances are more under our control than at first seems to be the case. Many such circumstances indeed we cannot control, but many also depend on the spirit in which we regard the will of God. For instance, it could hardly be said that God marked out their territory for Reuben and Gad. For his own wise purposes he allowed their choice, but it was no true choice of his. If we have only a thoroughly trustful spirit, a spirit of stewardship towards God, we may all have the profit and comfort of feeling that we are working within the channels and limits that he would choose for our life. Social station makes no difference in this respect. The path of a pious king is just as strictly fixed as that of the humblest of his subjects. The farthest planet that circles round the sun has its path just as much marked out as the nearest one, though it travels a far longer distance.

III. CONSIDER THE EFFICACY THESE BOUNDARIES WERE MEANT TO HAVE IN THE WAY OF EXCLUSION. We see God clearly providing one necessary part in the means whereby to drive out and dispossess the Canaanites. He fixed the line beyond which they were to be driven, and within which they were not allowed to return and dwell. The lines between the Church and the world are not to be tampered with by such as value all that is most precious in spiritual possessions. Let the world have its own principles and assert them in its own field of action and in its own way. Let the men of the world act as men of the world, and transmit their much-belauded policy of life from generation to generation of such as believe in their principles. They go by what men are and by what they cynically assume men must be, for they do devoutly believe the fact that what is born of the flesh is flesh, even though they can make nothing of Christ's reference to the fact. But let us ever claim and preserve a place, and earnestly defend it, where the supercilious egotism of worldly wisdom shall find no entrance. Let our territory be fenced round with "Thus saith the Lord," and let us watch with a jealous vigilance the slightest encroachment on it. We also believe that what is born of the flesh is flesh, and that we must go by what men are; but then we regard in addition what men ought to be, and recollect that what is born of the spirit is spirit. Blessed is he who feels marked out in his own heart the boundary which Paul specifies when he says, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh" (Galatians 5:17); Canaanite against Israelite, and Israelite against Canaanite. It availed a man nothing to live within Israelite borders if he had a Canaanite heart. Of old idolaters were rigorously excluded from a certain well-marked territory, and the typical significance of this is that idolatries themselves must be driven out of the regenerate heart, and kept out of it by all the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left.

IV. CONSIDER THE SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WESTERN BORDER (verse 6). The great sea was there, the open pathway of nations, the symbol, and to a large extent the avenue, of Israel's connection with the whole world. For though Israel had destroyed Amorite and Midianite, and was laid under command to drive out the Canaanite, yet in the seed of Abraham all families of the earth were to be blessed. From Canaan there was a path of blessing by a landward way to many lands beside, but by sea there was a way to every island also. Consider the place in respect of Christian privileges and influences which the island England occupies among the nations. The seaward aspect of Israel suggests to us the blessings that we, and indeed many peoples beside, have gained from her. Notice also the element of reference to the sea which this seaward boundary of Canaan has brought into the Scriptures. The Scriptures were written by men who felt the power of the ocean. Men within reach of the sea could then hear the whole of nature praise God. They could not only say, "Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad," but also, "Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof" (Psalm 96:11). How could David have given Psalm 104. its completeness without a sight of the sea? And thus we find Haggai contrasting the great elements, first of the heavens and the earth, and then of the sea and the dry land (Haggai 2:6). It helped David to think of the omnipresence of God, as he imagined himself dwelling in the uttermost parts of the sea, and feeling even there that mighty grasp guarding and sustaining him (Psalm 139:9, 10). And it served also to remind men how in after days the Lord would famish all the gods of the earth, and men would worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the heathen (Zephaniah 2:11). Truly it was by no accident, but by a deep and gracious design, that the land of promise had the great sea for one of its borders. - Y.

When ye come into the land of Canaan.
I. THE BOUNDARIES OF THIS LAND WERE DETERMINED BY GOD.

1. A reason for contentment.

2. A rebuke of selfish greed, whether on the part of individuals or of nations.

II. THE EXTENT OF THIS LAND WAS SMALL. Mr. Grove thus speaks of its size, and briefly sets forth its boundaries: "The Holy Land is not in size or physical characteristics proportioned to its moral and historical position, as the theatre of the most momentous events in the world's history. It is but a strip of country about the size of Wales, less than a hundred and forty miles in length and barely forty in average breadth, on the very frontier of the East, hemmed in between the Mediterranean Sea on the one hand and the enormous trench of the Jordan valley on the other, by which it is effectually cut off from the mainland of Asia behind it. On the north it is shut in by the high ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and by the chasm of the Litany, which runs at their feet, and forms the main drain of their southern slope. On the south it is no less enclosed by the arid and inhospitable deserts of the upper part of the peninsula of Sinai, whose undulating wastes melt imperceptibly into the southern hills of Judea."

III. THE POSITION OF THIS LAND WAS SECURE. It was surrounded by natural fortifications. In one particular only was the position of this land perilous. "The only road by which the two great rivals of the ancient world could approach one another — by which alone Egypt could go to Assyria and Assyria to Egypt — lay along the broad fiat strip of coast which formed the maritime portion of the Holy Land, and thence by the plain of the Lebanon to the Euphrates." This road was undoubtedly a dangerous one for the Israelites. And through this channel the destruction of the nation came at length. But, with this exception, this land was naturally surrounded by almost impregnable defences.

IV. THE SOIL OF THIS LAND WAS FERTILE. At present the face of the country presents a rocky and barren aspect. For this there are two causes. "The first is the destruction of the timber in that long series of sieges and invasions which began with the invasion of Shishak (B.C. circa 970), and has not yet come to an end. This, by depriving the soil and streams of shelter from the burning sun, at once made, as it invariably does, the climate more arid than before, and doubtless diminished the rainfall. The second is the decay of the terraces necessary to retain the soil on the steep slopes of the round hills. This decay is owing to the general unsettlement and insecurity which have been the lot of this poor little country almost ever since the Babylonian conquest. The terraces once gone, there was nothing to prevent the soil which they supported being washed away by the heavy rains of winter; and it is hopeless to look for a renewal of the wood, or for any real improvement in the general face of the country, until they have been first re-established."

V. THE ISRAELITES FAILED TO TAKE POSSESSION OF THE WHOLE OF THIS LAND ASSIGNED TO THEM BY GOD.

(W. Jones.)

Life is marked all over with boundary lines. Two different views may be taken of such lines — that is to say, in the first place they may be regarded as limitations and partial impoverishments, or, in the next place, they may be regarded as defining rights and liberties, possessions and authorities. Very subtle and delicate things are boundaries oftentimes. They are invisible. Are not all the greatest things invisible, as well as the best and most delicate and tender? Show the line of love. There is no line to show. It is at this point that conscience comes into active play. Where the conscience is dull, or imperfectly educated, or selfish, there will be much dispute about boundaries; but where the conscience is sanctified by the power of the Cross and is alive with the righteousness of God, there will be no controversy, but large concession, noble interpretation, willingness to give, to take, to arrange and settle, without the severity of the law or the cruelty of the sword. What differences there are in boundaries! We read of one, in the seventh verse, whose boundary was "from the great sea"; in the twelfth verse, "the goings out of it shall be at the salt sea." There is so much sea in some people's limited possession. What a boundary is the inhospitable sea! We cannot cut it up into acres, and lay it out; we cannot sow it with wheat, and reap the harvest, and enjoy the bread; it is to most of us but a spectacle — great, melancholy, unresponsive, pitiless; a liquid emblem of cruel death. Is not this the case with many men? They know they have great possessions, but their greatness is not the measure of their value. A little garden-plot would be to some men more valuable, for purposes of living, than the freehold of the Atlantic. Sometimes men are born to great estates that have nothing in them — boundless nothings; a proprietorship of infinite bogs and wastes and unanswering sterilities; sand that cannot be ploughed, water that cannot be sown with seed, and bogs that cannot be built upon. Contrast with such allotments the words of music which you find in the fifteenth verse: "toward the sunrising." That is an inheritance worth having! The morning sun blesses it: early in the morning all heaven's glory is poured out upon it with the hospitality of God; whatever is planted in it grows almost instantly; the flowers love to be planted there; all the roots of the earth would say, "Put us in this place of the morning sun, and we will show you what we can do in growth and fruitfulness; give us the chance of the sun, and then say what we really are." We cannot all have our estates "toward the sunrising"; we cannot wholly cut off the north and the northeast — the shady side of the bill: somebody must be there. Does God plant a tabernacle in such sunless districts? Is there any temple of God in the northlands, where the storm blows with a will and the tempests seem to have it all their own way, rioting in their tumultuous strength, and, as it were, accosting one another in reduplications of infinite thunderings and roarings of whirlwinds? Even there God's footprint may be found. Even a little may be so held as to he much. Quite a small garden may grow stuff enough for a whole household. Look for the bright spots; add up all the excellences; totalise the attractions of the situation; and it is wonderful how things add up when you know how to add them. Boundary is disciplinary. Who would not like to add just one more shelf to his library, and could do it if he were at liberty to take the books from another man's study? Who does not desire to have just the corner plot to make the estate geometrically complete, and would do it if the owner of the plot were not looking? But to retire within your own boundary! — to have nothing but a ditch between you and the vineyard you covet! Who is stopped by a ditch? To have nothing but one thin, green hedge between proprietorship actual and proprietorship desired! Why not burn the hedge, or transfer it? "Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him," saith the proverbs of Solomon. To be kept within our own lines, to build our altar steadily there, and to bow down at that altar and confess that "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," and that, whether a man has much or little, he may be God's child, God's servant, and Christ's apostle — that is the highest discipline, and it is possible to every man. Boundaries are suggestive. Every boundary, rightly interpreted, means, "Your last estate will be a very little one — a grave in the cemetery, a tomb in the silent place." Does it come to this, that the man who wanted acres a thousand in number doubled lies down in six feet, or seven, by four? Can a carpenter measure him for his last house? Does there ,come a time when a man steals quietly upstairs with a two-foot measure, and afterwards hurries out to build for him in the eventide his last dwelling-place? It is impossible to exclude this thought from all our best reasoning. There is no need to be mawkish, sentimental, foolishly melancholy about it; but there is the fact that there is an appointed time to man upon the earth as well as an appointed place to man upon the earth, and that he is the wise man who looks at that certain fact and conducts himself wisely in relation to it. Men have the power of closing their eyes and not seeing the end; but to close the eves is not to destroy the inevitable boundary. Even the grave can be made beautiful. A man may so live that when he is laid in his grave other men may go to see the tomb and bedew it with tears, and even stoop down and touch it with a loving hand as if it were a living thing.

(J. Parker, D. D.).

People
Addar, Ahihud, Ammihud, Asher, Azzan, Benjamin, Bukki, Caleb, Chislon, Dan, Eleazar, Elidad, Elizaphan, Enan, Gad, Hanniel, Israelites, Issachar, Jephunneh, Jogli, Joseph, Joshua, Kemuel, Manasseh, Moses, Naphtali, Nun, Paltiel, Parnach, Pedahel, Phaltiel, Reuben, Samuel, Shelomi, Shemuel, Shiphtan, Simeon, Zebulun
Places
Ain, Akrabbim, Brook of Egypt, Canaan, Edom, Great Sea, Hazar-addar, Hazar-enan, Jordan River, Kadesh-barnea, Lebo-hamath, Mount Hor, Plains of Moab, Riblah, Salt Sea, Sea of Chinnereth, Shepham, Zedad, Zin, Ziphron
Topics
Allotted, Borders, Boundaries, Canaan, Coasts, Command, Enter, Extent, Fall, Falleth, Full, Hast, Heritage, Inheritance, Inside, Israelites, Limits, Orders, Sons, Thereof
Outline
1. The borders of the land
16. The names of the men who shall divide the land

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Numbers 34:1-12

     4207   land, divine gift

Numbers 34:1-15

     7258   promised land, early history

Library
The Talmudic Girdle of the Land under the Second Temple, Taken Out of the Jerusalem Sheviith, Fol. 36 3
What all these things mean, I cannot so much as conjecture; yea, nor can I scarce conjecture, what the meaning is of some of them. Neither is there any Oedipus at hand, nor Sphinx herself, to explain and unriddle them. The Talmudists are silent from making any comments here, nor have we the advantage of any other commentator. We must, therefore, act here according to the uncertain instruction of nods and winks; and that either by saying nothing, or by mere conjecture, since that the mind of the authors
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

The Northern Coasts of Galilee. Amanah. The Mountain of Snow.
This coast is described by Moses, Numbers 34:7: "From the Great Sea to mount Hor: from mount Hor to the entrance of Hamath," &c. Mount Hor, in the Jewish writers, is Amanah; mention of which occurs, Canticles 4:8, where R. Solomon thus: "Amanah is a mount in the northern coast of the land of Israel, which in the Talmudical language is called, The mountainous plain of Amanon; the same with mount Hor." In the Jerusalem Targum, for mount 'Hor' is the mount Manus: but the Targum of Jonathan renders it
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

What is to be Said of the Sea of Apamia.
'The sea of Apamia' is reckoned the seventh among those seas that compass the land of Israel; which word hath a sound so near akin to the word Pamias, by which name the Rabbins point out the fountains of Jordan,--that the mention of that word cannot but excite the memory of this, yea, almost persuade that both design one and the same place: and that the sea Apamia was nothing else but some great collection of waters at the very springs of Jordan. This also might moreover be added to strengthen that
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Pamias. Paneas, the Spring of Jordan.
The maps assign a double spring of Jordan; but by what right it scarce appears; much less does it appear by what right they should call this Jor,--and that Dan. There is indeed mention in Josephus of little Jordan and great Jordan. Hence, as it seems, was the first original of the double spring in the maps, and of a double river at those first springs. For thus Josephus; "There are fountains (in Daphne) which send little Jordan, as it is called, into the great." He treats, in the text cited, of the
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

The Lake of Gennesaret; Or, the Sea of Galilee and Tiberias.
Jordan is measured at one hundred and twenty furlongs, from the lake of Samochonitis to that of Gennesaret. That lake, in the Old Testament, is 'The sea of Chinnereth,' Numbers 34:11, &c. In the Targumists, 'The sea of Genesar'; sometimes, 'of Genesor'; sometimes, 'of Ginosar': it is the same also in the Talmudists, but most frequently 'The sea of Tiberiah.' Both names are used by the evangelists; 'the lake of Gennesaret,' Luke 5:1; 'the sea of Tiberias,' John 21:1; and 'the sea of Galilee,' John
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Subterraneous Places. Mines. Caves.
Thus having taken some notice of the superficies of the land, let us a little search into its bowels. You may divide the subterraneous country into three parts: the metal mines, the caves, and the places of burial. This land was eminently noted for metal mines, so that "its stones," in very many places, "were iron, and out of its hills was digged brass," Deuteronomy 8:9. From these gain accrued to the Jews: but to the Christians, not seldom slavery and misery; being frequently condemned hither by
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Arbel. Shezor. Tarnegola the Upper.
"Arbel a city of Galilee."--There is mention of it in Hosea 10:14. But there are authors which do very differently interpret that place, viz. the Chaldee paraphrast, R. Solomon, Kimchi: consult them. It was between Zippor and Tiberias. Hence Nittai the Arbelite, who was president with Josua Ben Perahiah. The valley of Arbel is mentioned by the Talmudists. So also "The Arbelite Bushel." "Near Zephath in Upper Galilee was a town named Shezor, whence was R. Simeon Shezori: there he was buried. There
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

The Coast of the Asphaltites, the Essenes. En-Gedi.
"On the western shore" (of the Asphaltites) "dwell the Essenes; whom persons, guilty of any crimes, fly from on every side. A nation it is that lives alone, and of all other nations in the whole world, most to be admired; they are without any woman; all lust banished, &c. Below these, was the town Engadda, the next to Jerusalem for fruitfulness, and groves of palm-trees, now another burying-place. From thence stands Massada, a castle in a rock, and this castle not far from the Asphaltites." Solinus,
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Jesus Calls Four Fishermen to Follow Him.
(Sea of Galilee, Near Capernaum.) ^A Matt. IV. 18-22; ^B Mark I. 16-20; ^C Luke V. 1-11. ^a 18 And walking ^b 16 And passing along by the sea of Galilee [This lake is a pear-shaped body of water, about twelve and a half miles long and about seven miles across at its widest place. It is 682 feet below sea level; its waters are fresh, clear and abounding in fish, and it is surrounded by hills and mountains, which rise from 600 to 1,000 feet above it. Its greatest depth is about 165 feet], he [Jesus]
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Kadesh. Rekam, and that Double. Inquiry is Made, Whether the Doubling it in the Maps is Well Done.
The readers of the eastern interpreters will observe, that Kadesh is rendered by all Rekam, or in a sound very near it. In the Chaldee, it is 'Rekam': in the Syriac, 'Rekem': in the Arabic, 'Rakim'... There are two places noted by the name Rekam in the very bounds of the land,--to wit, the southern and eastern: that is, a double Kadesh. I. Of Kadesh, or Rekam, in the south part, there is no doubt. II. Of it, in the eastern part, there is this mention: "From Rekam to the east, and Rekam is as the
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

Numbers
Like the last part of Exodus, and the whole of Leviticus, the first part of Numbers, i.-x. 28--so called,[1] rather inappropriately, from the census in i., iii., (iv.), xxvi.--is unmistakably priestly in its interests and language. Beginning with a census of the men of war (i.) and the order of the camp (ii.), it devotes specific attention to the Levites, their numbers and duties (iii., iv.). Then follow laws for the exclusion of the unclean, v. 1-4, for determining the manner and amount of restitution
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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