'Land' in the Bible

Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place [of standing, pooling together], and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.

God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that this was good (pleasing, useful) and He affirmed and sustained it.

So God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of the entire earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;

but a mist (fog, dew, vapor) used to rise from the land and water the entire surface of the ground—

The first [river] is named Pishon; it flows around the entire land of Havilah, where there is gold.

The gold of that land is good; bdellium (a fragrant, valuable resin) and the onyx stone are found there.

The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the entire land of Cush [in Mesopotamia].

Behold, You have driven me out this day from the face of the land; and from Your face (presence) I will be hidden, and I will be a fugitive and an [aimless] vagabond on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”

So Cain went away from the [manifested] presence of the Lord, and lived in the land of Nod [wandering in exile], east of Eden.

Now it happened, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them,

The [population of the] earth was corrupt [absolutely depraved—spiritually and morally putrid] in God’s sight, and the land was filled with violence [desecration, infringement, outrage, assault, and lust for power].

God said to Noah, “I intend to make an end of all that lives, for through men the land is filled with violence; and behold, I am about to destroy them together with the land.

For behold, I, even I, will bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy all life under the heavens in which there is the breath and spirit of life; everything that is on the land shall die.

And of every living thing [found on land], you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female.

also of the birds of the air, seven pair, the male and the female, to keep the offspring alive on the surface of the earth.

Noah was six hundred years old when the flood (deluge) of water came on the earth [covering all of the land].

And after the seven days [God released the rain and] the floodwaters came on the earth.

they and every animal according to its kind, all the livestock according to their kinds, every moving thing that crawls on the earth according to its kind, and every bird according to its kind, every winged thing of every sort.

The flood [the great downpour of rain] was forty days and nights on the earth; and the waters increased and lifted up the ark, and it floated [high] above the land.

The waters became mighty and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the waters.

All living beings that moved on the earth perished—birds and cattle (domestic animals), [wild] animals, all things that swarm and crawl on the earth, and all mankind.

Everything on the dry land, all in whose nostrils was the breath and spirit of life, died.

God destroyed (blotted out, wiped away) every living thing that was on the surface of the earth; man and animals and the crawling things and the birds of the heavens were destroyed from the land. Only Noah and those who were with him in the ark remained alive.

The waters covered [all of] the earth for a hundred and fifty days (five months).

And God remembered and thought kindly of Noah and every living thing and all the animals that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind blow over the land, and the waters receded.

and the waters receded steadily from the earth. At the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters had diminished.

and he sent out a raven, which flew here and there until the waters were dried up from the earth.

But the dove found no place on which to rest the sole of her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were [still] on the face of the entire earth. So he reached out his hand and took the dove, and brought her into the ark.

The dove came back to him in the evening, and there, in her beak, was a fresh olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water level had subsided from the earth.

Now in the six hundred and first year [of Noah’s life], on the first day of the first month, the waters were drying up from the earth. Then Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and the surface of the ground was drying.

On the twenty-seventh day of the second month the land was [entirely] dry.

Bring out with you every living thing from all flesh—birds and animals and every crawling thing that crawls on the earth—that they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

Every animal, every crawling thing, every bird—and whatever moves on the land—went out by families (types, groupings) from the ark.

The fear and the terror of you shall be [instinctive] in every animal of the land and in every bird of the air; and together with everything that moves on the ground, and with all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hand.

The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar [in Babylonia].

From that land Nimrod went to Assyria, and built Nineveh, and Rehoboth-Ir, and Calah,

And as people journeyed eastward, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and they settled there.

Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chaldeans.

Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went out together to go from Ur of the Chaldeans into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran [about five hundred and fifty miles northwest of Ur], they settled there.

Now [in Haran] the Lord had said to Abram,“Go away from your country,And from your relativesAnd from your father’s house,To the land which I will show you;

Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had acquired, and the people (servants) which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan,

Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the [great] terebinth (oak) tree of Moreh. Now the Canaanites were in the land at that time.

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descendants.” So Abram built an altar there to [honor] the Lord who had appeared to him.

Now there was a famine in the land; and Abram went down into Egypt to live temporarily, for the famine in the land was oppressive and severe.

Now the land was not able to support them [that is, sustain all their grazing and water needs] while they lived near one another, for their possessions were too great for them to stay together.

And there was strife and quarreling between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle. Now the Canaanite and the Perizzite were living in the land at that same time [making grazing of the livestock difficult].

Is not the entire land before you? Please separate [yourself] from me. If you take the left, then I will go to the right; or if you choose the right, then I will go to the left.”

So Lot looked and saw that the valley of the Jordan was well watered everywhere—this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; [it was all] like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar [at the south end of the Dead Sea].

Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot settled in the cities of the valley and camped as far as Sodom and lived there.

for all the land which you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever.

Arise, walk (make a thorough reconnaissance) around in the land, through its length and its width, for I will give it to you.”

And He said to him, “I am the [same] Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land as an inheritance.”

God said to Abram, “Know for sure that your descendants will be strangers [living temporarily] in a land (Egypt) that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for four hundred years.

On the same day the Lord made a covenant (promise, pledge) with Abram, saying,“To your descendants I have given this land,From the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates—

After Abram had lived in the land of Canaan ten years, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian [maid], and gave her to her husband Abram to be his [secondary] wife.

I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger [moving from place to place], all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession [of property]; and I will be their God.”

and he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley [of the Dead Sea]; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a kiln (pottery furnace).

So Abimelech said, “Behold, my land is before you; settle wherever you please.”

He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

so now, swear to me here by God that you will not deal unfairly with me [by breaking any agreements we have] or with my son or with my descendants, but as I have treated you with kindness, you shall do the same to me and to the land in which you have sojourned (temporarily lived).”

So they made a covenant at Beersheba; then Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, got up and returned to the land of the Philistines.

Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her.

So Abraham stood up and bowed to the people of the land, the Hittites.

Then Abraham bowed down before the people of the land.

He said to Ephron in the presence of the people of the land, “If you will only please listen to me and accept my offer. I will give you the price of the field; accept it from me and I will bury my dead there.”

“My lord, listen to me. The land [you seek] is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that between you and me? So bury your dead.”

After this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah to the east of Mamre (that is, Hebron) in the land of Canaan.

The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house, from the land of my family and my birth, who spoke to me and swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give this land’—He will send His angel before you [to guide you], and you will take a wife from there for my son [and bring her here].

My master made me swear [an oath], saying, ‘You must not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live;

Now there was a famine in the land [of Canaan], besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines.

The Lord appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I will tell you.

Live temporarily [as a resident] in this land and I will be with you and will bless and favor you, for I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants, and I will establish and carry out the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.

Then Isaac planted [seed] in that land [as a farmer] and reaped in the same year a hundred times [as much as he had planted], and the Lord blessed and favored him.

He moved away from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over that one; so he named it Rehoboth (broad places), saying, “For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be prosperous in the land.”

May He also give the blessing of Abraham to you and your descendants with you, that you may inherit the [promised] land of your sojournings, which He gave to Abraham.”

And behold, the Lord stood above and around him and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your [father’s] father and the God of Isaac; I will give to you and to your descendants the land [of promise] on which you are lying.

Behold, I am with you and will keep [careful watch over you and guard] you wherever you may go, and I will bring you back to this [promised] land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

Then Jacob went on his way and came to the land of the people of the East [near Haran].

Then the Lord said to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your people, and I will be with you.”

I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the pillar, and where you made a vow to Me; now stand up, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth.’”

and he drove away all his livestock and [took along] all his property which he had acquired, the livestock he had obtained and accumulated in Paddan-aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.

Then Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.

When Jacob came from Paddan-aram, he arrived safely and in peace at the city of Shechem, in the land of Canaan, and camped in front of the [walled] city.

Then he bought the piece of land on which he had pitched his tents from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money.

“These men are peaceful and friendly with us; so let them live in the land and do business in it, for the land is large enough [for us and] for them; let us take their daughters for wives and let us give them our daughters [in marriage].

Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have ruined me, making me a stench to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites! My men are few in number, and the men of the land will band together against me and attack me; I shall be destroyed, I and my household.”

So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him.

“The land which I gave Abraham and IsaacI will give to you,and to your descendants after you I will give the land.”

Now Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters and all the members of his household, and his livestock and all his cattle and all his possessions which he had acquired in the land of Canaan, and he went to a land away from his brother Jacob.

For their [great flocks and herds and] possessions made it impossible for them to live together [in the same region]; the land in which they lived temporarily could not support them because of their livestock.

Korah, Gatam, and Amalek. These are the chiefs of Eliphaz in the land of Edom; they are the sons of Adah.

These are the sons of Reuel, Esau’s son: Chiefs Nahath, Zerah, Shammah, Mizzah. These are the chiefs of Reuel in the land of Edom; they are the sons of Basemath, Esau’s wife.

These are the sons of Seir the Horite, the inhabitants of the land: Lotan, Shobal, Zibeon, Anah,

Dishon, Ezer, and Dishan. These are the chiefs of the Horites, the sons of Seir in the land of Edom.

Dishon, Ezer, Dishan. These are the Horite chiefs, according to their various clans in the land of Seir.

Then Jobab died, and Husham of the land of the Temanites reigned as his successor.

Magdiel, and Iram. These are the tribal chiefs of Edom (that is, of Esau the father of the Edomites), according to their dwelling places in the land of their possession.

So Jacob (Israel) lived in the land where his father [Isaac] had been a stranger (sojourner, resident alien), in the land of Canaan.

For in fact I was taken (stolen) from the land of the Hebrews by [unlawful] force, and even here I have done nothing for which they should put me in the dungeon.”

Listen very carefully: seven years of great abundance will come throughout all the land of Egypt;