'Land' in the Bible

After a while, the stream dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

Ahab told Obadiah, "Go through the land to all the springs and valleys. Maybe we can find some grazing areas so we can keep the horses and mules alive and not have to kill some of the animals."

They divided up the land between them; Ahab went one way and Obadiah went the other.

The king of Israel summoned all the leaders of the land and said, "Notice how this man is looking for trouble. Indeed, he demanded my wives, sons, silver, and gold, and I did not resist him."

When the Israelites had mustered and had received their supplies, they marched out to face them in battle. When the Israelites deployed opposite them, they were like two small flocks of goats, but the Syrians filled the land.

He removed from the land any male cultic prostitutes who had managed to survive the reign of his father Asa.

The men of the city said to Elisha, "Look, the city has a good location, as our master can see. But the water is bad and the land doesn't produce crops."

You will defeat every fortified city and every important city. You must chop down every productive tree, stop up all the springs, and cover all the cultivated land with stones."

Sure enough, the next morning, at the time of the morning sacrifice, water came flowing down from Edom and filled the land.

Now Elisha went back to Gilgal, while there was famine in the land. Some of the prophets were visiting him and he told his servant, "Put the big pot on the fire and boil some stew for the prophets."

Raiding parties went out from Syria and took captive from the land of Israel a young girl, who became a servant to Naaman's wife.

Naaman went and told his master what the girl from the land of Israel had said.

So he threw a big banquet for them and they ate and drank. Then he sent them back to their master. After that no Syrian raiding parties again invaded the land of Israel.

Now Elisha advised the woman whose son he had brought back to life, "You and your family should go and live somewhere else for a while, for the Lord has decreed that a famine will overtake the land for seven years."

So the woman did as the prophet said. She and her family went and lived in the land of the Philistines for seven years.

After seven years the woman returned from the land of the Philistines and went to ask the king to give her back her house and field.

The king asked the woman about it, and she gave him the details. The king assigned a eunuch to take care of her request and ordered him, "Give her back everything she owns, as well as the amount of crops her field produced from the day she left the land until now."

Jehoram ordered, "Hitch up my chariot." When his chariot had been hitched up, King Jehoram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah went out in their respective chariots to meet Jehu. They met up with him in the plot of land that had once belonged to Naboth of Jezreel.

"Know for sure that I saw the shed blood of Naboth and his sons yesterday," says the Lord, "and that I will give you what you deserve right here in this plot of land," says the Lord.' So now pick him up and throw him into this plot of land, just as the Lord said."

When they went back and told him, he said, "The Lord's word through his servant, Elijah the Tishbite, has come to pass. He warned, 'In the plot of land at Jezreel, dogs will devour Jezebel's flesh.

Jezebel's corpse will be like manure on the surface of the ground in the plot of land at Jezreel. People will not be able to even recognize her.'"

He conquered all the land of Gilead, including the territory of Gad, Reuben, and Manasseh, extending all the way from the Aroer in the Arnon Valley through Gilead to Bashan.

He hid out with his nurse in the Lord's temple for six years, while Athaliah was ruling over the land.

Then she saw the king standing by the pillar, according to custom. The officers stood beside the king with their trumpets and all the people of the land were celebrating and blowing trumpets. Athaliah tore her clothes and screamed, "Treason, treason!"

All the people of the land went and demolished the temple of Baal. They smashed its altars and idols to bits. They killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altar. Jehoiada the priest then placed guards at the Lord's temple.

He took the officers of the units of hundreds, the Carians, the royal bodyguard, and all the people of land, and together they led the king down from the Lord's temple. They entered the royal palace through the Gate of the Royal Bodyguard, and the king sat down on the royal throne.

All the people of the land celebrated, for the city had rest now that they had killed Athaliah with the sword in the royal palace.

Elisha died and was buried. Moabite raiding parties invaded the land at the beginning of the year.

The Lord afflicted the king with an illness; he suffered from a skin disease until the day he died. He lived in separate quarters, while his son Jotham was in charge of the palace and ruled over the people of the land.

Pul king of Assyria invaded the land, and Menahem paid him a thousand talents of silver to gain his support and to solidify his control of the kingdom.

Menahem got this silver by taxing all the wealthy men in Israel; he took fifty shekels of silver from each one of them and paid it to the king of Assyria. Then the king of Assyria left; he did not stay there in the land.

The king of Assyria marched through the whole land. He attacked Samaria and besieged it for three years.

This happened because the Israelites sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them up from the land of Egypt and freed them from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods;

Finally the Lord rejected Israel just as he had warned he would do through all his servants the prophets. Israel was deported from its land to Assyria and remains there to this very day.

The king of Assyria was told, "The nations whom you deported and settled in the cities of Samaria do not know the requirements of the God of the land, so he has sent lions among them. They are killing the people because they do not know the requirements of the God of the land."

So the king of Assyria ordered, "Take back one of the priests whom you deported from there. He must settle there and teach them the requirements of the God of the land."

Instead you must worship the Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt by his great power and military ability; bow down to him and offer sacrifices to him.

Furthermore it was by the command of the Lord that I marched up against this place to destroy it. The Lord told me, 'March up against this land and destroy it.'"'"

until I come and take you to a land just like your own -- a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey. Then you will live and not die. Don't listen to Hezekiah, for he is misleading you when he says, "The Lord will rescue us."

Have any of the gods of the nations actually rescued his land from the power of the king of Assyria?

Look, I will take control of his mind; he will receive a report and return to his own land. I will cut him down with a sword in his own land."'"

One day, as he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword. They escaped to the land of Ararat; his son Esarhaddon replaced him as king.

Isaiah the prophet visited King Hezekiah and asked him, "What did these men say? Where do they come from?" Hezekiah replied, "They come from the distant land of Babylon."

I will not make Israel again leave the land I gave to their ancestors, provided that they carefully obey all I commanded them, the whole law my servant Moses ordered them to obey."

The people of the land executed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

Josiah also got rid of the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord's temple.

His servants transported his dead body from Megiddo in a chariot and brought it to Jerusalem, where they buried him in his tomb. The people of the land took Josiah's son Jehoahaz, poured olive oil on his head, and made him king in his father's place.

Pharaoh Necho imprisoned him in Riblah in the land of Hamath and prevented him from ruling in Jerusalem. He imposed on the land a special tax of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

Jehoiakim paid Pharaoh the required amount of silver and gold, but to meet Pharaoh's demands Jehoiakim had to tax the land. He collected an assessed amount from each man among the people of the land in order to pay Pharaoh Necho.

The king of Egypt did not march out from his land again, for the king of Babylon conquered all the territory that the king of Egypt had formerly controlled between the Brook of Egypt and the Euphrates River.

He deported all the residents of Jerusalem, including all the officials and all the soldiers (10,000 people in all). This included all the craftsmen and those who worked with metal. No one was left except for the poorest among the people of the land.

He deported Jehoiachin from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with the king's mother and wives, his eunuchs, and the high-ranking officials of the land.

But he left behind some of the poor of the land and gave them fields and vineyards.

From the city he took a eunuch who was in charge of the soldiers, five of the king's advisers who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens for military service, and sixty citizens from the people of the land who were discovered in the city.

The king of Babylon ordered them to be executed at Riblah in the territory of Hamath. So Judah was deported from its land.

Now King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, son of Shaphan, as governor over the people whom he allowed to remain in the land of Judah.

Gedaliah took an oath so as to give them and their troops some assurance of safety. He said, "You don't need to be afraid to submit to the Babylonian officials. Settle down in the land and submit to the king of Babylon. Then things will go well for you."

These were the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before any king ruled over the Israelites: Bela son of Beor; the name of his city was Dinhabah.

When Jobab died, Husham from the land of the Temanites succeeded him.

Segub was the father of Jair, who owned twenty-three cities in the land of Gilead.

They found fertile and rich pasture; the land was very broad, undisturbed and peaceful. Indeed some Hamites had been living there prior to that.

In the east they settled as far as the entrance to the desert that stretches to the Euphrates River, for their cattle had increased in numbers in the land of Gilead.

The descendants of Gad lived near them in the land of Bashan, as far as Salecah.

Because God fought for them, they killed many of the enemy. They dispossessed the Hagrites and lived in their land until the exile.

The half-tribe of Manasseh settled in the land from Bashan as far as Baal Hermon, Senir, and Mount Hermon. They grew in number.

(But the city's land and nearby towns were allotted to Caleb son of Jephunneh.)

his son Zabad, his son Shuthelah (Ezer and Elead were killed by the men of Gath, who were natives of the land, when they went down to steal their cattle.

They stripped his corpse, and then carried off his head and his armor. They sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines proclaiming the news to their idols and their people.

saying, "To you I will give the land of Canaan as the portion of your inheritance."

the Ammonite officials said to Hanun, "Do you really think David is trying to honor your father by sending these messengers to express his sympathy? No, his servants have come to you so they can get information and spy out the land!"

In the spring, at the time when kings normally conduct wars, Joab led the army into battle and devastated the land of the Ammonites. He went and besieged Rabbah, while David stayed in Jerusalem. Joab defeated Rabbah and tore it down.

three years of famine, or three months being chased by your enemies and struck down by their swords, or three days being struck down by the Lord, during which a plague will invade the land and the Lord's messenger will destroy throughout Israel's territory.' Now, decide what I should tell the one who sent me."

David ordered the resident foreigners in the land of Israel to be called together. He appointed some of them to be stonecutters to chisel stones for the building of God's temple.

Ezri son of Kelub was in charge of the field workers who farmed the land.

So now, in the sight of all Israel, the Lord's assembly, and in the hearing of our God, I say this: Carefully observe all the commands of the Lord your God, so that you may possess this good land and may leave it as a permanent inheritance for your children after you.

Solomon took a census of all the male resident foreigners in the land of Israel, after the census his father David had taken. There were 153,600 in all.

There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets Moses had placed there in Horeb. (It was there that the Lord made an agreement with the Israelites after he brought them out of the land of Egypt.)

He told David, 'Since the day I brought my people out of the land of Egypt, I have not chosen a city from all the tribes of Israel to build a temple in which to live. Nor did I choose a man as leader of my people Israel.

then listen from heaven, forgive the sin of your people Israel, and bring them back to the land you gave to them and their ancestors.

then listen from heaven and forgive the sin of your servants, your people Israel. Certainly you will then teach them the right way to live and send rain on your land that you have given your people to possess.

"The time will come when the land suffers from a famine, a plague, blight, and disease, or a locust invasion, or when their enemy lays siege to the cities of the land, or when some other type of plague or epidemic occurs.

Then they will honor you by obeying you throughout their lifetimes as they live on the land you gave to our ancestors.

"Foreigners, who do not belong to your people Israel, will come from a distant land because of your great reputation and your ability to accomplish mighty deeds; they will come and direct their prayers toward this temple.

"The time will come when your people will sin against you (for there is no one who is sinless!) and you will be angry at them and deliver them over to their enemies, who will take them as prisoners to their land, whether far away or close by.

When your people come to their senses in the land where they are held prisoner, they will repent and beg for your mercy in the land of their imprisonment, admitting, 'We have sinned and gone astray, we have done evil!'

When they return to you with all their heart and being in the land where they are held prisoner and direct their prayers toward the land you gave to their ancestors, your chosen city, and the temple I built for your honor,

if my people, who belong to me, humble themselves, pray, seek to please me, and repudiate their sinful practices, then I will respond from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.

then I will remove you from my land I have given you, I will abandon this temple I have consecrated with my presence, and I will make you an object of mockery and ridicule among all the nations.

As for this temple, which was once majestic, everyone who passes by it will be shocked and say, 'Why did the Lord do this to this land and this temple?'

Now several non-Israelite peoples were left in the land after the conquest of Joshua, including the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

Their descendants remained in the land (the Israelites were unable to wipe them out). Solomon conscripted them for his work crews and they continue in that role to this very day.

Then Solomon went to Ezion Geber and to Elat on the coast in the land of Edom.

With the timber the king made steps for the Lord's temple and royal palace as well as stringed instruments for the musicians. No one had seen anything like them in the land of Judah prior to that.)

besides what he collected from the merchants and traders. All the Arabian kings and the governors of the land also brought gold and silver to Solomon.

He ruled all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines as far as the border of Egypt.

Abijah passed away and was buried in the City of David. His son Asa replaced him as king. During his reign the land had rest for ten years.

He built fortified cities throughout Judah, for the land was at rest and there was no war during those years; the Lord gave him peace.

He said to the people of Judah: "Let's build these cities and fortify them with walls, towers, and barred gates. The land remains ours because we have followed the Lord our God and he has made us secure on all sides." So they built the cities and prospered.

When Asa heard these words and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he was encouraged. He removed the detestable idols from the entire land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities he had seized in the Ephraimite hill country. He repaired the altar of the Lord in front of the porch of the Lord's temple.

In the thirty-sixth year of Asa's reign, King Baasha of Israel attacked Judah, and he established Ramah as a military outpost to prevent anyone from leaving or entering the land of King Asa of Judah.