'Land' in the Bible

The Lord spoke [by special revelation] to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai in the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle) on the first day of the second month in the second year after the Israelites came out of the land of Egypt, saying,

for all the firstborn are Mine. On the day that I killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated for Myself all the firstborn in Israel, both man and animal. They shall be mine; I am the Lord.”

For all the firstborn among the Israelites are Mine, among the men and among the animals; on the day that I struck down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified and set the Israelites apart for Myself.

The Lord spoke to Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai in the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt, saying,

If a stranger lives among you as a resident alien and observes the Passover to the Lord, in accordance with its statutes and its ordinances, so shall he do; you shall have one statute, both for the resident alien and for the native of the land.’”

When you go to war in your land against the enemy that attacks you, then sound an alarm with the trumpets, so that you may be remembered before the Lord your God, and you shall be saved from your enemies.

But Hobab [Moses’ brother-in-law] said to him, “I will not go; I will return to my own land and to my family.”

Was it I who conceived all these people? Was it I who brought them forth, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your arms as a nurse carries the nursing infant, to the land which You swore to their fathers’?

“Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel. From each of their fathers’ tribes you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.”

These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land; but Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua (the Lord is salvation).

Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up this way into the Negev (the South country); then go up into the hill country.

See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many,

and whether the land in which they live is good or bad, and whether the cities in which they live are [open] camps or fortifications,

and what the land is, whether it is fat (productive) or lean, whether there is timber on it or not. Make an effort to get some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes.

So they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin to Rehob [a town in Lebanon], at Lebo-hamath [in the far north].

When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days,

They reported to Moses and said, “We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.

[The people descended from] Amalek live in the land of the Negev (South country); the Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the [Dead] Sea and along the side of the Jordan.”

So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we went, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature.

Why is the Lord bringing us to this land [of Canaan], to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will become plunder. Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?”

Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes [as a sign of grief],

and they spoke to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, saying, “The land through which we passed as spies is an exceedingly good land.

If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land which flows with milk and honey.

Only do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land, for they will be our prey. Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.”

and they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, Lord, are among these people [of Israel], that You, Lord, are seen face to face, while Your cloud stands over them; and that You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

‘Because the Lord was not able to bring these people into the land which He promised to give them, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.’

will by no means see the land which I swore to [give to] their fathers; nor will any who treated me disrespectfully and rejected Me see it.

But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land into which he entered, and his descendants shall take possession of it.

Except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun, not one of you shall enter the land in which I swore [an oath] to settle you.

But your children whom you said would become plunder, I will bring in, and they will know the land which you have despised and rejected.

According to the number of days in which you spied out the land [of Canaan], forty days, for each day, you shall bear and suffer a year for your sins and guilt, for forty years, and you shall know My displeasure [the revoking of My promise and My estrangement because of your sin].

As for the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, and who returned and made all the congregation murmur and complain against him by bringing back a bad report concerning the land,

even those [ten] men who brought back the very bad report of the land died by a plague before the Lord.

But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive out of those men who went to spy out the land.

“Speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘When you come into the land where you are to live, which I am giving you,

“Speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘When you enter the land to which I am bringing you,

then, when you eat the food of the land, you shall lift up an offering (heave offering) to the Lord.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God.”

Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land [of plenty] flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness, but you would also lord it over us?

Indeed, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you gouge out the eyes of these men? We will not come up!”

The first ripe fruits of all that is in the land, which they bring to the Lord, shall be yours; everyone in your household who is [ceremonially] clean may eat it.

Then the Lord said to Aaron, “You shall have no inheritance in the land [of the Israelites], nor have any portion [of land] among them. I am your portion and your inheritance among the children of Israel.

Only the Levites shall perform the service of the Tent of Meeting (tabernacle), and they shall bear their iniquity; it shall be a statute forever throughout your generations, that the Levites shall have no inheritance [of land] among the children of Israel.

But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you have not believed (trusted) Me, to treat Me as holy in the sight of the sons of Israel, you therefore shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.”

Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron at Mount Hor, by the border of the land of Edom, saying,

“Aaron will be gathered to his people [in death]; for he shall not enter the land which I have given to the children of Israel, because you [both] rebelled against My command at the waters of Meribah.

Then they set out from Mount Hor by the way of the [branch of the] Red Sea [called the Gulf of Aqabah], to go around the land of Edom; and the people became impatient, because [of the challenges] of the journey.

“Let me pass through your land; we will not turn away [from the road] into field or vineyard; we will not drink the water of the wells. We will go by the king’s highway until we have crossed your border.”

Then Israel struck the king of the Amorites with the edge of the sword and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as the Ammonites, for the boundary of the Ammonites was strong.

For Heshbon was the city of Sihon, king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and had taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon.

Thus Israel settled in the land of the Amorites.

But the Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have handed over him and all his people and his land to you; and you shall do to him just as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”

So the sons of Israel killed Og and his sons and all his people, until there was no survivor left to him; and they took possession of his land.

So he sent messengers to Balaam [a famous prophet-diviner] the son of Beor at Pethor, which is by the [Euphrates] River, in the land of the descendants of his people, to call for him, saying, “There is a people who have come out of Egypt; behold, they cover the surface of the land, and they are living opposite me.

Now please come, curse these people for me, for they are too powerful for me; perhaps I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know [your reputation] that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”

Balaam got up in the morning, and said to the leaders of Balak, “Go back to your own land [of Moab], for the Lord has refused to let me go with you.”

“A census of the people shall be taken from twenty years old and upward, just as the Lord has commanded Moses.”Now the Israelites who came out of the land of Egypt were:

The sons of Judah were Er and Onan, but Er and Onan [were judged by God and] died in the land of Canaan.

“Among these the land shall be divided as an inheritance according to the number of names.

But the land shall be divided by lot. They shall receive their inheritance according to the names of the tribes of their fathers (tribal ancestors).

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go up to this mountain (Nebo) [in the] Abarim [range] and look at the land I have given to the sons of Israel.

Now the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad had very large herds of cattle, and they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead [on the east side of the Jordan River], and indeed, the place was suitable for raising livestock.

the land which the Lord conquered before the congregation of Israel, is a land [suitable] for livestock, and your servants have [very large herds of] livestock.”

They said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants as a possession. Do not take us across the Jordan [River].”

Now why are you discouraging the hearts of the Israelites from crossing over into the land which the Lord has given them?

This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land!

For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the hearts of the Israelites so that they did not go into the land which the Lord had given them.

‘None of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not followed Me completely,

but we will be armed and ready to go to war before the [other tribes of the] Israelites, until we have brought them to their place, while our children live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land.

and the land [west of the Jordan] is subdued before the Lord, then afterward you shall return and be blameless [in this matter] before the Lord and before Israel, and this land [east of the Jordan] shall be yours as a possession before the Lord.

Moses said to them, “If the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben will cross over the Jordan with you, every man armed for battle before the Lord, and the land is subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead [east of the Jordan River] as a possession;

but if they will not cross over with you armed, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan [and surrender their right to their land east of the Jordan River].”

We will cross over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, so that the possession of our inheritance on [the east] side of the Jordan may be ours.”

So Moses gave to them, to the sons of Gad and to the sons of Reuben and to the half-tribe of Manasseh the son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihon, the king of the Amorites and the kingdom of Og, the king of Bashan, the land with its cities and territories, the cities of the surrounding land.

These are the stages of the journeys of the Israelites, by which they came out of the land of Egypt by their [tribal] armies, under the leadership of Moses and Aaron.

The Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev (the South country) in the land of Canaan, heard that the sons of Israel were coming.

“Say to the children of Israel, ‘When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you and destroy all their sculpted images, and destroy all their cast idols and completely eliminate all their [idolatrous] high places,

and you shall take possession of the land and live in it, for I have given the land to you to possess.

You shall inherit the land by lot according to your families; to the large tribe you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the small tribe you shall give a smaller inheritance. Wherever the lot falls to any man, that shall be [the location of] his [inheritance]. According to the tribes of your fathers (ancestors) you shall inherit.

But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes and like thorns in your sides, and they will attack you in the land in which you live.

“Command the Israelites, ‘When you enter the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall be yours as an inheritance, the land of Canaan according to its boundaries,

and the [eastern] boundary shall go down to the Jordan [River], and its limit shall be at the Salt (Dead) Sea. This shall be your land according to its boundaries all around.’”

So Moses commanded the Israelites, saying, “This is the land you are to inherit by lot, which the Lord has commanded to be given to the nine tribes and the half-tribe [of Manasseh],

“These are the names of the men who shall divide the land among you as an inheritance: Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun.

You shall take one leader from every tribe to divide the land for the inheritance.

These are the [twelve] men whom the Lord commanded [to work with Joshua and Eleazar] to divide the inheritance to the sons of Israel in the land of Canaan.

“Tell the Israelites, ‘When you cross the Jordan [River] into the land of Canaan,

You shall provide three cities on this [east] side of the Jordan [River], and three [more] cities in the land of Canaan; they are to be the cities of refuge.

because the offender should have remained in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the high priest’s death the offender shall return to the land of his possession.

You shall not accept a ransom for him who has escaped to his city of refuge, so that he may return to live in his [own] land before the death of the high priest.

So you shall not pollute and defile the land in which you live; for [the shedding of innocent] blood pollutes and defiles the land. No atonement (expiation) can be made for the land for the [innocent] blood shed in it, except by the blood (execution) of him who shed it.

You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I live, for I, the Lord, live among the people of Israel.’”

and they said, “The Lord commanded my lord [Moses] to give the land by lot to the sons of Israel as an inheritance, and my lord was commanded by the Lord to give the inheritance of Zelophehad our brother to his daughters.