The boundaries of Promised Israel

Submitted by Michael S. (United States), Sep 22, 2014 at 13:18

HI, Sara

The document you see is obviously an online .jpg file. I am not concerned who published it, nor do I know. I am not selling it, nor profiting in any way from it; and as far as I know, it is public domain material.

The map is a reasonably faithful depiction of the frontiers of the promised land. The "Boundary of Canaan" is described in Torah:

Num 34:

Boundaries of Canaan

34 The Lord said to Moses, ² "Command the Israelites and say to them: 'When you enter Canaan, the land that will be allotted to you as an inheritance is to have these boundaries:³ "'Your southern side will include some of the Desert of Zin along the border of Edom. Your southern boundary will start in the east from the southern end of the Dead Sea, ⁴ cross south of Scorpion Pass, continue on to Zin and go south of Kadesh Barnea. Then it will go to Hazar Addar and over to Azmon, ⁵ where it will turn, join the Wadi of Egypt and end at the Mediterranean Sea.
⁶ "'Your western boundary will be the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. This will be your boundary on the west.⁷ "'For your northern boundary, run a line from the Mediterranean Sea to Mount Hor ⁸ and from Mount Hor to Lebo Hamath. Then the boundary will go to Zedad, ⁹ continue to Ziphron and end at Hazar Enan. This will be your boundary on the north.¹⁰ "'For your eastern boundary, run a line from Hazar Enan to Shepham. ¹¹ The boundary will go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain and continue along the slopes east of the Sea of Galilee.^{a]">[a] 12} Then the boundary will go down along the Jordan and end at the Dead Sea.

"'This will be your land, with its boundaries on every side.'"
¹³ Moses commanded the Israelites: "Assign this land by lot as an inheritance. The Lord has ordered that it be given to the nine and a half tribes, ¹⁴ because the families of the tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance. ¹⁵ These two and a half tribes have received their inheritance east of the Jordan across from Jericho, toward the sunrise."
-- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers%2034

Additional lands, east of the Jordan River, were allotted to the 2½ tribes. These were NOT part of the original "Promised Land", but are part of "historical Israel". Part of the Promised Land (Canaan), in what are now northern Lebanon and Syria, were not allotted to any individual tribe.

Concerning the tribes, these largely disappeared during the Babylonian captivity. The New Testament speaks of individuals being from the tribes of Levi, Jusah, Asher, Simeon and Benjamin (the tribe of Saul of Tarsus); but lands were not allotted according to tribes, as far as I know, for the returning captives from Babylon. In Ezekiel's vision, however, tribes are delineated by East-West slices of the original "Canaan Land". Ezekiel does not include Jordan in this "Promised Land" of the future; and the "tribes" he listed were assigned afresh to the inhabitants of the land in this (future) time -- whether those inhabitants be Jews (regardless of ancestry) or non-Jews.

In terms of the modern State of Israel, (1) Golan is part of the "Promised Land", as well as all Palestine west of the Jordan River. (2) Gaza is part of the "Promised Land", as well as the evacuated settlement of Yamit in Sinai. Eilat and the southern Negev, however, are not, though these latter were part the historical Israel of David and Solomon's time, and of the Kingdom of Judah thereafter. (3) Southern Lebanon, around Tyre and Sidon, were never part of Israel; though they are part of the Promised Land.

Ezekiel 47 describes the future borders of Israel, as mentioned above. Because they include nearly all of Lebanon and the southern part of Syria, I suspect that Israel will have to occupy those areas in the coming years. If Lebanon, Syria and Iraq continue to collapse, the area will almost certainly be occupied by Turkey, Iran and Israel.

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