The Land as a Gift

Read Exodus 3:8; 20:22 &version=KJV&src=tools" target="_self">Leviticus 20:22 ; 25:23 &version=KJV&src=tools" target="_self">Leviticus 25:23 ; 13:27 &version=KJV&src=tools" target="_self">Numbers 13:27 ; Deuteronomy 4:1, 04:25 &version=KJV&src=tools" target="_self">25, 04:26 &version=KJV&src=tools" target="_self">26; Deuteronomy 6:3; and Psalm 24:1. What was the special relationship between God, Israel, and the Promised Land?

At a very basic level, land offers physical identity to a nation. By locating the nation, it also determines the occupation and lifestyle of the nation. Slaves were rootless and belonged nowhere; someone else enjoyed the results of their work. Having land meant freedom. The identity of the chosen people was strongly linked to their dwelling in the land.

There was a special relationship between God, Israel, and the land. Israel received the land from God as a gift, not as an inalienable right. The chosen people could own the land as long as they were in a covenantal relationship with Yahweh and respected the precepts of the covenant. In other words, they could not have the land and its blessings without the blessing of God.

At the same time, it is true that the land provided a lens through which Israel could better understand God. Living in the land would always remind them of a faithful, promise-keeping, and trustworthy God. Neither the land nor Israel would have existed without the initiative of God, who was the Source and foundation of their existence. While the Israelites were in Egypt, the Nile and the irrigation system, coupled with hard work, provided the crops that they needed for subsistence. Canaan was different. They depended on rain for the abundance of their harvests, and it was only God who could control the weather. Thus, the land reminded Israel of their constant dependence on God.

Even if Israel received the land as a gift from Yahweh, in the ultimate sense, God Himself remained the owner. As the true owner of the whole earth (Ps. 24:1), Yahweh has the right to assign the land to Israel or to take it away. If God is the owner of the land, the Israelites and, by extension, all humans are strangers and sojourners, or, in modern terminology, we are all God’s long-term guests on His land/earth.

In the light of 02:11 &version=KJV&src=tools" target="_self">1 Peter 2:11  and Hebrews 11:9-13, what does it mean to you personally to live as a stranger and sojourner looking forward to the city whose designer and builder is God Himself?