Canaan
Excerpt
Though the land was God’s gift to Israel, it could be won only by hard fighting. The Lord gave them title to the territory but they had to possess it by marching on every part. The boundaries established by God and promised to Abraham (Gen. 15:18-21) and Moses (Deut. 1:6-8) were to extend from the wilderness on the south to the Lebanon mountain range on the north, and from the Euphrates River on the east to the Great Sea, the Mediterranean,on the west. The added expression, all the Hittite country, probably refers not to the extensive empire of that name north of Canaan but to the fact that in ancient times the whole population of Canaan or any part of it was sometimes called “Hittite” (cf. Gen. 15:20). “Pockets” of Hittite peoples existed here and there in Canaan.
Thirty-eight years earlier Joshua had explored this good and fruitful land as 1 of the 12 spies (Num. 13:1-16; there [Num. 13:8] he is called “Hoshea,” a variant spelling of his name). The memory of its beauty and fertility had not dimmed. Now he was to lead the armies of Israel to conquer that territory.
What is the extent of these boundaries? The territory actually conquered and possessed in the time of Joshua was much less than what was promised in Genesis 15:18-21. Even in the time of David and Solomon, when the land reached its greatest extent, the outlying districts were only within Israel’s sphere of influence.
Campbell, Donald K. “Joshua.” The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures. Ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck. Vol. 1. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985. 328. Print.
Comments