Week 7 Deuteronomy
About 140 chapters-ago the Lord promised Abraham the Promised Land, and in the last week or so I’ve been thinking some more about Israel moving forward and taking that land from the groups living there. (I thought it’d be worth looking up “land” in a word book but found it’s used at least 1800 times in the bible; about 200 times in Deuteronomy. So much for that.)
In Deuteronomy 2 Moses is talking about Israel finally getting to the Promised Land. I notice that Israel was warned off harassing the Moabites. The Lord said: I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar to the sons of Lot as a possession. Ditto that for Ammonite territory: I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession. The Lord made Moab & Ammon land-trustees. So even though the big land reallocation project is the Promised Land being transferred to Israel it’s not the only one.
The main thing for me to keep in mind is that the Lord is the Landlord of everyone’s territory. He determines land rights and land forfeiture. He holds the land in his own right. The rest of us are more like tenants, territorial agents.
Note: quotes from Deuteronomy 2:9, 19 (NASB)