Boundaries Numbers 34

Numbers 34:2 "Command the children of Israel and say unto them, When ye come into the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall unto you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan with the coasts thereof:)

Then, the chapter gives the borders and boundaries of the kingdom of Israel. Nine and one half tribes will receive inheritance in Canaan after crossing Jordan. Two and one half tribes will received inheritance on this side of Jordan because they were cattle people and the land was good for that. But those two and half tribes would fight for Canaan and then return to this side of Jordan.

While this chapter may be boring reading, it's not in story form, it is very important when it comes to the promised land. It is laid out like a surveyor would describe it with directions and markings to go by. In the right hands, these instructions would leave no doubt where the nation Israel lies.

Here is a good time to open your study Bible to the maps section and look at the country. You will see familiar names, even in the maps of the old country before the Roman Empire. Such names as Lebanon and Syria. You will also see such lands as Italy and Spain and others, which seem so distant from our studies. Wider maps will show empires reaching to the horizon which dwarf Israel.

Yet it is Israel that the Lord holds dear. Look at these verses in Deuteronomy:
Chapter 32 v9-12 "For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of is inheritance. He found him in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness, he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did led him, and there was no strange god with him." Read on if you like. (Jacob is Israel).

Psalm 30:1 "I will extol thee, O Lord; for thou hast lifted me up and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me."