It has come to my attention that the title/subject of this post on Israel’s relationship with land was misleading, given current events. Please note, the content is strictly dealing with biblical Israel’s historical relationship with the land as represented in the Bible’s Old Testament. While this history can be part of conversations about current events, I did not intend to contribute to those conversations. I laid out the topic outline more than two years ago; the post’s concurrence with current events is coincidental.
Today’s post is lengthy, with a lot of Scripture. Bottom line up front: God’s chosen people of the Old Testament had land, then lost it, gained it again, lost it again, gained, lost, gained, lost, gained lost over and over. This rollercoaster ride can teach us much about our own tumultuous relationship with land. It also challenges our understanding of “owning” land because, for Israel, the gift of the land required continual obedience and the keeping of a covenant. Walter Brueggemann introduces both of these ideas:
The Old Testament, in its theological articulation, was not all about “deeds,” but was concerned with place, specific real estate that was invested with powerful promises and with strategic arrangements for present in the place as well… Israel’s fortunes between landlessness (wilderness, exile) and landedness, the latter either as possession of the land, as anticipation of the land, or as grief about loss of the land.
Adam, that is, humankind, has a partner and mate, ‘adamah (land)… Israel’s land stands in for and epitomizes all land…Israel is always on the move from land to landlessness, from landlessness to land, from life to death, from death to life…Israel reflects on how it is to regard the land. A land is different when it is given in speaking and received in listening. It is not just an object to be taken and occupied. It is rather a party to a relation…The combination of land formula and covenant formula is not accidental. The two ideas, in land and in covenant, belong together…land is covenantal and will be had on no other terms.
— Walter Brueggemann, The Land1
Let’s get into the Scriptures:
landed
8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God caused every tree to grow that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
-- Genesis 2:8-9, NASB
landless
23 therefore the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the Garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
-- Genesis 3:23-24, NASB
anticipating land
Now the Lord said to Abram,
“Go from your country,
And from your relatives
And from your father’s house,
To the land which I will show you;
2 And I will make you into a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing;
3 And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
-- Genesis 12:1-3, NASB
loss of anticipation
26 they went on and came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 So they reported to him and said, “We came into the land where you sent us, and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And indeed, we saw the descendants of Anak there!
-- Numbers 13:26-28, NASB
landless
26 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron again, saying, 27 “How long shall I put up with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel which they are voicing against Me. 28 Say to them, ‘As I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you; 29 your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, all your numbered men according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. 30 By no means will you come into the land where I swore to settle you, except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 Your children, however, whom you said would become plunder—I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. 32 But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness. 33 Also, your sons will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your bodies perish in the wilderness. 34 In accordance with the number of days that you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall suffer the punishment for your guilt a year, that is, forty years, and you will know My opposition. 35 I, the Lord, have spoken, I certainly will do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against Me. They shall be worn out in this wilderness, and there they shall die.’”
-- Numbers 14:26-35, NASB
landed
7 For the Lord your God has blessed you in all that you have done; He has known your wandering through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have not lacked anything.”
-- Deuteronomy 2:7, NASB
43 So the Lord gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and lived in it. 44 And the Lord gave them rest on every side, in accordance with everything that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them; the Lord handed all their enemies over to them. 45 Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; everything came to pass.
-- Joshua 21:43-45, NASB
anticipating loss of land
Then the Lord said,
“Behold I am about to put a plumb line
In the midst of My people Israel.
I will not spare them any longer.
9 The high places of Isaac will become deserted,
And the sanctuaries of Israel will be in ruins.
Then I will rise up against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”
***
17 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city, your sons and your daughters will fall by the sword, your land will be parceled up by a measuring line, and you yourself will die upon unclean soil. Furthermore Israel will certainly go from its land into exile.’”
-- Amos 7:8-9, 17, NASB
landless
13 He also brought out from there all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and he smashed all the articles of gold that Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the Lord, just as the Lord had said. 14 Then he led into exile all the people of Jerusalem and all the commanders and all the valiant warriors, ten thousand exiles, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None were left except the poorest people of the land.
15 So he led Jehoiachin into exile to Babylon; also the king’s mother, the king’s wives, and his officials and the leading men of the land, he led into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 16 And all the valiant men, seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths, a thousand, all strong and fit for war, these too the king of Babylon brought into exile to Babylon.
-- 2 Kings 24:13-16, NASB
faithful in exile
5 ‘Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and father sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, so that they may give birth to sons and daughters; and grow in numbers there and do not decrease. 7 Seek the prosperity of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord in its behalf; for in its prosperity will be your prosperity.’
-- Jeremiah 29:5-7, NASB
anticipating land
18 “This is what the Lord says:
‘Behold, I will restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob
And have compassion on his dwellings;
And the city will be rebuilt on its ruins,
And the palace will stand on its rightful place.
19 From them will come a song of thanksgiving
And the voices of those who celebrate;
And I will multiply them and they will not decrease;
I will honor them and they will not be insignificant.
-- Jeremiah 30:18-19, NASB
landed
2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to rebuild for Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem. 4 And every survivor, at whatever place he may live, the people of that place are to support him with silver and gold, with equipment and cattle, together with a voluntary offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.’”
5 Then the heads of fathers’ households of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites rose up, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem.
-- Ezra 1:2-5, NASB
What is your response to Israel’s tumultuous relationship with land? Are there other instances in Scripture that show aspects of this relationship?
The OT rotates around the gift of land but also battles with landlessness. Can you relate in any way?
The gift of the land, living there, required continual obedience to God. How does this change your own idea of what it means to “own” land?
The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith. Walter Brueggemann. 1977.
I like the message that land is covenantal and may reference those scriptures again to see how land covenant is different from NT covenant