Sunday Sermonette: Bad cartography

Mercifully, we ' re coming to the end of the Book of Numbers, only two more chapters after this, and it ends anti-climactically. Here, in chapter 34, God delineates the boundaries of Israel, but as is often the case, his promises and prophecies are worthless. The borders described here do include more or less what we think of as Israel, but also all of Lebanon and much of Syria, territory that Israelites never occupied. Possibly King Josiah had his eye on some conquests when this was written? Also, the enclave on the east side of the Jordan is acknowledged as part of the allotment to the tribes, but not included in the boundaries.SAB has maps showing the various descriptionsof the boundaries that God describes at various times, and they are all quite different.The recitation of the names of the tribal leaders seems entirely pointless. These people had supposedly been dead for almost 2,000 years at the time this was written (assuming they ever existed which is highly doubtful). Why would anybody care? 34 TheLord said to Moses,2 “Command the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter Canaan, the land that will be allotted to you as an inheritance is to have these boundaries:3 “‘Your southern side will include some of the Desert of Zin along the border of Edom. Your southern boundary will start in the east from the southern end of the Dead Sea,4 cross south of Scorpion Pass, continue on to Zin and go south of Kadesh Barnea. Then it will go to Ha...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs