Deut. 1:1-8, Eretz Israel

“Eretz” is Hebrew for the land (1:8).  It is used of the earth, of countries or other localized pieces of land, and of the soil.  The term appears over 2500 times in the OT.  But of course.  The “land” is at the center of God’s promise to Israel through Moses as well as the greater covenant with Abraham and his descendents. 

I am not a Hebrew scholar so I am still seeing things for the first time when I get into the Hebrew.  A recent revelation is how many different Hebrew words are translated “plain” in English.  Somehow we get by with one word.  But the people of Israel needed several words to distinguish the variations in the land.  There is a Hebrew term for a round plain (kikkar), a forested plain (alon), a plain like a mouth (the mouth of a river, siddim), a level plain (shauch), and the term in 1:1,7: aravah or arabah, a desert plain, a steppe.  People who obsess about the land need a lot of terms to describe it accurately.  We might just look at the various parcels and call them all by the same word.

The aravah extends from Eilat on the Red Sea (Gulf of Aqaba) up to the Galilee.  It is a narrow strip of land and should not be confused with the Negev.  The area of the Negev is also desert, but it is higher.  Negev more specifically refers to the “South” and includes the desert land west of the Aravah.  The Negev includes several “wilderness” areas, such as the wilderness of Zin, the wilderness of Paran and so forth.  These are different wadis or river beds with their tributaries.  When we drive from Beersheba to Eilat people’s first thought is, “this is all barren desert.”  But then we come across a sign for Wadi Paran or Wadi Zin and we remind them that the Bible actually refers to these areas.  They are not all one desert.  For example, Ishmael lived in the wilderness of Paran (Gen. 21:21).  When we cross Wadi Paran I get a little excited; this is in the Bible; something happened here!

The geography of today’s passage is somewhat overwhelming.  There are several names of places in v1 that are not familiar to Christians.  A person can easily just blow past that without wondering, where exactly were they and what happened there.  But what is overwhelming to me, after becoming   To this day it is accurate and a great way to understand the land of Israel. 

at least generally familiar with modern Israel, is God’s own description of the land (Deut. 1:7).

·        The mountains of the Amorites are what we call the Golan Heights, essentially the land east of a line from Mt. Hermon in the far north down to the Sea of Galilee. 

·        The neighboring places in the plain are, as we noted, the Arabah, the strip on both sides of the Jordan River south of the Sea of Galilee, as far as Eilat.

·        The mountains are the center of Israel, including the hills of Naphtali, Ephraim, Benjamin and Judah.

·        The lowland is the front (sea) side of the hills of Judea, low rolling hills with several valleys that are prominent in Bible stories.

·        The South, as we said, is the southern desert area down into the Sinai Peninsula.

·        The seacoast is a series of coastal plains that run north to south.

If you didn’t get it, the simple way to think of Israel’s geography is to think of four north-south strips.  We have given you a map that can help.  But, as we return to Israel, I am just saying that spending time in Israel is valuable because it helps you to understand the Bible’s own language, God’s own language.  As we have done recently, we will have daily posts of our itinerary and a few pictures that we hope will be a blessing.

For us (my wife/best friend is along as always) we left Helena, MT early this morning and are sitting in the airport at Minneapolis.  We will have another 5 hours in New York before the long, overnight flight to Tel Aviv.  We are meeting two other couples, two pastors and their wives.  This will be enjoyable for us.  We hope you can share in the joy.