Numbers 34:1-14

Hey, hey, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions this morning. We're at numbers chapter 34 verses 1 through 14 We're gonna talk about what the borders of Israel were going to be when they conquered the land of Canaan Let's have some coffee.
We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word and we thank you for what a blessing it is to get to read your word. Lord, it's in a language we can understand. Thank you that you have promised that your word does not return void So father we pray that you would please help us help us Lord to Know what these words mean what they meant to the people then And what they should mean to us today Help us learn about you Lord pray in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, so numbers chapter 34 We're gonna read the first 14 verses together.
Here we go Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel, and say to them, When you come into the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance, the land of Canaan to its boundaries. Your southern border shall be from the wilderness of Zin, along the border of Edom.
Then your southern border shall extend eastward to the land of the salt sea. Your border shall turn from the southern side of the ascent of Akwabim, continue to Zin, and beyond the south of Kadesh-Birnea. Then it shall go on to Hazar-Adar, and continue to Asman. The border shall turn from Asman to the brook of Egypt, and it shall end at the sea. That's the southern border. Verse six. As for the western border, you shall have the great sea for a border. This shall be your western border. All right, so the western border is the Med. Verse seven. And this shall be your northern border.
From the great sea, you shall mark out your border line to Mount Hoar. From Mount Hoar, you shall mark out your border to the entrance of Hamath. Then the direction of the border shall be toward Zadad. The border shall proceed to Ziphron, and it shall end at Hazar Anan. This shall be your northern border. You shall mark out your eastern border from Hazar Anan to Shefan. The border shall go down from Shefan to Riblah on the east side of Ain. The border shall go down and reach to the eastern side of the Sea of Chinereth. The border shall go down along the Jordan, and it shall end at the Salt Sea. This shall be your land with its surrounding boundaries." Alright, so that's the eastern border.
But there's stuff on the other side of the Jordan, right? They said follow the Jordan. What about that? Then Moses commanded the children of Israel saying this is the land which you shall inherit by lot Which the Lord has commanded to give to the nine and a half tribes for the tribe of the children of Reuben according to the house of their fathers and the tribe of the children of Gad according to the house of their fathers have received their inheritance and the half tribe of Manasseh has received its inheritance Two tribes and the half tribe have received their inheritance on this side of the Jordan across from Jericho Eastward toward the sunrise. So why are the Gad and Reuben and half Manasseh not listed because they already got their land on the other side of the Jordan River, so We need to ask ourselves our three questions a what's this about b. What's the best verse to summarize? This it's passage and see what are we called to do, right? So a what is this passage about and god is telling them he's appointing for them borders Now to be honest with you, there's a lot of these places that are debated, right?
We think we may know where certain places are because they have ancient stories that go with them, or there's maybe Egyptian manuscripts that kind of line up with things, or maybe even Babylonian or Assyrian manuscripts. or even now right there's archaeological kind of evidence maybe this might be the place or now right and as the Arab conquest went the names changed and now they're in Arabic and maybe they sound a little bit similar so maybe this is the same place But we do know in a general way where the southern boundaries are. And we also know some of these boundaries, I should say, because they line up with some of the Egyptian manuscripts we have about what the land of Canaan looks like in about 2000 BC, so in the second millennium.
We have the southern border, it's kind of this desert area, kind of just north of the border of Egypt, just north of the Nile Delta, going down into the wilderness and up through the wilderness, all the way up to the Dead Sea. And then the eastern border, or the western border is really easy, right? That's right up the Mediterranean. The northern border is up in the mountains, some of what's now Lebanon and Syria, over and down.
And then as you come south, and it kind of arcing on the north and heading south, you're going to eventually hit the Sea of Galilee, or here, the Chinnereth. You're going to go down and it's going to hit the Jordan River. The Jordan River is going to go down. It's going to go to the Salt Sea, which is the Dead Sea, is what we call it now. And that general whole chunk area is what the Israelites were to cross over the Jordan and conquer.
But I'm gonna talk about that a little bit and see calling. We're gonna get there in a moment. The last thing it talks about is right when you're gonna conquer that land is to be divided by lot, right? The Lord himself is the one who's giving this inheritance to them. So they're going to take it to the Lord and the Lord is going to determine who's gonna live where in this land that he's distributing for them.
So last, or B, best verse, best verse. Well, in my Bible, I would underline verse two, right? Command the children of Israel and say to them, when you come into the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance, the land of Canaan to its boundaries, right?
And then it describes the boundaries and what this inheritance falling to them is going to be. Well, last see calling, what are we called to do, right? Notice it is the inheritance that's falling to them. Notice it is the lot that falls to them, right? This is the Lord's choosing. They're the ones going into battle, but it's God himself. It's Jehovah himself who came into covenant with Abraham, came out of the Chaldeans, came and he camped there.
He didn't own any land. He didn't own us. He owned just a grave for his wife. But God promised him. You're gonna have all this. You're gonna receive the land, right? That's the promise he made all the way back in the book of Genesis. And now as we're approaching the end of the book of Numbers, we only got Numbers 35 and 36 left. As he's in the book of Numbers, now they could taste it, right? They could see it. They know that the land, it's right there and God is good to his promises. God is good to his promises still today. Right? The Lord makes promises, and sometimes those promises take a long time. Sometimes they take a long time to be fulfilled from our estimation, from our viewpoint, from our standpoint, right?
This is, I'm sure, how the Old Testament saints longed for, Lord, when are you going to bring us a prophet better than Moses? When are you going to bring us a king who will sit again on the throne of David? Lord, when again are you going to cover over our iniquities and take away our sin? Who is this Holy One who you will not allow to see decay? And they would have to wait hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years and long to see the day of Jesus Christ.
And we know the same is true for us today. People make fun of Christians all the time that, oh, Jesus made those promises that he's going to return thousands of years ago, and where is he? He's not here, so he must be wrong. Or maybe the pattern of scripture is God takes a long time to fulfill his promises. but he always does, and it's perfect when he does it. He pulls it off in a perfect way because he's a covenant-keeping God. He's not a son of man that he should change his mind. He's not going to just make a promise, go, whoop, mess that one up. Nevermind, I didn't promise that. I didn't actually mean it, right? I had my fingers crossed. No, when the Lord makes a promise, it's true.
We can take it to the bank. We can hope and we can trust because the Lord is true. And so cling to his promises, cling to the promises that he has made even now to his new covenant church, that your sins are washed away, that he will not leave you undone, but he'll finish the good work he's begun in you. If he has given us Jesus Christ, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? We can take it to the bank that He's working out all things together for our good because we love Him. He receives all the glory.
So serve the God of the promise. Serve the one who keeps His word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much. The joy that we have in Jesus Christ and the assurance we have that when you made your promise to Abraham, you swore upon yourself because there is none greater than you. Lord, we pray that you would please let us trust your promises. And as we see in your scripture, the promises come to fulfillment, come to fulfillment. Lord, we pray that it would give us more confidence that you truly are our God. We pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, may God bless you. May you trust the Lord. May it give you peace that washes over your heart. And I'll see you next time. Bye.