Chapter 6
The Land of Palestine, the Promised Land,
Prefiguring Christ's Renewal and Dominion over the Earth

The land of Palestine also plays a special role in the Books of Moses and even in the whole Old Testament. One of the main aspects of the promise made to Abraham is the promise that he and his offspring will inherit the land (Gen. 12:1,7; 13:14-17; 15:18-21; 17:8).

God's promise of the land

Much of the story of the Old Testament can be plotted around this center. Genesis recounts how Abraham's offspring waited several generations looking for fulfillment of the promise. Exodus tells how they were delivered from Egypt as an aspect of the promise. Numbers tells how a whole generation failed to enter the land. Deuteronomy largely contains instructions for the people's conduct in the land, and concludes with the people standing on its borders about to enter. Joshua through 2 Samuel tells of the vicissitudes of conquest, completed only with the reign of Solomon (1 Kings 4:20-21). After Solomon the story concerns the pattern of Deut. 29:1-30:10, where the disobedience of the people leads to exile from the land, and then restoration.

The land is so important not only because it is an important part of God's foundational promise, but also because it sustains symbolical connections in several directions. The land is granted to Abraham and his descendants as part of the covenantal relation between God and his people: the land is a covenantal grant or gift, a benefit of the royal charter between God and his people.¹ Thus it shares in the complex connections of biblical covenants.

The land is God's own land; the people are only tenants (Lev. 25:23-24). Because the land is particularly associated with God, it is in a broad sense holy and will be defiled by gross sins (Lev. 18:24-28). The land is the land "where I dwell, for I, the LORD, dwell among the Israelites" (Num. 35:34). The land as the dwelling of God is analogous to the tabernacle and the temple, which are the dwelling of God in a more intensive sense. The small piece of land occupied by the temple is replicated on a large scale by the land as a whole. Thus we should not be surprised that the land is large-scale embodiment of the principles of the tabernacle. Defilement of the land corresponds to defilement of the tabernacle, and cleansing of the land, as in Num. 35:33-34, corresponds to cleansing the tabernacle. The people as a whole, who live on the land, are analogous to the priests who offer special service in the tabernacle.

The holiness of the land and its symbolic associations

Thus we should ask ourselves whether the land shares in the multiple symbolic relations of the tabernacle, as listed earlier in chapter 2. It must share in such relations at least indirectly, since it is symbolically related to the tabernacle and the tabernacle in turn is related to the entire list. Are there also direct indications of such relations in the Bible? We ought not necessarily to expect the same quantity of material, since the land shares in holiness only at a reduced level of intensity. Let us go through the list in chapter 2 item by item to confirm our analysis.

(1) Heaven is the dwelling of God. Is the land analogous to heaven? Heb. 11:14-16 says that the promise of land to Abraham caused him and his descendants to be "looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one." Thus Abraham himself discerned that the land of Palestine was a shadow of a final heavenly dwelling place.

(2) The whole universe is the dwelling of God. The land of Palestine is to be a paradigmatic land, a representative sample standing for the whole earth. What happens there is intended to be paradigmatic for all nations (Deut. 4:5-8; 29:22-28).

(3) The tabernacle is a dwelling of God. We have just seen above that the treatment of land and tabernacle is analogous. Moreover, the exile of the land goes together with the destruction of the temple, while the return from exile goes together with the rebuilding of the temple.

(4) The Garden of Eden was a dwelling of God. The land of Palestine is described as a rich, garden-like land reminiscent of Eden (Deut. 8:7-9; 7:13-16; Joel 2:3; Isa. 51:3).

(5) The people of God are the dwelling place of God. The Books of Moses connect the people and the land not mainly by symbolic analogies but by showing that the prosperity or adversity of the two go together. Prosperity in the land is conditioned on the fundamental spiritual prosperity of loyalty to God (Deut. 28).

(6) The body of an individual saint is a dwelling of God. This theme is comparatively in the background in the Old Testament. There do not seem to be prominent instances of the use of the land as analogous to a human body (but note the language of vomiting in Lev. 18:24-28).

(7) The new Jerusalem is the final dwelling of God with human beings. The inheritance of the land is a shadow of this final inheritance (Heb. 11:16; 12:22).

(8) Christ is the ultimate dwelling of God. The language concerning holy places and spaces is now replaced by the language of being in Christ. As W. D. Davies says, "for the holiness of place, Christianity has . . . substituted the holiness of the Person: it has Christified holy space." ²

Wright aptly analyzes the main symbolic connections of the land in parallel with the connections of the Israelite people. The people are simultaneously related to (a) all nations; (b) eschatological new humanity; and (c) the church as the new people of God (chapter 4). Likewise the land is related "paradigmatically" to the whole earth (point 2 above); "eschatologically" to the new heavens and new earth (point 7); and "typologically" to participation in blessing in the church (point 5).³ If we add to these relations that of Christ himself as the ultimate holy space, we shall have noted the main elements necessary for understanding the significance of the land in the Old Testament.

The land, then, was God's gift to Israel, and therefore a tangible sign of his goodness, favor, and blessing. Like all the other important institutions in Israel, it was a means of communion with God. It showed his goodness and beauty. By dispossessing the wicked Canaanites and giving the land to Israel, God also showed his righteousness and his salvific power (Deut. 7). The land spoke of God's faithfulness and the truthfulness of his promises, because its possession was a fulfillment of God's ancient promise to Abraham (Deut. 6:10).

But the land was simultaneously a trust and a responsibility. Israel as a kind of corporate Adam was to guard the land from defilement. They were to tend and till the land in order to obtain and enjoy its increase. The fact that the land belonged first of all to God meant that it could not be permanently sold (Lev. 25:23-24). Poor people were to be protected from land-grabbers, and were to be given access to some of the yield of the land (Lev. 23:25-28; 19:9-10; Deut. 23:25-25; 24:19-22; 26:11-15).

Prosperity in the land was to be an index of Israel's faithfulness (Deut. 28:1-14). Exile and loss of the land would result from continued disobedience (Deut. 28:15-29:28). These arrangements prefigured the inheritance of the new heaven and new earth, which we receive now on the basis of Christ's obedience, not our own (1 Pet. 1:4). Our own obedience still matters, because as imitators of Christ we are meant to reflect his generosity to us (2 Cor. 8:9). Whatever gifts we receive, whether tangible or intangible in character, are not only a blessing but a trust to be used responsibly in his service (1 Pet. 4:10; 1 Tim. 6:17-19).