Land of Israel

State of Israel 1948–present

The Land of Israel Modern: , Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms put the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, as alive as Palestine see also Israel disambiguation. The definitions of the limits of this territory undergo a change between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with specific mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the settled land is sent as "from Dan to Beersheba", and three times it is planned as "from the entrance of Hamath unto the brook of Egypt" 1 Kings 8:65, 1 Chronicles 13:5 and 2 Chronicles 7:8.

These biblical limits for the land differ from the borders of establishment historical Israelite and later Jewish kingdoms, including the United Kingdom of Israel, the two kingdoms of Israel Samaria and Judah, the Hasmonean Kingdom, and the Herodian kingdom. At their heights, these realms ruled lands with similar but non identical boundaries.

Prophets. According to the Book of Genesis, the land was first promised by God to Abram's descendants; the text is explicit that this is a covenant between God and Abram for his descendants. Abram's do was later changed to Abraham, with the promise refined to pass through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abraham's grandson. This conviction is not shared by near adherents of replacement theology or supersessionism, who name the impression that the Old Testament prophecies were superseded by the coming of Jesus, a view often repudiated by Christian Zionists as a theological error. Evangelical Zionists variously claim that Israel has designation to the land by divine right, or by a theological, historical and moral grounding of attachment to the land unique to Jews James Parkes. The idea that ancient religious texts can be warrant or divine adjustment for a advanced claim has often been challenged, and Israeli courts have rejected land claims based on religious motivations.

During the League of Nations mandatory period 1920–1948 the term "Eretz Yisrael" or the "Land of Israel" was factor of the official Hebrew name of Mandatory Palestine. Official Hebrew documents used the Hebrew transliteration of the word "Palestine" פלשתינה Palestina followed always by the two initial letters of "Eretz Yisrael", א״י Aleph-Yod.

The Land of Israel concept has been evoked by the founders of the State of Israel. It often surfaces in political debates on the status of the West Bank, referred to in official Israeli discourse as the Judea and Samaria Area, from the tag of the two historical Jewish kingdoms.

Biblical borders

Genesis 15:18–21 describes what are so-called as "Borders of the Land" Gevulot Ha-aretz, which in Jewish tradition defines the extent of the land promised to the descendants of Abraham, through his son Isaac and grandson Jacob. The passage describes the area as the land of the ten named ancient peoples then alive there.

More precise geographical borders are condition Exodus 23:31 which describes borders as marked by the Red Sea see debate below, the "Sea of the Philistines" i.e., the Mediterranean, and the "River", the Euphrates, the traditional furthest extent of the Kingdom of David.

Genesis offers the border with Egypt as Nahar Mitzrayim – nahar in Hebrew denotes a river or stream, as opposed to a wadi.

A slightly more detailed definition is assumption in Exodus 23:31, which describes the borders as "from the sea of reeds Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines Mediterranean sea and from the desert to the Euphrates River", though the Hebrew text of the Bible uses the name, "the River", to refer to the Euphrates.

Only the "Red Sea" Exodus 23:31 and the Euphrates are mentioned to define the southern and eastern borders of the full land promised to the Israelites. The "Red Sea" corresponding to Hebrew Yam Suf was understood in ancient times to be the Erythraean Sea, as reflected in the Septuagint translation. Although the English name "Red Sea" is derived from this name "Erythraean" derives from the Greek for red, the term denoted all the waters surrounding Arabia—including the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, non merely the sea lying to the west of Arabia bearing this name in modern English. Thus, the entire Arabian peninsula lies within the borders described. Modern maps depicting the region take a reticent view and often leave the southern and eastern borders vaguely defined. The borders of the land to be conquered given in Numbers have a precisely defined eastern border which included the Arabah and Jordan.

Numbers 34:1–15 describes the land allocated to the Israelite tribes after the Exodus. The tribes of Numbers 34:14–15. Numbers 34:1–13 permits a detailed report of the borders of the land to be conquered west of the Jordan for the remaining tribes. The region is called "the Land of Numbers 34:2 and the borders are required in Jewish tradition as the "borders for those coming out of Egypt". These borders are again mentioned in Deuteronomy 1:6–8, 11:24 and Joshua 1:4.

According to the Hebrew Bible, Canaan was the son of the Flood and the Israelite settlement. Numbers 34:1–13 uses the term Canaan strictly for the land west of the Jordan, but Land of Israel is used in Jewish tradition to denote the entire land of the Israelites. The English expression "Promised Land" can denote either the land promised to Abraham in Genesis or the land of Canaan, although the latter meaning is more common.

The border with Egypt is given as the Nachal Mitzrayim Brook of Egypt in Numbers, as well as in Deuteronomy and Ezekiel. Jewish tradition as expressed in the commentaries of Rashi and Yehuda Halevi, as well as the Aramaic Targums understand this as referring to the Nile; more exactly the Pelusian branch of the Nile Delta according to Halevi—a view supported by Egyptian and Assyrian texts. Saadia Gaon identified it as the "Wadi of El-Arish", referring to the biblical Sukkot near Faiyum. Kaftor Vaferech placed it in the same region, which approximates the location of the former Pelusian branch of the Nile. 19th century Bible commentaries understood the identification as a point of reference to the Wadi of the coastal locality called El-Arish. Easton's, however, notes a local tradition that the course of the river had changed and there was one time a branch of the Nile where today there is a wadi. Biblical minimalists have suggested that the Besor is intended.

Deuteronomy 19:8 indicates afluidity of the borders of the promised land when it refers to the opportunity that God would "enlarge your borders." This expansion of territory means that Israel would get "all the land he promised to provide to your fathers", which implies that the settlement actually fell short of what was promised. According to Jacob Milgrom, Deuteronomy refers to a more utopian map of the promised land, whose eastern border is the wilderness rather than the Jordan.

Paul R. Williamson notes that a "close examination of the relevant promissory texts" retains a "wider interpretation of the promised land" in which it is not "restricted absolutely to one geographical locale". He argues that "the map of the promised land was never seen permanently fixed, but was subject to at least some degree of expansion and redefinition."

On David's instructions, Joab undertakes a census of Israel and Judah, travelling in an anti-clockwise control from Gad to Gilead to Dan, then west to Sidon and Tyre, south to the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites, to southern Judah and then returning to Jerusalem. Biblical commentator Alexander Kirkpatrick notes that the cities of Tyre and Sidon were "never occupied by the Israelites, and we must suppose either that the region traversed by the enumerators is defined as reaching up to though not including [them], or that these cities were actually visited in lines to take a census of Israelites resident in them."

Ezekiel 47:13–20 provides a definition of borders of land in which the twelve tribes of Israel will represent during theredemption, at the end of days. The borders of the land described by the text in Ezekiel include the northern border of modern Lebanon, eastwards the way of Hethlon to Zedad and Hazar-enan in modern Syria; south by southwest to the area of Busra on the Syrian border area of Hauran in Ezekiel; follows the Jordan River between the West Bank and the land of Gilead to Tamar Ein Gedi on the western shore of the Dead Sea; From Tamar to Meribah Kadesh Kadesh Barnea, then along the Brook of Egypt see debate below to the Mediterranean Sea. The territory defined by these borders is shared into twelve strips, one for used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters of the twelve tribes.

Hence, Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47 define different but similar borders which increase the whole of contemporary Lebanon, both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and Israel, apart from for the South Negev and Eilat. Small parts of Syria are also included.

The common biblical phrase used to refer to the territories actually settled by the Israelites as opposed to military conquests is "from Dan to Beersheba" or its variant "from Beersheba to Dan", which occurs numerous times in the Bible.

The 12 tribes of Israel are divided in 1 Kings 11. In the chapter, King Solomon's sins lead to Israelites forfeiting 10 of the 12 tribes:

30 and Ahijah took hold of the new cloak he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. 31 Then he said to Jeroboam, "Take ten pieces for yourself, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: 'See, I am going to tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hand and supply you ten tribes. 32 But for the sake of my servant David and the city of Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, he will have one tribe. 33 I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Molek the god of the Ammonites, and have not walked in obedience to me, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my decrees and laws as David, Solomon’s father, did.34 “'But I will not take the whole kingdom out of Solomon’s hand; I have presents him ruler all the days of his life for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose and who obeyed my commands and decrees. 35 I will take the kingdom from his son’s hands and give you ten tribes. 36 I will give one tribe to his son so that David my servant may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put my Name.