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In theAbrahamic religions, the "Promised Land" (Hebrew:הָאָרֶץ הַמֻּבְטַחַת,romanized: Ha'aretz ha-Muvtaḥat) refers to an area in theLevant thatGodchose to bestow upon, via a series of covenants, the family and descendants ofAbraham.
In the context of theHebrew Bible, these descendants are originally understood to have been theIsraelites, whose forefather wasJacob, who was a son of Abraham's sonIsaac. The concept of the Promised Land largely overlaps with theLand of Israel (Zion) or theHoly Land in a biblical/religious sense and withCanaan orPalestine in a secular/geographic sense. Although theBook of Numbers provides some definition for the Promised Land's boundaries, they are not delineated with precision, but it is universally accepted that the core areas lie in and aroundJerusalem. According to the biblical account, the Promised Land was not inherited until theIsraelite conquest of Canaan, which took place shortly afterthe Exodus.
These promises were given prior to the birth of Abraham's sons.Abraham's family tree includes both theIshmaelite tribes (the claimed ancestry ofArabs and of theIslamic prophetMuhammad) through Abraham's first sonIshmael and theIsraelite tribes (the claimed ancestry ofJews andSamaritans) through Abraham's second sonIsaac.
The concept of the Promised Land is first mentioned in theBook of Genesis, which is the first book of theTorah, which collectively refers to the first five books of theHebrew Bible.[note 1]
God is claimed to have spoken the following promises toAbraham in several verses ofGenesis (the first book of theTorah), which amodern English Bible translates to:
Later in what is called thecovenant of the pieces, a verse is said to describe what are known as "borders of the Land" (Gevulot Ha-aretz):[1]
These allegedly divine promises were given prior to the birth of Abraham's sons.Abraham's family tree includes both theIshmaelite tribes (the claimed ancestry ofArabs and of theIslamic prophetMuhammad) through Abraham's first sonIshmael and theIsraelite tribes (the claimed ancestry ofJews andSamaritans) through Abraham's second sonIsaac.
God later confirms the promise to Abraham's sonIsaac (Genesis 26:3), and then to Isaac's sonJacob (Genesis 28:13) in terms of "the land on which you are lying". Jacob is later renamed "Israel" (Genesis 32:28) and his descendants are called the Children of Israel or theTwelve Tribes of Israel.
The Torah's subsequentBook of Exodus describes it as "land flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:17) and gives verses on how to treat the prior occupants and marks the borders in terms of theRed Sea, the "Sea of thePhilistines", and the "River", which a modern English Bible translates to:
TheIsraelites lived in a smaller area of formerCanaanite land and land east of theJordan River after the legendary prophetMoses led the Israelite Exodus out ofEgypt (Numbers 34:1–12). The Torah'sBook of Deuteronomy presents this occupation as their God's fulfillment of the promise (Deuteronomy 1:8). Moses anticipated that their God might subsequently give the Israelites land reflecting the boundaries of the original promise – if they were obedient to thecovenant (Deuteronomy 19:8–9).
The concept of the Promised Land is a central religious belief of theJewish people and a key tenet ofZionism, the Jewish national movement which established theState of Israel.[2][3]
Mainstream Jewish tradition regards the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as applying to anyonea member of the Jewish people, includingproselytes and in turn their descendants[4] and is signified through thebrit milah (rite of circumcision).
Genesis 15:18 records God’s covenant with Abraham, which includes the borders of the Promised Land:[5][6]
בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא כָּרַת ה' אֶת אַבְרָם בְּרִית לֵאמֹר: לְזַרְעֲךָ נָתַתִּי אֶת הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת מִנְּהַר מִצְרַיִם עַד הַנָּהָר הַגָּדֹל נְהַר פְּרָת.
In English:[7]
On that day God made a covenant with Abraham: To your offspring I assign this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates
— The Contemporary Torah
Book of Joshua 1:4 records the first prophecy given toJoshua about the conquest of the land:[8][9]
מֵהַמִּדְבָּר֩ וְהַלְּבָנ֨וֹן הַזֶּ֜ה וְֽעַד־הַנָּהָ֧ר הַגָּד֣וֹל נְהַר־פְּרָ֗ת כֹּ֚ל אֶ֣רֶץ הַֽחִתִּ֔ים וְעַד־הַיָּ֥ם הַגָּד֖וֹל מְב֣וֹא הַשָּׁ֑מֶשׁ יִֽהְיֶ֖ה גְּבוּלְכֶֽם
in English:[10]
Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.
— THE JPS TANAKH
In theNew Testament, the descent and promise is reinterpreted along religious lines.[11] In theEpistle to the Galatians,Paul the Apostle draws attention to the formulation of the promise, avoiding the term "seeds" in the plural (meaning many people), choosing instead "seed," meaning one person, who he understands to beJesus (and those united with him). For example, inGalatians 3:16 he notes:
InGalatians 3:28–29 Paul goes further, noting that the expansion of the promise from singular to the plural is not based on genetic/physical association, but a spiritual/religious one:
InRomans 4:13 it is written:
GermanLutheranOld Testament commentatorJohann Friedrich Karl Keil states that the covenant is through Isaac, but notes thatIshmael's descendants have held much of that land through time.[14]
ManyEuropean colonists saw America as the "Promised Land", representing a haven fromreligious conflicts andpersecution. For instance,Puritan ministerJohn Cotton's 1630 sermonGod's Promise to His Plantation gave colonizers departingEngland toMassachusetts repeated references to the Exodus story, and laterGerman immigrants sang: "America ... is a beautiful land that God promised to Abraham."[15]
In a sermon celebratingindependence in 1783,Yale presidentEzra Stiles impliedAmericans were chosen and delivered from bondage to a Promised Land: "the Lord shall have made his American Israel 'high above all nations which he hath made',"[16] reflecting language from Deuteronomy of the promise.
Shawnee/Lenape scholar Steven Newcomb argued in his 2008 bookPagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery[17] thatChristendom'sdiscovery doctrine was also the same claim of "the right to kill and plunder non-Christians" found in this covenant tradition, whereby "the Lord" in Deuteronomy told his chosen people how they were to "utterly destroy" the "many nations before thee" when "He" brought them into the land "He" had discovered and promised to "His" "Chosen People" to "possess", and that this "right" was woven into US law through the 1823Johnson v. McIntoshSupreme Court ruling.[18]
Mormonism teaches that theUnited States is the Biblical promised land, theU.S. Constitution divinely inspired, andMormons God's chosen people.
Jewish and Muslim tradition, with records that date to at least as far back as the works of 1st-centuryJewish historianFlavius Josephus, postulates that Abraham’s first son,Ishmael, was the founder of the Arab race,[19]Islam's main prophet,Muhammad, also considered himself aHanif, that is, a true monotheistic believer of the religion of Abraham. His tribe, theQuraysh, traces its ancestry toIshmael. Although, this cannot be proven as there are 30 missing ancestors from the lineage. For these reasons, Muslims in general understand that Arabs are also entitled to the “Promised Land” bestowed upon their common ancestor Abraham (“Ibrahim”).
SomePalestinians claim partial descent from the Israelites andMaccabees, as well as from other peoples who have lived in the region.[20]
African-Americanspirituals invoke the imagery of the "Promised Land" asheaven orparadise[21] and as an escape fromslavery, which could often only be reached by death.[citation needed] The imagery and term also appear elsewhere inpopular culture, in sermons, and in speeches such asMartin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 "I've Been to the Mountaintop", in which he said:
I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.[22]
Under the namePalestine, we comprehend the small country formerly inhabited by the Israelites, and which is today part of Acre and Damascus pachalics. It stretched between 31 and 33° N. latitude and between 32 and 35° degrees E. longitude, an area of about 1300French:lieues carrées. Some zealous writers, to give the land of the Hebrews some political importance, have exaggerated the extent of Palestine; but we have an authority for us that one can not reject. St. Jerome, who had long traveled in this country, said in his letter to Dardanus (ep. 129) that the northern boundary to that of the southern, was a distance of 160 Roman miles, which is about 55French:lieues. He paid homage to the truth despite his fears, as he said himself, of availing thePromised Land to pagan mockery, "Pudet dicere latitudinem terrae repromissionis, ne ethnicis occasionem blasphemandi dedisse uideamur" (Latin: "I am embarrassed to say the breadth of the promised land, lest we seem to have given the heathen an opportunity of blaspheming").[27][28]
Both Maccabean and modern Zionism seek to ensure the security of the Jewish People to exist, practice freely, and continue to develop our gifts to humankind.
Thus if you were a child of Abraham by race you inevitably were heir to the great land promises in the Holy Land ... Paul challenges the exclusivity of racial descent from Abraham. Children of Abraham consist of people - Jews and Gentiles - who share Abraham's faith. And the promise of God, he notes, comes to Abraham and his seed (singular) and this seed is Christ (Gal. 3:16). Thus Christ is the true heir of Abraham and his promises. And if we belong to Christ, we too are attached to Abraham and the promises given to him. Again, for the non-Jewish Christian, it is hard to imagine the impact of this theological subversion. Paul has upended one of the chief arguments for exclusive Jewish privilege in the Holy Land ... If you want a glimpse of just how striking Paul's rethinking of this could be, just look at Romans 4:13. Here Paul refers directly to the inheritance of Abraham. This was the gift of Canaan, the Holy Land, and Israel! And yet look at what Paul actually says: the promise to Abraham was that he would inherit the entire world. How can that be? This is not in Genesis. But it can be true in only one way: the family of Abraham now includes the Gentiles - Gentiles living throughout the world: Romans, Greeks, Cappadocians, Arabs - and they now, inasmuch as they belong to Christ, also belong to Abraham. God's new claim is not for the restoration of Judaea. It is not for a political rebuilding of the Holy Land. God's new claim is for the entire world; His people in Christ will be instruments of that claim.
In the Second Temple period, when Jewish authors were seeking to establish with greater precision the geographical definition of the Land, it became customary to construe "Mount Hor" of Num 34:7 as a reference to the Amanus range of the Taurus Mountains, which marked the northern limit of the Syrian plain (Bechard 2000, p. 205, note 98.)
Quod si objeceris terram repromissionis dici, quae in Numerorum volumine continetur (Cap. 34), a meridie maris Salinarum per Sina et Cades-Barne, usque ad torrentem Aegypti, qui juxta Rhinocoruram mari magno influit; et ab occidente ipsum mare, quod Palaestinae, Phoenici, Syriae Coeles, Ciliciaeque pertenditur; ab aquilone Taurum montem et Zephyrium usque Emath, quae appellatur Epiphania Syriae; ad orientem vero per Antiochiam et lacum Cenereth, quae nunc Tiberias appellatur, et Jordanem, qui mari influit Salinarum, quod nunc Mortuum dicitur
Sous le nom dePalestine, nous comprenons le petit pays habité autrefois par les Israélites, et qui aujourd'hui fait partie des pachalics d'Acre et de Damas. Il s'étendait entre le 31 et 33° degré latitude N. et entre le 32 et 35° degré longitude E., sur une superficie d'environ 1300 lieues carrées. Quelques écrivains jaloux de donner au pays des Hébreux une certaine importance politique, ont exagéré l'étendue de la Palestine; mais nous avons pour nous une autorité que l'on ne saurait récuser. Saint Jérôme, qui avait longtemps voyagé dans cette contrée, dit dans sa lettre à Dardanus (ep. 129) que de la limite du nord jusqu'à celle du midi il n'y avait qu'une distance de 160 milles romains, ce qui fait environ 55 lieues. Il rend cet hommage à la vérité bien qu'il craigne, comme il le dit lui-même de livrer par laterre promise aux sarcasmes païens. (Pudet dicere latitudinem terrae repromissionis, ne ethnicis occasionem blasphemandi dedisse uideamur)
