Division of the Promised Land Large Map

Why is it called the PROMISED LAND?

Why is the area the children of Israel were eventually led to, after being freed from bondage, referred to as the Promised Land? God mentioned this area when he told Moses, through a burning bush, what he would accomplish through him (Exodus 3:7 - 8).

While the children of Israel were still in Egypt God referred to the territory they would inherit by this reference.

25. And it shall be when you have come to the land which the LORD will give you, according as He has promised that you shall keep this service (the Passover - Exodus 12:25)

Several times Moses referenced promises that involved the Israelites.

3 Listen to them (God's laws, commandments and judgments) . . . and you will become a mighty nation and live in that rich and fertile land, just as the Lord, the God of our ancestors, has promised (Deuteronomy 6:3)

3. And you shall engrave upon them all the words of this law when you have passed over so that you may go in to the land . . . as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you (Deuteronomy 27:3, see also Deuteronomy 9:23, 26 - 28)

The book of Genesis informs us the idea of a guaranteed inheritance originated with God making a covenant with the patriarch Abraham.

I will give to you and to your descendants this land in which you are now a foreigner. The whole land of Canaan will belong to your descendants forever (Genesis 17:8)

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