When the Most High assigned to the nations their inheritance, When he separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel.
Moses is teaching Israel a song, and he sends them back to the moment the nations of the world were first laid out on the map. His claim is startling: God drew the borders of every people with Israel in view, long before Israel existed. One note first. The ESV reads "the sons of God" here, while the writers below use an older reading, "the number of the children of Israel."
"The Most High" is not the usual name for God. One writer ties it to the kingdom still to come:
This verse has a deep meaning. It carries us backward. God made the boundaries of the nations with direct reference to the children of Israel. The name of God used here, "the Most High," is His millennial title, the one He will have when His blessed Son our Lord receives His Kingdom. When that time of blessing comes, and a converted Israel is no longer the tail but the head of the nations, this division that God made will then be fully known.
The name goes back to the meeting between Melchizedek and Abraham, and it comes with a description:
This is the name given to Jehovah in the meeting between Melchizedek and Abraham, where the words "Possessor of heaven and earth" are added to it. This is, in fact, the character God will take up when He gathers together in one all things in Christ, both the things in heaven and the things on earth.
These writers place this dividing at Babel, when God confused human language and scattered mankind:
This means that at the Babel scattering God brought each people to settle exactly where His ways would need them when Israel came on the scene. So God Himself settled the first map of the world, with the land and people of Israel as His centre.
The verse uses two different actions — separating and dividing — and one commentator keeps them apart:
Dispersion preceded: a different term is employed in the Hebrew, as there ought to be in the translation. The isles are said here to be "separated," as the earth there is "divided." The orderly partition followed the confused dispersion.
The force of the verse lies in its timing. Israel was not there to be counted:
Mankind was split into nations more than a hundred years before Abraham was born. Israel had no national existence for nearly five hundred years after that. Yet this passage tells us that Israel was already so present to the thoughts and purposes of God, and held such a central and important place in them, that when the Most High separated the sons of Adam and divided to the nations their inheritance, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. That is, He arranged where their empires would sit and how far they would reach.
The number, then, was one Israel had not yet reached:
Even then, when the Gentiles were receiving their inheritance, He set their bounds according to the needs of such a number as the children of Israel would become.
One writer uses this verse to set God's government of the earth apart from what He does in grace:
Once personal salvation is settled, Scripture takes up two subjects. One is the sovereign grace that makes us, redeemed from sin, like Christ in the glory. This is the blessed portion of the church of God. The other is the government of the world. The Jews are the centre of the government of this world... Israel would not have Christ, and so was set aside for the time.
Today's map does not look like that. These writers treat the present order as an interruption, not a cancellation:
At present the nations have the upper hand; these are the "times of the Gentiles." But in the end Judah reappears on the scene as the object of God's purposes.
The verse also has a plain use for reading world events now:
Men may seize by force, at any time, the lands they want, but they can only get them if God permits it. The all-wise Creator sees some way in which the anger of man will serve His purpose. So there is a hand above all, controlling the movements of nations, even though men hardly notice it. This was true in the earliest days, and it is true still.
- Who divides — the name used here is "the Most High," the title linked with Melchizedek and with God as owner of heaven and earth.
- When He divided — at Babel, when God confused human language and settled each people where His plan for Israel would need them.
- By what measure — by a people who would not be a nation for centuries. The division was planned, not accidental.
- To what end — Israel stands at the centre of God's government of the earth. That is a different line from the grace that gives the church its place with Christ.
- What it means now — nations still move only as God permits. Today's map ignores Israel, but that is temporary: Judah reappears at the end.
For Jehovah's portion is his people; Jacob the lot of his inheritance.
Moses is near the end of his life. His song looks back past Israel's slavery in Egypt to a time before the nation existed — to the moment God spread mankind across the earth. This verse gives the reason for that ancient arrangement. God had already set His love on a people not yet born.
One commentator ties this verse to the one before it, where God divides up the nations:
At the same time (verse 8) we have an all-important declaration. In His government of the world, God had made Israel the centre. He had arranged the nations of the earth, in their various locations, with respect to the boundaries of Israel. Israel was the first object of those ways. For His earthly people are Jehovah's portion, His inheritance upon earth.
God settled the nations in their lands long before Abraham lived. One writer points out who was already in view:
It is important to notice what God did when He divided the people in Genesis 10. He gave them all their place in relation to a people who did not yet exist. He set His grace on Israel before Israel or their great ancestor existed. When God allotted the nations their position, He allotted it all around His own plot of land. That land is now trampled under foot by the Gentiles. He kept it for His people. So His ways with the nations had Israel in view. Now His church is His chief interest, and there is not a movement going on under heaven that God will not turn to the good of His church.
Moses could have used the honoured name Israel. Instead the verse says Jacob, and one writer marks that word:
The song carries them back to a time beyond these experiences. It goes back before the nation existed at all, when the sons of Adam were finding the homes God assigned them. Even then the Gentiles were receiving their inheritance, and He set their boundaries to fit the needs of a people as many as the children of Israel would become. For in truth they were Jehovah's portion — His people, and Jacob (though only "Jacob") the lot of His inheritance.
Being God's portion did not spare Israel from His discipline. It also means He does not forget those who attack them:
Centuries may pass, as in the case of Amalek, before the judgment is carried out. How many centuries have passed since Edom cried against Jerusalem, "Lay it bare, lay it bare, down to its foundations!" (Psalm 137:7). God has not forgotten that. His vengeance will certainly overtake her... God's people are precious to Him, though He may have to discipline them under His government.
One writer sets this verse beside what the New Testament says about treasure:
Then how sweet is the next verse: "The Lord's portion is His people." I do not know how far we enter into it. In the New Testament we are told we have treasure in heaven. We are told, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." But Christ has a treasure here upon earth. With that treasure in view, He sold all that He had. He laid aside all His Messiah titles and rights, so that He might secure it... The children of Israel are the people in question in our chapter. But in this present time God is gathering a people out of this world for heaven. He is forming His church.
Christians think of the inheritance as something they receive. One writer points to the other side of it:
But God has His heritage as well as we... That God should inherit a people is a familiar idea in Scripture. He always had a people, and in grace He called His chosen His inheritance (Deuteronomy 32:9). This expression makes clear to faith the true position of God's chosen people, in the middle of a world He has rejected.
- Portion. God calls His people His portion — the share He kept for Himself when He divided up the whole earth.
- Before. God chose that portion before the nation existed and before Abraham lived. Nothing in Israel earned it.
- Jacob. The verse says only Jacob, not the honoured name Israel. That is grace speaking, not merit.
- Precious. He may discipline His people, yet He still avenges them. His judgment on their enemies can take centuries, but it comes.
- Treasure. Christ gave up everything to secure a treasure on earth. God still speaks of an inheritance in His people — you do not only receive a portion, you are one.