Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread have I given to you, as I said unto Moses.
Moses has died, and a whole nation waits at the Jordan to enter land God had already promised to Moses. The verse holds together two things that sound opposite: the land is a finished gift, yet Israel keeps only the ground its feet touch.
The land was theirs by gift before they took a step. But a gift and the enjoyment of a gift are not the same thing.
All our blessings rest purely and simply on the ground of grace, and so they are unconditional. Yet if we are to enjoy these blessings, our souls must be in a fit condition. So we need to keep our hearts exercised before God, or we will be robbed of what is rightly ours... God had promised the land to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to their descendants after them. It was not because of what they were that the LORD gave them the land, for had He not said, "You are a stiff-necked people"? It was for His own Name's sake.
Owning a country and living in it are two different things. The tread of a foot turns one into the other.
Their inheritance was a pure gift of the grace of God... God gave them the right to it. But for the people it was a question not only of ownership, but of entering into possession... So it is with us spiritually. We have all these things, but we cannot enter into them except by passing through death with Christ, and entering by the power of His Spirit where He is... In one word, the Christian must take hold of them himself by faith to enjoy them. Otherwise he is like a poor king, sick and living abroad, who has never travelled in his own kingdom.
What does the land stand for now? One writer answers by setting Joshua beside the New Testament letter to the Ephesians.
Joshua is the Old Testament equivalent of Ephesians, just as Ephesians is the New Testament Joshua... So it is no good for me to say such and such things are mine. It is quite true they are mine in Christ, but they are not mine in experience unless I put my foot on them.
The promise sounds easy — until you see who is already standing on that ground.
God had given them all the land as far as the Euphrates, but wherever they tried to put down the sole of their foot, there was a Canaanite. That is Satan hindering us, and that is where the true Joshua work comes in. I am going to make the spiritual power of Christ real now, so as to take possession of the things God has given me in His testimony. Go and put your foot on any one of them, and there stands Satan to hinder you!
The measure in the verse cuts both ways. It promises the ground you take, and it marks the ground you never take.
Everything was theirs according to promise; actual possession was "every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon" (Joshua 1:3). Unfaithfulness prevented full possession, and God would not throw down walls for those who failed in faith.
Another writer names the terms Israel held the land on:
They stand on the ground of law, and must make good their title to the land by real victory over the people living in it... So they never actually gain the full extent of the land that the Lord describes to them.
Many Christians know a great deal and enjoy very little of it. This verse explains why.
Knowing the boundary is not the same as holding the territory in practice. We have it all in Christ; but it must be made good to us... There must be energy, dependence, obedience, purpose of heart; not laziness, indifference, self-seeking... We never enter into or enjoy these things until we begin to put them into practice... The reason we do not experience it is that the sole of our foot has not trodden it.
- The deed — God gave the land before a single battle. He gave it because of His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and for His own Name's sake — not for anything Israel was.
- The step — the foot turns title into possession. A believer who never walks his inheritance is a king who never travelled his own kingdom.
- The map — the land stands for what is already ours in Christ. It is mine in Christ, but not mine in experience until I put my foot on it.
- The resistance — a Canaanite stands on every spot where the foot goes down. Each step forward is a fight, and Christ gives the power for it.
- The measure — Israel never held all the land God described, because unfaithfulness stopped their feet. We too enjoy only the ground we have walked on.
From the wilderness and this Lebanon to the great river, the river Euphrates, the whole land of the Hittites, to the great sea, toward the going down of the sun, shall be your border.
God promised this land to Abraham long before Moses died, and now He marks out its four borders for Joshua before Israel takes a single step. Those borders run far wider than anything Israel would ever hold, so what happens to a gift God gives but His people never collect?
One writer maps the four sides and ties them back to God's promise to Abraham.
The borders in verse 4 reach further than Israel has ever held. They take in the wilderness in the south, Lebanon in the north, and the land eastward as far as the Euphrates River. Looking west, they also take in all the land of the Hittites (toward the east) and run to the Great Sea, the Mediterranean. In Genesis 15:18-21 God's promise to Abram gave the borders from a point further south: "from the river of Egypt (the Nile) to the great river, the river Euphrates." Israel will own all this land in the millennium, but only after they have received their Messiah, the Lord Jesus. Then He will clear the way for them to claim their full inheritance.
The phrase "toward the going down of the sun" fixes a viewpoint. One writer stands us in the camp where Israel first heard these words.
In this part of Israel's history, told in the Book of Joshua, we find ourselves in the camp of Israel, at the crossing of the Jordan. Our backs are to the wilderness and the south. Our faces are towards Lebanon and the north. On the left, the country stretches across the Jordan as far as the Mediterranean. On the right, the river Euphrates forms the eastern boundary. The whole stretch is Israel's by promise. But the land given to them in particular, the land they had left Egypt to inherit, lay "over this Jordan."
History came close to these lines exactly once, and only briefly.
David won victory after victory over the Syrians. Through them, the territory the tribes of Israel had taken when they first divided the land grew far larger toward the north. So Solomon reigned over all the kings and kingdoms from "the river" (that is, the Euphrates) as far as the border of Egypt (1 Kings 4:21; 2 Chron. 9:26). This agrees with God's first promise to Joshua after Moses' death (Joshua 1:4).
The verse also hands Israel "all the land of the Hittites." One writer traces how far that stretch ran, and warns against treating any of it as fine speech.
We are only beginning to realize how far the "land of the Hittites" reached. It was smaller, not larger, than the land of Canaan, yet it went up far beyond Lebanon to the Euphrates itself. "All" of it, out to the Mediterranean coast, belongs to Israel by promise. It waits only for faith on their part, and then God will make it good to them. Keil, an orthodox commentator writing one of the best critical commentaries, even calls the promise here "oratorical"! May we, then, without sin, ascribe exaggeration to God? What if the promise of a heavenly inheritance for us be equally "oratorical"?
One writer reads the four landmarks as pictures of the world around the inheritance.
As a picture, the mountain stands for the world in its power, the great river for the world in its wealth, the wilderness for the world in its barrenness, and the great sea for the world in its lawlessness. This good land flowing with milk and honey is a picture of the place God has brought us into, as the letter to the Ephesians describes it. But there are always contrasts between a picture and the thing it pictures.
The territory named here runs well past Canaan itself, and that extra ground is the point.
The very same chapter shows us not our Canaan only, but "from the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates." So God gives us a measure of blessing that reaches far beyond what is properly ours... Does it not bring before us that God, if He gives at all, must give as God? He will make good His promises, but He cannot act below Himself.
A gift secured by God's own name still asks something of the one receiving it.
All our blessings rest on the ground of grace alone, and so they are unconditional. Yet if we are to enjoy these blessings, there must be a suitable condition of soul. So we need to keep exercising our hearts before God, so that we are not robbed of what is properly ours... The land had been promised to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to their seed after them. It was not because of what they were that Jehovah gave them the land, for had He not said, "You are a stiff-necked people"? It was for His own Name's sake.
- Given — God names four borders before Israel takes one step: wilderness, Lebanon, Euphrates, Great Sea. The title deed comes first.
- Large — the grant runs past Canaan on purpose, because God cannot act below Himself when He gives.
- Unclaimed — Israel's reach touched the Euphrates only under David and Solomon.
- Not rhetoric — call this promise exaggeration, and the promise of a heavenly inheritance falls under the same doubt.
- Enjoyed — the gift rests on grace and God's own name. Enjoying it asks for a suitable condition of soul, and, for Israel, for receiving their Messiah.
None shall be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life as I was with Moses, so will I be with thee; I will not leave thee, neither will I forsake thee.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.