Numbers 34 Bible study: According to its borders

The LORD speaks to Moses "in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho" (33:50), and tells him to say this: "When you come into the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, even the land of Canaan according to its borders)" (34:2). Then he draws the line, one side at a time. The south: "your south border shall be from the end of the Salt Sea eastward" (34:3), southward of Kadesh Barnea (34:4), "to the brook of Egypt, and it shall end at the sea" (34:5). The west: "you shall have the great sea and its border" (34:6). The north: "from the great sea you shall mark out for yourselves Mount Hor" (34:7), then "to the entrance of Hamath" (34:8), to Hazar Enan (34:9). The east: from Hazar Enan down to "the side of the sea of Chinnereth" (34:11), then "The border shall go down to the Jordan, and end at the Salt Sea" (34:12). It closes, "This shall be your land according to its borders around it" (34:12). This Mount Hor is on the north border, between the great sea and the entrance of Hamath (34:7-8). The Mount Hor where Aaron died was "by the border of the land of Edom" (20:23), and Edom is on this chapter's south side (34:3).

Numbers 34:2→leads toRomans 4:13

"The land of Canaan according to its borders" (34:2) is the land promised to Abraham: "all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession" (Genesis 17:8). Paul writes, "For the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness of faith" (Romans 4:13), and says righteousness is counted "for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead" (Romans 4:24). Paul doesn't cite Numbers 34, so this is a reading. Some read "heir of the world" as the land promise widened, so that the borders drawn here are a first part of a larger inheritance that comes through faith in "him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead" (Romans 4:24); others read Romans 4:13 as speaking of the promise to Abraham as a whole, including "I have made you a father of many nations" (Romans 4:17), and not of these borders, which stay the land given to Israel.

גְּבוּלgevulsay ge-VOOL

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "border, boundary, territory". Strong's: "properly, a cord (as twisted), i.e. (by implication) a boundary; by extension the territory inclosed". It comes 14 times in 34:3-12, 14 of its 29 uses in Numbers. The WEB's "its borders" in 34:2 and 34:12 is a related feminine noun, gevulah (Strong's H1367). Kadesh had been "a city in the edge of your border" (20:16), the border of Edom; now the border is Israel's, and it passes "southward of Kadesh Barnea" (34:4). The first use in the Hebrew Bible is "The border of the Canaanites" (Genesis 10:19). The Law guards it: "You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark" (Deuteronomy 19:14), where "landmark" is this word. Joshua uses it 83 times, as the land is shared out tribe by tribe.