Numbers 34 · a question people ask
Did Israel ever hold all the land inside these borders?
The Bible has statements that sound different, sometimes in the same book. Joshua says, "So the LORD gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers" (Joshua 21:43). Yet earlier in Joshua the LORD says, "there remains yet very much land to be possessed" (Joshua 13:1), naming land as far as "the entrance of Hamath" (Joshua 13:5), one of this chapter's own border marks (34:8). Every reading agrees that both kinds of statement are in the text, and that the LORD had warned, "if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides" (33:55). The main readings below each rest on their verses, and they are not all exclusive of one another.
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The LORD gave it all, as he said
Those who hold this view start from the summary statements. "So the LORD gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers. They possessed it, and lived in it" (Joshua 21:43), and "Nothing failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass" (Joshua 21:45). The Levites' prayer in Nehemiah says God made a covenant with Abraham "to give the land of the Canaanite" and "have performed your words, for you are righteous" (Nehemiah 9:8). On this reading the promise was kept, whatever was left to be driven out afterwards.
Joshua 21:43-45 · Nehemiah 9:8
Given, but not all taken
Those who hold this view start from the lists of what remained. When Joshua was old, "there remains yet very much land to be possessed" (Joshua 13:1), and the LORD still said, "I will drive them out from before the children of Israel" (Joshua 13:6). Judges records that tribes "didn’t drive out" peoples in their land (Judges 1:27), and that the LORD said he would "no longer drive out any of the nations that Joshua left when he died" (Judges 2:21), "that by them I may test Israel" (Judges 2:22), among them "the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon, from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath" (Judges 3:3). On this reading the land was given, and possessing all of it depended on Israel's faithfulness.
Joshua 13:1-7 · Joshua 23:4-5 · Judges 1:27-28 · Judges 2:20-23 · Judges 3:1-4
Reached under Solomon
Those who hold this view point to Solomon's reign. At the temple's dedication "all Israel with him, a great assembly" came "from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of Egypt" (1 Kings 8:65), the north and south marks of this chapter (34:8, 34:5; the same Hebrew names). And "Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the River to the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt" (1 Kings 4:21). On this reading the borders were reached, and more, in Solomon's day.
1 Kings 8:65 · 1 Kings 4:21 · Numbers 34:5 · Numbers 34:8
The verses
“So the LORD gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers. They possessed it, and lived in it. The LORD gave them rest all around, according to all that he swore to their fathers. Not a man of all their enemies stood before them. The LORD delivered all their enemies into their hand. Nothing failed of any good thing which the LORD had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.”
““But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will harass you in the land in which you dwell.”
“From Mount Hor you shall mark out to the entrance of Hamath; and the border shall pass by Zedad.”