“Hook in the jaw": Gog and Magog Alliance Part 2: Israel's Biblical Borders
- Watch and Pray
- Apr 10, 2018
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 29, 2020
The three main aspects of the Abrahamic Covenant: The Land, the Descendants or Seed, and the Blessing are further developed, each leading into an additional, unique covenant. The Land is further expanded into the Land Covenant (Deuteronomy 29:1-30:20), the Seed is developed into the Davidic Covenant (II Samuel 7:11b-16; I Chronicles 17:10b-14), and the Blessing comes through the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34). The main item that has yet to be fulfilled is the Land aspect of the Covenant. There has not been in past history, nor up to the present day, a time when Israel has lived in the Land according to God's expanded boundaries as delineated in Genesis 15:18-21. On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates—the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” Genesis 15:18–21
To ensure that there is no doubt about the land’s boundaries, these Scripture also indicates the different groups of people that occupy it: "...the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.” We know that these peoples lived in what is today Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, part of Asian Turkey, and of course all of Israel, including Gaza and the West Bank.
According to Genesis 15:18, Genesis 17:18 and Joshua 1:4, the land God gave to Israel included everything from the Nile River in Egypt to Lebanon (south to north) and everything from the Mediterranean Sea to the Euphrates River (west to east). So, what land has God stated belongs to Israel? All of the land modern Israel currently possesses, plus all of the land of the Palestinians (the West Bank and Gaza), plus some of Egypt and Syria, plus all of Jordan, plus some of Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Israel currently possesses only a fraction of the land God has promised.
Genesis 15:18: On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates
Genesis 17:18: Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”
Joshua 1:4: From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory.
What are the precise borders of the land promised to Abram’s descendants?
The Lord makes it perfectly clear. Like any modern-day land purchase, the deed indicates the boundaries of the land given: from the Nile river (which is mainly modern Egypt and Sudan) to the Euphrates (modern-day Iraq). Another dimension to the promise: the Lord is giving to Abram's descendants land that is currently occupied by other nations! The question arises of how Israel will acquire this land – will she have to invade and conquer other countries? The text in Genesis 15 offers no indication that Israel will have to fight and conquer; therefore, the logical answer is that the Lord will see that the promise is fulfilled.
The boundaries of the land promised to Abram's descendants is clearly indicated in the Bible, yet we know that Israel has never had control of the full extent of this land. The Lord never said when it will happen, but He does say that it will happen. The boundaries described here are to be fulfilled during the Messianic Kingdom (Luke 1:68-73; Hebrews 6:13-20), a promise that believers can easily grasp, since the Abrahamic Covenant is eternal and unconditional.
South:
From the Red Sea, in the region of Eilat today, to the Sea of the Philistines which would be the Mediterranean Sea near Gaza. This southern line was to a point called the River of Egypt, or the wadi of Egypt (which was certainly not the Nile River) on the Great Sea – another name for the Mediterranean. [Exodus 23:31; Ezekiel 47:19; Genesis 15:18].
The Red Sea and the coast road of the Sinai Peninsula just south of Eilat.
West:
The coastline of the Mediterranean – called, in those days, the Great Sea [Numbers 34:6; Ezekiel 47:20].
Mediterranean coastline - at Caesarea.
North:
From the Great Sea, or Western Sea – other names for the Mediterranean – through what is Lebanon and Syria today to the Euphrates River in the north [Genesis 15:18; Deuteronomy 11:24; Ezekiel 47:17; Joshua 1:4].
The mountains of Lebanon - seen from the Hula Valley in Israel’s north.
East:
From the Euphrates River in the north, extending south, past Damascus, along the slopes on the eastern side of the Sea of Kinnereth, what we know as the Golan Heights today. The Kinnereth is also called the Eastern Sea in Scripture and is what we know as the Sea of Galilee.The Sea of Galilee - the Bible calls this the Sea of Kinnereth or the Eastern Sea.
The Jordan River rises in the mountains of Lebanon and runs south to the Sea of Galilee. At the southern end of the Sea of Galilee the Jordan River flows out and along the Jordan Valley to enter the Dead Sea. The eastern side of the Jordan River, south of the Golan Heights, represents the boundary of the Promised Land [Numbers 34:11-12; Ezekiel 47:18].
A nation born
Four thousand years of history have proven over and over again that The Word of The LORD is true and faithful! What the Almighty God says He means, and He means what He says.
The Battle of God and Magog is a war that is just over our horizon but has been scheduled on God’s prophetic calendar now for over 2500 years. In this war, the Russians, Iranians, Turks, Libyans, and descendants of the Cushite people, will come against Israel. To date, this particular alliance of Nations has never occurred in history. Until now.
I find it amazing that Israel it is in the position that it is located. A tiny country, the modern State of Israel, did not exist and that just a century ago half of the world’s Jewish population was obliterated by the Nazi Holocaust just a generation ago. But today Israel stands strong among the nations.
After the holocaust and the ending of World War II in 1945, 3 years later, after the massacre of 6 million Jews, they became a nation in 14 May 1948. It can only be God. Glory to God. The Jews became a nation recognized by the UN and as a nation the scattered returned after hundreds of years of being misplaced, without a home, persecuted and shun by the rest of the world.
“Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day, or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children. Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the LORD. “Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery?” says your God. “Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her.” Isaiah 66:8-10. The Amplified Bible footnote states the following about Isaiah 66:8 “Never in the history of the world had such a thing happened before—but God keeps His word. As foretold here and in Ezekiel 37:21, 22, Israel became a recognized nation, actually “born in one day.” After being away from their homeland for almost 2,000 years, the Jews were given a national homeland in Palestine by the Balfour Declaration in November 1917. In 1922, the League of Nations gave Great Britain the mandate over Palestine. On May 14, 1948, Great Britain withdrew her mandate, and immediately Israel was declared a sovereign state, and her growth and importance among nations was astonishing..”
Israel stands strong even though they are surrounded by countries that hate them but not only hate them but seeks to wipe Israel out of the world map. Just think about that for a moment. Not only are they surrounded by these countries but the international communities from the UN and EU appeased these nations because of its oil and the so called “Palestine Issue”.
No Historical “Palestinian Land”
Is ‘Palestine’ a historic land? Is it legitimate to use the term ‘Palestine’ for the area we now call Israel? Where did the term come from?
To answer this we first observe that the Hebrews entered the Land of Israel, specifically Canaan, under Joshua c1450 BC (Jos 6). This area was gradually extended by Israel’s kings (Saul, David and Solomon) but still excluded ‘Philistia’ (the land of the Philistines), a narrow coastal strip including Gaza. The Philistines were an Aegean people more closely related to Greeks than to Arabs. Linguistically, the term ‘Palestine’ originated from the Greek word pronounced Palaistina, which is derived from the Hebrew word pronounced pel-eh-sheth, meaning ‘land of the Philistines’. Historically then, the term ‘Palestine’ only applied to the narrow coastal strip of land occupied by the Philistines, and Philistia itself did not survive the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar II c600 BC.
However, that was not the end of the matter and this land definition of Palestine was later expanded by the Romans. In the 2nd century AD, the Romans renamed Judea as ‘Palaestina’ in an attempt, some say, to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. In fact, it is claimed that the Roman Emperor Hadrian began using the term ‘Palestine’ for the whole Land of Israel, and unfortunately this term has prevailed over the centuries. For example, under the Ottoman Empire (1517-1917), the term ‘Palestine’ was used as a general term to describe the land south of Syria, and it was applied to the territory placed under the 1922 British Mandate. But, as already mentioned, according to historian Professor Bernard Lewis, even at the start of the 20th century, “the land was not a country and had no frontiers, only administrative boundaries”.
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