By Kevin Gyllenberg
What was the land that was promised?
Genesis:17:8: And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.
You find it was from the river Euphrates, to the river of Egypt.
Now what was the "river of Egypt"?
Well, the expression used there is unique. It's not found anywhere else in the bible. It is not the usual word for the Nile. The usual word for the Nile is " יְאֹר מִצְרַיִם "
It's not that, it was the word " נְּהַר מִצְרַיִם ".
Now, if it wasn't the Nile, or the pelusiac, the eastern most branch of the Nile delta. Was it the Wadi El-Arish? It is important because Sinai is included by the one and excluded by the other. There is a seasonal water coarse called the Wadi El-Arish in arabic. The "brook of Egypt" in the bible was " נַחַל מִצְרָיִם ". But it wasn't that word either. So from the scriptures, we are not really sure.
From there to the Euphrates. That's the north-south boundary.
What's the east-west boundary? That's natural. The Eastern boundary is the desert, and the western boundary is the sea, the Mediterranean.
And this land was promised.
Now we find that there are two sides to the Abrahamic covenant.
There is a spiritual side and there is a geopolitical side.
The spiritual side, was that Abraham believed the Lord and it was imputed or counted to him as righteousness.
The geopolitical side, was that his descendants, who would receive the sign of circumcision in their body, would inherit a particular land.
So we have a spiritual covenant, for his spiritual seed, and in Galatians chapter three we are told that we are seed of Abraham.
Those who have believed on the Lord Yeshua HaMashiach, We who accept Messiah's righteousness as ours and his sacrifice for our sins, are the spiritual children of Abraham, We too are justified by faith.
But, there is another side to the Abrahamic covenant. And it still holds good, and that is the side for his physical descendants in a physical land, the land of Israel.