Theme · narrative
Promised Land
God promises Abraham a land flowing with milk and honey — a promise that sustains his descendants through slavery, wilderness, and conquest. Joshua leads Israel across the Jordan into possession, but the land is never fully secured. The prophets warn that unfaithfulness will result in expulsion, and after the exile, return to the land becomes a symbol of restoration. Hebrews reinterprets the land as a type: Abraham himself was looking for a city whose architect and builder is God. The promised land points beyond any earthly territory to the new creation — the eternal inheritance of God's people.
Related doctrines
Passages expressing this theme
- 2Cor 1:20 — For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.
- 2Pet 1:4 — Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
- 2Sam 7:23 — And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy lan
- Deut 1:8 — Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.
- Deut 4:1 — Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth
- Deut 4:5 — Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it.
- Deut 4:40 — Thou shalt keep therefore his statutes, and his commandments, which I command thee this day, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and that thou mayest prolong thy days upon
- Deut 6:3 — Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk
- Deut 7:1 — When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanit
- Deut 8:7 — For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;
- Deut 11:9 — And that ye may prolong your days in the land, which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey.
- Deut 30:20 — That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land wh
- Exod 1:7 — And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.
- Exod 3:8 — And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the
- Exod 13:14 — And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the LORD brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage:
- Exod 23:31 — And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive
- Exod 32:13 — Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken
- Exod 33:1 — And the LORD said unto Moses, Depart, and go up hence, thou and the people which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt, unto the land which I sware unto Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying
- Ezek 20:6 — In the day that I lifted up mine hand unto them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands:
- Ezek 34:13 — And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited
- Ezek 34:25 — And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.
- Ezek 36:24 — For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.
- Ezek 37:21 — And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own l
- Ezek 37:25 — And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children fo
- Gal 3:22 — But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
The Church Fathers on Promised Land
(Vers. 17) Until I come and take you to a land, which is like your own land: a land of wheat and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Later, however, I will come and lead you to a land that is similar to your land, with wheat, wine, and oil. It does not mention the name of the region, because it could not find an…
And she rendered to the just: Gloss: "Of the Israelite people": the reward of their labors: Gloss: "The promised land," which he had previously promised to them: Genesis 12: "To your seed I will give this land." And she led them, namely to the aforesaid land, by a wonderful way: Gloss: "Through the desert": in the…
Since she [Israel] is accessible like a well-watered land to the herds of demons, he [the Lord] promises to treat her as a wilderness.… He will display it to their desires as an austere, untrodden and waterless place, so that finding no resting place they will despise it and depart.
Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there. After receiving the promises of blessing, after entering the land of promise, after building an altar to the Lord there, after invoking His name, Abraham is tested by famine, and such a great famine that he left the land which he had…
I ask whether we should take the land flowing with milk and honey spiritually, since, according to the proper sense, this phrase does not describe the land that was being given to the people of Israel. Or is it a figure of speech that is used to praise the richness and sweetness of the land?
Constantly supporting himself "by faith" through his wanderings, he "sojourned" and lived in the land of promise as in a foreign land, that is, as in a foreign inheritance, "living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise."