Exodus 3:8

3:8 I have come down ¹  to deliver them ²  from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a land that is both good and spacious, ³  to a land flowing with milk and honey, ⁴  to the region of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. ⁵ 

Exodus 13:5

13:5 When ⁶  the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, ⁷  then you will keep ⁸  this ceremony ⁹  in this month.

Leviticus 20:24

20:24 So I have said to you: You yourselves will possess their land and I myself will give it to you for a possession, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God who has set you apart from the other peoples. ¹⁰ 

Numbers 13:27

13:27 They told Moses, ¹¹  “We went to the land where you sent us. ¹²  It is indeed flowing with milk and honey, ¹³  and this is its fruit.

Numbers 14:8

14:8 If the Lord delights in us, then he will bring us into this land and give it to us – a land that is flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁴ 

Numbers 16:13

16:13 Is it a small thing ¹⁵  that you have brought us up out of the land that flows with milk and honey, ¹⁶  to kill us in the wilderness? Now do you want to make yourself a prince ¹⁷  over us?

Joshua 5:6

5:6 Indeed, for forty years the Israelites traveled through the desert until all the men old enough to fight when they left Egypt, the ones who had disobeyed the Lord, died off. ¹⁸  For the Lord had sworn a solemn oath to them that he would not let them see the land he had sworn on oath to give them, ¹⁹  a land rich in ²⁰  milk and honey.

Jeremiah 11:5

11:5 Then I will keep the promise I swore on oath to your ancestors to give them a land flowing with milk and honey.” ²¹  That is the very land that you still live in today.’” ²²  And I responded, “Amen! Let it be so, ²³  Lord!”

[3:8]  ¹ sn God’s coming down is a frequent anthropomorphism in Genesis and Exodus. It expresses his direct involvement, often in the exercise of judgment.

[3:8]  ² tn The Hiphil infinitive with the suffix is לְהַצִּילוֹ (lÿhatsilo, “to deliver them”). It expresses the purpose of God’s coming down. The verb itself is used for delivering or rescuing in the general sense, and snatching out of danger for the specific.

[3:8]  ³ tn Heb “to a land good and large”; NRSV “to a good and broad land.” In the translation the words “that is both” are supplied because in contemporary English “good and” combined with any additional descriptive term can be understood as elative (“good and large” = “very large”; “good and spacious” = “very spacious”; “good and ready” = “very ready”). The point made in the Hebrew text is that the land to which they are going is both good (in terms of quality) and large (in terms of size).

[3:8]  ⁴ tn This vibrant description of the promised land is a familiar one. Gesenius classifies “milk and honey” as epexegetical genitives because they provide more precise description following a verbal adjective in the construct state (GKC 418-19 §128.x). The land is modified by “flowing,” and “flowing” is explained by the genitives “milk and honey.” These two products will be in abundance in the land, and they therefore exemplify what a desirable land it is. The language is hyperbolic, as if the land were streaming with these products.

[3:8]  ⁵ tn Each people group is joined to the preceding by the vav conjunction, “and.” Each also has the definite article, as in other similar lists (3:17; 13:5; 34:11). To repeat the conjunction and article in the translation seems to put more weight on the list in English than is necessary to its function in identifying what land God was giving the Israelites.

[13:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “and it will be when.”

[13:5]  ⁷ tn See notes on Exod 3:8.

[13:5]  ⁸ tn The verb is וְעָבַדְתָּ (vÿ’avadta), the Qal perfect with a vav (ו) consecutive. It is the equivalent of the imperfect tense of instruction or injunction; it forms the main point after the temporal clause – “when Yahweh brings you out…then you will serve.”

[13:5]  ⁹ tn The object is a cognate accusative for emphasis on the meaning of the service – “you will serve this service.” W. C. Kaiser notes how this noun was translated “slavery” and “work” in the book, but “service” or “ceremony” for Yahweh. Israel was saved from slavery to Egypt into service for God as remembered by this ceremony (“Exodus,” EBC 2:383).

[20:24]  ¹⁰ tc Here and with the same phrase in v. 26, the LXX adds “all,” resulting in the reading “all the peoples.”

[13:27]  ¹¹ tn Heb “told him and said.” The referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:27]  ¹² tn The relative clause modifies “the land.” It is constructed with the relative and the verb: “where you sent us.”

[13:27]  ¹³ sn This is the common expression for the material abundance of the land (see further, F. C. Fensham, “An Ancient Tradition of the Fertility of Palestine,” PEQ 98 [1966]: 166-67).

[14:8]  ¹⁴ tn The subjective genitives “milk and honey” are symbols of the wealth of the land, second only to bread. Milk was a sign of such abundance (Gen 49:12; Isa 7:21,22). Because of the climate the milk would thicken quickly and become curds, eaten with bread or turned into butter. The honey mentioned here is the wild honey (see Deut 32:13; Judg 14:8-9). It signified sweetness, or the finer things of life (Ezek 3:3).

[16:13]  ¹⁵ tn The question is rhetorical. It was not a small thing to them – it was a big thing.

[16:13]  ¹⁶ tn The modern scholar who merely sees these words as belonging to an earlier tradition about going up to the land of Canaan that flows with milk and honey misses the irony here. What is happening is that the text is showing how twisted the thinking of the rebels is. They have turned things completely around. Egypt was the land flowing with milk and honey, not Canaan where they will die. The words of rebellion are seldom original, and always twisted.

[16:13]  ¹⁷ tn The verb הִשְׂתָּרֵר (histarer) is the Hitpael infinitive absolute that emphasizes the preceding תִשְׂתָּרֵר (tistarer), the Hitpael imperfect tense (both forms having metathesis). The verb means “to rule; to act like a prince; to make oneself a prince.” This is the only occurrence of the reflexive for this verb. The exact nuance is difficult to translate into English. But they are accusing Moses of seizing princely power for himself, perhaps making a sarcastic reference to his former status in Egypt. The rebels here are telling Moses that they had discerned his scheme, and so he could not “hoodwink” them (cf. NEB).

[5:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “all the nation, the men of war who went out from Egypt, who did not listen to the voice of the Lord, came to an end.”

[5:6]  ¹⁹ tn Some Hebrew mss, as well as the Syriac version, support this reading. Most ancient witnesses read “us.”

[5:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “flowing with.”

[11:5]  ²¹ tn The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey” is very familiar to readers in the Jewish and Christian traditions as a proverbial description of the agricultural and pastoral abundance of the land of Israel. However, it may not mean too much to readers outside those traditions; an equivalent expression would be “a land of fertile fields and fine pastures.” E. W. Bullinger (Figures of Speech, 626) identifies this as a figure of speech called synecdoche where the species is put for the genus, “a region…abounding with pasture and fruits of all kinds.”

[11:5]  ²² tn Heb “‘a land flowing with milk and honey,’ as at this day.” However, the literal reading is too elliptical and would lead to confusion.

[11:5]  ²³ tn The words “Let it be so” are not in the text; they are an explanation of the significance of the term “Amen” for those who may not be part of the Christian or Jewish tradition.