Genesis 12:7

12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants ¹  I will give this land.” So Abram ²  built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

Genesis 15:18

15:18 That day the Lord made a covenant ³  with Abram: “To your descendants I give ⁴  this land, from the river of Egypt ⁵  to the great river, the Euphrates River –

Genesis 17:7-8

17:7 I will confirm ⁶  my covenant as a perpetual ⁷  covenant between me and you. It will extend to your descendants after you throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ⁸  17:8 I will give the whole land of Canaan – the land where you are now residing ⁹  – to you and your descendants after you as a permanent ¹⁰  possession. I will be their God.”

Genesis 18:18

18:18 After all, Abraham ¹¹  will surely become ¹²  a great and powerful nation, and all the nations on the earth will pronounce blessings on one another ¹³  using his name.

Genesis 24:7

24:7 “The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and the land of my relatives, ¹⁴  promised me with a solemn oath, ¹⁵  ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ He will send his angel ¹⁶  before you so that you may find ¹⁷  a wife for my son from there.

Genesis 26:3-4

26:3 Stay ¹⁸  in this land. Then I will be with you and will bless you, ¹⁹  for I will give all these lands to you and to your descendants, ²⁰  and I will fulfill ²¹  the solemn promise I made ²²  to your father Abraham. 26:4 I will multiply your descendants so they will be as numerous as the stars in the sky, and I will give them ²³  all these lands. All the nations of the earth will pronounce blessings on one another using the name of your descendants. ²⁴ 

Genesis 28:4

28:4 May he give you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham ²⁵  so that you may possess the land ²⁶  God gave to Abraham, the land where you have been living as a temporary resident.” ²⁷ 

Genesis 28:13

28:13 and the Lord stood at its top. He said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac. ²⁸  I will give you and your descendants the ground ²⁹  you are lying on.

Genesis 35:12

35:12 The land I gave ³⁰  to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you. To your descendants ³¹  I will also give this land.”

Genesis 48:4

48:4 He said to me, ‘I am going to make you fruitful ³²  and will multiply you. ³³  I will make you into a group of nations, and I will give this land to your descendants ³⁴  as an everlasting possession.’ ³⁵ 

Exodus 33:1

33:1 The Lord said to Moses, “Go up ³⁶  from here, you and the people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land I promised on oath ³⁷  to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ ³⁸ 

Numbers 34:2

34:2 “Give these instructions ³⁹  to the Israelites, and tell them: ‘When you enter Canaan, the land that has been assigned to you as an inheritance, ⁴⁰  the land of Canaan with its borders,

Numbers 34:12-29

34:12 Then the border will continue down the Jordan River ⁴¹  and its direction will be to the Salt Sea. This will be your land by its borders that surround it.’”

34:13 Then Moses commanded the Israelites: “This is the land which you will inherit by lot, which the Lord has commanded to be given ⁴²  to the nine and a half tribes, 34:14 because the tribe of the Reubenites by their families, ⁴³  the tribe of the Gadites by their families, and half of the tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance. 34:15 The two and a half tribes have received their inheritance on this side of the Jordan, east of Jericho, ⁴⁴  toward the sunrise.”

Appointed Officials

34:16 The Lord said to Moses: 34:17 “These are the names of the men who are to allocate the land to you as an inheritance: ⁴⁵  Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun. 34:18 You must take one leader from every ⁴⁶  tribe to assist in allocating the land as an inheritance. ⁴⁷  34:19 These are the names of the men: from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; 34:20 from the tribe of the Simeonites, Shemuel son of Ammihud; 34:21 from the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad son of Kislon; 34:22 and from the tribe of the Danites, a leader, Bukki son of Jogli. 34:23 From the Josephites, Hanniel son of Ephod, a leader from the tribe of Manasseh; 34:24 from the tribe of the Ephraimites, a leader, Kemuel son of Shiphtan; 34:25 from the tribe of the Zebulunites, a leader, Elizaphan son of Parnach; 34:26 from the tribe of the Issacharites, a leader, Paltiel son of Azzan; 34:27 from the tribe of the Asherites, a leader, Ahihud son of Shelomi; 34:28 and from the tribe of the Naphtalites, a leader, Pedahel son of Ammihud.” 34:29 These are the ones whom the Lord commanded to divide up the inheritance among the Israelites in the land of Canaan.

Deuteronomy 26:2-4

26:2 you must take the first of all the ground’s produce you harvest from the land the Lord your God is giving you, place it in a basket, and go to the place where he ⁴⁸  chooses to locate his name. ⁴⁹  26:3 You must go to the priest in office at that time and say to him, “I declare today to the Lord your ⁵⁰  God that I have come into the land that the Lord ⁵¹  promised ⁵²  to our ancestors ⁵³  to give us.” 26:4 The priest will then take the basket from you ⁵⁴  and set it before the altar of the Lord your God.

Deuteronomy 34:4

34:4 Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ ⁵⁵  I have let you see it, ⁵⁶  but you will not cross over there.”

Deuteronomy 34:2

34:2 and all of Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the distant ⁵⁷  sea,

Deuteronomy 20:7

20:7 Or who among you ⁵⁸  has become engaged to a woman but has not married her? He may go home, lest he die in battle and someone else marry her.”

Nehemiah 9:7-8

9:7 “You are the LORD God who chose Abram and brought him forth from Ur of the Chaldeans. You changed his name to Abraham. 9:8 When you perceived that his heart was faithful toward you, you established a ⁵⁹  covenant with him to give his descendants ⁶⁰  the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites. You have fulfilled your promise, ⁶¹  for you are righteous.

Psalms 37:22

37:22 Surely ⁶²  those favored by the Lord ⁶³  will possess the land,

but those rejected ⁶⁴  by him will be wiped out. ⁶⁵ 

Psalms 37:29

37:29 The godly will possess the land

and will dwell in it permanently.

Psalms 105:9-12

105:9 the promise ⁶⁶  he made to Abraham,

the promise he made by oath to Isaac!

105:10 He gave it to Jacob as a decree,

to Israel as a lasting promise, ⁶⁷ 

105:11 saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan

as the portion of your inheritance.”

105:12 When they were few in number,

just a very few, and resident aliens within it,

Psalms 112:1-2

Psalm 112 ⁶⁸ 

112:1 Praise the Lord!

How blessed is the one ⁶⁹  who obeys ⁷⁰  the Lord,

who takes great delight in keeping his commands. ⁷¹ 

112:2 His descendants ⁷²  will be powerful on the earth;

the godly ⁷³  will be blessed.

Isaiah 63:18

63:18 For a short time your special ⁷⁴  nation possessed a land, ⁷⁵ 

but then our adversaries knocked down ⁷⁶  your holy sanctuary.

Matthew 5:5

5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Acts 7:5

7:5 He ⁷⁷  did not give any of it to him for an inheritance, ⁷⁸  not even a foot of ground, ⁷⁹  yet God ⁸⁰  promised to give it to him as his possession, and to his descendants after him, ⁸¹  even though Abraham ⁸²  as yet had no child.

[12:7]  ¹ tn The same Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.

[12:7]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Abram) has been supplied in the translation for clarification.

[15:18]  ³ tn Heb “cut a covenant.”

[15:18]  ⁴ tn The perfect verbal form is understood as instantaneous (“I here and now give”). Another option is to understand it as rhetorical, indicating certitude (“I have given” meaning it is as good as done, i.e., “I will surely give”).

[15:18]  ⁵ sn The river of Egypt is a wadi (a seasonal stream) on the northeastern border of Egypt, not to the River Nile.

[17:7]  ⁶ tn The verb קוּם (qum, “to arise, to stand up”) in the Hiphil verbal stem means “to confirm, to give effect to, to carry out” (i.e., a covenant or oath; see BDB 878-79 s.v. קוּם).

[17:7]  ⁷ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[17:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “to be to you for God and to your descendants after you.”

[17:8]  ⁹ tn The verbal root is גּוּר (gur, “to sojourn, to reside temporarily,” i.e., as a resident alien). It is the land in which Abram resides, but does not yet possess as his very own.

[17:8]  ¹⁰ tn Or “as an eternal.”

[18:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And Abraham.” The disjunctive clause is probably causal, giving a reason why God should not hide his intentions from Abraham. One could translate, “Should I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation?”

[18:18]  ¹² tn The infinitive absolute lends emphasis to the finite verb that follows.

[18:18]  ¹³ tn Theoretically the Niphal can be translated either as passive or reflexive/reciprocal. (The Niphal of “bless” is only used in formulations of the Abrahamic covenant. See Gen 12:2; 18:18; 28:14.) Traditionally the verb is taken as passive here, as if Abram were going to be a channel or source of blessing. But in later formulations of the Abrahamic covenant (see Gen 22:18; 26:4) the Hitpael replaces this Niphal form, suggesting a translation “will bless [i.e., “pronounce blessings upon”] themselves [or “one another”].” The Hitpael of “bless” is used with a reflexive/reciprocal sense in Deut 29:18; Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2. Gen 18:18 (like 12:2) predicts that Abraham will be held up as a paradigm of divine blessing and that people will use his name in their blessing formulae. For examples of blessing formulae utilizing an individual as an example of blessing see Gen 48:20 and Ruth 4:11.

[24:7]  ¹⁴ tn Or “the land of my birth.”

[24:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and who spoke to me and who swore to me, saying.”

[24:7]  ¹⁶ tn Or “his messenger.”

[24:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “before you and you will take.”

[26:3]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew verb גּוּר (gur) means “to live temporarily without ownership of land.” Abraham’s family will not actually possess the land of Canaan until the Israelite conquest hundreds of years later.

[26:3]  ¹⁹ tn After the imperative “stay” the two prefixed verb forms with prefixed conjunction here indicate consequence.

[26:3]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew term זֶרַע (zera’) occurring here and in v. 18 may mean “seed” (for planting), “offspring” (occasionally of animals, but usually of people), or “descendants” depending on the context.

[26:3]  ²¹ tn The Hiphil stem of the verb קוּם (qum) here means “to fulfill, to bring to realization.” For other examples of this use of this verb form, see Lev 26:9; Num 23:19; Deut 8:18; 9:5; 1 Sam 1:23; 1 Kgs 6:12; Jer 11:5.

[26:3]  ²² tn Heb “the oath which I swore.”

[26:4]  ²³ tn Heb “your descendants.”

[26:4]  ²⁴ tn Traditionally the verb is taken as passive (“will be blessed”) here, as if Abraham’s descendants were going to be a channel or source of blessing to the nations. But the Hitpael is better understood here as reflexive/reciprocal, “will bless [i.e., pronounce blessings on] themselves/one another” (see also Gen 22:18). Elsewhere the Hitpael of the verb “to bless” is used with a reflexive/reciprocal sense in Deut 29:18; Ps 72:17; Isa 65:16; Jer 4:2. Gen 12:2 predicts that Abram will be held up as a paradigm of divine blessing and that people will use his name in their blessing formulae. For examples of blessing formulae utilizing an individual as an example of blessing see Gen 48:20 and Ruth 4:11. Earlier formulations of this promise (see Gen 12:2; 18:18) use the Niphal stem. (See also Gen 28:14.)

[28:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and may he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you.” The name “Abraham” is an objective genitive here; this refers to the blessing that God gave to Abraham.

[28:4]  ²⁶ tn The words “the land” have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[28:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the land of your sojournings,” that is, the land where Jacob had been living as a resident alien, as his future descendants would after him.

[28:13]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.” The Hebrew word for “father” can typically be used in a broader sense than the English word, in this case referring to Abraham (who was Jacob’s grandfather). For stylistic reasons and for clarity, the words “your father” are supplied with “Isaac” in the translation.

[28:13]  ²⁹ tn The Hebrew term אֶרֶץ (’erets) can mean “[the] earth,” “land,” “region,” “piece of ground,” or “ground” depending on the context. Here the term specifically refers to the plot of ground on which Jacob was lying, but at the same time this stands by metonymy for the entire land of Canaan.

[35:12]  ³⁰ tn The Hebrew verb translated “gave” refers to the Abrahamic promise of the land. However, the actual possession of that land lay in the future. The decree of the Lord made it certain; but it has the sense “promised to give.”

[35:12]  ³¹ tn Heb “and to your offspring after you.”

[48:4]  ³² tn Heb “Look, I am making you fruitful.” The participle following הִנֵּה (hinneh) has the nuance of a certain and often imminent future.

[48:4]  ³³ tn The perfect verbal form with vav consecutive carries on the certain future idea.

[48:4]  ³⁴ tn The Hebrew text adds “after you,” which has not been included in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[48:4]  ³⁵ tn The Hebrew word אֲחֻזָּה (’akhuzzah), translated “possession,” describes a permanent holding in the land. It is the noun form of the same verb (אָחַז, ’akhaz) that was used for the land given to them in Goshen (Gen 47:27).

[33:1]  ³⁶ tn The two imperatives underscore the immediacy of the demand: “go, go up,” meaning “get going up” or “be on your way.”

[33:1]  ³⁷ tn Or “the land which I swore.”

[33:1]  ³⁸ tn Heb “seed.”

[34:2]  ³⁹ tn Or “command.”

[34:2]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “this is the land that will fall to you as an inheritance.”

[34:12]  ⁴¹ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[34:13]  ⁴² tn The infinitive forms the direct object of what the Lord commanded. It actually means “to give,” but without an expressed subject may be made passive.

[34:14]  ⁴³ tn Heb “the house of their fathers.” So also a little later in this verse.

[34:15]  ⁴⁴ map For the location of Jericho see Map5 B2; Map6 E1; Map7 E1; Map8 E3; Map10 A2; Map11 A1.

[34:17]  ⁴⁵ tn The verb can be translated simply as “divide,” but it has more the idea of allocate as an inheritance, the related noun being “inheritance.”

[34:18]  ⁴⁶ tn This sense is created by repetition: “one leader, one leader from the tribe.”

[34:18]  ⁴⁷ tn The sentence simply uses לִנְחֹל (linkhol, “to divide, apportion”). It has been taken already to mean “allocate as an inheritance.” Here “assist” may be added since Joshua and Eleazar had the primary work.

[26:2]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[26:2]  ⁴⁹ sn The place where he chooses to locate his name. This is a circumlocution for the central sanctuary, first the tabernacle and later the Jerusalem temple. See Deut 12:1-14 and especially the note on the word “you” in v. 14.

[26:3]  ⁵⁰ tc For the MT reading “your God,” certain LXX mss have “my God,” a contextually superior rendition followed by some English versions (e.g., NAB, NASB, TEV). Perhaps the text reflects dittography of the kaf (כ) at the end of the word with the following preposition כִּי (ki).

[26:3]  ⁵¹ tc The Syriac adds “your God” to complete the usual formula.

[26:3]  ⁵² tn Heb “swore on oath.”

[26:3]  ⁵³ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 7, 15).

[26:4]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “your hand.”

[34:4]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).

[34:4]  ⁵⁶ tn The Hebrew text includes “with your eyes,” but this is redundant in English and is left untranslated.

[34:2]  ⁵⁷ tn Or “western” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV); Heb “latter,” a reference to the Mediterranean Sea (cf. NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[20:7]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “Who [is] the man.”

[9:8]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “the” (so NAB).

[9:8]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “seed.”

[9:8]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “your words.”

[37:22]  ⁶² tn The particle כִּי is best understood as asseverative or emphatic here.

[37:22]  ⁶³ tn Heb “those blessed by him.” The pronoun “him” must refer to the Lord (see vv. 20, 23), so the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[37:22]  ⁶⁴ tn Heb “cursed.”

[37:22]  ⁶⁵ tn Or “cut off”; or “removed” (see v. 9).

[105:9]  ⁶⁶ tn Heb “which.”

[105:10]  ⁶⁷ tn Or “eternal covenant.”

[112:1]  ⁶⁸ sn Psalm 112. This wisdom psalm lists some of the benefits of living a godly life. The psalm is an acrostic. After the introductory call to praise, every poetic line (twenty-two in all) begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

[112:1]  ⁶⁹ tn Heb “[Oh] the happiness [of] the man.” Hebrew wisdom literature often assumes and reflects the male-oriented perspective of ancient Israelite society. The individual is representative of a larger group, called the “godly” in vv. 3-4. The principle of the psalm is certainly applicable to all people, regardless of their gender. To facilitate modern application, we translate the gender specific “man” with the more neutral “one.” The generic masculine pronoun is used in the following verses.

[112:1]  ⁷⁰ tn Heb “fears.”

[112:1]  ⁷¹ tn Heb “in his commands he delights very much.” The words “in keeping” are supplied in the translation for clarification. Taking delight in the law is metonymic here for obeying God’s moral will. See Ps 1:2.

[112:2]  ⁷² tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

[112:2]  ⁷³ tn Heb “His seed will be mighty on the earth, the generation of the godly.” The Hebrew term דוֹר (dor, “generation”) could be taken as parallel to “offspring” and translated “posterity,” but the singular more likely refers to the godly as a class. See BDB 189-90 s.v. for other examples where “generation” refers to a class of people.

[63:18]  ⁷⁴ tn Or “holy” (ASV, NASB, NRSV, TEV, NLT).

[63:18]  ⁷⁵ tn Heb “for a short time they had a possession, the people of your holiness.”

[63:18]  ⁷⁶ tn Heb “your adversaries trampled on.”

[7:5]  ⁷⁷ tn Grk “And he.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:5]  ⁷⁸ tn Grk “He did not give him an inheritance in it.” This could be understood to mean that God did not give something else to Abraham as an inheritance while he was living there. The point of the text is that God did not give any of the land to him as an inheritance, and the translation makes this clear.

[7:5]  ⁷⁹ tn Grk “a step of a foot” (cf. Deut 2:5).

[7:5]  ⁸⁰ tn Grk “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:5]  ⁸¹ sn An allusion to Gen 12:7; 13:15; 15:2, 18; 17:8; 24:7; 48:4. On the theological importance of the promise and to his descendants after him, see Rom 4 and Gal 3.

[7:5]  ⁸² tn Grk “he”; the referent (Abraham) has been specified in the translation for clarity.