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Numbers 34

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1 And the Lord said to Moses,

2 Give orders to the children of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land of Canaan; (this is the land which is to be your heritage, the land of Canaan inside these limits,)

3 Then your south quarter will be from the waste land of Zin by the side of Edom, and your limit on the south will be from the east end of the Salt Sea,

4 And round to the south of the slope of Akrabbim, and on to Zin: and its direction will be south of Kadesh-barnea, and it will go as far as Hazar-addar and on to Azmon:

5 And from Azmon it will go round to the stream of Egypt as far as the sea.

6 And for your limit on the west you will have the Great Sea and its edge: this will be your limit on the west.

7 And your limit on the north will be the line from the Great Sea to Mount Hor:

8 And from Mount Hor the line will go in the direction of Hamath; the farthest point of it will be at Zedad:

9 And the limit will go on to Ziphron, with its farthest point at Hazar-enan: this will be your limit on the north.

10 And on the east, your limit will be marked out from Hazar-enan to Shepham,

11 Going down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain, and on as far as the east side of the sea of Chinnereth:

12 And so down to Jordan, stretching to the Salt Sea: all the land inside these limits will be yours.

13 And Moses gave orders to the children of Israel saying, This is the land which is to be your heritage, by the decision of the Lord, which by the Lord's order is to be given to the nine tribes and the half-tribe:

14 For the tribe of the children of Reuben, by their fathers' families, and the tribe of the children of Gad, by their fathers' families, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, have been given their heritage:

15 The two tribes and the half-tribe have been given their heritage on the other side of Jordan at Jericho, on the east looking to the dawn.

16 And the Lord said to Moses,

17 These are the names of the men who are to make the distribution of the land among you: Eleazar the priest and Joshua, the son of Nun.

18 And you are to take one chief from every tribe to make the distribution of the land.

19 And these are the names of the men: of the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.

20 And of the tribe of the children of Simeon, Shemuel, the son of Ammihud.

21 Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad, the son of Chislon.

22 And of the tribe of the children of Dan, a chief, Bukki, the son of Jogli.

23 Of the children of Joseph: of the tribe of the children of Manasseh, a chief, Hanniel, the son of Ephod:

24 And of the tribe of the children of Ephraim, a chief, Kemuel, the son of Shiphtan.

25 And of the tribe of the children of Zebulun, a chief, Elizaphan, the son of Parnach.

26 And of the tribe of the children of Issachar, a chief, Paltiel, the son of Azzan.

27 And of the tribe of the children of Asher, a chief, Ahihud, the son of Shelomi.

28 And of the tribe of the children of Naphtali, a chief, Pedahel, the son of Ammihud.

29 These are they to whom the Lord gave orders to make the distribution of the heritage among the children of Israel in the land of Canaan.

   

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Jordan (the river)

  
Joshua passing the River Jordan with the Ark of the Covenant, by Benjamin West

The river Jordan separates the land of Canaan from the lands to the east. This separation represents the division of the human mind into an internal part and an external part, and it is the internal mind where the church is formed in a person. The river is also limited by two lakes in the north, Merom and Galilee, and the Dead Sea in the south. Inside these limits are the interior things of the mind, and outside are the exterior things. The countries outside, as they are mentioned in the Bible, can be helpful. They represent basic knowledge, reasoning ability, rationality, curiosity, and other qualities that, as friends, can support our religious beliefs, or as enemies can argue against them or conjure up false gods for us to worship. The land inside represents a regenerating state, or it can represent the ultimate end of that state, which is heaven. From outside, then, the Jordan is the entrance to something better, the goal of the journey, and its waters represent the mental washing of repentance, which is the first thing of the church, which is why John baptized there, and Naaman washed there. From the inside the Jordan is the edge of what is outside the church, and for this reason the Children of Israel were so often troubled by those nations outside: the Midianites, the Ammonites, the Syrians, Egypt, and Babylon, and the other nations we read about in the Books of Judges and Kings, and in the Prophets. The mental abilities of our external minds can work for what is good, but they can also work for what is bad.