2:8 - So we went on past our brothers the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. We turned from the Arabah road, which comes up from Elath and Ezion Geber, and traveled along the desert road of Moab.
The account progresses quickly and closes with the simple report that, as they were commanded, so Israel went on past the Edomites. The pace of this recall, however, should not distract us from two important theological affirmations it assumes. In the categorical assertion that Yahweh has given the land to the descendant of Esau for a possession, it affirms the sovereignty of Yahweh as Lord of History, plenipotentiary not just of Israel, but also of the nations. Israel would be given her land in time, but it is not Edom.
Also thus affirmed in this prohibition is that, though the land is one of God's great gifts to Israel, it is not the gift that defines her as God's elect people, for God gives land also to other people. This is particularly evident in the language used to describe the gift of land by Yahweh to the Edomites, the Moabites, and the Ammonites; they are identical to the language used about Yahweh's gift of the land to Israel. The gift of turf has no salvific significance as such. In highlighting this point, the narrator is simply rephrasing Moses' own understanding of the significance of the land expressed so clearly when he returned to plea mercy with Yahweh after the incident of the golden calf (Exo.32-33). In response, Yahweh had instructed him to take the people up to the land He had promised to them. Yahweh even promised to send his angel ahead to drive out the inhabitants, but he would not go with them (Exo.33:1-3). Moses' bold rejoinder to Yahweh puts the point in sharp focus: "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" (33:15-16).
What distinguishes Israel from the nations is her election by Yahweh, an election made concrete and evident by His presence with her, a presence that radically shapes how Israel can live and must behave, a relationship expressed in the endowment of the torah, and evidenced in her obedience, a point that Moses would take up in the next section. This means that the gift of land, and the need for security, is not to be confused with a mandate for imperialistic tyranny, nor the blessing of election a license for greedy exploitation. It is easy to forget these truths. The senseless decimation of native peoples—the Amerindians of North America, the Incas and Mayas of Central-South America, the Guanche of the Canary Islands—and the attendant plunder "for country, king/queen, and God" by Christian colonialists testify to the tragedy that ensues where this confusion reigns. And it reigns still among those who claim the inalienable right to the land in the modern state of Israel, indifferent in the process to the horrendous injustice done to the Palestinians, on the grounds that the land was "promised forever" to Israel by God, as well as in the unrighteous misappropriation of biblical language to manipulate public opinions to justify questionable national policies or adventures in ethnic cleansing.1
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, rev., 2021