Psalm 60:6

Psalm 60:6

Setting the boundaries

The next few verses of this Psalm are geographic – they show us the extent of the land of Israel under David, and they are also prophetic in that he is writing here about the victories that are to come and he claims that it is God who has spoken and told him where the boundaries of the Promised Land will lie. 

Let’s have the geography lesson first. The area between Mount Gerazim and Mount Ebal in Samaria housed a famous Biblical city called Shechem. Later it became Sychar and it was at Sychar that Yeshua spoke to the Samaritan woman. John 4.  

·      This is the place where Abraham first camped when he arrived in Canaan from Babylon

·      This is where God first promised to give Abraham and his descendants the Promised Land

·      This is where the first altar was built to the Lord God in Israel

·      This is where Jacob came with his wives and children when he returned to Canaan after years away with his uncle Laban. Jacob bought land here and settled and dug a well.

·      This plot of land was latter given by Jacob to his son Joseph and it was where Joseph was buried when his bones were brought from Egypt by the Israelites.

·      Many years later Joshua made a Covenant here on behalf of the people who were assembled to devote themselves to the Lord God. Read Joshua 24.

No wonder that John 4 tells us that Yeshua had to go there! Sadly, most Jews did not, they considered the Samaritans as low-life, treacherous and impure – for many reasons!

The Valley of Succoth was, at the time of Christ, the by-pass. It was the alternative way of travelling north and avoiding Samaria. Most Jewish people going north crossed the River Jordan and travelled east of it in the Valley of Succoth – the Jordan Valley. 

These verses in the Psalm challenge me. David had a clear vision from God of the nature of the task, the boundaries of the land and what must be taken. These regions needed to be conquered so that the Israelites might be stablished in the Land of Promise. I ask myself, are we, as God’s people, bent on conquest or have we just dug in to await the trumpet call of Christ or the encroachments of the enemy?

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