Our Mandate is the Bible:
Exploring the Biblical Land Promise
Dr Meg Warner, Principal, Wollaston Theological College
In 1936 David Ben Gurion (later the first Prime Minister of Israel) testified before a British Royal Commission: ‘Our mandate is the Bible’. For Ben-Gurion, the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament) was the founding document of Zionism and of the modern state of Israel, and the divine promises made in it to give the land to the ancient Israelites functioned like a certificate of title.
When Israel was established in 1948, Ben-Gurion held Bible Studies in his home to study the land promise and even called a press conference to which members of the press were invited to bring their Bibles. Today, in the context of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, we hear Israeli politicians arguing essentially the same thing as Ben-Gurion – this land is ours because God gave it to us, and the Bible is proof.
The Old Testament records many promises made by God, at different times and in different contexts, to give ‘the land’ or ‘this land’, or even ‘all these lands’, to the ancient Israelites. At the very beginning of Abraham’s story, God says to him, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’ (Gen 12:7) Throughout Deuteronomy, both God and God’s chosen people refer repeatedly to God’s promise, made by oath to the ancestors, to give (or ‘assign’ or ‘convey’) to them the land.
One thing that we don’t hear from Israeli politicians, or from clergy (most of whom never heard it in theological college), is that the various iterations of the divine land promise differ in their understanding of what is meant by it. In his book, The Land is Mine, Australian Biblical Scholar, Norman Habel, sets out no fewer than six different land ideologies found in the Old Testament. Here I outline just two.
The idea of land ownership behind the promise in Deuteronomy is not unlike our own understanding. When God gives the land to the Israelites, the Israelites come to own the land in a manner similar to how we own land.
The Israelites are entitled to live in and use the land, to build on it, to sell it and, crucially, to exclude others from it. In fact, central to the concept of the divine gift of the land in Deuteronomy is that the Israelites must exclude others from it. Deuteronomy has a special word to describe this form of land possession – nachlah.
Leviticus also has a special word for land possession – ahuzzah – but the concept is very different. For Leviticus, the land always belongs to God. Even when God gives the land to humans, it doesn’t belong to them. What the Israelites get when God ‘gives’ them the land is the right to live in and enjoy it. They are not buying or selling the land itself, but only the right to grow crops on it until the next Jubilee (when the land will revert to those to whom it was initially allotted). Those to whom God gives land in this sense do not have the right to exclude others – they have only the right to live in and enjoy the land – alongside anybody else to whom God sees fit to ‘give’ it. For Leviticus, the Israelites should not think of themselves as owners of the land, but as ‘aliens and tenants’ in it. (Lev 25:23)
Many of the instances of the land promise in Genesis reflect this latter understanding of the divine land gift, and Abraham and his family are exhorted to live in the land that God promises to give them as aliens. As a result, Abraham’s story is different from later stories. His challenge is not to exclude, or keep separate from, other peoples. His challenge is to be a neighbour. Genesis recognises that being a neighbour is difficult and leads to tensions that can become violent. Genesis tells stories about how these tensions arise, and how they should be managed. For example, Genesis 12:10 – 13:18; 20 – 21:34 and 26 is a series of three developing stories. In the first, even family members are unable to live together. In the second, different nations are able to share land on the basis of a non-aggression treaty. In the third, different nations are able to agree a peace treaty. But this third story is paired with a story of extreme violence. In Genesis 34 the consequences of failure to reach peaceful agreement are starkly laid out. Genesis is not naive. It understands well the extreme challenges of ahuzzah.
We know which biblical passages Ben-Gurion chose for his home Bible Studies because he published a book about them. They all came from Deuteronomy or other Deuteronomic books. None of them came from Leviticus, or from the parts of Genesis that illustrate Leviticus’ principle of ahuzzah. We, too, have privileged Deuteronomy’s vision of the divine land gift and de-privileged Leviticus’ vision – even to the extent that we don’t know about it. What might the challenges in Israel now look like if Ben-Gurion and his followers had read from both parts of the Torah? What might our challenges in Australia now look like if we followed God’s instruction to Abraham’s family, and to the ancient Israelites, to live in their land as aliens and tenants?