Getting the Lay of the Land

There is a reason so much of the Bible story is tied to a small strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian desert. Geography matters. When we understand the lay of the land, the Bible opens up in ways it simply cannot when we are reading about places we cannot picture.

The Land God Chose

Israel sits at a crossroads. To the west, the Mediterranean. To the east, the desert. To the north and south, the great trade routes of the ancient world — the Way of the Sea along the coast, the ridge road through the mountains, and the King's Highway along the Trans-Jordan plateau. Every empire that ever rose in that part of the world had to deal with Israel one way or another. I suspect God chose that spot for exactly that reason.

The land itself divides naturally into four parallel zones running from the coast inland: the coastal plains, the hill country, the Jordan Valley, and the Trans-Jordan plateau. The Jordan River connects the Sea of Galilee in the north to the Dead Sea in the south. Once you can picture that configuration on a map, you have your bearings for most of what the Old Testament describes.

Mesopotamia — Where It All Began

Before the story moves to Canaan, it begins further east — in Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers. The Tigris and Euphrates are not obscure rivers invented for the Bible story. They are real rivers, still flowing through modern-day Iraq, and they appear as early as the second chapter of Genesis in the account of the Garden of Eden. They were there at the beginning, and they are still there today.

The Euphrates in particular is simply called the great river throughout the Old Testament. When God made His covenant with Abraham, He described the land his descendants would inherit as stretching "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates" (Gen 15:18). Solomon's reign eventually extended to that boundary (1 Kgs 4:21). The river was a landmark everyone understood — you did not have to explain which river you meant.

Choose This Day

Joshua knew that landmark too. When he stood before Israel near the end of his life and called them to a decision, he used the Euphrates as his reference point. His own ancestors — Abraham's family — had served other gods on the far side of that river before God called Abraham out. Now Israel stood in the land of promise, and Joshua put the choice plainly:

"Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Josh 24:15)

The geography made the choice vivid. The other side of the river was where idolatry lived. Canaan was where the Amorites and their gods had been. And here was Israel, standing in the middle, being asked: who do you belong to?

In Closing

That question has not changed. We may not be standing in Canaan, but we are still standing somewhere between the old life and the new, still being asked whom we will serve. Joshua's answer is the right one. As for me and my house — we will serve the Lord. That is still the best statement of faith a man can make.