The question naturally arises: what is a nation?
The Almighty God has provided a clear answer to that question in creating the ancient nation of Israel, which consisted of the physical and spiritual descendants of Abraham. Living in the city of Ur within the nation of the Chaldeans, Abraham (then named Abram) was called sovereignly by God into covenant with Himself and sent to a relatively small territory between Egypt to the southwest and the Fertile Crescent to the northeast (Gen. 12:1-3). There, Abram/Abraham was given the responsibility to build a new nation on the ashes of the Canaanite tribes, a nation to be called Israel (“God Strives”). The deliberateness of God’s work in nation-building provides all mankind with a template for understanding what a nation is. In this, and succeeding studies, the features of that template will be described.
First, God gave the nation of Israel boundaries for the entire nation (Gen. 15:18, etc.). It was to extend over land on both sides of the Jordan River Valley, from the edge of the Sinai Desert near Egypt northward and eastward until it came near the edge of the Fertile Crescent, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arabian Desert. The nation enjoyed regional boundaries as well as national ones, as God divided this land “flowing with milk and honey” among the twelve great-grandsons of Abraham (Joshua 13-19). Today, we do not always understand the exact limits of these boundaries between the tribes, but their boundaries were certainly understood thousands of years ago. And finally, God recognized local boundaries, where cities and towns were located, often dramatically distinguished from the surrounding countryside by walls built around them for protection from invaders or false friends. National and sub-national boundaries are, thus, God prescribed and normative in all ages.
