The Promised Land (Hebrew: הארץ המובטחת, translit.: Ha'Aretz HaMuvtahat) is the land promised or given by God, according to the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible), to the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob. The promise is first made to Abraham (Genesis 15:18-21) and then renewed to his son Isaac, and to Isaac's son Jacob (Genesis 28:13), Abraham's grandson. The promised land was described in terms of the territory from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates river (Exodus 23:31) and was given to their descendants after the Exodus. (Deuteronomy 1:8)
The term should not be confused with the expression "Land of Israel" which is first used in 1 Samuel 13:19, when the Israelite tribes were already in the Land of Canaan. The term is also used in the Book of Mormon, in which it refers to the American continent.
Read more about Promised Land: Divine Promise, Descendants of Abraham
Famous quotes containing the words promised and/or land:
“The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. After the war, everyone had a car—no wings for it—and the promised superhighway to drive it down, so that the sky itself darkened, and the fumes ate the marble and pitted the miracle crystal.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)
“It is up to my spirit to find the truth. But how? Grave uncertainty, each time the spirit feels beyond its own comprehension; when it, the explorer, is altogether to obscure land that it must search and where all its baggage is of no use. To search? That is not all: to create.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)