34:12 The natural eastern border of Canaan followed the Jordan River down to the Dead Sea. As part of the Great Rift Valley, the Jordan and the Dead Sea were formidable, though not impassable, barriers. This boundary excluded the lands east of the Jordan that were occupied by Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Those settlements were not part of Canaan per se and stood outside the Promised Land as originally defined.

34:1-29 Chapter 34 gives the borders of the land of Canaan, which Israel was to settle according to the guidelines in 26:52-56. Ever since the call of Abraham (Gen 12:1-7), the Promised Land of Canaan had stood at the heart of the Old Testament story. Though an entire generation of Hebrews died in the wilderness because they refused to believe the report of the faithful spies (Num 13), God had reaffirmed his promise of land (33:53). Here, God reviewed the plan and identified the boundaries of the Promised Land in an idealized form (cp. Josh 13–19; Ezek 47–48). Old Testament Israel did not possess the exact extent of the territory described here (though it came close in the days of David and Solomon; e.g., 2 Sam 24:1-9), but these borders describe the region of Canaan as generally defined by Egyptian texts dating 1500–1200 BC (the period of the Hebrew invasion). The region actually occupied by Israel changed from time to time.