From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.
From the wilderness and this Lebanon. It is observable that, instead of tracing the limits of the promised land with exact precision, certain prominent points only are noticed as determining the extent south and north, east and west. "The wilderness" is the extensive desert which lies on the south of Canaan; Lebanon is on the north. It is called "this Lebanon," as mount Lebanon - i:e., anti-Lebanon, or Hermon-was a conspicuous object in the horizon of Joshua. The great river, the river Euphrates," was on the east; and the great sea toward the going down of the sun" was the Mediterranean. The ocean is designated "the great sea," Psalms 104:25. But this term is occasionally applied, as here to the sea which washed the western coast of Canaan (cf. Joshua 15:12; Numbers 34:6; Ezekiel 47:20), to distinguish it from the sea of Tiberias and the Dead Sea. It is called by other names, Exodus 23:21; Deuteronomy 11:24,
All the land of the Hittites. These occupied the southern extremities, and were the dominant tribe, of Canaan. Their superior power and the extent of their dominions are attested by the mention of them under the name of Khita on the Assyrian inscriptions, and still more frequently on the Egyptian inscriptions of the 18th and 19th dynasties. What life and encouragement must have been imparted to Joshua by the assurance that his people, who had been overwhelmed with fear of that gigantic race, were to possess "all the land of the Hittites!" But this name is evidently used here as representing the Canaanite tribes generally, as it is also in 1 Kings 10:29; 2 Kings 7:6; Ezekiel 16:3. The clause is not found in the Septuagint.