Joshua 1:4

4. The wilderness This word is especially applied to that desert of Arabia Petraea in which the Israelites sojourned under Moses. It stretches from Mount Sinai northward between the two branches of the Red Sea to the Dead Sea, Palestine, and the Mediterranean. Its eastern boundary is Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix; its western, Egypt and the western arm of the Red Sea. It is a rolling desert, covered generally with loose gravel and stones, and everywhere furrowed and torn with torrents. Says Dr. Robinson, “A more frightful desert it had hardly been our lot to behold. Through the deep gorge on the eastern side, extending from the Gulf of Akaba to the Dead Sea, there is every indication that the Jordan once flowed before the great convulsion which depressed the Dead Sea.”

This Lebanon A double range of mountains, with a valley called Coele ( hollow) Syria between, constituting the eastern limit of Phenicia and the northern limit of Palestine. The eastern spur, called Anti-Lebanon, terminates on the south in Mount Hermon, and was visible from Shittim. Hence the expression this Lebanon, like this Jordan in Joshua 1:2, because, though at a distance, it could be pointed out as a definite landmark. The name, which signifies white, is derived from the white appearance caused both by the limestone rocks and the snows. The height is about ten thousand feet. (See note on Hermon Joshua 11:3.)

The Hittites Or children of Heth. A tribe of Canaanites living in Abraham’s time in Hebron and its vicinity, in the southern part of the Land of Promise. As they had been an especial terror to the twelve spies, or to the craven ten, whose report disheartened the people, they are here mentioned by name, and put for the whole body of the Canaanites Ye shall possess the land of even the dreaded Hittites. This designation of Canaan as “the land of the Hittites” occurs in the Bible only in this passage, though frequently used in the Egyptian records of Rameses II., in which Cheta or Chita appears to denote the whole country of lower and middle Syria.

The Euphrates “The great river” of western Asia, one thousand four hundred miles in length, is mentioned in connection with the garden of Eden, (Genesis 2:14,) and throughout the Scripture history is often mentioned with this adjective.

Great sea The Mediterranean, called great in comparison with the small inland bodies of water, such as Genesareth and the Dead Sea.

Your coast Your boundaries. These included a larger territory than the Hebrews ever possessed, except for a short time during the reigns of David and Solomon. The breadth from Lebanon on the north to the desert on the south is one hundred and forty miles; the length from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates is about four hundred miles, making an area of fifty-six thousand square miles, equal to the States of New York and Vermont. But Canaan proper, or Palestine, was only one hundred and forty miles by forty an area smaller than the State of New Jersey. Jehovah devised liberal things for his people, but they failed through unbelief and cowardice to come into immediate possession of the munificent gift.