Milk & Honey

Exodus 3:8

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

When God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt he led them into the promised land, the same land that is modern Israel. One of the descriptions of this promise that was repeated for generations is “a land flowing with milk and honey”. What does this description mean? It certainly implies riches and abundance, but how do we reconcile that with the arid and dry land that it describes?

Most of us are the descendants of agriculturalists. If we were asked to describe a land of great wealth we might describe a land of thick, green vegetation; rich, dark soil; and wide rivers of clean water. This could have been the abundance of the promised land but it isn’t. So how does “milk and honey” refer to God filling our needs?

The answer is in two kinds of nomadism. The first is nomadic pastoralism. These are the animal herdsmen. A good and spacious territory will mean their herds will thrive. Herds that thrive produce more milk than is needed for their offspring alone, leaving extra milk for the people too. Milk, therefore is a symbol of abundance to the nomadic pastoralist.

Another kind of nomadic life is that of the hunter/gatherer, who meet their needs by collecting what the land provides naturally; berries, roots etc. It is not hard to imagine that honey is a prize for hunter/gatherers. A land flowing with honey is paradise for these nomads.

The promised land is indeed a land flowing with the abundance of God’s provision. If it looks like less than that to us it is only because riches, like beauty, are in the eye of the beholder. The promised land provided richly for exactly the nomadic lifestyle that God was preparing his people for. “Milk and honey” was a way of repeating God’s promise of blessing for his nation provided they followed where he was leading them.

Romans 8:32

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

God provides for his people. Could this providence be one of the ways he is leading you?

The promised land provided richly for exactly the nomadic lifestyle that God was preparing his people for.

Photo by zhang kaiyv on Unsplash