The land promises were completed in Joshua.
Post the verses that I missed that claim otherwise.
Part 3:
The Abrahamic Covenant
As stated before, it is not the nature of this article to point out all the theological elements and proponents of the different views related to the Abrahamic Covenant. But certain crucial elements of the Abrahamic Covenant should be noted to see if they do in fact show that they have been fulfilled by the time of Josh 21:43–45 as some claim.
A brief survey of what God promised in this eternally important covenant is warranted.
In Gen 12:1–3 Yahweh instructed and promised Abram (1) to go forth from his country and relatives to the land Yahweh would show him (Gen 12:1); that God would make him a great name (Gen 12:2); (3) that Yahweh will bless those who bless him and will curse the one who curses him (Gen 12:3a); and (4) “in you all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3b). Genesis 12:7 adds, “And the LORD appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him.” In that He did not ratify the covenant at that time, Yahweh spoke of what He would accomplish in the future.
The next reference to what would eventually become the Abrahamic Covenant occurs in Gen 13:14–17: “And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. And I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered. Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you.”
It should be noted that with Gen 13:15 the land promises are given forever olam). This is the first reference to everlasting since the everlasting Noahic ,עוֹ ָלם(
Covenant and the exact word used in Gen 9:12 and 9:16. While this in and of itself does not prove the eternality of the covenant,23 at least the same consideration should be given to this usage as in Genesis 9, which is often not the case. At the very least one should expect that “everlasting” should go beyond the not too distant future of Joshua 21. Yet even beyond this, Kaiser argues against those who want to reduce or remove the eternal significance of what God has promised in the Abrahamic Covenant by dividing it into separate parts:
There is an important point that is to be made in the fact that all three parts of the covenant (i.e., the seed, the land, and the gospel [blessing]) were bound together as one promise with a promise that this one promise was eternal. Most Christians will grant that the seed and gospel aspects of this promise are eternal, but somehow they think it is possible to dissect the eternal promise of the land from the other two eternal aspects! But to use a theological scalpel to cut out one part is to expose the rest of this same covenant to diminution and a time limitation.
Subsequently, the ratification of the Abrahamic Covenant that occurred in Genesis 15 has perpetual consequences that God has placed squarely upon Himself and no else for its fulfillment:
So solemn was this covenant with its gift of the land that Genesis 15:7–21 depicted God alone moving between the halves of the sacrificial animals after sunset as “a smoking furnace and a flaming torch” (v. 17) . . . Thus, He obligated Himself and only Himself to fulfill the terms of this oath. Abraham was not asked or required likewise to obligate himself. The total burden for the delivery of the gift of the land fell on the divine Provider but not on the devotion of the patriarch. As if to underscore the permanence of this arrangement, Genesis 17:7, 13, 19 stress that this was to be a ְב ִרית עוֹ ָלם , “an everlasting covenant.”