Numbers 34:12

12 The boundary will go down to the Jordan, and its limits will be at the Salt Sea. This will be your land according to its boundaries all around.'"

Numbers 34:12 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 34:12

And the border shall go down to Jordan
A well known river to the east of the land of Canaan:

and the goings out of it shall be at the salt sea;
the sea of Sodom; and though all sea water is generally salt, this was remarkably so, through the great quantity of bitumen and nitre in it; hence it was called Asphaltites; thus as the description of the borders of the land began with the salt sea, ( Numbers 34:3 ) , it ends with it:

this shall be your land, with the coasts thereof round about:
which, according to the Targum of Jonathan, was thus bounded, Rekamgea (or Kadeshbarnea) on the south, Taurus Urnanus (by which he interprets Mount Hor) on the north, the great sea on the west (i.e. the Mediterranean sea), and the salt sea on the east.

Numbers 34:12 In-Context

10 " 'You will mark out your eastern boundary from Hazar Enan to Shepham;

11 the boundary will go down from Shepham to Riblah from the east side of Ain, and the boundary will go down and border on the eastern side of the Sea of Kinnereth.

12 The boundary will go down to the Jordan, and its limits will be at the Salt Sea. This will be your land according to its boundaries all around.'"

13 So Moses commanded the {Israelites}, saying, "This [is] the land that you will obtain as an inheritance for yourself by lot, which Yahweh commanded to give to the nine and a half tribes.

14 For the tribe of the children of the Reubenites, the children of the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh took their inheritance according to the house of their families.

Footnotes

• [a]. That is, the Dead Sea