God, the Global Landlord Text: Deuteronomy 2:16-23
Introduction: The Geography of Sovereignty
We live in an age that is allergic to boundaries. Our culture despises distinctions and is at war with every border it encounters, whether it is the border between male and female, right and wrong, or nation and nation. The spirit of the age is the spirit of Babel, a frantic attempt to build a global, humanistic unity with no reference to the God who made us. But the God of Scripture is a God who draws lines. He is the one who sets the boundaries of the nations, who determines their allotted times, and who oversees the rise and fall of empires. He is the global landlord, and every nation on earth, whether they acknowledge Him or not, is a tenant on His property.
This is a truth that modern Christians, particularly in the West, have grown squeamish about. We are comfortable with a God who is sovereign over our personal devotions, but we get nervous when the Bible presents a God who is sovereign over geopolitics. We like a God who gives us our daily bread, but we don't know what to do with a God who gives Moab its borders and Ammon its inheritance. We have privatized our faith to the point that we have conceded the public square, the map of the world, to secular forces who believe history is just one meaningless thing after another.
But Deuteronomy will not allow us to maintain this tidy, pietistic separation. As Moses recounts Israel's journey, he is doing more than giving a history lesson. He is giving a theology of geography. He is teaching the new generation of Israel that Yahweh is not a local deity, a tribal god who is only powerful within the borders of their camp. No, He is the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth. The same God who is giving them the land of Canaan is the very God who gave Seir to Esau and Ar to the sons of Lot. He is the one who clears out the previous tenants, whether they be giants or otherwise, to make way for His purposes. This passage is a direct assault on the pagan notion of territorial gods and a radical declaration of Yahweh's universal and absolute sovereignty.
As we come to this text, we must see it as more than just an ancient travelogue. It is a revelation of how God governs the world. It shows us that God's plans are not haphazard. He has a purpose not only for His covenant people but for all the nations. And in this, we find a profound encouragement. The God who managed the real estate of the ancient Near East is the same God who is building His church today, and He has promised that the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. He is still drawing lines, still moving kings, and still advancing His kingdom toward its ultimate, global victory.
The Text
16 “So it happened when all the men of war had come to an end in death from among the people, 17that Yahweh spoke to me, saying, 18‘Today you are about to cross over Ar, the border of Moab. 19And you will come opposite the sons of Ammon. Do not harass them nor provoke them, for I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession.’ 20(It is also regarded as the land of the Rephaim, for Rephaim formerly lived in it, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummin, 21a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim, but Yahweh destroyed them before them. And they dispossessed them and settled in their place, 22just as He did for the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them; they dispossessed them and settled in their place even to this day. 23And the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and lived in their place.)
(Deuteronomy 2:16-23 LSB)
A New Generation, A New March (v. 16-18)
We begin with the turning point in Israel's wilderness sojourn.
"So it happened when all the men of war had come to an end in death from among the people, that Yahweh spoke to me, saying, 'Today you are about to cross over Ar, the border of Moab.'" (Deuteronomy 2:16-18)
The first thing to notice is the stark prerequisite for moving forward: the entire generation of unbelief had to die off. "All the men of war," that is, the generation that came out of Egypt and refused to enter the land at Kadesh-Barnea, had to perish in the wilderness. God's judgment is patient, but it is thorough. For thirty-eight years, Israel's primary activity was marching in circles and holding funerals. Their progress was stalled by their rebellion. This is a perpetual spiritual principle. Corporate unbelief leads to corporate stagnation. A church, a family, or a nation that refuses to take God at His word will find itself wandering in a wilderness of its own making until that spirit of rebellion is purged.
But when the judgment is complete, the word of the Lord comes again. God does not abandon His people because of the faithlessness of one generation. His covenant purpose is not thwarted by human sin. He simply raises up a new generation. Once the last of the rebels was buried, God says, "Today." The long pause is over. The forward march of redemptive history resumes. They are now to cross the border of Moab. Notice that God is the one directing their path. He is their divine cartographer, telling them where to go and, as we will see, where not to go.
This is a picture of the church. The church militant is always one generation away from apostasy, but it is also always one generation away from reformation. The Lord is constantly purging and purifying His people, and when a generation arises that will take Him at His word, the command to advance is given once more.
Sovereign Restraint and Divine Land Grants (v. 19)
Next, God gives Israel a clear prohibition concerning their relatives, the Ammonites.
"And you will come opposite the sons of Ammon. Do not harass them nor provoke them, for I will not give you any of the land of the sons of Ammon as a possession because I have given it to the sons of Lot as a possession." (Deuteronomy 2:19)
Here we see the absolute sovereignty of God in sharp relief. Israel's military commission is not a free-for-all. It is not a license for imperialistic expansion based on their own desires or perceived needs. They are to be God's instrument of judgment, but only against the specific nations He designates. The Ammonites, descendants of Abraham's nephew Lot, are off-limits. God commands Israel not to "harass them nor provoke them."
The reason given is foundational to a biblical worldview. "I will not give you any of their land... because I have given it to the sons of Lot." God is the ultimate owner of all real estate. He gives and He withholds according to His own good pleasure. The Ammonites did not hold their land by right of conquest, or by ancestral tradition, or by their own might. They held it by divine grant. God gave it to them. This means that for Israel to attack Ammon would be to attack God's own sovereign decree. It would be an act of rebellion against the very God who was giving them Canaan.
This is a profound lesson. God's providence extends to all nations, not just Israel. He is not a tribal deity. The pagan nations believed in a world where gods fought over territory. Chemosh had his turf, Molech had his, and they were constantly trying to expand their domains. But Yahweh declares that He is the God who assigns the domains. He gives Moab their inheritance, and Ammon theirs, and Edom theirs. This establishes that holy war in the Old Testament is not a human enterprise; it is a divine, judicial act, limited and directed by the Judge of all the earth.
The Landlord's History of Dispossession (v. 20-23)
Moses now inserts a fascinating historical parenthesis. This is not a trivial aside; it is the theological justification for what he has just said. It is proof that God has been acting as the global landlord long before Israel arrived on the scene.
"(It is also regarded as the land of the Rephaim, for Rephaim formerly lived in it, but the Ammonites call them Zamzummin, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim, but Yahweh destroyed them before them. And they dispossessed them and settled in their place, just as He did for the sons of Esau, who live in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them... And the Avvim... the Caphtorim... destroyed them and lived in their place.)" (Deuteronomy 2:20-23)
This section is a divine history of real estate transactions. Moses is making a crucial point to encourage the new generation. The land God gave to the Ammonites was previously the land of the Rephaim, a race of fearsome giants. The Ammonites called them "Zamzummin," which likely means "buzzers" or "murmurers," perhaps a mocking name for their foreign-sounding speech. These people were "as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim," the very giants who had terrified the previous generation of Israelites into unbelief.
But what happened to these giants? Did the Ammonites defeat them by their own strength? Not at all. The text is explicit: "but Yahweh destroyed them before them." God fought for the Ammonites. God cleared out the giants to give the land to the sons of Lot. This is a staggering thought. God acts in history on behalf of pagan nations to fulfill His broader purposes. He is the one who dispossesses one people to settle another.
And this was not a one-time event. Moses piles up the examples. God did the exact same thing for the sons of Esau in Seir, destroying the Horites before them. He did the same for the Caphtorim (the Philistines) who came and destroyed the Avvim. The clear and repeated lesson is this: Yahweh is the Lord of history. The rise and fall of peoples, the shifting of borders, and the outcomes of wars are all in His hands. He is not a passive observer; He is the active director.
The polemic against the spies' report is sharp as a razor. The previous generation said, "We can't go in; there are giants in the land!" And God's response, through Moses, is, "Of course there are giants. I specialize in evicting giants. I did it for the Ammonites. I did it for the Edomites. Do you really think I cannot do it for my own covenant son, Israel?" This history is meant to be a massive faith-booster. The power that established Israel's pagan neighbors is the very same power, only magnified by covenant promise, that will establish Israel in Canaan.
God's Global Government
So what does this ancient history of borders and giants have to do with us? Everything. This passage establishes a foundational principle of God's world-governance that is carried throughout the rest of Scripture. The God who gave land to Ammon is the same God of whom Paul spoke to the philosophers in Athens, saying that He "made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place" (Acts 17:26).
History is not a random series of events. It is the unfolding of a divine plan. God is sovereign over every nation, every border, every election, and every war. He raises up kings and He brings them down. This truth should liberate us from political anxiety and fear. Our hope is not in princes or presidents, but in the God who gives them their allotted time on the stage and determines the boundaries of their influence.
Furthermore, this passage is a foreshadowing of a greater conquest. The dispossession of the Rephaim and the Horites is a picture of the dispossession of the ultimate giants: sin, death, and the devil. These are the spiritual Anakim who hold the world in fear and bondage. And we, in ourselves, are no match for them. We are like grasshoppers in their sight.
But the story of the gospel is the story of God doing for us what He did for Ammon and Esau, and what He promised to do for Israel. The Lord Jesus Christ, our greater Joshua, has come. He did not confront mere giants of flesh and blood, but "the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12). And on the cross, He disarmed them, triumphing over them by His death and resurrection (Colossians 2:15).
Yahweh destroyed the giants before the Ammonites. And God, in Christ, has destroyed the powers of darkness before us, His church. He has given us a possession, an inheritance that can never fade. And He has given us a commission. Unlike ancient Israel, we are not told to leave the nations alone. The Great Commission is the reverse of the command concerning Ammon. We are to go. We are to cross every border, not with swords of steel, but with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. We are to "make disciples of all nations." Why? Because the God who owns all the real estate has now given all authority in heaven and on earth to His Son. The whole world is His land grant, and we are the heralds of the King, announcing His rightful claim to every square inch of His creation.