“And it shall be when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he sware unto thy fathers to give thee, a land flowing with milk and honey, that thou shalt keep this service in this month.”
When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites — the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey — you are to observe this ceremony in that month. The feast instituted in Egypt is oriented forward toward the land before Israel has taken a single step toward it. The list of nations currently inhabiting the land is not a military threat assessment but a covenant statement: this specific land, currently occupied by these specific peoples, is what God swore to give. The milk and honey formula appears here for the third time in Exodus, each time as the shorthand for the promised abundance. Observing this ceremony in that month when you arrive is a commitment made before the wilderness is entered: we will keep this feast in the land we do not yet possess, because the God who brings us out is the God who brings us in.
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