The border of the Canaanite territory is defined: from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. This boundary description places the Canaanite world in a precisely defined geography. The mention of Sodom and Gomorrah at this point — before their story in Genesis 18–19 — plants them in the landscape as part of Canaan's world. The borders defined here encompass the land God will promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 and give to Israel after the Exodus. By tracing Canaan's territory so specifically, the narrator is showing the reader exactly what God will later give — and to whom it belonged first. Joshua 1:4 gives Israel's promised territory in terms that overlap with this very description. The application: the promise of land in Genesis is always geographically specific and historically embedded — the biblical story is not a spiritual allegory but a real history in a real geography.

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