The concept of the Promised Land originates from a religious narrative written in the Hebrew religious text the Torah.^{[note 1]}

God is claimed to have spoken the following promises to Abraham in several verses of Genesis (the first book of the Torah), which a modern English Bible translates to:

The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you." – Genesis 12:1

The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring [or seed] I will give this land." – Genesis 12:7

Later in what is called the covenant of the pieces, a verse is said to describe what are known as "borders of the Land" (Gevulot Ha-aretz):^[1]

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates – the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites." – Genesis 15:18–21

These allegedly divine promises were given prior to the birth of Abraham's sons. Abraham's family tree includes both the Ishmaelite tribes (the claimed ancestry of Arabs and of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) through Abraham's first son Ishmael and the Israelite tribes (the claimed ancestry of Jews and Samaritans) through Abraham's second son Isaac.

God later confirms the promise to Abraham's son Isaac (Genesis 26:3), and then to Isaac's son Jacob (Genesis 28:13) in terms of "the land on which you are lying". Jacob is later renamed "Israel" (Genesis 32:28) and his descendants are called the Children of Israel or the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

The Torah's subsequent Book of Exodus describes it as "land flowing with milk and honey" (Exodus 3:17) and gives verses on how to treat the prior occupants and marks the borders in terms of the Red Sea, the "Sea of the Philistines", and the "River", which a modern English Bible translates to:

"I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you. Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you." – Exodus 23:31–33

The Israelites lived in a smaller area of former Canaanite land and land east of the Jordan River after the legendary prophet Moses led the Israelite Exodus out of Egypt (Numbers 34:1–12). The Torah's Book of Deuteronomy presents this occupation as their God's fulfillment of the promise (Deuteronomy 1:8). Moses anticipated that their God might subsequently give the Israelites land reflecting the boundaries of the original promise – if they were obedient to the covenant (Deuteronomy 19:8–9).

Commentators have noted several problems with this promise and related ones: ^{[citation needed]}

1. It is to Abram's descendants that the land will (in the future tense) be given, not to Abram directly nor there and then. However, in Genesis 15:7 it is said: He also said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it." However, how this verse relates to the promises is a matter of controversy.

The concept of the Promised Land is a central national myth of the Jewish People and a key tenet of Zionism, the Jewish national movement which established Israel.^[2][3]

Mainstream Jewish tradition regards the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as applying to anyone a member of the Jewish people, including proselytes and in turn their descendants^[4] and is signified through the brit milah (rite of circumcision).

In the New Testament, the descent and promise is reinterpreted along religious lines.^[5] In the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul the Apostle draws attention to the formulation of the promise, avoiding the term "seeds" in the plural (meaning many people), choosing instead "seed," meaning one person, who, he understands to be Jesus (and those united with him). For example, in Galatians 3:16 he notes:

"The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ."^[6]

In Galatians 3:28–29 Paul goes further, noting that the expansion of the promise from singular to the plural is not based on genetic/physical association, but a spiritual/religious one:

"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."^[7]

In Romans 4:13 it is written:

"It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith."

German Lutheran Old Testament commentator Johann Friedrich Karl Keil states that the covenant is through Isaac, but notes that Ishmael's descendants have held much of that land through time.^[8]

Many European colonists saw America as the "Promised Land", representing a haven from religious conflicts and persecution. For instance, Puritan minister John Cotton's 1630 sermon God's Promise to His Plantation gave colonizers departing England to Massachusetts repeated references to the Exodus story, and later German immigrants sang: "America ... is a beautiful land that God promised to Abraham."^[9]

In a sermon celebrating independence in 1783, Yale president Ezra Stiles implied Americans were chosen and delivered from bondage to a Promised Land: "the Lord shall have made his American Israel 'high above all nations which he hath made',"^[10] reflecting language from Deuteronomy of the promise.

Shawnee/Lenape scholar Steven Newcomb argued in his 2008 book Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery^[11] that Christendom's discovery doctrine was also the same claim of "the right to kill and plunder non-Christians" found in this covenant tradition, whereby "the Lord" in Deuteronomy told his chosen people how they were to "utterly destroy" the "many nations before thee" when "He" brought them into the land "He" had discovered and promised to "His" "Chosen People" to "possess", and that this "right" was woven into US law through the 1823 Johnson v. McIntosh Supreme Court ruling.^[12]

Mormonism teaches that the United States is the Biblical promised land, the U.S. Constitution divinely inspired, and Mormons God's chosen people.

1st century Roman–Jewish historian Flavius Josephus postulated that Ishmael was the founder of the Arab race.^[13] And according to Muslim tradition, Islam's founding prophet Muhammad was a Hanif (true monotheistic believer of the religion of Abraham). His tribe, the Quraysh, traces its ancestry to Ishmael.

Some Palestinians claim partial descent from the Israelites and Maccabees, as well as from other peoples who have lived in the region.^[14]

African-American spirituals invoke the imagery of the "Promised Land" as heaven or paradise^[15] and as an escape from slavery, which could often only be reached by death.^{[citation needed]} The imagery and term also appear elsewhere in popular culture, in sermons, and in speeches such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 "I've Been to the Mountaintop", in which he said:

I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.^[16]

Boundaries of the 'Promised Land' given in the Book of Numbers (chapter 34)

The South border. —(v. 3) "Then your south quarter shall be from the wilderness of Zin along by the coast of Edom, and your south border shall be the outmost coast of the salt sea eastward : (v. 4) And your border shall turn from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, and pass on to Zin : and the going forth thereof shall be from the south to Kadesh-barnea, and shall go on to Hazar-addar, and pass on to Azmon : (v. 5) And the border shall fetch a compass from Azmon unto the river of Egypt, and the goings out of it shall be at the sea."

The Western border. —(v. 6) "And as for the western border, ye shall even have the great sea for a border : this shall be your west border."

The North border. —(v. 7) "And this shall be your north border : from the great sea ye shall point out for you mount Hor : (v. 8) From mount Hor ye shall point out your border unto the entrance of Hamath ; and the goings forth of the border shall be to Zedad : (v 9) And the border shall go on to Ziphron, and the goings out of it shall be at Hazar-enan : this shall be your north border."

The East border. —(v. 10) "And ye shall point out your east border from Hazar-enan to Shepham : (v. 11) And the coast shall go down from Shepham to Riblah, on the east side of Ain ; and the border shall descend, and shall reach unto the side of the sea of Chinnereth eastward : (v. 12) And the border shall go down to Jordan, and the goings out of it shall be at the salt sea : this shall be your land with the coasts thereof round about."^[17]

Boundaries of the 'Promised Land' given by Jerome c.400

You may delineate the Promised Land of Moses from the Book of Numbers (ch. 34): as bounded on the south by the desert tract called Sina, between the Dead Sea and the city of Kadesh-barnea, [which is located with the Arabah to the east] and continues to the west, as far as the river of Egypt, that discharges into the open sea near the city of Rhinocolara; as bounded on the west by the sea along the coasts of Palestine, Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, and Cilicia; as bounded on the north by the circle formed by the Taurus Mountains^[18] and Zephyrium and extending to Hamath, called Epiphany-Syria; as bounded on the east by the city of Antioch Hippos and Lake Kinneret, now called Tiberias, and then the Jordan River which discharges into the salt sea, now called the Dead Sea.^[19][20]

• 1845: Salomon Munk, Palestine, Description Géographique, Historique et Archéologique," in "L'Univers Pittoresque:

Under the name Palestine, we comprehend the small country formerly inhabited by the Israelites, and which is today part of Acre and Damascus pachalics. It stretched between 31 and 33° N. latitude and between 32 and 35° degrees E. longitude, an area of about 1300 French: lieues carrées. Some zealous writers, to give the land of the Hebrews some political importance, have exaggerated the extent of Palestine; but we have an authority for us that one can not reject. St. Jerome, who had long traveled in this country, said in his letter to Dardanus (ep. 129) that the northern boundary to that of the southern, was a distance of 160 Roman miles, which is about 55 French: lieues. He paid homage to the truth despite his fears, as he said himself, of availing the Promised Land to pagan mockery, "Pudet dicere latitudinem terrae repromissionis, ne ethnicis occasionem blasphemandi dedisse uideamur" (Latin: "I am embarrassed to say the breadth of the promised land, lest we seem to have given the heathen an opportunity of blaspheming").^[21][22]