(4) My covenant.--See Genesis 15:18-21; Genesis 17:7-8; Genesis 26:3-4; Genesis 35:12. &c.

The land of Canaan.--Canaan proper was the tract between Sidon and Gaza (Genesis 10:19), which is now counted as "Palestine "; but the region promised to Abraham, and included in a larger sense of the word "Canaan," was very much more extensive, reaching as it did from the Nile to the Euphrates (Genesis 15:18). This vast territory was actually possessed by Israel under David and Solomon (1Kings 4:21-24).

The land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers.--Heb., The land of their sojournings, wherein they sojourned. (Comp. Genesis 17:8; Genesis 23:4; Genesis 28:4.) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were occupants of Canaan merely by sufferance: they were allowed to dwell in it because it was not half peopled; but the ownership was recognised as belonging to the Canaanite nations, Hittites and others (Genesis 20:15; Genesis 23:3-20, &c).

Verse 4. - I have established my covenant with them. Compare Genesis 15:18-21; Genesis 17:7, 8; Genesis 26:3; Genesis 28:13. The land of Canaan, in a narrow acceptation, reached "from Sidon unto Gaza" (Genesis 10:19); in a wider sense it included the whole tract between "the river of Egypt (Wady-el-Arish) and the great river, the river Euphrates" (Genesis 15:18). It was this larger tract which was promised by God to Abraham. The land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. Literally, "the land of their sojourns wherein they sojourned." (So Kalisch.) It was by permission of the lords of the soil - the Canaaaites, Perizzites, Hittites, and others, that Abraham and his descendants dwelt in Canaan to the time of Jacob's descent into Egypt. (See Genesis 12:6; Genesis 13:7; Genesis 23:7; Genesis 27:46, etc.)

6:1-9 We are most likely to prosper in attempts to glorify God, and to be useful to men, when we learn by experience that we can do nothing of ourselves; when our whole dependence is placed on him, and our only expectation is from him. Moses had been expecting what God would do; but now he shall see what he will do. God would now be known by his name Jehovah, that is, a God performing what he had promised, and finishing his own work. God intended their happiness: I will take you to me for a people, a peculiar people, and I will be to you a God. More than this we need not ask, we cannot have, to make us happy. He intended his own glory: Ye shall know that I am the Lord. These good words, and comfortable words, should have revived the drooping Israelites, and have made them forget their misery; but they were so taken up with their troubles, that they did not heed God's promises. By indulging discontent and fretfulness, we deprive ourselves of the comfort we might have, both from God's word and from his providence, and go comfortless.And I have also established my covenant with them,.... With Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and with their posterity, so that it is sure and firm, and shall never be made null and void:

to give them the land of Canaan; or to their children, which were as themselves:

the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers; not being in actual possession of any part of it, but lived as pilgrims and strangers in it, as their posterity now did in another land not theirs; see Hebrews 11:9.