Ps. 78.55 (apportionment)

He drove out nations / before them
and apportioned them / by lot / as a possession 
and so he settled / the tribes of Israel / in their tents.  

Settlement. The conquering force of God’s holiness does not have, as its goal, simply the expression of God’s superiority. Rather, his conquering holiness has, as its goes, the ‘settling of the tribes of Israel in their tents’. We must note the movement of this verse: he drives out – he apportions – he settles. The ‘driving out’ is only penultimate, a means toward an end. In a sense, one only fully captures the manifestation of God’s holiness when one perceives “Israel settled in its tents”. As we have said before, God’s conquering and delivering presence appears different depending on how one approaches it: if one is its enemy, it appears to have the single determination of destruction and the manifestation of power and otherness; if one is its covenant partner, it appears much more dynamic and relational. This is important not simply in regard to how we understand God’s wrath/anger but in how we understand the manifestation of God’s will. In other words, one moves through a seemingly univocal ‘face’ into a dialogical and relational ‘face’. Or, we could put it this way: in Eden, man ‘walks with God’; outside Eden, God comes to appear as the ‘flaming sword’. Here, with Israel now entering into the goal of God’s deliverance, they come into a dynamic ‘settling’ in God’s Land and, therefore, in his presence. Here, they ‘walk with God’ because the land has been ‘apportioned’ according to the divine will (just as creation was apportioned). The inheritance. But we need to see a further layer to this. And that is that this ‘apportionment’ now moves Israel into a type of forever that God dwells in. The land now can be passed down, generationally, as an inheritance. This sense of secure perpetuity is key. Israel, in this divinely apportioned land, can now live forever. This sense of security (dwelling safely) and perpetuity (generationally) is the covenantal power of God as it brings his people into his secure (holy) and perpetual (forever) presence. It is, in this way, resurrection power. Egypt and Inheritance. Finally, this perpetuity of generational inheritance stands in complete contrast to the Egyptian destruction of the ‘first born’ (vs. 51). Whereas Egypt represents the complete annihilation of creation, all the way down to the destruction of the generations, Israel represents the divinely apportioned blessing that guarantees their generation’s life. This is not just Israel; but Israel in the promised land with God established on his mountain. This is the fully (creational) ‘kingdom of God’, that only comes to be, fully, when these coincide: Israel, Temple and Land. (And, this is precisely what ‘descends from heaven’ at the conclusion of Revelation…).