Land flowing with milk and honey
"eretz zavat halav ood'vash", ארץ זבת חלב ודבש

The land flowing with milk and honey, is the divine destination of a people fleeing slavery and God commissions Moses to lead the Israelites to it: the Promised Land.
It is first described as "a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites" (Exodus 3).
"eretz zavat halav ood'vash", ארץ זבת חלב ודבש, land flowing with milk and honey [land (eretz, ארץ) flowing with (zavat, זבת) milk (halav, חלב) and (oo–, ו) honey (d'vash, דבש)]. The word translated as "flowing" comes from the verb "zoov", זוב, which means to flow or gush. Key to understanding this word in the biblical context is a high regard of its human sexual associations, given that variants of it are used elsewhere in the Bible to symbolize the bodily fluids issued from the genitals of either a woman or a man.
Thus, in the Hebrew, the word "zavat", זבת, suggests the idea of the land's gushing milk and honey in a sudden and copious flow, as well as its oozing them, and dripping them.

see:
  • Zimrat ha'aretz,'the praise of the Land', 'the song of the Land', זמרת הארץ.
  • Phoenix dactylifera, Date Palm, Tamr תמר מצוי , تمر


  • Bible resources:
    1. Exodus 3:8
      So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
    2. Exodus 3:17
      And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.'
    3. Exodus 13:5
      When the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land he swore to your forefathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month:
    4. Exodus 33:3
      Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way."
    5. Leviticus 20:24
      But I said to you, "You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey." I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations.
    6. Numbers 13:27
      They gave Moses this account: "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.
    7. Numbers 14:8
      If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us.
    8. Numbers 16:13
      Isn't it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the desert? And now you also want to lord it over us?
    9. Numbers 16:14
      Moreover, you haven't brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Will you gouge out the eyes of these men? No, we will not come!"
    10. Deuteronomy 6:3
      Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.
    11. Deuteronomy 11:9
      and so that you may live long in the land that the LORD swore to your forefathers to give to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.
    12. Deuteronomy 26:9
      He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey;
    13. Deuteronomy 26:15
      Look down from heaven, your holy dwelling place, and bless your people Israel and the land you have given us as you promised on oath to our forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey."
    14. Deuteronomy 27:3
      Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.
    15. Deuteronomy 31:20
      When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their forefathers, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant.
    16. Joshua 5:6
      The Israelites had moved about in the desert forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the LORD. For the LORD had sworn to them that they would not see the land that he had solemnly promised their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
    17. 2 Samuel 17:29
      honey and curds, sheep, and cheese from cows' milk for David and his people to eat. For they said, "The people have become hungry and tired and thirsty in the desert."
    18. Song of Solomon 4:11
      Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon.
    19. Song of Solomon 5:1
      [ Lover ] I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk. [ Friends ] Eat, O friends, and drink; drink your fill, O lovers.
    20. Isaiah 7:22
      And because of the abundance of the milk they give, he will have curds to eat. All who remain in the land will eat curds and honey.
    21. Jeremiah 11:5
      Then I will fulfill the oath I swore to your forefathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey'-the land you possess today."I answered, "Amen, LORD."
    22. Jeremiah 32:22
      You gave them this land you had sworn to give their forefathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.
    23. Ezekiel 20:6
      On that day I swore to them that I would bring them out of Egypt into a land I had searched out for them, a land flowing with milk and honey, the most beautiful of all lands.
    24. Ezekiel 20:15
      Also with uplifted hand I swore to them in the desert that I would not bring them into the land I had given them—a land flowing with milk and honey, most beautiful of all lands-

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