Israel in the Days of David and Solomon

GOD promised to give Abram’s seed the land “from the river of Egypt to . . . the river Euphrates.” (Ge 15:18; Ex 23:31; De 1:7, 8; 11:24) After Joshua entered Canaan, it was some four centuries before the Promised Land reached those limits.

King David overthrew the Aramaean kingdom of Zobah, which reached the Euphrates in northern Syria.a To the south, David’s success against the Philistines brought him to Egypt’s border.​—2Sa 8:3; 1Ch 18:1-3; 20:4-8; 2Ch 9:26.

Solomon then ruled “from the River [Euphrates] to the land of the Philistines and to the boundary of Egypt,” foreshadowing the Messiah’s peaceful rule. (1Ki 4:21-25; 8:65; 1Ch 13:5; Ps 72:8; Zec 9:10) Still, the area that Israel occupied was normally said to extend “from Dan to Beer-sheba.”​—2Sa 3:10; 2Ch 30:5.