(17) Which shall divide the land unto you.--Better, Which shall give (or, allot) the land as an inheritance unto you.

Verse 17. - Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun. As the ecclesiastical and military heads respectively of the theocracy (see on Numbers 32:28).

34:16-29 God here appoints men to divide the land to them. So sure must they feel of victory and success while God fought for them, that the persons are named who should be intrusted with the dividing of the land.These are the names of the men which shall divide the land unto you,.... Or "inherit the land for you" (z); that is, as Jarchi interprets it, they were to take possession of it in their name and stead, as their representatives, and then distribute it unto them, or divide it to be inherited by them; but whatever may be said for the princes of the tribes, as acting for their respective tribes, and representing them, the same cannot be said of the two first named, as follow:

Eleazar the priest, and Joshua the son of Nun; the one the principal person in ecclesiastical affairs, and the other in civil ones; to divide the land being partly a sacred work, as it was a type of the heavenly Canaan, and a civil one, as it concerned the present welfare of the people of Israel; and both were types of Christ, the priest upon his throne, who is both priest and King; who, as the one, gives a right unto it, and, as the other, introduces into it.

(z) "haereditabunt vobis", Montanus; "qui haereditario jure accipient pro vobis", Tigurine not.