Las Lógicas Estatales en Materia de Manejo de Recursos Hídricos

An essential insight into the biblical doctrine of inheritance is found in Psalm 16:5: “The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot.” We have seen that portion is related to inheritance and means a providential bestowal, more specifically, the providential bestowal of God’s justice, overriding man’s sin and injustice. Thus, in Psalm 11:5-6, it is said that “the LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.” Psalm 23 has this in mind also when it declares, in verse 5, “my cup runneth over”; in the presence of his enemies, David is richly provided for by God’s redeeming justice.

Leupold translates Psalm 16:5 thus: “The Lord is my choice portion and my cup; thou wilt make my portion of land broad.”219

Because the land, at the time of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, was divided by lot, the land itself came to be called by this term, as in Joshua 15:1; 17:14ff.; Judges 1:3; Isaiah 57:6, etc. Hence, observed Whitehouse, “we frequently find this term metaphorically applied to express the destiny which is awarded by God, whether favorable or the reverse (Ps. 16:5; Is. 17:14; 34:17; Jer. 13:25; Deut. 12:12).”220

Psalm 16:6 seems to bear out Leupold’s interpretation: “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.” Leupold renders it, “The allotted piece of field has fallen to my lot in pleasant places; Yea, I have a goodly heritage.” By his rendering, “allotted piece of field” and “my lot,” Leupold brings together the double meaning of lot, providential appointment or inheritance, and land, the land inherited from the Lord.

The word lot has reference to the biblical practice, terminated at Pentecost, of making a choice by casting lots. Such a decision took the matter out of man’s hands and stressed a total reliance on God’s predestination. By separating man, himself an aspect of God’s predestination, from the decision, the direct decree of God was stressed. After Pentecost, the Spirit working through the people of God effected the same results.

Thus the word portion stresses an inheritance from God by means of His providential bestowal, and the word lot makes the same doctrine more emphatic by underscoring the predestinating counsel of God in our portion. Our portion and our lot include our total inheritance of all things and experiences, material and spiritual, but the association of lot with land makes impossible its separation from the material. Just as the supreme fact of history is the incarnation, so the requirement of history is the materialization of our lot. The people of faith must become the people of the land, because “[t]he earth is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Ps. 24:1). Therefore, “the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace” (Ps. 37:11).

219 _{Leupold, Exposition of the Psalms (Columbus, OH: The Wartburg Press, 1959), 147.}

220 _{Owen C. Whitehouse, “Lots,” in James Hastings, ed., A Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 3 (New York, NY: Charles} Scribner’s Sons, 1919), 153.

This association of lot with our inheritance of land is apparent in Psalm 125:

They that trust in the LORD shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever. For the rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; lest the righteous put forth their hands unto iniquity. Do good, O LORD, unto those that be good, and to them that are upright in their hearts. As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity: but peace shall be upon Israel.

This is hymn of trust, declaring that the Lord is the protector of His people. It deals with the menace of evil men to a godly people; the material and spiritual aspects cannot be isolated from each other. Thus, verse 3 deals with the protection of the righteous from marauding and murderous enemies. Leupold holds that “the lot of the righteous” refers to the land divided to the covenant people from the time of the conquest of Canaan.221 Such an interpretation makes the whole psalm clearer in meaning, for “the rod of the wicked” or “sceptre of wickedness” (Leupold) clearly refers to an oppressive and menacing foreign power which threatens the covenant nation. A covenant nation which trusts in the Lord will not have its “lot,” its land, subject to the tyranny and depradation of the ungodly nations.

The significance of the land to the covenant appears in Psalm 105. God, having established His covenant with Abraham, “confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant: Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance” (Ps. 105:10-11). In gaining Canaan, “they inherited the labour of the people” (Ps. 105:44). The covenant people are promised a land, and the land is a sign of the covenant, and the place where God’s law is obeyed, enforced, and made the way of life, or sanctification, for the redeemed people. The covenant of redemption has the law as its way of life, and the law requires the land for its application and for the fruits or results of obedience. The ungodly nations are disinherited, and the covenant nations inherit their labors.

The last use of lots is in Acts 1:26, when the lot was used to replace Judas with Matthias, to restore the number of apostles to twelve. Why the necessity for twelve? Why the symbolic use of this number? Others besides the twelve apostles functioned equally well and ably as proclaimers of the gospel. In fact, more than a few are better known for their ministry than are many of the twelve, as witness Paul, Silas, Barnabus, Timothy, Titus, and others. Why were twelve men retained in a special status?

The answer clearly is that the twelve apostles represent the true succession to the twelve sons of Jacob, as the new Israel of God. There was thus no need to maintain a continuing body of twelve apostles; like the twelve sons of Jacob, they represent the beginning of a new nation, a new kingdom of kings and priests unto God (Rev. 1:6), and the new heirs of the promised land, now the whole earth (Rev. 21:1). It was therefore imperative that the apostles confront Israel and the

world as the twelve men of Christ’s Israel, whose lot it was to divide the world for their inheritance, a task still under mandate to all in the apostolic succession of faith.

The preaching of the gospel to “the whole world” was clearly in our Lord’s mind (Matt. 26:13). Once the apostles and disciples began their missionary work outside Judea, they began to go aggressively into the whole world, to bring all powers and principalities into captivity to Christ. It is not hyperbole when St. Paul speaks of “the whole world” hearing the gospel in his day (Rom. 1:8; 10:18). We know that St. Thomas, who may have made two missionary journeys into China, died in India.

The lots were thus used for the selection of the twelfth apostle, Matthias, to indicate that the new conquest, greater than Canaan, belongs to the people of the renewed covenant, who shall inherit the earth, their lot, and establish Christ’s kingdom in righteousness and truth.

Inheritance in Scripture thus means that by the adoption of grace we are the legal sons of God, and our inheritance is the land or earth. The means to the possession of our inheritance is faith and the application of the covenant law.

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