On February 20, 2026, Tucker Carlson sat down with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee for a debate about Israel and the Jewish people. Tucker, a compulsive critic of both, put forth several arguments aimed at undermining the Jewish people’s historical and biblical connection to the Land of Israel.
One of those arguments relied on scripture itself. Tucker pointed to the Book of Genesis, where God first promises Abraham the land that would become the Jewish homeland. In Genesis 15:18, God tells Abraham that He is granting his descendants territory stretching “from the river of Egypt (the Nile) to the great river, the Euphrates” — language that appears to encompass much of the Levant.
The implication was clear. If that verse is to be taken literally, then Israel is obligated to pursue an implausible, imperial-scale land claim across the Middle East. Otherwise, the verse should not be taken literally, and neither should the Jewish people’s biblical claim to the Land of Israel.
It’s clever framing. It’s also based on a shallow reading of the text. Ambassador Huckabee should have responded by telling Tucker to read the rest of the Bible.
Exodus: The Israelites Are Not in the Promised Land
Rabbi Pesach Wolicki points out that just one book later, in the Book of Exodus, the Israelites leave Egypt (Exodus 13:17–18). They cross the Red Sea and enter the wilderness, where they wander for 40 years. Geographically speaking, they are already between the Nile and the Euphrates. If that phrase in Genesis 15 defined the Promised Land, then the story would effectively be over. They would already be there.
Numbers: Crossing the Jordan
At the end of the Book of Numbers, the Israelites are encamped on the eastern bank of the Jordan River — still well within the broad space between the Nile and the Euphrates. Two tribes, Reuben and Gad, ask to settle there rather than cross the Jordan. Moses rebukes them sharply and accuses them of discouraging the children of Israel “from crossing over to the land which the Lord has given them” (Numbers 32:1-15). Why? If they are already inside the promised territory, why the rebuke?
Deuteronomy: Moses Sees the Land
In the closing chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses stands on that same eastern bank of the Jordan. God tells him he may look at the land but he may not enter it. Moses dies there, within the geographic span between the Nile and the Euphrates.
Yet the text is clear that Moses never entered the Promised Land.
These passages tell us that whatever Genesis 15 means, the rest of the Torah does not treat the entire stretch from the Nile to the Euphrates as the operative definition of the Promised Land. If it did, Moses would have already been inside it. So would the tribes of Reuben and Gad. So would the Israelites the moment they left Egypt.
Numbers 34: God Defines the Land
In Numbers 34:1–12, God gives Moses a remarkably detailed description of the land promised to the Jewish people. This territory encompasses most of modern Israel, Judea and Samaria, Gaza, parts of southern Lebanon, a small section of southwestern Syria, and a sliver of northeastern Sinai reaching up to Wadi El-Arish. It does not extend to most of Egypt, the bulk of Jordan, Syria east of the Golan, Iraq, or the Euphrates basin.
This makes it clear: the biblical Promised Land, as explicitly defined by God in Numbers, does not match the “Nile to Euphrates” passage in Genesis 15.
Joshua: Conquest of the Land
In the Book of Joshua, when the Israelites begin the conquest of Canaan, the land they actually take remains far smaller than the “Nile to Euphrates” language of Genesis 15. Joshua’s campaigns secure much of modern Israel, Gaza, parts of Judea and Samaria, the northern Negev, northern Galilee, and parts of northern Jordan, but the territory stops well short of the Nile, the bulk of Jordan, Iraq, or the Euphrates.
Later, in Joshua 13:1–6, God reminds Joshua that there is still territory to be conquered: the southern coastal plain and Philistine cities, northeastern Sinai (Shihor/Wadi El-Arish), northern Lebanon, the Galilee, and a portion of southwestern Syria toward Hamath. The eastern border reaches the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights, but even these “remaining lands” do not approach the Euphrates.
Taken together, Joshua’s conquests and God’s instructions define a Promised Land that is historically and geographically limited, roughly corresponding to the lands the Israelites could realistically settle. This makes clear that the lived reality of Israel’s borders in the biblical narrative—its conquests, tribal allocations, and settlements—reflects a far more defined and contained territory than the sweeping “Nile to Euphrates” promise of Genesis 15.
A Textual Issue, Not a Territorial One
One can certainly raise questions of biblical exegesis. How do we reconcile Genesis 15 with later descriptions of Israel’s borders? That is a legitimate theological discussion. But it is an internal textual issue, not a geopolitical one. At no point in the biblical narrative does Israel function as though it possesses, or must conquer, everything between those two rivers. The land actually entered, conquered, and settled is far more defined and limited.
The “Nile to Euphrates” phrase appears once in a covenantal context. The lived narrative of the Bible — its laws, journeys, tribal inheritances, and historical accounts — describes something much closer to the modern borders of Israel.
So the suggestion that a single verse in Genesis implies a modern territorial claim over half the Middle East is not a serious reading of the Bible. And that is what makes the question feel less like a serious inquiry and more like a “gotcha.” It trades on the assumption that no one has read past Chapter 15 of Genesis. It waves a verse in the air as though it settles thousands of years of historical reality.
But serious people — especially serious believers — don’t read sacred texts that way.
Sources
Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, Genesis 15, Exodus 13, Numbers 32, Numbers 34, Deuteronomy 34, Joshua 13, The Interactive Bible
