(8) and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary - JPS, 2001
"flowing with milk and honey - This is a recurrent symbol of the land's fertility. Ancient Egyptian sources testify to the richness of the land. The combination of milk and honey implies that the land supports both agriculture (honey from dates) and pasturage (milk from goats). The phrase is never included in the divine promises to the patriarchs, for whom famine was frequently a grim reality. Their faith did not need to be reinforced by stressing the attractiveness of the land. Such an enticement would carry weight for the demoralized, enslaved masses of Israelites. Milk in the Bible is generally from the goat, "the little man's cow." A plentiful supply presupposes an abundance of goats, which in turn points to ample pasturage and the prospect of plentiful meat, hide, and wool. Honey in the Bible is predominantly the thick, sweet syrup produced from dates. The combination of milk and honey provides a highly nutritious diet. Some Arab tribes are known to subsist for months at a time solely on milk products and honey.
ארץ זבת חלב ודבש – לכאורה זהו ביטוי מקובל לציון ארץ טובה שבה נמצא הכל בשפע רב, בדומה לביטוי ״איש תחת גפנו ואיש תחת תאנתו״ (מלכים א ה׳:ה׳, מלכים ב י״ח:ל״א, מיכה ד׳:ב׳) הבא לציין עושר ושלום.
Rabbi David Tzvi Hoffman (Germany, 1843-1921) This expression seemingly is an accepted expression to designate a good land where there is found everything in great abundance, similar to the expression "each person under his own vine and each person under his own fig tree" that symbolizes richness and peace.
*For Hoffman, 'flowing with milk and honey' is symbolic.
'Land Flowing with Milk and Honey' appears 14 times between Exodus and Deuteronomy, 1 time in Joshua, Twice in Jeremiah, and once in Ezekiel.
In one of the two occurrences in Sefer Bamidbar, the Book of Numbers, the rebels Datan and Aviram use the phrase to refer to Egypt!
(13) is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey (Egypt), to kill us in the wilderness, but you must make yourself also a prince over us?
מַהוּ הַמְּעַט כִּי הֶעֱלִיתָנוּ מֵאֶרֶץ זָבַת חָלָב וּדְבַשׁ לַהֲמִיתֵנוּ וְגוֹ׳ – אָמְרוּ לוֹ: עַל מָה אַתָּה מִתְרַבְרֵב עָלֵינוּ, מַה טּוֹבָה עָשִׂיתָ לָנוּ. הוֹצֵאתָנוּ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרִים, שֶׁהִיא כְּגַן י״י, וּלְאֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן לֹא הִכְנַסְתָּנוּ, אֶלָּא הֲרֵי אָנוּ מֵתִים בַּמִּדְבָּר וְהַנֶּגֶף מִשְׁתַּלֵּחַ בָּנוּ בְּכָל יוֹם, הַעֵינֵי הָאֲנָשִׁים הָהֵם וְגוֹ׳.
Midrash Tanchuma:
They [Datan and Aviram] said to him [to Moses]: Why do you boast to us? What good have you done for us? You took us out of Egypt, that is like the 'Garden of God', and you did not bring us into the Land of Canaan; rather, we are going to die here in the wilderness and a plague goes out among us everyday...
Rabbis in the Talmud take "flowing with milk and honey" literally rather than as a figurative way of referring to the Land's fertility.
רמי בר יחזקאל איקלע לבני ברק חזנהו להנהו עיזי דקאכלן תותי תאיני וקנטיף דובשא מתאיני וחלבא טייף מנייהו ומיערב בהדי הדדי אמר היינו זבת חלב ודבש א"ר יעקב בן דוסתאי מלוד לאונו שלשה מילין פעם אחת קדמתי בנשף והלכתי עד קרסולי בדבש של תאינים אמר ר"ל לדידי חזי לי זבת חלב ודבש של צפורי והוי שיתסר מילין אשיתסר מילין אמר רבה בר בר חנה לדידי חזי לי זבת חלב ודבש של כל ארץ ישראל
Rami b. Ezekiel once paid a visit to Bene-berak where he saw goats grazing under fig-trees while honey was flowing from the figs, and milk ran from them, and these mingled with each other. ‘This is indeed’, he remarked, ‘[a land] flowing with milk and honey’.
R. Jacob b. Dostai related: From Lod to Ono [is a distance of about] three miles. Once I rose up early in the morning and waded [all that way] up to my ankles in honey of the figs.
Resh Lakish said: I myself saw the flow of the milk and honey of Sepphoris and it extended [over an area of] sixteen by sixteen miles.
Rabbah b. Bar Hana said: I saw the flow of the milk and honey in all the Land of Israel.
(Soncino Talmud)
(י) ואלו מביאין וקורין, מן העצרת ועד החג, משבעת המינים, מפרות שבהרים, מתמרות שבעמקים, ומזיתי שמן, מעבר הירדן. רבי יוסי הגלילי אומר, אין מביאין בכורים מעבר הירדן, שאינה ארץ זבת חלב ודבש.
(10) These are brought and recited over: [fruit] from Shavuot until Sukkot, from the seven species, from fruit in the mountains, from dates in the valleys, from oil-olives [even from] on the other side of the Jordan River. Rabbi Yose the Galilean says, we do not bring first fruits from the other side of the Jordan since it is not "the land flowing with milk and honey" [that the verse describes].
The Halachah does not follow R. Yossi Ha'Galili.
א הלכה ח - מתני' אלו מביאין וקורין מן העצרת ועד החג משבעת המינין מן הפירות שבהרים ומן התמרים שבעמקים ומזיתי שמן ומעבר לירדן. רבי יוסי הגלילי אומר אין מביאין בכורים מעבר לירדן שאינה ארץ זבת חלב ודבש: גמ' רבי יוסי בשם רבי שמעון בן לקיש. רבי יונה רבי זעירה בשם רבי חנינה ששה עשר מיל חיזור חיזור לציפורין הן הן ארץ זבת חלב ודבש. אמר רבי יונה מאן דמקדר אילין שיגרונייה דבישן מינהון. מאן דמקדר הדא ביקעת גינוסר מינהון. מתיבון לרבי יונה והא כתיב ואמר אעלה אתכם מעני מצרים אל ארץ טובה ורחבה אל ארץ זבת חלב ודבש. אמר לון אשר בה זבת חלב ודבש: תני אשר נתתה לי לא שנטלתי לי מעצמי. מה ביניהון אמר רבי אבין חצי שבט מנשה ביניהון. מאן דאמר אשר נתתה לי ולא שנטלתי לי מעצמי חצי שבט מנשה לא נטלו מעצמן. מאן דאמר ארץ זבת חלב ודבש אפילו כן אינה ארץ זבת חלב ודבש
Gemara:...Rabbi Yonah, Rabbi Zeira, in the name of Rabbi Chanina: 16 miles around Tzipori is "a land flowing with milk and honey" Rabbi Yonah: He who measures the slopes of Beshan (will find that) they are part of them (the regions flowing with milk and honey). He who measures the Valley of Ginosar. They responded to Rabbi Yonah: But is it not written, "I will take you up from suffering in Egypt to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey?" [i.e., Aren't all areas in the Holy Land 'flowing with milk and honey'?] He said to them: [The verse should read, "I will take you up to a land...] in which there is milk and honey."(Talmud Yerushalmi Bikkurim I, end, 64b. Translation of Rabbi Yonah's first statement: Jastrow dictionary p. 1523)
Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, "A Land Flowing with Milk & Honey", www.myjewishlearning.com
"This leads to the examination of one additional interpretation by Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in his commentary on the expression a "land flowing with milk and honey." Instead of focusing on the meaning of milk and honey, Rabbi Hirsch focuses on the meaning of the word for flowing (zavat), and writes: "It is very characteristic that the abundance of produce by zov only occurs in reference to Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel) In Tanakh, the word zov never means overflowing. It occurs mainly to describe a human pathological condition, and otherwise as a flowing forth caused by miraculous power. It does not seem to describe a land that develops the abundance in accordance with its natural fertility, but a land that only does this under special conditions. Palestine is a hard land which can only blossom and flourish ‘under the continuous special care of God for it, from one end of the year to the other.’ When it gets water, it blossoms luxuriously. But it only gets the water from above. It is a land that makes it necessary for its inhabitants to be good."
(8) Therefore shall you keep all the commandment which I command thee this day, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither you go over to possess it; (9) and that you may prolong your days upon the land, which the LORD swore unto your ancestors to give unto them and to their seed, a land flowing with milk and honey. (10) For the land, whither you go in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence you came out, where you did sow your seed, and did water it with your foot, as a garden of herbs; (11) but the land, whither you go over to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drink water [only] as the rain of heaven comes down; (12) a land which the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year. (13) And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto My commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve God with all your heart and with all your soul, (14) that I will give the rain of your land in its season, the former rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. (15) And I will give grass in thy fields for thy cattle, and thou shalt eat and be satisfied. (16) Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them; (17) and the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and God shut up the heaven, so that there shall be no rain, and the ground shall not yield her fruit; and ye perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD giveth you. (18) Therefore shall you lay up these My words in your heart and in your soul; and bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for frontlets between your eyes. (19) And you shall teach them your children, talking of them, when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou lie down, and when thou rise up...
The text here, in Deuteronomy Chapter 11, includes material from the second paragraph of the Shema (vv. 13-21) Verse 9 mentions 'land of milk and honey' - The message is only faithfulness to God's mitzvoth will enable the Land to realize its potential fertility. 'Land of milk & honey' is then both descriptive, the way God describes the Land to those who will settle there, and prescriptive, the way that Land can be only if the relationship to God is one of loyalty - keeping the covenant.