APAD: Land of Milk and Honey

Meaning:

A place of good things. Can also be used to mean a situation that is extremely

good.

 

Background:

Example: 'Ever since they won the lottery they've been living in the land of

milk and honey.'

 

Source/Early Use:

So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring

them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk

and honey - the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites

and Jebusites.

 

- Exodus 3.8.

 

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The phrase is used more than 20 times in the KJV, according to David Crystal,

and the collocation of "milk and honey" has become a perennial target for

wordplay, e.g., "The US: a land of milk and honey and mass obesity" headlined an

article in 2000 and "Milk 'n' Honey" was the name of a London kosher restaurant.

 

I was awestruck staring from 30000ft above at the verdant Canadian prairie to

the east of Rockies. As we slowly descended for landing, the earth took on the

look of a giant chessboard with each square a thousand-acre farm. Milk and honey

would follow, the country sure had land!