“A land flowing with milk and honey”
to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A quaint, almost childish description of a nice land.
The cultural key
'A land flowing with milk and honey' is a fixed idiom for agricultural abundance, and each half carries weight. 'Milk' evokes thriving flocks and herds, and therefore ample grazing land, a pastoralist's dream of well-watered hills where livestock grow fat. 'Honey' in the Hebrew world meant both wild bees' honey and, especially, the thick syrup pressed from dates and figs, so it stands for rich orchards and sweet produce, the farmer's dream. Put together, they promise a land generous in both herding and horticulture, so fertile that its bounty seems to 'flow.' It is the opposite of the barren wilderness Israel is crossing and of the Egypt of forced labor they are leaving. A modern reader hears a cute phrase; the first hearers, many of them herders and farmers who knew hunger, heard the promise of a land where both the flocks and the fields overflow.
Recovered meaning
'Milk and honey' is idiom for a richly fertile land: milk for abundant flocks and pasture, honey for sweet produce and orchards. Together they promise a land overflowing with the good things of both herding and farming.