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If God’s leadership of his people in the past had a geographical specificity to it (ch. 33), so does his leadership of his people in the future (ch. 34). Although not even there yet, the Israelites were given exact boundaries for their future home. It is God who delegated the territory and set southern/western/northern/eastern boundaries. Since Moses had never been there himself, and lacking an atlas, much of this data would presumably be meaningless to Moses. What would an individual who had spent most of forty years in Midian and another forty years in the desert understand by geographical minutiae like run a line from Hazar Eanan to Shepham (v.10), or from Mount Hor to Lebo Hamath (v.8)?
The southern boundary is in the wilderness of Zin (v.3), while the northern boundary extends to Lebo Hamath or to the entrance of Hamath (v.8). The land will also extend from the eastern border at the Jordan River (v.12) to the Great Sea (i.e., the Mediterranean) on the west (v.6). At no time in her history did Israel ever occupy all of this area. The closest she came was during the reign of David. What God promised was never totally appropriated.
In addition to boundary data, God instructed Moses to appoint twelve tribal leaders whom God himself had chosen and who would be responsible to oversee future divisions of the land among the tribes (vv.16-29). Three such lists of leaders of the twelve tribes appear in Numbers: those in this chapter, the lists of twelve census supervisors in 1:5-16, and the twelve spies listed in 13:4-15. Each list appears at a significant point in Numbers: (1) the organization and inauguration of the march of Israel toward Canaan; (2) decisive rebellion in the desert, which led to the death of the first generation; and (3) the future allocation of the land to the second generation. Both Joshua and Caleb appeared in lists 2 and 3. Survivors from the first generation, they would function as models of faith to the younger generation.