A little post-bar real estate law tidbit

For those of you who need a breather after the bar exams, firstly, congrats on making it through that ordeal! Secondly, I thought I'd open up with a little Q & A:

Question: Where can I find a (very) early example of a deed's metes and bounds?

Answer: That's crazy! Why would you even want to know that? What's wrong with you?

Question: No, but really, where?

Answer: Okay, fine weirdo, I might not be able to give you metes, but you can actually find bounds in this week's parashah, Masei (Num. 33:1-36:13). The boundaries of "the Land of Israel" are enumerated (Num. 34:3-12): Starting in the southeast corner of the Dead Sea and running westerly to the Brook of Egypt (a now non-existent eastern branch of the Nile) via Ma'ale Akravim, Tzin, Kadesh-barnea, Hazar-addar and Atzmon in the Negev; thence northerly up the coast of the ("Great") Mediterranean Sea up to Mount Hor; thence easterly to Hazar-enan via Hamas, Tzedad, Zifron; thence southerly to the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) via Shefam and Rivlah, thence further south to the Dead Sea via the Jordan River.

It has the run-on sentence narration of many modern deeds, but is missing the distances that make of the meat of the metes and bounds sections. It's a shame, too! Since without the metes there is tremendous controversy over where these now long-gone settlements were. This is complicated by the fact that there were at least two Kadesh-barneas, several places that could have been Mount Hor.

Other parts of the parashah contain the granting clause (Num. 33:51-53) as well as some deed restrictions (Num. 33:54-56), where quiet enjoyment is only conditionally granted. But, needless to say, I think the Israelites needed to have a better real estate attorney to review this deed, as there has been a bit of a historical cloud on title.