The Meek Inherit the Land

In Matthew 5:5, as part of what now is referred to as ‘The Beatitudes’, Jesus famously declares,

“Happy the meek — because they shall inherit the land (YLT).”

The ‘New King James Version (NKJV)’ and other popular interpretive translations of the Bible (translations that do not only translate words from the original language to English, but that attempt to convey what they consider to be meaning of the words that are translated) interpret Matthew 5:5 as follows:

“Blessed are the meek — for they shall inherit the earth (NKJV).”

It is straightforward that there exist two major differences between the verbatim translation of the ‘Young’s Literal Translation (YLT)’ of the Bible, and the interpretive translation of the NKJV, namely, substitution of the word, ‘Blessed’ for ‘Happy’, and the word ‘Earth’ for ‘Land’. We shall leave a discussion of juxtaposition of the words, ‘Blessed’ and ‘Happy’ for another time. In this post, I focus on a juxtaposition of the words, ‘Earth’ and ‘Land’.

Is there, within language of Christian Scriptures, any difference of meaning or import between the words, ‘Land’ and ‘Earth’?