Deuteronomy 2:1 “Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness of the way of the Red Sea, as Yahweh spoke to me, and we skirted Mount Seir for many days. 2 And Yahweh spoke to me, saying: 3 ‘You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward. 4 And command the people, saying, “You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you. Therefore watch yourselves carefully. 5 Do not meddle with them, for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as one footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession. 6 You shall buy food from them with money, that you may eat; and you shall also buy water from them with money, that you may drink. 7 For Yahweh your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years Yahweh your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.’”
“‘Then we’— Moses, Aaron, his sons, Joshua, Caleb and the faithful Levites— ‘turned and journeyed into the wilderness of the way of the Red Sea, ’ back with the unfaithful, murmuring Israelites.” (Arno Gaebelein)— “‘as Yahweh spoke to me, and we skirted Mount Seir for many days.’ This “seems to refer in general terms to the long years of wandering, the details of which were not for Moses‘ present purpose...” (Albert Barnes), not for this sermon. Within the interval they "were refused a passage through Edom [by these descendants of Abraham, their brethern], and opposed by the Canaanites and Amalakites…” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown), as well. And the congregation murmured and complained about everything whilst Yahweh provided for their every need.
“And Yahweh spoke to me’ — Moses—'saying: ‘You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward.’ Thus God’s word was their director unto all places, and in all actions.” (John Trapp) “We”— the NT Church— “occupy much the same spot; are moving up and down in much the same wilderness state; sometimes apparently nearer our homes, and sometimes further remote. Oh! how sweet is it to have the pillar of cloud, even Jesus, always going before us, and that same Rock following of us through all the way.” (Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary)
Yahweh’s spoke to the people, saying, ‘You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir; and they will be afraid of you.’ I made them so. And though you know of their previous offense against you— “I charge you take no advantage of their fears, which you will be very apt to do. ‘Therefore watch yourselves carefully. Do not meddle with them,’ to wit, in battle at this time.” (Matthew Poole)— “‘for I will not give you any of their land, no, not so much as one footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.” Mount Seir was an ancient holding of Esau, Genesis 32:3. It “is a type of the earth, and all its carnal pursuits and pleasures [as Esau selling the birthright for lentils- Genesis 25:29-31]. These hath the LORD given to the children of men. David saith, that the men of the world have their portion in this life, it is all they seek; and all they desire. Psalms 17:14. In the common and necessary wants of life, the people of God are permitted to buy of them what they need, but no more. In all other matters that precept of the apostle holds good, and the observance of it carries with it its own reward.” (Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary)
They called Esau-Jacob's twin, "Edom." "The reddish color of the baby, together with the color appearing in the episode of the lentil soup (v. 30), led to the use of the term Edom, or 'red'" (Tyndale Bible Dictionary), from red clay or, as Adam, of the dust of the earth and earthy.
“‘For Yahweh your God has blessed you"—with the spiritual birthright— "in all the work of your hand"- and the entire congregation for your sake. "He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years Yahweh your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing." And "Israelites indeed" complained not. "How strange it would have been if they had complained in sharing in the judgment of the mass of the people. This is true obedience and humility. ‘God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble; submit yourselves, therefore, to God.’… The faithful ones shared the trials, the sorrows, the hardships of the murmuring multitudes. And Jehovah was with them and in gracious tenderness... 'He knows your trudging through this great wilderness.'” (Arno Gaebelein)
“He has made from one blood [that is of Adam and Eve] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’“ (Acts 17:26-28)
Deuteronomy 2:8 “And when we passed beyond our brethren, the descendants of Esau who dwell in Seir, away from the road of the plain, away from Elath and Ezion Geber, we turned and passed by way of the Wilderness of Moab. 9 Then Yahweh said to me, ‘Do not harass Moab, nor contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.’ 10 The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. 11 They were also regarded as giants, like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim. 12 The Horites formerly dwelt in Seir, but the descendants of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their place, just as Israel did to the land of their possession which the Lord gave them.
“In accordance with this divine command, they went past the Edomites by the side of their mountains, ‘from the way of the Arabah, from Elath (Genesis 14:6) and Eziongeber’ (Numbers 33:35), into the steppes of Moab, where they were encamped at that time.“ (Keil & Delitzsch) “And though the Edomites resisted the passage through the midst of their land, they did not, and probably could not, oppose the ‘passing through the coast’ or along their eastern frontier.” (Albert Barnes)
And restrictions were given concerning these brethren also— the Moabites. "According to Genesis 19:37, the Moabites descended from Moab, the son of Lot and his oldest daughter.” (Tyndale Bible Dictionary) So like the Edomites, they were kinsmen of the Israelites. Again Yahweh said: “Do not harass Moab, nor contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession, because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession.’ The royal [yet earthly] city, set upon a hill [Numbers 21:15; Numbers 21:28].” (John Trapp) “A man must needs have some right to his inheritance, to his portion. [Psalms 17:14].” (Trapp)
God is Grantor! This was their inheritance, like Mount Seir to Edom, of the earth. “Their territory comprised the fine country on the south, and partly on the north of the Arnon. They had won it by their arms from the original inhabitants, the Emims-a race terrible, as their name imports, for physical power and stature.” (Jamieson, Faussett, Brown)
The prior inhabitance were like the Anakim but the Moabites called them “Emim” meaning, “the terrible ones." "The very meaning of this word thus gives a definite clue as to why God threw them out of the land in order to give it to the Moabites. When they proved themselves no longer worthy of God's blessing, the Moabites were empowered by God to drive them out ‘as Israel’ had already driven out the Trans-jordanian peoples to make room for the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh.” (Burton Coffman)
“And if God cast out those Emims, or terrible ones, before the Moabites, will he not much more cast out these Anakims before the Israelites?” (John Trapp) “These revolutions show what uncertain things wordly possessions are. It was so of old, and ever will be so. Families decline, and from them estates are transferred to families that increase; so little continuance is there in these things. This is recorded to encourage the children of Israel…” (Matthew Henry)
“This and the other examples of such a thing found in Deuteronomy 2:20-23 were very probably intended by Moses to provide a warning to Israel that when they should at last enter Canaan, their tenure there would depend upon the kind of people they would be.“ (Burton Coffman)
Speaking of Israel’s defeat of the the current occupants of Canaan, the tense is questioned by some who supposed that Joshua or some other Israelite inserted this verse later. “Objection: God had not yet given it unto them. Answer: The past tense is here put for the future, will give, after the manner of the prophets.” (Matthew Poole) And, it should also be noted that He had already given them Trans-Jordan, as a deposit.
It is admitted that Canaan is earthly too. But there was a remnant, even then, who loved not the world neither the things of the world. “They who are set out for Canaan, are to have no objects to allure or lead them out of the way. Sweet is that account of the Patriarchs, Hebrews 11:13-16.—All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.’— The most profitable instruction to be gathered from these verses will be, I think, to remark how often places change their masters. Nations, like individuals, succeed one another in the events of life. Of all as well as one, it may be truly said, here we have no continuing city.”
(Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary)
Deuteronomy 2:13 “ ‘Now rise and cross over the Valley of the Zered.’ So we crossed over the Valley of the Zered. 14 And the time we took to come from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed over the Valley of the Zered was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war was consumed from the midst of the camp, just as Yahweh had sworn to them. 15 For indeed the hand of Yahweh was against them, to destroy them from the midst of the camp until they were consumed.16 So it was, when all the men of war had finally perished from among the people, 17 that Yahweh spoke to me, saying: 18 ‘This day you are to cross over at Ar, the boundary of Moab.
“Now rise and cross over the Valley of the Zered. So we crossed over the Valley of the Zered,” just as Yahweh had commanded. They have one up on that dying generation. So, for this reason Israel was to remove from the desert of Moab (i.e., the desert which bounded Moabitis on the east), and to cross over the brook Zered , to advance against the country of the Amorites (Numbers 21:12-13). This occurred thirty-eight years after the condemnation of the people at Kadesh (Numbers 14:23, Numbers 14:29), when the generation [of disobedient men of war] rejected by God had entirely died out ( תּמם , to be all gone, to disappear), so that not one of them saw the promised land, ‘just as Yahweh had sworn to them.’” (Keil & Delitzsch) Their deaths were not all of natural causes. “‘For indeed the hand of Yahweh was against them.’ This means that, not by natural causes alone, but by special penal judgments also, they were troubled and destroyed.’ [W. L. Alexander] There may be instances in which God still shows His displeasure with extremely wicked men by cutting their lives short. Certainly, He did it here.” (Coffman Commentary) Each of the aforementioned transfers of deeds involved such judgments.
“You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance; for all our days are passed away in Your wrath.”(Ps 90:8-9)
“‘So it came to pass, when all the men of war were consumed,’ by wasting diseases and judgments of one kind or another: ‘and dead from among the people;’ the rising and surviving generation ‘that Yahweh spoke unto me,’ at the brook Zered, having passed that, or at Dibongad, which was their next station: ‘saying;’ as follows: ’Thou art to pass over through Ar,.... That is, over the river Arnon, by the city Ar of Moab, which was situated by it; see Deuteronomy 2:9 and so Moses and the people of Israel were to pass along by that: ‘and by the coast of Moab;’ for they were not admitted to enter the land and pass through it; only to travel on the borders of it, and that they were to begin to do this day; the day the Lord spake to Moses.” (John Gill)
"Zered- Valley and brook by which the Israelites encamped [and entered Canaan], listed between Iye-abarim and a stopping place near the Arnon River to the north (Nm 21:12)." (Tyndale) We are there encamped! “So, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me,
though for forty years they saw what I did.”(Hebrew 3:7-9)
“Those cannot but waste, until they were consumed, who have the hand of God against them. Observe, Israel is not called to engage with the Canaanites till all the men of war, the veteran regiments, that had been used to hardship, and had learned the art of war from the Egyptians, ‘were consumed and dead from among the people’ (Deuteronomy 2:16), that the conquest of Canaan, being effected by a host of new-raised men, trained up in a wilderness, the excellency of the power might the more plainly appear to be of God and not of men.” (Matthew Henry)
Deuteronomy 2:19 And when you come near the people of Ammon, do not harass them or meddle with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession, because I have given it to the descendants of Lot as a possession.’ 20 (That was also regarded as a land of giants; giants formerly dwelt there. But the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, 21 a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. But the Lord destroyed them before them, and they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place, 22 just as He had done for the descendants of Esau, who dwelt in Seir, when He destroyed the Horites from before them. They dispossessed them and dwelt in their place, even to this day. 23 And the Avim, who dwelt in villages as far as Gaza—the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and dwelt in their place.)
“Caphtorims, a people akin to the Philistines, Genesis 10:14, and confederate with them in this enterprise, and so dwelling together, and by degrees were probably united together by marriages or other ways, and became one people, the Caphtorims being at last swallowed up in the Philistines. See Jeremiah 47:4 Amos 9:7.” (Matthew Poole)
Caphtor is by the learned thought to be Cappadocia; whither these people might make an expedition out of Egypt, either because of the report of the great riches of part of that country, which drew others thither from places equally remote, or after the manner of those ancient times, or for some other reason now unknown.
Deuteronomy 2:26 “And I sent messengers from the Wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying, 27 ‘Let me pass through your land; I will keep strictly to the road, and I will turn neither to the right nor to the left. 28 You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for money, that I may drink; only let me pass through on foot, 29 just as the descendants of Esau who dwell in Seir and the Moabites who dwell in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land which the Lord our God is giving us.’
30 “But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through, for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into your hand, as it is this day.
31 “And the Lord said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to possess it, that you may inherit his land.’ 32 Then Sihon and all his people came out against us to fight at Jahaz. 33 And Yahweh our God delivered him over to us; so we defeated him, his sons, and all his people. 34 We took all his cities at that time, and we utterly destroyed the men, women, and little ones of every city; we left none remaining. 35 We took only the livestock as plunder for ourselves, with the spoil of the cities which we took. 36 From Aroer, which is on the bank of the River Arnon, and from the city that is in the ravine, as far as Gilead, there was not one city too strong for us; Yahweh our God delivered all to us. 37 Only you did not go near the land of the people of Ammon—anywhere along the River Jabbok, or to the cities of the mountains, or wherever Yahweh our God had forbidden us.
Deuteronomy 2:24 “ ‘Rise, take your journey, and cross over the River Arnon. Look, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to possess it, and engage him in battle. 25 This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the nations under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you, and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.
“Here the LORD begins to give Israel an earnest of his promises.” (Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary), even as we who believe in Jesus are given the Spirit of God to act and show the way.
“Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon: behold, I have given into thine hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: begin to possess [it], and contend with him in battle,’ according to his promise made to Abraham, (Genesis 15:16)— ‘Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.’” (Geneva Study Bible) In Abraham’s day, the iniquity of the Amorites had begun, but it was not complete. But now if was full and ripe for judgement without mercy. Probation had ended for the Amorites. Likewise, God is holding off the Second Coming until the fullness of the Gentiles have come in, or rather the inequities of the world are full.
Yahweh said: “’Look, I have given into your hand Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land.’ that is, he had determined to give it to the Israelites, for as yet it was not actually given; of this king, and the place he was king of… ‘Begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle’.” (John Gill) Go into his land. Do not be afraid of him nor his troops.
“‘This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the nations under the whole heaven;’ which is a synecdoche and an hyperbole, but is explained by the following words, ‘who shall hear the report of you;’ which restrain the sentence to those nations that heard of them, ‘and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you.’” (Matthew Poole)
26 “And I sent messengers from the Wilderness of Kedemoth to Sihon king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying, 27 ‘Let me pass through your land; I will keep strictly to the road, and I will turn neither to the right nor to the left. 28 You shall sell me food for money, that I may eat, and give me water for money, that I may drink; only let me pass through on foot, 29 just as the descendants of Esau who dwell in Seir and the Moabites who dwell in Ar did for me, until I cross the Jordan to the land which the Lord our God is giving us.’
30 “But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass through, for Yahweh your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that He might deliver him into your hand, as it is this day. 31And the Lord said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land over to you. Begin to possess it, that you may inherit his land.’”
If Moses, notwithstanding the command and foreknowledge of Yahweh, “sent messengers to king Sihon with words of peace (Deuteronomy 2:26.; cf. Numbers 21:21.), this was done to show the king of the Amorites, that it was through his own fault that his kingdom and lands and life were lost. The wish to pass through his land in a peaceable manner was quite seriously expressed; although Moses foresaw, in consequence of the divine communication, that he would reject his proposal, and meet Israel with hostilities.” (Keil & Delitzsch) Thus, we offer peace to the world.
“Sihon’s measure of wickedness and cruelty was full. (cp. Genesis 15:16) His spirit was hardened like Pharaoh’s and Israel completely overthrew him and his kingdom.” (Arno Gaebelien) Moses seemed willing to pass in peace, but Sihon king of Heshbon would not let Israel pass through. “God makes fools of those whom he intends to destroy.” (John Trapp)
“Let us learn, never to dare or despise the Lord’s people; never to obstruct their way to heaven, provided we should be unwilling to accompany them.” (Joseph Sutcliffe) “Some have thought, and perhaps not improperly, that the offers and proposals made to Sihon, are not unsimilar to the proclamation of peace in the gospel of JESUS. When men are brought under the preached word, and see the privileges and enjoyments of the LORD'S people, are there not evidences sufficient to show the most carnal, that there must be somewhat very interesting in the joyful sound. Ezekiel 2:7.” (Hawker's Poor Man's Commentary)
“What a new world did Israel now come into! Much more joyful will the change be, which holy souls will experience, when they remove out of the wilderness of this world to the better country, that is, the heavenly, to the city that has foundations. Let us, by reflecting upon God's dealings with His people Israel, be led to meditate upon our years spent in vanity, through our transgressions. But happy are those whom Jesus has delivered from the wrath to come. To whom He hath given the earnest of his Spirit in their hearts. Their inheritance cannot be affected by revolutions of kingdoms, or changes in earthly possessions.” (Henry)
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