Deuteronomy 33:4-5

4a. met you not, etc.] The appearance of the Pl. address marks a quotation as in Deuteronomy 9:7 f. According to Deuteronomy 2:29 Moab sold bread and waterto Israel.

when ye came forth out of Egypt Whoever wrote this clause (D or an editor) its perspective is that not of Moses in the land of Moab but of a time long after when the whole forty years" passage from Egypt was foreshortened.

4b, 5. Probably another quotation from a different source: (1) because of the change from the Pl. to the Sg. address (confirmed by LXX), and (2) because Heb. and the versions have he hired(not theyas in EVV.), suggesting that in the context from which it was extracted this vb had a sing. nominative (Balak?). On the substance of Deuteronomy 33:4 b, Deuteronomy 33:5, see JE, Numbers 22:2 ff.