Deuteronomy 1:3

_AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THE FORTIETH YEAR, IN THE ELEVENTH MONTH, ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH, THAT MOSES SPAKE UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, ACCORDING UNTO ALL THAT THE LORD HAD GIVEN HIM IN COMMANDMENT UNTO THEM;_ In the fortieth year ... This impressive discourse, in which Moses reviewed all that God had done for his people, was delivered about a month before his death, and after peace and tranquillily had been restored by the complete conquest of Sihon and Og....

1-8 Moses spake to the people all the Lord had given him in commandment. Horeb was but eleven days distant from Kadesh-barnea. This was to remind them that their own bad conduct had occasioned their tedious wanderings; that they might the more readily understand the advantages of obedience. They must now go forward. Though God brings his people into trouble and affliction, he knows when they have been tried long enough. When God commands us to go forward in our Christian course, he sets the heavenly Canaan before us for our encouragement....

Verse Deuteronomy 1:3. _THE FORTIETH YEAR_] This was a melancholy year to the Hebrews in different respects; in the first month of this year Miriam died, Numbers 20:1; on the first day of the fifth month Aaron died, Numbers 33:38; and about the conclusion of it, Moses himself died....

TITLE AND INTRODUCTION Deuteronomy 1:1. EXPOSITION DEUTERONOMY 1:1 In these verses we have the inscription and general introduction to the book, announcing the contents of the book, the author of it, the parties whom he addressed, and the time and place of his addresses. DEUTERONOMY 1:1 THESE BE THE WORDS. Some would render here "Such are the words," and understand the expression as referring to the preceding books. But it seems more natural to refer it to what follows—to the addresses in this book. The pronoun these (אֵלֶּה) may be used with a prospective reference, as

AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THE FORTIETH YEAR,.... That is, of the coming of the children of Israel out of Egypt: IN THE ELEVENTH MONTH; the month Shebet, as the Targum of Jonathan, which answers to part of January and part of February: IN THE FIRST DAY OF THE MONTH, THAT MOSES SPOKE UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL ACCORDING TO ALL THAT THE LORD HAD GIVEN HIM IN COMMANDMENT UNTO THEM; repeated to them the several commandments, which the Lord had delivered to him at different times....

ELEVENTH That is, February....

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATIONS I. THE FIRST DISCOURSE OF MOSES AND RETROSPECT _ 1. The Introduction_ CHAPTER 1:1-5 The people were still on this side of Jordan in the wilderness. The second verse, containing a parenthetical statement, gives the story of their unbelief, as recorded in the Book of Numbers. “There are eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir unto Kadesh-barnea.” They might have reached the place they occupied now, facing Jordan and the land, in eleven days. It took them almost forty years. Unbelief had kept them back. It was towards the end of the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, that Moses began his wonderful addresses. In the first month of that memorable year Miriam had died (Numbers 20:1). His brother Aaron had died in the fifth month (Numbers 33:38

Historical introduction to Deuteronomy 1:6 ff.: a compilation, perhaps intended to introduce the whole book. DEUTERONOMY 1:1. BEYOND JORDAN: therefore the writer dwelt W. of the Jordan; so Deuteronomy 1:5 and often, Deuteronomy 3:8; Deuteronomy 3:20; Deuteronomy 3:25. ARABAN (lit. waste region): the low-lying valley of the Jordan, the Sea of Galilee and Dead Sea, extending from the Sea of Galilee to the Red Sea (Gulf of Akabah

FORTIETH. The number of Probation. See App-10. First month, Miriam died, Numbers 20:1. fifth month, Aaron died, Numbers 33:38. at the end, Moses died on 29 Sebat, 1452; for the thirty days' mourning end with last day of the fortieth year (29 Adar, 1452). See App-50,:4. CHILDREN. sons. ACCORDING UNTO, &C. Always thus. Compare 2 Peter 1:20; 2 Peter 1:21. THE LORD. Hebrew. _Jehovah._ App-4....

_And it came to pass in the fortieth year_, etc.] P alone of the Hex. documents dates by months and days (_I. P._58, 71); and its division of the year is not that which, beginning with the autumn, prevailed in early Israel, but the Babyl. division which began with the spring. The Babyl. system was first adopted by the Jews, not during the exile (as usually supposed, Marti, _Enc. Bibl._-Year"), but, as we gather from Baruch's narratives in the Bk of Jeremiah, during Manasseh's reign, when the Assyrians imposed on Judah many of their institutions (_Jerusalem_, ii. 189 f.). Another mark of P is the term for _eleventh_used in the Hex. by P alone and elsewhere only by late writers. Wellh. (_Hist._384 f.) takes the verse as from the editor who incorporated D with P, but Driver, as the introd. to a summary narrative in P, and as followed immediately by Deuterono