Deuteronomy 2:4

_AND COMMAND THOU THE PEOPLE, SAYING, YE ARE TO PASS THROUGH THE COAST OF YOUR BRETHREN THE CHILDREN OF ESAU, WHICH DWELL IN SEIR; AND THEY SHALL BE AFRAID OF YOU: TAKE YE GOOD HEED UNTO YOURSELVES THEREFORE:_ The children of Esau ... shall be afraid of you. The same people who had haughtily repelled the approach of the Israelites from the western frontier were alarmed now that they had come round upon the weak side of their country. It seems, from the Israelites having free access to the pastures on mount Hor and its neighbourhood, that the Edomites would have laid them under no restriction or prohibition so long as they did not encroach on the cultivated parts of their country....

4._And they shall be afraid of you. _This temptation was the more provoking, when they heard not only that the embassy would be vain, but that although Edom should receive them with injustice and hostility, they were still to abstain from violence and arms. For there might be some reason in this, that when they presented their request in a friendly manner, they would have a legitimate cause of war, if Edom should reject their demands. But this further condition might appear altogether intolerable that they were to do nothing against those who refused to let them pass quietly through their land. Hence, however, it more fully appears how the Israelites were gradually, and by various kinds of chastisement, subdued to obedience, whereas they would otherwise have fiercely and petulantly exclaimed that they had been dealt with unkindly by God; since thus their condition would be worse than the...

1-7 Only a short account of the long stay of Israel in the wilderness is given. God not only chastised them for their murmuring and unbelief, but prepared them for Canaan; by humbling them for sin, teaching them to mortify their lusts, to follow God, and to comfort themselves in him. Though Israel may be long kept waiting for deliverance and enlargement, it will come at last. Before God brought Israel to destroy their enemies in Canaan, he taught them to forgive their enemies in Edom. They must not, under pretence of God's covenant and conduct, think to seize all they could lay hands on. Dominion is not founded in grace. God's Israel shall be well placed, but must not expect to be placed alone in the midst of the earth. Religion must never be made a cloak for injustice. Scorn to be beholden to Edomites, when thou hast an all-sufficient God to depend upon. Use what thou hast, use it chee...

Compare the marginal reference. 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....

EXPOSITION DEUTERONOMY 2:1 THE NEW BEGINNING AND REVIEW OF THE JOURNEYINGS OF ISRAEL FROM KADESH TO THE RIVER ARNON, THE FRONTIER OF THE AMORITES. At this point the language of address is exchanged for that of narrative. The change of subject from "ye abode" to "we turned," became necessary when Moses passed from exhorting and warning the people to narrating what happened after they resumed their journeyings; and gives no support to the notion of some recent German critics, that Moses left Ka

AND COMMAND THOU THE PEOPLE,.... Give them a strict charge: SAYING, YE ARE TO PASS THROUGH THE COAST OF YOUR BRETHREN THE CHILDREN OR ESAU: not through the midst of their country, for that the king of Edom would not admit of, but by or on the border of it: AND THEY SHALL BE AFRAID OF YOU; lest such a numerous body of people as Israel were should seize upon their country, and dispossess them of it, they having been so long, wanderers in a wilderness near them: TAKE YE GOOD HEED UNTO YOURSELVES THEREFORE; that they did not take any advantage of their fears, and fall upon them, and do them mischief, or that they did not provoke them to battle and overcome them....

_3. AFTER THE FORTY YEARS AND FROM CONFLICT TO CONQUEST_ CHAPTER 2 _ 1. From Kadesh to the land of the Amorites (Deuteronomy 2:1)_ 2. The command to possess (Deuteronomy 2:24) 3. The conquest of Sihon (Deuteronomy 2:26) The many days in the first verse are the thirty-eight years. We must notice the little word “we.” “We turned and took our journey into the wilderness.” Moses, Aaron, his sons, Joshua, Caleb and the faithful Levites turned back with the unfaithful, murmuring Israelites. Moses and all who had not shared in the unbelief of the people submitted to the sovereign will of the Lord. How strange it would have been if they had complained in sharing in

FROM KADESH-BARNEA TO WADY-ZERED. The present passage seems to contradict the parallel narrative in Numbers 20 f. Deuteronomy 2:1_ b. i.e._ we lingered in the neighbourhood of Mt. Seir a good length of time, viz. thirty-eight years (Deuteronomy 2:7; Deuteronomy 2:14). Deuteronomy 2:4. border: better, bordered territory, the Heb. word means both. YOUR BRETHREN: _ i.e._ kinsmen (see Genesis 25:23; Genesis 36:43

PASS THROUGH. cross the border. Numbers 20:4; Numbers 20:14; Judges 11:17. CHILDREN. sons....

Duet Deuteronomy 1:6 to Deuteronomy 3:29. Historical Part of the First Introductory Discourse Spoken in the land of Moab (Deuteronomy 1:5) in _the gai_or _glen, over against Beth Pe-or_(Deuteronomy 3:29), a review of Israel's experiences since they left Ḥoreb. In the Plur. form of address except for the following fragments Deuteronomy 1:8; Deuteronomy 1:21;...