Numbers 20:21

_THUS EDOM REFUSED TO GIVE ISRAEL PASSAGE THROUGH HIS BORDER: WHEREFORE ISRAEL TURNED AWAY FROM HIM._ Edom refused to give Israel ... - a churlish refusal obliged them to take another route, and in submitting, instead of attempting, like a military chief bent on plunder and conquest, to force a passage through the Edomite territory, Moses acted in accordance with the peaceful genius of the dispensation he was commissioned to introduce (see the notes at Numbers 21:4; Deuteronomy 2:4; Judges 11:18; see also 1 Samuel 14:47; 2 Samuel 8:14

14-21 The nearest way to Canaan from the place where Israel encamped, was through the country of Edom. The ambassadors who were sent returned with a denial. The Edomites feared to receive damage by the Israelites. And had this numerous army been under any other discipline than that of the righteous God himself, there might have been cause for this jealousy. But Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing; and now the hatred revived, when the blessing was about to be inherited. We must not think it strange, if reasonable requests be denied by unreasonable men, and if those whom God favours be affronted by men....

Verse Numbers 20:21. _THUS EDOM REFUSED TO GIVE ISRAEL PASSAGE THROUGH HIS_ _BORDER_] Though every king has a right to refuse passage through his territories to any strangers; yet in a case like this, and in a _time_ also in which _emigrations_ were frequent and universally allowed, it was both cruelty and oppression in Edom to refuse a passage to a comparatively unarmed and inoffensive multitude, who were all their own near _kinsmen_. It appears however that it was only the _Edomites of Kadesh_ that were thus unfriendly and cruel; for from Deuteronomy 2:29 we learn that the _Edomites_ who dwelt in _Mount Seir_ treated them in a hospitable manner. This cruelty in the Edomites of Kadesh is strongly reprehended, and threatened by the Prophet Obad...

EXPOSITION THE LAST MARCH: FROM KADESH TO HOR (Numbers 20:1). NUMBERS 20:1 THEN CAME THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, EVEN THE WHOLE CONGREGATION. The latter words are emphatic here and in Numbers 20:22, and seem intended to mark the period of reassembly after the dispersion of nearly thirty eight years. Probably a portion of the tribes had visited Kadesh many times during those years, and perhaps it had never been wholly abandoned. INTO THE DESERT OF ZIN, _i.e; _if the western site be maintained for Kadesh, the Wady Murreh. See th

Ver. 21 THUS EDOM REFUSED TO GIVE ISRAEL PASSAGE THROUGH HIS COUNTRY,.... Notwithstanding their near relation to each other, and the fair promises Israel made: WHEREFORE ISRAEL TURNED AWAY FROM HIM: patiently bearing the refusal, and not resenting it; being ordered, as the Targum of Jonathan expresses it, by the Word of heaven, not to make war with them, because the time was not yet come to take vengeance on Edom by their hands; and to the same purpose the Targum of Jerusalem....

10. AT KADESH IN THE FORTIETH YEAR: MURMURING AND CONQUEST CHAPTER 20 _ 1. The death of Miriam (Numbers 20:1)_ 2. The murmuring of the people (Numbers 20:2) 3. The divine instruction (Numbers 20:6) 4. Moses' and Aaron's failure (Numbers 20:9) 5. Edom's refusal (Numbers 20:14) 6. The death of Aaron (Numbers 20:23) Between the nineteenth and twentieth chapter lies the unrecorded period of almost 38 years, th

ISRAELS ABORTIVE APPEAL TO EDOM (JE). Israel's desire to cross Edom was due to the wish to attack Canaan on the E. instead of on the S., where they had met with defeat (Numbers 14:45). As Kadesh was W. of Edom, the encompassing of the country (Numbers 21:4) involved a march from Kadesh to the SE. NUMBERS 20:16. BORDER: The term here means territory (_cf. Numbers 22:36_). Numbers 20:19. without. else: better, it is no great matter (of annoyance)....

TURNED AWAY. Compare Judges 11:18; Deuteronomy 2:4; Deuteronomy 2:5....

_Permission to pass through Edom refused_. The Edomites occupied territory to the south of the Dead Sea, westward as far as Kadesh (Numbers 20:16) and southward as far as the eastern arm of the Red Sea (Numbers 21:4). The Israelites having failed long before to enter Canaan from the south, did not attempt it again (see, however, n. on Numbers 21:1-3), but proposed to enter it from the east. And if they could pass straight through Edom, their route would be greatly shortened. Edom's refusal forced them to work round the south of the hostile country, and then northwards along its eastern border....

THUS EDOM REFUSED TO GIVE ISRAEL PASSAGE— Grotius censures this conduct of the Edomites, as contrary to equity and the law of nations; by which the highways, as well as the seas and rivers of all countries, ought to be free for all who have a mind to pass through them upon just occasions; insomuch, that he thinks the denial of this was an equitable ground of the war with the Amorites, mentioned ch. 21: as it might have been with Edom and Moab, had not God prohibited it. See De Jure, B. & P. lib. 2: cap. 2: sect. 13. But Gronovius, on the contrary, shews, that princes have a right to deny this liberty for their people's security. And this we find to have been the general sense of mankind; as appears by various examples, cited by Gronovius in his Notes on Grotius, and by Selden in his Mare Clausum, lib. 1: cap. 20. But granting the king of Edom had a right to refuse the Israelites a passag...