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📚These are the words which Moses spoke to all Israel on the east side of the Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain opposite Suph 📖, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 1:1 Moses first spoke the words of this book. Later he wrote them down (Deut 31:9).⚜
2 📚It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-Barnea.
3 📚And it came about in the fortieth year 📖, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spoke to the children of Israel, according to all that the LORD had commanded him concerning them.
1:3 These words and messages came to Moses and to Israel at the command of God. They are the words of Moses, but they are also the words of God (1 Tim 3:16; 2 Pet 1:21).⚜
4 📚This was after he had killed Sihon the king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon, and Og the king of Bashan, who lived at Astaroth in Edrei.
5 📚On the east side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to expound this law, saying,
1:5 The word translated “law” also means “instruction”.⚜
Israel’s journeys from Mt Sinai to Canaan
6 📚The LORD our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying, “You have lived long enough at this mountain. 7 📚Turn and set out on your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all the places near it on the plain, in the hills, and in the lowland, and in the south, and by the sea shore, to the land of the Canaanites, and to Lebanon, to the great river, the river Euphrates. 8 📚See, I have set the land before you. Go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them and to their offspring after them”.
The Appointment of Judges
9 📚And I spoke to you at that time, saying, “I am not able to bear you alone. 10 📚The LORD your God has increased your number, and, look, you are this day as many as the stars of heaven in number. 11 📚The LORD God of your fathers cause you to increase a thousand times more than you are, and bless you as he has promised you! 12 📚How can I, I alone, bear your load and your burden and your strife? 13 📚Select men of wisdom and understanding and reputation among your tribes, and I will make them your leaders”.
14 And you answered me, and said, “The thing which you have spoken is good to do”.
15 📚So I took the heads of your tribes, wise men, and men of reputation, and made them your leaders, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes. 16 📚And I charged your judges at that time, saying, “Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge righteously between each man and his brother, and the foreigner who is with him. 17 📚You must not show partiality in judgment, but you must hear the small as well as the great. You must not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, bring it to me, and I will hear it”. 18 📚And at that time I commanded you everything that you should do.
The Spies Sent Out at Kadesh–barnea
19 📚And when we left Horeb, we went through all that great and terrible desert which you saw, on the way to the hill country of the Amorites, as the LORD our God commanded us; and we came to Kadesh-Barnea.
1:19 Deut 8:15. Between Sinai (Horeb) and Kadesh the land is a dreary hot waste of sand and rock and barren mountains. Here and there are a few springs, a few valleys that have some vegetation after rain and a few oases where water is found. For a people who had lived in one of the best parts of Egypt it must have seemed indeed a vast and terrible desert. But it was the way God in His wisdom led them. The journey from Egypt to Canaan is a picture of believers’ journey from the fallen world to the promised spiritual land above. Figuratively speaking, they too find their journey is sometimes through terrible “desert” areas abounding in difficulties (notes at Ex 15:27; 16:3; Num 14:45; 20:12).⚜
20 📚And I said to you, “You have come to the hill country of the Amorites, which the LORD our God gives to us. 21 📚Look, the LORD your God has set the land before you. Go up and possess it, as the LORD God of your fathers has said to you. Do not be afraid or discouraged”.
22 📚And all of you came near me and said, “We will send men before us, and they will search out the land for us, and bring back word to us as to the way we should go up and the cities we should go to”.
23 📚And the thing seemed good to me, so I selected twelve men of you, one from each tribe. 24 📚And they turned and went up into the hill country, and came to the valley of Eshcol, and searched it out. 25 And they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down to us, and brought back word to us, and said, “It is a good land which the LORD our God gives us”.
26 📚However you would not go up, but rebelled against the command of the LORD your God. 27 📚And you grumbled in your tents, and said, “Because the LORD hated us, he has brought us from the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us. 28 📚Where shall we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, ‘The people are greater and taller than we; the cities are large and have walls reaching up to heaven; and also we have seen the sons of the Anakim 📖 there.’ ”
29 Then I said to you, “Do not dread them, or be afraid of them. 30 📚The LORD your God who goes before you will fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, 31 📚and in the desert, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you just as a man carries his son, all along the way that you came, until you arrived at this place”.
32 📚Yet in spite of this you did not believe the LORD your God,
33 📚who went on the way before you, in fire by night to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, and in a cloud by day to show you the way you should go.
God's Punishment on Israel
34 📚And the LORD heard the voice of your words, and was angry, and took an oath, saying, 35 📚“Not one of these men of this evil generation will see that good land, which I swore to give to your fathers, 36 📚except Caleb the son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give the land that he has walked on to him and to his children, because he has fully followed the LORD”.
37 📚Also the LORD was angry with me on your account, saying, “You will not go in there either. 38 📚But Joshua the son of Nun, who stands in your presence, will go in there. Encourage him, for he will enable Israel to inherit it. 39 📚Moreover your little ones, who you said would be a prey, and your children, who in that day had no discernment between good and evil, will go in there, and I will give it to them, and they will possess it. 40 📚But as for you, turn and set out on your journey into the desert on the way toward the Red Sea”.
The Defeat of Israel at Hormah
41 📚Then you answered and said to me, “We have sinned against the LORD; we will go up and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us”. And when each of you had strapped on his weapons of war, you were ready to go up into the hill country.
42 📚But the LORD said to me, “Say to them, do not go up, or fight; for I will not be among you, and you will be struck down before your enemies”.
43 📚So I spoke to you, but you would not listen, but rebelled against the command of the LORD, and went presumptuously up to the hill country. 44 📚And the Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you, and chased you as bees do, and crushed you in Seir, as far as Hormah. 45 📚And you returned and wept before the LORD, but the LORD would not listen to your voice, or give ear to you. 46 📚So you stayed in Kadesh many days, according to the days that you spent there.
1:22-46 These verses recount events recorded in Numbers chapters 13 and 14. Now they are once again at the borders of the land, and so it was very important for them to remember the failure of their fathers so they might not fail likewise.⚜